**SMILE**

Remember when I referenced my "wonderful friends" a few posts back? The sweet (and honestly undeserved) comments I've gotten in the past few days completely affirm that sentiment. I know it's Halloween and not Thanksgiving but I am TRULY thankful for you, my treasured friends. Thank you for encouraging me and making me smile.

Playdough and Pasta... Spooky.

Happy Halloween, everyone!!

Avery woke up at 5:30 this morning (Thursday) when she usually doesn't wake up until 7:00, so we had time to do some crafts between breakfast and changing into "real" clothes to go to the park. (Check out the major bed-head that both girls have going on in the picture above!) We played with playdough and Halloween cookie cutters-- pumpkin, moon, bat & cat-- which was awesome because I got the fun of baking cookies with Avery without any of the calories! HA!!

We also made "skeletons" out of pasta and construction paper... and I can give some back-story here. A few weeks ago Avery started to become curious about bones. She was pushing on my clavicle as I carried her somewhere and I explained that the hard thing she felt was a "bone." Then she was intrigued... I tried to show her other bones by having her press on my hands, forearms, etc. So when we were at the grocery store yesterday, I grabbed a couple of packages of pasta that I thought she could make a "bone-craft" with... and what better season than Halloween?



"My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." -Psalm 139:15-16

Happy Halloween, everybody!!
**Please excuse the extremely peppy voice in these videos... guess my 5:30am wake-up call prompted some extra strong coffee!! Better peppy than grumpy, I guess!**

"What do you do all day?"

I wasn't sure about posting this article, and I'm still on the fence about how it might be received. I want to preface this post by saying that nothing and no one has prompted this-- I just thought it was interesting and worth the read. It was something my Mom sent me when Avery was a very little baby, and I ran across it again last night. I felt compelled to pass it along to a few friends to get their opinions on whether it was "blog-worthy" or not. Their response: Post it.

Now, let's be clear. My friends (with and without kids) are wonderful to me. I've always felt supported in my choice to stay home and I feel like they make a genuine effort to listen to my stay-home-Mom anecdotes whether they can relate or not. My wonderful husband has always openly shared his gratitude for what I do for our daughters on a daily basis and truly honors me in doing so. But even with all that said, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing a printed validation of my daily "job" and how eloquently this journalist described a day in the life of a mother at home with young children. It's informative, entertaining, and offers a glimpse into the lives of those of us who "work" at home.

(Click to enlarge...)

A ranting from a crazy woman whose ears are ringing...

I'm not a phone person.

Never have been, really. I enjoy the occasional chat on the phone every now and then, but I am SO thankful that I'm of the e-mail generation because if it weren't for the internet I don't think I'd have any friends due to the fact that I seldom talk on the phone. In the rare case that my hands are actually free when our home phone rings, our phones are cordless and are hardly ever charged. I always answer my cell phone if I am aware of the fact that it's ringing. :/ One pathetic truth about me is that I very rarely return calls because for some unknown reason I just don't like to talk on the phone. (As I type this, I realize how blessed I am to have friends who forgive me for this and allow me to continue calling them my "friends" in spite of my terrible phone behavior!) :)

With that said, I can't even describe how frequently our home phone rings right now with everyone calling to campaign. It's about a call a minute... or so it feels. I'm SO ready to hop in a time machine and take my family back to a simpler time before Alexander Graham Bell decided to get crafty with sound experiments and change communication forever.

I'm blogging this to put out "feelers" and see if everyone is dealing with heavier phone traffic right now, or if we're just lucky. (?)

Few things are more frustrating than a ringing home phone in 3 out of 5 rooms in the house just after getting both kiddos down for a nap or down for the night. Everything hangs in the balance and for about 8 seconds I stand perfectly still, holding my breath, cringing and hoping that I don't hear anyone waking up. And then, at the first sound of rustling, I crumble... and usually let out a huge, "UUUGH!!!" that goes along with my, "Poor me" attitude as I mentally wave goodbye to my visions of a few moments to myself. That I might actually get to grab a bite to eat, or check my e-mail, use the restroom or put clothes on for the day... or if I'm REALLY lucky I might get to shower!! ...Many Moms reading this right now know JUST the feeling I'm describing... It truly is one of the only things that makes me want to cry like a baby. What's worse is when this "wake-up call" comes from an automated voice encouraging me to "Vote for ___ and do it early!"

Sigh... Only 1 more week, right?
I may take my home phone off the hook until then. You've all been warned. :)

Trunk-or-Treat!

BIG FUN on a Sunday afternoon!!

Park Cities Baptist (Avery's School) had a "Trunk-or-Treat" yesterday to celebrate Halloween a little early. A "Trunk-or-Treat" is a good way to get to go trick-or-treating with all your friends in a limited space because instead of visiting HOUSES, it's trunks of cars! They shut the street down to thru-traffic and lined it with decorated cars of church member volunteers sitting with their trunks open and full of candy. (What a great idea!) The cars are judged to see who wins 1st prize for their decorations, so the cars were really spectacular! There were no scary decorations or costumes, so it was the perfect for the little ones.

We invited some friends to meet us there, got the girls all dolled up in their costumes and headed over to the church for the festivities! Julia went as a red M&M, and Avery went as her favorite book character, Fancy Nancy. It was SUCH a fun time! Pony rides... jugglers... LOTS of candy... and many little knee-high "characters" all dressed up as their favorite things. We couldn't have asked for a better dress-rehearsal for the real day!

It's true what they say... Having kids keeps you young! :)

Fort Worth Alliance Air Show!

What a fun Saturday! (Two weekends ago... I'm late posting, but what's new?!)

