Swimming in December

This weekend we celebrated Annalee's 4th birthday! (I'll save the sappy post for her actual b-day on the 27th!) We had her party at an indoor pool because we had some credit left over from a cancelled swim lesson. It was a pretty random thing, but ended up being a really fun party! Thanks to all of our friends and family who came to help Annalee celebrate and for braving your bathing suits in December to do it!! :)

31

Another year older. I had a great birthday yesterday. Of course, my day started with a random and funny cake. Micah decided on a bumble bee this year, although, when he went to pick it up, it was a little smaller than he expected, so he plopped it on top of a cookie cake. Bonus: we can recreate a bee cake another time using the plastic pieces that were used to assemble it. Score.

Grace couldn't take her eyes off of it!

Then later, someone knocked on the door with these...

Thanks Kandi for the sweet surprise!

The rest of the day was spent having lunch with Micah, getting some Christmas shopping done, and finishing with a great dinner at Macaroni Grill with family. Thanks everyone for making my day special.

Gingerbread House Making

Last night Micah walked in the door with a fun surprise for Annalee, a gingerbread house kit. She was so excited! They quickly got to work and, of course, our little detail gal was soon entranced in making sure every m&m and skittle were properly placed (with no m's showing!)


















Wonder what Grace was doing the whole time? Begging for candy...until she was kindly escorted to bed! Don't worry, she scored some m&m's before bedtime.






The finished product.




Also, last week, we bought our Christmas tree. Once again, Grace couldn't be contained...this was the best I could do at "stand still and smile at Mommy."

Bye, Bye, Mullet!

The before...

During...before things went downhill!

Over the Thanksgiving break Grace had her first haircut! We were having lunch in a cute little shopping center in Little Rock, Arkansas, and we came across a hair salon for kids. We ran in and chopped off the mullet! She did great at first with her little sucker, but then things took a turn for the worse and she screamed the rest of the time. We ended up with a little bob that's a bit shorter than I expected. She has a cowlick at the base of her neck, so we had to keep triming to get it to even out.

After!

18 Months Old

Grace is 18 months old today! We had her check-up this morning, and as soon as she saw the nurse in the hallway she started to cry. She pretty much screamed the entire time we were there, poor baby. She received an A plus today for her well-check! She measured in the 10th percentile, so she's petite right now, but she has a big personality to make up for it! I haven't done a good record of her milestones and "tricks" lately, so this one's for the baby book....
Words she can say: mama, daddy, uh-oh, bye-bye, fish, Abby (from her toothpaste, Abby Cadabby!), baby, night-night, bow, shoe...we are working on our vocabulary!
animal sounds she can do: quack, moo, buzz, baa, roar, she can also make a fish face and rabbit face
Songs she can "sing" (knows the tune, jibber jabbers the words): The B-i-b-l-e (Grace's version goes b-i-b-i-b all the while holding her little hands out like she's holding a bible), The Barney song (gives herself a big hug and blows a kiss at the appropriate time), Jesus Loves Me, ABC's, Old MacDonald
Other tricks: can itsy bitsy spider with the best of them; can point to her nose, eyes, ears, hair, hiney, mouth; feeds herself her own yogurt or applesauce with a spoon; she'll still stand in her exersaucer and watch a movie in my bathroom while I take a shower.
Things I love about this stage: She's my snuggler, as soon as the lights go out at bedtime she snuggles into your shoulder and let's you rock her. The nonsense jibbering, she'll have a whole conversation and you can't understand one word! Sometimes she hardly moves her mouth, but there's lots of sounds coming out. The way she wraps herself up in a blanket and walks around...looks like Yoda or Mary...sometimes she even covers her face and still walks around blindly. The way she says bye-bye and waves when people leave, it can get pretty loud sometimes. The way she loves praise and worship...she'll just clap and raise her hands in the air and grin. She even does this in the car when we listen to praise music on the radio-first thing she does is raise her hands!


I love a good baby squat (this was during our insanely long visit to the car repair shop, 3 hours people!!)



caught red-handed coloring the wall...I grab my camera knowing that a good scrub with the magic eraser will take that right off, so why not document the mischievousness!

Big Girl Day

We had such a fun day today with the Maxey girls! We dropped the babies off with their grandmothers and headed to Sweet and Sassy for some pampering. Annalee got a much needed haircut (about 2 1/2 inches off!). Then the girls had a mini-manicure.

After that we walked down the street to Mi Cocina to dine on raspberry lemonade and quesadillas, yum!

I think these girls were trying to make up for the lack of craziness without the babies around, they were silly pants to the max! This was the insanely long and dramatic good-bye hug.

Let's do it again sometime Karson, that was a fun day!

Van Grow

Ok, another chance to win a cool giveaway from Summer. Go check out her blog and order some great teacher gifts (yummy seasoning and/or coffee) and enter to win a $25 gift certificate to an adorable art studio for kids called Van Grow. I know Annalee would love this one since she's my little artist!

The Token Halloween Post

I know you've all been on pins and needles waiting to see what the Van Halen wig was going to be used for this Halloween...well, wait no more.

