Ella puts on one of her Christmas presents. This is from Ms Mariah their babysitter :)

End result...

I had to bite the bullet and take Mark to the dr. Strep and he has a rattling in his chest. Good thing I took him in. Strong meds and lots of r&r and he should be good to go by end of tomorrow.

On a lighter note - look at all of the wonderful Christmas cards I've received so far. Thank you to everyone who has sent me one!! I love cards!

Mostly finished Birdhouses

I hope everyone enjoys their Sunday!

Painting Birdhouses Day

Mark is feeling a little better thanks to our friend ibuprofen so I decided to get the Birdhouses done today so we can put them in the tree!

Will post the finish product soon!

A Childs Perspective - part 3

On a very important conversation during one of Marks favorite tv shows "Little Einsteins".

Mark - Mommy (in a condescending tone) Rocket needs to go get the soup so his grandma can eat it and feel better!"
Mommy - well they better stop talking so they can get that soup back...I bet you could help them get it back so fast!
Mark - Mommy you are So Funny! I can't go help them Mommy. I am WAY too big to fit in the TV.

I love his deductions.

Poor sickly Mark

Mark and I have been up since 2:30. E is feeling ignored. Yep...awesome morning so far :)

Friday Foul

Friday is my most favorite day. Tomorrow I had it all planned out. I was going to pick lily up at 9:30 and head to my friends house where Santa was going to be eagerly waiting to tell the kids a story and have each one sit on his lap. Alas poor Mark feeling sluggish headed upstairs at his own will and I discovered a fever. Bah. Wicked wicked Fever couldn't you have waited just 24 hours? I learned long ago not to tell the kids what the plans are until we are approaching our destination just in case it didn't work out...this would be one of those times the patient mommy in me paid off. No Santa tomorrow. No frozen yogurt at peach wave. This will be a day of rest for the kids and a day of cleaning for mommy.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

A Child's Perspective - Day 2

I had my holiday office party last Friday and I had about 20 minutes to get dressed after picking the kids up from daycare and taking them home. As I was leaving the house and picking up all the last minute items, Mark told me that he really wanted to go to my work with me. I explained that it was a party and he was going to stay home with Camila for the evening. Not happy with this answer, he pouted away. About 30 seconds later he comes to me with his flashlight and says "here, mommy take my flashlight, it's really dark out there" I told him as much as I appreciated it, he needed it more than I would and assured him i would go right to my car. He said "No, mommy, take my flashlight so you are safe from all the monsters and when you see them you shine it in their eyes and they will go away!"

Sweet boy - always looking out for mommy. :)

Notations

Good Morning & Happy Sunday!

This morning I sat on the couch wishing I had a cup of coffee and just watched my two little ones converse between episodes of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and realized that while I may not have time to run to the computer and post new pictures all the time, I am able to use the fantastic invention that is the smart phone and post one of the many hilarity's I hear from their mouths. While I will try my very hardest to paint the picture, I realize that some of these may be "had to be there" kind of moments. Even still, I find my children hilarious and they are fantastic stories to share.


I have just about finished all of my Christmas shopping.While most of my spoilage goes to Jim & the kids, it's the onesie gifts to individuals that I'm usually working on right up to Christmas morning with a trip to Walgreens...good ole Walgreens. Not only do I have most of my shopping done, but every bit of shopping I have done is wrapped and under the tree! I am ALWAYS stuck wrapping on Christmas Eve. Not this year I told myself. This year I would wrap as I go and let me tell you it is an amazingly stress free feeling to know that my work is just about done. One year I will get as good as Cindy and have my gifts bought and wrapped by Easter =P  This brings me to my "Unwrapping of the Presents"story...

To preface - last Sunday was Ella's birthday party. On Monday morning we had our normal routine. Mommy in the shower - kids on the bed watching Disney until it's their turn to get ready for school. I got out of the shower and began brushing my teeth and calling out to the kids as I normally do and this time I had no answer. I got my robe on and headed out to the hallway and called out to both of the little ones and I hear "MOMMY! Look What I GOT!" in a Mark voice and "Wow that's so CUTE!" in an Ella voice. I immediately knew...I ran as fast as i could to the end of the stair only to see 5 of the wrapped Christmas presents opened. I immediately shouted at both of them to get their you know whats upstairs and had a talk to both of them about unwrapping these presents. "But it IS Christmas, Mommy" and "It's my turn for my Birthday" are the phrases that kept leaving Mark's lips. Nonetheless, I thought my coming to Jesus talk did the trick. I didn't realize the half unwrapped gifts they left still under the tree. This posed as temptation the entire week until they just couldn't take it anymore and waited for the right moment to start ripping in. Who could blame them really? All of these Christmas shows and Christmas music and presents....who wouldn't be in the mood to start tearing into a mountain of presents? So yesterday - as I hit the "confirm purchase" on my last online shopping order I hear "WOAH! THat's So cool!! LETS FIND YOU ONE ELLA!" then proceeded to hear the ripping of paper. My legs didn't carry me fast enough and the last of the sleeping bags were unwrapped and taken out of their packaging, Christmas Eve pajamas laid on the floor and coloring books were opened and flipped as if they had been on break from a good read. Instead of a look of fear as I entered the living room, instead I was showered with hugs and thank yous. My loud words were interrupted by even more thank yous for the presents. I mean what do you do with this? A 2 and a 3 year old at each leg telling you how much they love the presents with joy and excitement on their face and all I can think of is what an idiot I am for leaving the presents there in the first place. Next year - presents are hidden in the attic until Christmas morning!

