Happy Had-O-Weeeen

That's the way Gracyn says it! She was happy to show off her freshly carved pumpkin.Sweet sisters.

Reagan can't wait for trick-or-treating.

Addison was at school, when the other 2 were posing for pictures, so here she is a few days earlier, in costume, at the annual Halloween party for the neighborhood kids.

19 Things for 19 Months

~She sleeps with 2 blankies, one sippy cup and a stuffed kitty.

~One blankie was recently destroyed by a diaper explosion and had to be thrown away. I gave her a new one that is made of the same material, but a different color and print. She gave me serious "mad eyebrows" about that blankie for a few days, but seems to be over it.

~She bites her fingernails and sometimes her toenails.

~If she wants something, she will ask for it repeatedly, at increasing volume, until someone gets it for her. I guess this is survival of the fittest in a house with three small children. This habit is most charming when I have NO IDEA what she is saying, but she won't stop saying it over and over!

~If you tell her to say Addison, she will always say, "Sissy".

~Reagan is "Rea-Rea".

~She loves Maggie dog, or "Mah-nee" with all her heart. She will hand feed her every last piece of her dog food each morning if I let her.

~She wants waffles and orange juice every morning.

~She never keeps shoes on.

~She got her first real spanking a few weeks ago for biting Reagan. It was so sad, and she was so heartbroken, but she has not bitten since.

~She has a knack for wanting whichever parent is busy at the moment. She asks for Daddy all day while he is at work, and then won't leave my hip at night when I am doing dishes.

~Sometimes she loves for me to sing to her. Sometimes, she yells NO at me and covers my mouth.

~Her favorite book is Moo, Baa, La la la. She can read it to us and it is pretty much the cutest thing ever.

~She loves birds, tries to chase them everywhere, and doesn't understand when they run away.

~She goes happily to church each week. We never have any tears.

~She does a role call each night when we are putting her to bed and again when she wakes up. She asks for every family member including Maggie. We tell her they are night-night and she says, "Oh". We do this for everyone in the immediate family and then she often throws in

"Deb-A-Wa" and her friend "Ju-Ju".

~She stopped nursing a few weeks ago, and then began sleeping through the night. GLORY!!!

~Her friend Lila bit her on the face a month or so ago, and she has told us about it every day since. "Lila, Bite!" and she points to her face.

~She can whine all of our names. I wish you could hear how she can drag out "Nooooo Mom-eeeee!", or any of our names when she is mad.

Phoenix

We headed to Phoenix last week, during Addison's fall break from school. We had a great 5 days catching up with old friends. Ashley and Jaime were amazing hosts!!! They fed us great food, shuttled us around, and took us to do some fun things. One evening, another couple from our church there came to visit. That made a grand total of 10 girls under the age of 7. The eldest, Carlee, was the only child in the whole group when we were all in bible study together. We had a great time and are so thankful for great, lasting friendships.

Mommy, Reagan and Gracyn at a train park in Scottsdale. We had lunch at a cute little ice-cream shop before. At least we thought it was cute, until a GIANT roach joined us at our table.

Carlee and Addison on the train.
The girls watched a few movies in the theatre room. Baby Jamie and Gracyn didn't last too long.

Reagan loved driving this car. Can you tell? Avaree was along for the ride. Sweet little Ava was responsible, during our visit, for THE LARGEST poop disaster I have EVER seen. Babysitters had just arrived and the grown-ups were on the way out to dinner, when they woke her up from a late nap to discover she had taken her diaper off and there was poo pretty-much from floor to ceiling in her room. It was enough to make me start duct-taping Gracyn's diapers just-in-case!!!

Gracyn trying to keep up with the big kids.

Dance party with 10 little girls.

Bike Riding in the Cul-de-sac.

Lindsay, Addison and Ashlynn watching Tinkerbell.

Sweet Kenadee!!! This picture pretty much sums her up!

We spent some time on the back porch hanging out with Franky the turtle. He makes for an easy pet once you get him, but apparently getting this endangered little guy from the "Reptile People" is no easy task. They had to build him a house, and I think, possibly make arrangements for him in their will.

Addison loved feeding him. Gracyn still goes around our house saying "Turtle, Night-night". He isn't always easy to find back there and we would just tell her he was sleeping.

Daddy and Gracyn with all the beautiful palm trees.

