so sad

Brent's cousin Kathleen lived in Knoxville for a year. We loved it. We got together a lot. We went to the gym together. The kids had picnics. Kathleen shared her amazing toys. They left on Tuesday. We're sad but I think these pictures are even more sad. pathetic really.




I don't know. Did we get a good one?

emptying the holidays from my camera

wasn't that so festive?

What do y'all do?

What do y'all do for your friends at Christmas? The sisters you serve with? the sisters you visit teach? the families your husband home teaches? neighbors? I've normally made cookies on plates with saran wrap but its so hard to get them to people before they all go stale. I also normally make different kinds which, again, by the time you finish all of them i feel like the first ones are getting stale. I'm wondering what recipes y'all use. New ideas? anything? i just need inspiration to get it done this year.

Welcome Hannah!

Rachel had her baby yesterday which meant i had to get on some sewing projects that i had been procrastinating starting. they're fairly simple so i finished both in about 3 hours. i only took a picture of one though. the other was a nursing cover in the same fabric. rachel had a ton left over from her wedding in march. thats right, i said MARCH! they're fast huh?

until i get a picture of hannah cate herself, behold hannah's hut!

thank goodness for thanksgiving

wow. it's been so good. my family had thanksgiving dinner, christmas morning and a wedding all within 24 hours of each other! Garrett and Rhada got married the Saturday before thanksgiving and it was quite possibly the best sibling wedding ever. figures by the last one we'd get it down but it wasn't thanks to us it was what they wanted. they're having their open house in a few weeks and so the day of we just hung out together with the fam. after the sealing we all ate dreamland barbecue which brent claims defines his barbecue experience for his life. its that good.this is my imitation of my mom's stockings. i've always loved hers and the fact that they were homemade made them very sentimental. after 6 years of marriage i finally decided to do them. i think because at so many points of the process they made me want to swear i still look at them with spite but hopefully time will heal our wounds. for brent and i i went with our favorite christmas gifts ever so we have a gameboy and pink jambox for us.

the only part of thanksgiving dinner i didn't ruin...sams sweet potato and turkey. (i had to throw a doubled recipe of rolls in the trash. i balled. like totally lost it crazy crying.)

on saturday we took the boys to gatlinburg with the barnes's that are in town. it was so fun! this picture with santa makes me so happy. luckily santa was at the festival of trees there--for free. that saves us $20 and at least an hour of our time which we would have to stand in line to see him.

it really was a fabulous thanksgiving for us. we also went to the chimnies in the mountains but i don't have those pictures. i'm just eager to post what happened yesterday which you probably just read anyway.

Rebecca

I recently read Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. A long time ago we had an enrichment group where we brought our favorite books. A friend (I think it was julie stoner) brought it. That was probably 2 years ago but I've always remembered it. It took me forever to get around to it but i'm so glad i finally did. It was really good. When I first started it I was imagining a jane austen love story. I love that stuff and thats why I started it but after the first chapter i knew it would be different. The main character was a really insecure, young girl who was obsessed with the fear of what others were thinking of her. Not sure about y'all but I can totally relate to that. Anyway, it was really good. I recommend it.

Then I read the Christmas Box. I know a lot of people read that a long time ago but i never did. I was expecting something deeply spiritual that I would ponder for the next few weeks leading up to christmas. I didn't find that at the end. It was a bit of a let down to me.

I love reading. I really do.

guilty

jackson has told me for several weeks he wanted to drink tea. i told him we didn't drink tea. i gave him all the reasons but he told me he just wanted to taste it.

friday night when we were getting ready for bed he said, "mommy i drank tea today and i liked it."

he totally asked for it at our neighbors house.

sneaky boy

good hearty laughs

i love fall. i love having two boys. have i mentioned this before?

Your son watches too much pbs if....

-he runs inside with a dandelion claiming he's found a between the lion.

-he tells you to turn on p-b-s dot org slash read

-whenever you get upset with him he says "be calm and think things through that is what you need to do."

-he bounces down to breakfast saying "its breakfast tiiiiiime."

-when he "works" in the ditch at the park he hums bob the builder.