This, my friends, is the beast (as in Beauty and the Beast)...can't you tell? I bet you didn't know that the beast was a Ranger's fan too!

This is my beauty!

And here's my sweet pea ladybug. If you've been around this blog long enough, you know that Annalee was this same ladybug on her first Halloween. We resorted to an oldie, but a goodie for Grace this year. She started out in the wagon at first, but didn't last long. This girl figured out the routine quick! She proudly walked up to each house, held her bag out, gladly receieved her candy and even said trick-or-treat (although it sounded more like tickle tickle!)

Walking home...she could have kept going and going!

So Happy

A certain someone is overjoyed that JoJo and Papa are back from Africa!

Not Cool

Ever tried taking a 3 year old to the doctor having promised her that she wouldn't get a shot, only to have to retract your promise when said doctor is "out" of the flu mist and a shot is the only option???? Not cool. Broke my heart hearing her say how sad it was making her and how the shot was going to hurt so bad. Major drama, tears, struggles, but we made it...barely. Let's just hope and pray that we don't get the freaky strand of the flu that wasn't covered in the vaccine, that might just put me over the edge!

Go. Seek. Love (and some pumpkin carving)

Alrighty, only one more week to order your t-shirts that benefit Summer and Jason's adoption. I just ordered ours. It worked out great because Annalee knows all about Africa since that's where JoJo and Papa have been all month. This morning she was riding her little car and giving herself directions, "go north on African, and then go to North Richland African!" It cracked us up. Anywho...get on over to Summer's blog and check out her give away this week!

We carved pumpkins last night. I use the term "we" very loosely. Micah is the artistic one around here and Annalee is following in his footsteps. He takes his pumpkin carving pretty seriously...there were power tools involved, ok. My job was to supervise the impending mess and to roast the pumpkin seeds, which turned out quite yummy. Without further ado...here's the pumpkin family.

Grace, Mommy, Daddy, and Annalee

Her best impression of her pumpkin!

Smelling the mums.

Another great give away!

Have you checked out Summer's blog for another great give away? She also uploaded photos from her (very successful) garage sale! Don't forget, October is the month to order your Go, Seek, Love t-shirts for her fundraiser...they're very cute! Let's help a sista out!

Pumpkin Express

We went to the cutest pumpkin patch with some friends from church yesterday! Right off the bat, you load up in a miniature train and take a nice ride around the property. We went through some trees, over a little pond, and all around the pumpkin patch. We enjoyed all they had to offer...bounce houses, seesaws, pumpkin houses, spooky scenes, hay mountains, and finally a nice picnic lunch.

Grace was NOT happy about sitting on the hay!

But, she did have a blast running around like a wild monkey.

Summer's Garage Sale

Ok friends, the time has come to shop! Summer's ginormous garage sale is this weekend, Friday and Saturday. She has a ton of stuff. I'll be there all afternoon on Friday helping (and shopping of course), so stop on by and do some shopping. If you need her address, you can e-mail me or go to her blog. Also, don't forget to check out her give-away this week...a free custom cake!

Baby's First Tailgate

This weekend we had a fun family day of tailgating. Micah's sister, Rachel and her husband Blaine, as well as his cousin Josiah and his new wife Sarah all came down from Arkansas to hang out. We loaded up the cars and headed out for some good ol' tailgating. The girls were phenomenal! I must admit, I was a little leery of taking them to hang out in a parking lot for hours on end, but they were loving it! Thanks to everyone who pitched in to help out with them!


We managed to break not one, but two of our camp chairs!

#1



#2



By the end, Grace needed to stretch her legs and all she wanted to do was walk up and down the strip of grass.



Annalee loved hanging out in the back of Rachel's car in the shade.




Ready to go in our Ranger shirt....good thing it still fits (mostly) Papa!

Where's Waldo?

Last weekend Micah and I participated in the Great Urban Race that benefits St. Jude Hospital. Basically, it's a race/scavenger hunt through the city. You're required to dress like your teammate and costumes are highly recommended. We went as Waldo because it was cheap and comfy. The race took us through downtown and into the cultural district and back. We covered about 8 miles in all and it took us just under 3 hours. We had to solve clues and riddles to find all of the locations and then perform a task at each location in order to get proof that we were there. It was lots of fun, but I was definitely sore the next day. Of course, Micah was yelled at repeatedly by people who had "found" Waldo. He also had lots of pictures taken of him.


Where's Waldo?

Take your picture feeding each other a cookie...check.

Take your picture pretending to dive into a fountain...check

Take your picture with 2 strangers near a Texas flag...check

There's Waldo again!

And again.

Many of you know my BFF Summer. We've been friends for 20 years! She has two precious boys and now her family is on a journey to adopt a sweet baby girl from Ethiopia. This month marks 3 months that they've been on the waiting list. They have partnered with another adoptive family to raise funds for the two trips they will have to make in order to finalize the adoption. Check out her blog to see easy ways that you can help support them. She is doing several give-aways this month, so be sure to see how you can win something!

http://coxragamuffins.blogspot.com/