On Sunday after church, we spontaneously decided to run into town and have a visit with Santa. Josh thought I was crazy for braving a weekend at the mall, but I was crossing my fingers for an easy adventure. Much to my delight, we found a parking spot right next to the door and there was nobody in line when we got to Santa's village! Sophie immediately started crying as soon as she saw him and was yelling about not sitting in his lap. Man, I love this part of Christmas! Y'all know I don't really want my children to cry or be unhappy, right? I just think the crying Santa photos are so stinking cute! She did eventually give him a high-five and tell him what she wanted for Christmas (a blue bicycle and a purple umbrella), but still wasn't happy about sitting with him. Ella, on the other hand, ...
sophie
October Revisited
So, it's December 4th and I haven't really blogged since mid-October. Sure, there have been some P365/weekly updates and a few "thankful" posts, but you don't even know how my children dressed up for Halloween! I figured before we could move on into the holiday season, I needed to at least mention the end of October, right? I decided to go the easy route with pumpkins this year. For whatever reason, I'm struggling to keep up in all areas of parenting / creativity / holidays, etc. We didn't make it to the pumpkin patch and I just couldn't force myself to carve pumpkins. I know, I'm a Scrooge. I asked the girls how they felt about painting pumpkins and they were pretty enthusiastic. Aside from the acrylic paint that won't come out of my wool rug, I'll count it a success. We even managed to ...
thankful
I'm thankful that yesterday I had over 100 wishes / messages / emails / phone calls / hugs / songs to celebrate my birthday. I'm thankful that when I walked in the back door Sophie yelled "It's YOU birthday!" and did a little jig. I'm thankful that my mom made my most favorite dinner and that I got some pretty special gifts. I'm thankful that Ella monopolized the dinner conversation as usual. I'm thankful that I'm really only 33, even though I spent the entire day thinking I was 34. I'm thankful that I left my parents' house with a to-go plate for lunch today, may the carb-fest never end! I'm thankful that I came home with my precious family to our little rock house. I'm thankful that no matter how high the thermostat reads, it's always a little chilly in the fall and winter. I'm thankful ...
Monday’s Plan
When I left work yesterday, my plan for the evening sounded like this: Pick up the girls from Gran's. An early bath time. A little fall decorating (since we have done NONE at our house). Homework and prep for day two as "Leader of the Week" for Ella. Boil some chicken and make homemade chicken salad for dinner and lunches this week. Make pom-poms for Ella's Halloween costume. Fold a few loads of laundry. Read until bedtime. I should probably mention that Josh had an away game tonight, so the plan was centered around his absence in our home. Traffic wasn't too bad today and I got to my mom's about twenty minutes ahead of schedule. This bodes well for the evening's plans, right? Ella is so excited to tell me all about her first day as the leader, but seems a ...
Art Party
We went to a pretty amazing art-themed birthday party on Saturday morning and my girls LOVED it. The birthday girl was precious in her paint pallette t-shirt and everyone loved making so many fun crafts to carry home. What a great idea! ...
Sophie-isms
Sophie is seriously the cutest thing ever right now. Her personality is larger than life, her voice is sugary sweet, she has the fiercest grin and the most contagious laughter. She thinks potty humor is hilarious and she says poop at the most awkward and inopportune times. I cannot get enough of her. Like sometimes, I pull up the same picture of her on my phone a hundred times a day to see her silly face. She is loud and says "CHEESE" with her mouth wide open everytime you point a phone or camera at her face. Her new favorite name is Courtney and she makes us call her that sometimes. I'm serious when I say you can't say it with a straight face, but she still answers to it. When you ask her who made a mess or who got in trouble, her answer is always Courtney. That picture on the right ...
Bedtimes & Blanket Forts
On Monday night, we had both girls in the bed at 7:30. We've established a new evening/bedtime routine in an attempt to alleviate stress and have a much happier time at home together. Over the summer, I've been really lax about bedtimes, dinners and television. The girls ate what they wanted and we rarely found time to cook, they whined their way out of a regular bedtime and they both watched as much TV as their little minds could muster. At times I felt very guilty for my attitude towards structure these last few months, but more often that not I attributed it to summer and reminded myself that it would pass and we would resume a normal, scheduled life come August. When we got ready for bed on Sunday night, there were tears about clothes and tears about television and even more tears ...
Sophie’s 2 Year Old Interview
After Ella completed her homework and folder review after school on Monday, Sophie insisted that she had homework, too. We whipped up twelve quick questions and persuaded her to answer. Of course, this would be much cuter if you could hear her precious voice! 12 Questions as answered by Sophie (2 years/4 months) 1. What is your favorite color? pink 2. What is your favorite toy? my giraffe (random, it's a giraffe pillow that they keep in the car) 3. What is your favorite television show? Mickey "Nouse" 4. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? a breakfast bar and a "fueezy" (applesauce pouch) 5. What is your favorite snack? apple sauce and goldfish (because that's what she had today, short term memory!) 6. What is your favorite game to play? princess (I'm guessing she ...