-after you tell him he can't have ice cream he responds with "i have to mom. It's in my story see[and while pointing to an imaginary sentence below his face says ] Jackson eats ice cream!"

-if he sees a bridge approaching on the road will scream "time bridge approaching!"

yea-he definitely watches too much pbs. maybe i do too.

he's on the move

i LOVED a happy stationary baby but its also fun to see him crawling.

halloween was awesome

kid size spider web for preschool
the elephant-jackson only called him "the elephant" if sam was in costume. "mom, the elephant is crying." "the elephant wants my candy."

oranges carved like jack-o-lanterns filled with jello jigglers. thanks brent for doing it and bonnie for the idea.
& the loot. our neighborhood is awesome for trick or treating. so many cute kids. so much candy.

rest in peace

or pieces. white kiki was lost shortly after this post. i'm telling you that was the saddest night of my sons life. say what you will about how disgusting it was. i know. but it was jacksons best and dearest friend and comfort. seeing him cry, not out of anger, but genuine deep heart sadness made me cry. a few days later he picked up duckie. duckie has had several names since he joined our family but jackson insists it is a she duckie. i'm not sure how i feel about that.

Another house moment?

I was talking to a friend recently about house cleaning chores and varying definitions of a clean home. I told her about when I was a kid some woman told my mom that her house was "so dirty because she hasn't cleaned her baseboards in a month" or something like that. my mom, realizing that she had never cleaned her baseboards, gave us kids the chore the following saturday. I remember thinking it was silly. So after telling that story, I started noticing my baseboards. They really are dusty. So for the past couple of days, when I see them, and I'm close, and not doing anything else, I wipe them off with my hands--which means basically they're clean around the toilet, walking up the stairs, and next to "sam spots" where he sits down to play. Which also means the floor is now dusty there. Ah, the joys of cleaning house.

a rare moment

Today's our anniversary. Brent had to work this morning and now he's helping a friend who's remodeling a home. I found myself this afternoon with 2 sleeping kids and a clean enough for me house. I didn't know what to do but document it--remind myself that sometimes the stars all do align for me. It just made me feel at peace. I'm grateful for noise and laughter and time with my husband and pbs and chaos but this is nice too. (i'm teaching our co-op preschool this month. thus the giant calendar in the piano room.)

our monster house

some things are too cute to not copy.

a very best friend

this is/was what's left of kiki. (this picture was actually taken 3 weeks ago and it seems to be falling apart now at an exponential rate) for those who don't know kiki is is jackson's blanket. we used to swaddle him in it.

Super Sam

it has a nice ring to it huh?(can you see kiki scrap in the picture? our house is littered with them)

so sam gets his bib twisted and i think it makes him look like a super hero and take gobs of pictures.

what if your son tells you he wants to be a super hero for halloween. when i ask which one he just keeps with the ambiguity and says a super hero. we have a cape with a J on (thanks Robyn) which he loves. the problem is thats exactly what his cousins were last year. exactly. i don't think he saw the pictures. should i let him and totally take the easy way out or should I try to persuade him another way?

F is for fancy...evidently

when you have 3 girls and one boy in your preschool, thats what you get. my friends tell me i'm funny for letting it frazzle me but frankly, i find it's fairly frightening to see your first boy fancy-ing up his fingernails.

Family pictures

We haven't had professional pictures taken of our family since July 2007. I mean don't get me wrong, we've taken thousands of pictures but i don't think we've had a single picture of everybody in our family since i was in the hospital with sam. not pretty. so when desi called me about taking pictures with andrea larsen for a fundraiser for five in training. i was really excited. i haven't gotten andrea's pictures yet but here are some of the ones we took ourself before and after the photo shoot.






ok so click on the link for five in training. even if you just go visit it, it gives their numbers a boost so hopefully they can get sponsors. i suggest though you read the story as to why they're doing this. its very touching and inspiring.

the overdue post

The cutest, sweetest, and yes easiest stage ever. I dump a bag of toys on the floor and he's good....for like an hour. seriously, an hour.

Yes I know I'm lucky but there is still that girl inside of me that thinks "since he's so good my next will be a terror."