I've spent entirely too long away from the hoodlums, so I must head back. I hope everyone has a fantastic week!

Updates

Many many updates since I've last been on.

Elizabeth broke her arm
Mommy got the flu
then the next day Mommy & Daddy got food poisoning.

Hasn't been the best few weeks, but I'm excited for Christmas! We got our tree up! Yay!

Happy Birthday, Elizabeth!

Happy 2nd birthday sweet girl!

Weekend

The weekend was great. Saturday Jim worked, so the kids and I had fun cleaning and going shopping for clothes. I did some spring cleaning on their clothes. Mark & Elizabeth have graduated up to the next size of 2T & 4T, everything else was removed from their closets. This left them BARE, so I went to a consignment sale & bought a few things. Then on Sunday, Reno & Jim came over and brought clothes for all the kids to get them through the winter. SO nice! I am so very lucky & grateful to have such a wonderful family. Life just gets so busy and gets away from you sometimes and it's so awesome to have people in your life that notice & help out. Thank you SO MUCH Reno & Jim! My kids were nice and Warm when we left the house today! Below is a picture of them in their new jammies!!!

 They are so sweet to each other sometimes. Below is a picture of the sometimes :)

 My favorite Kate took the pictures below. She is such an awesome friend and very talented photographer. Thank you to her for taking these beautiful pictures!

Thursday

What's the best thing on a cold, rainy evening while waiting for your brother to get out of speech therapy?

Well ice cream of course!

Best Mom EvER!

Some pictures and a Video

 Eating cookies and anxiously awaiting trick or treating time!

 Mark's self portrait

 My flash is AWFUL on my phone. So all of my trick or treating pictures didn't come out well at all. I will have to post once I get them from someone else's camera.

And the finale - Ella purposefully singing twinkle twinkle incorrectly - being silly and then ending it with a dog pile on Mark. Enjoy... :)

Reno sent me pictures from their weekend together with the kids!

Thank you, Reno for sharing these pictures! They are so great!

Saturday!

Brr it was freezing last night at the zoo, but today its been a lot warmer. High of 60, low of 34.

Saturday morning we started off at the Race for the Cure in honor of Marissa and all of the other breast cancer survivors & ones defeated. Picture below of the folks from my office & a few of us brought our family :)

Later the kids left for Grandma & Papa's for an evening of fun while Jim and I headed to the zoo for our final volunteer evening.

My handmade costume :)

Weekend Fun

Good Morning All!

Today is Monday, October 24th and it's about 60 degrees in Nashville, BUT they said it was going to get up to around 75 today. I seriously feel bad for letting my son talk me into letting him wear a flannel shirt and long pants and should have been a better parent by pushing harder towards a short sleeve cotton tee, but instead I took the high road and said "FINE, wear that shirt, sweat all day if you want!" Yep...one of those mornings.

The weekend was great. We carved pumpkins, went to the zoo, had our family pictures made and I even got in a little bit of cleaning. I unpacked 12 boxes...TWELVE! You may be thinking "you've lived there how long now?" Yes, I know I've been in the house 3 months - almost 4, but it is a lot harder unpacking boxes and finding places for everything. 4 hours spent on Saturday solely to the office and it is almost box-less. It feels amazing. Todays chore day may be more than my usual 30 minutes, but it is worth it to pick up the slack from the weekend.

Saturday evening was spent carving pumpkins. We met Camila's new boyfriend, Matt and he joined us in the fun activity. Sunday we woke up early and headed over to Oakland's Mansion where we met Kate for family pictures. We finished up the day at the zoo and the kids were in bed by 9:30.

Pictures below from our fun weekend.

This is Jim & my pumpkin :) He said draw the face and he would cut it. He didn't tell me what kind of face to draw...

Our pumpkin family

Elizabeth & Mommy messing around with the camera.

What one does, the other must follow...

Elizabeth posing in her costume - love this little girl

 Madagasca penguins at the zoo!

Mark meets an owl