It was a little chilly for the fountains, but that didn't stop us.

We didn't expect them to get in, so we had 6 kids and 1 towel. This outing ended in an emergency trip to Old Navy to purchase dry clothes for freezing children.

Gracyn liked getting her feet wet.

Ava and Gracyn loved playing in the Pack-in-Play. They had the best time in there!

Moments before Ashley was feeding Tommy samples of his yummy home made salsa!!! It was so good. I came home with the recipe, but don't know that I will ever be ambitious enough to make it. The girls spent some serious time building Little Pet Shop villages. You can't see much in the picture, but Carlee's room is ADORABLE! She was sweet to give it up and let my big girls sleep there.

Carousel ride at the park.

Addison, Kenadee, Gracyn, Reagan, Carlee and Avaree

Sweet girl waiting for a train ride.

Boys will be boys, especially when they get together with old friends. Jaime (the wife) won this fully-automatic airsoft gun in a poker tournament. The guys had a blast with it. Eventually, after a few glasses of wine, they were using each others' rear-ends for target practice.

Jaime, Kim and Erin Guess girls, Wooldridge girls, and Price Girls

Bedtime story for 5.

Pumpkin Patch 2010

Rise and Shine

Two mornings this week, for some reason, Gracyn decided to wake up at 5:30 in the morning. I AM NOT a morning person. Especially not when it is dark and cold. I spent from 5:30 to 6:00 each of those days, with my eyes half open, trying to get her to go back to sleep. We rocked in her chair, we snuggled in my bed. She was sweet, but she was not going back to sleep.

Daddy is a morning person, and is generally in the basement working out by 5:30 every morning. So, after determining that sleep was done for the day, we went down to say hi to him. Gracyn helped him work out, while I curled up in a bean-bag and went to back to sleep.....not really, but I wanted to. Today, she returned to her usual 7am wake-up time. I hope that is back for good, especially with the impending time change.

On a funny note, because I realized I never really write about all the craziness anymore. It isn't that it doesn't still exist, but it has just become so normal, I don't think to blog about it. Yesterday, Gracyn pulled her jammies and diaper off all by herself. She was running around naked, while we were all getting ready for the day. That was working out just fine, until I saw the bent knee, serious face, squatting position that could only mean one thing. "Gracyn, do you have poo-poo?", I said, as I ran for her. "Let me help you on the potty!". I picked her up and ran for the bathroom, but it was too late. As I swung her towards the bathroom door, I realized the damage had already been done. I realized this, because as I swung her, "the damage" flew across the room and landed nicely on the carpet. Just another day-in-the-life. Doesn't even faze me anymore.

Two Things for my Memory

Reagan melted my heart today. I was buckling her carseat up after storytime and lunch when she said, "All the other Mommy's don't know, but you are already the best Mommy in the world!". So, so sweet! I don't desire to be a better Mommy than anyone else and certainly am not, but is sure makes me happy that my child thinks I am!!!

In keeping with her likeness of Mommy, 99.9% of the time Addison is happy, sweet, helpful and easygoing. However the small 1% of the time when she is grumpy or in a bad mood, she is HOSTILE! Particularly to the person she is closest to, me. I spent two days this week on eggshells around her, just waiting for another blow-up. She was over-tired, a few of the times over-hungry and taking it out on me. What is so funny, is the sense of humility this gives me. It is one thing to watch in pride as you see your child developing into a great person, and learning good character traits from you. It is healthy does of humility when you see the opposite and you know exactly where she gets it from. As I was telling Tommy about my day with her and how grumpy she was being, he just looked at me, eyebrows raised, nodding politely. You see, he is typically the recipient of my occasional hostility. Thankfully we can all laugh about it, and it never takes long for the good mood to be restored.

Not to be left out.

Reagan has 4 wheels, but she still rocks all over the neighborhood on her little bike. It is her primary source of transportation. If we are outside, she is on it. She rides it to the bus stop each day when we pick up Addison, and she and I have had some fun bike adventures while Addison is at school and Gracyn is sleeping. The most recent adventure involved Reagan running right over a snake on her bike!!! She wanted her training wheels off this weekend, and she probably could ride without them, but Mommy and Daddy only have so many hands. We had to hold her off, at least a few days, while big sister gets a little more practice in!