The Farells invited us to join them at the Fort Worth Alliance Air Show to go see the planes and spend a day outdoors. Collin, Avery & I had a BLAST! ...Not so sure Julia enjoyed any of it, though. I don't know what we were thinking taking a 6-month-old who is still primarily breastfed to something like this where there's minimal shade, constant loud noises from airplanes and no place to go and feed the poor baby... But she was a pretty good trooper once we finally convinced her that the bottle was her only option and got her to go to sleep in the stroller for a little bit. Poor kiddo. She might have a perpetual fear of airplane noise for the rest of her life. :(

Drew & Avery loved it! The planes were such fun to see, touch & explore, and the performers were AMAZING! We wished we could have stayed longer, but Julia never quite relaxed enough to give us that option. :/

Thanks for inviting us, Farells!! Next year will be better!

In our car seats! We're off to the Air Show!...


We're here!! Check out Avery with her free souvenir football and ammo!.. Pretty tough, huh??



Drew and Avery getting up-close views of real planes! (Guess Avery's not so tough after all...)


WOW! Look at that!...



Strolling back to the cars to go home!... Too bad "little bit" couldn't have toughed it out. (See back of stroller and imagine very loud screams being drowned-out by even louder planes...) We would have loved to stay longer!

Rub-a-Dub-dub!

Two Girls in a Tub!! :)


We've had to get creative with bath time lately, otherwise we'd be spending half of our evenings in suds trying to bathe one, drain the tub and throw the other one in and start over again. (What do people with multiples do?!) This way we can tackle both at one time. ...And it makes for cute pictures. :)


We cracked up at this video... First you need to know a little background: Avery had just been saying, "I love you, YaYa!" and we were trying to get it on video. Unfortunately when we pulled out the camera and asked her to say it again, she quickly responded, "No," which made us laugh. That was a problem. Our sweet little tender-hearted Avery has a bit of a fear of laughter. If anyone within ear-shot bursts into laughter, she assumes she's being laughed at and she freezes up and cries like you just kicked her dog! We have no idea who or what initiated this craziness, but it sure has put a damper on the fun! We always have to be careful when anything funny occurs because laughing can send Avery into a bad mood for the next half-hour. Sigh... Poor Aves. And poor US! Watch Julia, though... she keeps patting Avery like, "It's ok... Hey... they're talking to you... what's wrong?..." Precious.

Enjoy!

The Patch!

We LOVED our outing to the Dallas Arboretum yesterday!

We got to go explore the Pumpkin Patch with some friends and their kiddos! Our group must have looked like one of those stroller classes! It was me & the girls, Andrea and her two, Jennifer and her two, Lydia & Drew, Shannon & Nathan, Leigh and her three, and other "friends of friends" too! Good thing the pumpkin patch is huge!

Bye-Bye Bumpers...

My Mom sewed this beautiful bed set for our sweet Jules and I realized today that I never posted pictures of the complete look. (The bumpers weren't finished when I posted pictures of her nursery before her arrival.)

Mom LABORED over these precious pads on the sides of the crib that were once thought to protect baby from bumping into the rails in the cycle of sleep. But over the years, as you probably know, "bumpers" have become thought of as more of an enemy than a "protector." This school of thought wasn't so prevalent when I was pregnant with Avery, so naturally when my pregnancy with Julia came along (**COUGH** just 9 short months after birthing Avery) I didn't think anything about planning a bed set complete with bumpers! My Mom was game for all that sewing, so it was a "go!"

Last night Collin directed my attention to an interesting article, and after reading through it I decided it was truly the wisest thing to go ahead and remove the bumpers. (I only had the back 3 still attached anyhow...) But before I dismembered my Mom's handiwork, I thought I needed to do a little photo shoot so Julia would know what her nursery looked like! :) We had fun, but I've GOT to get a new camera! These grainy shots are driving me crazy...

I hope she sleeps alright tonight without her bumpers! She napped without them today and woke up SCREAMING. I went in to find her caught with a leg and an arm sticking through the crib and her belly and face pressed up against the slats!... She never did that with the bumpers ON. :/ Sigh...

Julia's 5 month blanket picture!

...Good grief... I've got to get better about actually taking these closer to her real birthdate! She turned 5 months on the 17th and this picture was taken yesterday. :/ In my defense, I did have Meningitis on September 17th, but that's no excuse!! I'll be better, I promise! Can't have her growing up with a tainted blanket collage!

Here's my happy 5.5-month-old! :)

New Post... Old video

Found this in my computer tonight and laughed. It's not a new video (I think it was taken about a month-and-a-half ago) but it cracked me up and I thought my blog-readers might enjoy it too.

Jules, exploring her voice... Don't you wonder what they're thinking when they do this??

Boot Scootin'... Baptists?!

Thaaaat's right! Last night, Collin & I got to attend what was possibly the most monumental event in my lifetime for our denomination: The First Annual Boot Scoot & Barbeque, hosted by the Young Adult Ministry at First BAPTIST Church of Dallas!

When I heard back in the early days of Summer that this event was in the works for this Fall, I jumped on the committee because I thought it was an exciting idea. (I served as the event's graphic designer for marketing... like my poster design?) :)

There are lots of things I've always appreciated about my denomination including the major emphasis on diving into scripture, memorizing it and applying it to daily life... Baptizing after salvation as a symbol of the commitment made in one's heart to accept Grace and live for Christ... Coffee & doughnuts (ha!) and so many other things. But as you probably know, our "Don't drink, don't dance" traditional values have caused us to be the brunt of many jokes. Now, I can get on board with the "don't drink" idea as one could make a reasonable argument that although it may not be a wrong choice, it's seldom the wisest choice... but "Don't DANCE??" Why not?

We are so appreciative that our Pastor thought the same thing and gave the event his seal of approval. We had SO much fun last night at Eddie Deen's in Downtown. Who knew a bunch of Baptists could cut a rug like we did?! I'm so proud...