thankful

thanksgiving gets better each year for me. i have more and more to be thankful for each and every day...
and this year was no exception. we had 2 wonderful days of thanksgiving surrounded by people we love. lots of laughter and friendly jokes filled the air. i had made my dishes well ahead of time. my house was clean and the laundry was done. and i could drink. ;) ha. but seriously, it was a very relaxing and VERY THANKFUL holiday! hope yours was too!

"We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures." ~Thornton Wilder

20 months old

oh miss adelyn. 20 months already! and on the most thankful day of the year...it is no coincindence. we are so thankful for the last 20 months, sweet ad. you bring so much spunk to our family and we thank you every day.

at 20 months, adelyn:
almost everyday brings something new. you are at an age where you love to learn. you are inquisitive and observant. you are humble. when we are talking about something you will be off doing it....and we had no idea you knew what we were talking about. you are not a show off. you're quiet, funny and very independent. but you love to cuddle!! you have a GREAT laugh and smile...it has a real flare and is magnetizing.
you love to dance, play with babies and collect many small objects into one big object - empty it and start all over again. you are finally sleeping better (knocking on wood), have thee cutest little sick voice and still do NOT like to get your picture taken. but i will catch a big smile once in awhile... you will however walk around pretending to take pictures of us saying, "mwile (smile)...eeeeeez (cheese)." you YELL everyone's name. all the time. not sure what that's about, but it's funny. it's almost as if you can't just say a name. we also still find that you like to grab your butt cheeks funny. quite hilarious actually. you count to 3, love to color and throw everything across the room if you even think for a second you might not want it. you run to get ready to go bye bye, but then delay getting into your carseat for as long as you possibly can...sometimes absolutely refusing. you love to help you sister, hide anything and everything and will jump or climb for hours. literally hours. you still like balls and puppies the best, but will sit and listen to the alphabet forever and you know lots of animal noises/actions, finally giving all the other animals a chance. ;) you're super sweet, know what you want and give the greatest hugs any baby girl could!!!

adelyn, we are so thankful for all that you bring to our family... and our every day!

ps - happy thanksgiving everyone!
pps - and happy one year anniversary tiger, to turning your life to shit!

"A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all the other virtues." ~Cicero

well eff. turns out free blogger isn't so free. well not if you have a zillion photos like i do. there's only so much storage and of course i exceeded it.

i have always been excessive.

so after finally taking the time to figure out why i couldn't post this past week, i am working on my not so free blog. :(

"Every vice is only an exaggeration of a necessary and virtuous function." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

all of the above

lucky, blessed, loved, grateful...

i say it all the time. now i need to act like it all the time.

"The family is a haven in a heartless world." ~Attributed to Christopher Lasch

like a baby

there's nothing better...to me...than a sound sleeping baby in my arms. i could hold one for hours and hours.

while my babies are major snugglers, they have long preferred to sleep in their beds and are too old to fall asleep in my arms with their noses nestled in my neck. but i've been feeling blessed for my 2 healthy girls and decided to improvise...

on two seperate days, i scooped them up from their nap and coerced them back to sleep in my arms, just like a baby.

i held them close, squeezed them tight - right by my heart, watched as their bellies went up and down, listened to their rhythmic breathing, counted my blessings and prayed for theirs.
i normally would have spent my "break" cleaning up the kitchen and watching daytime tv, which i love doing... but this was so much better. and much needed for my momma heart...
i love you both and love getting to hold my sleeping girls! maybe i'll be like that book "i'll love you forever," and sneak in and do this well into their teen years. haha. that book creeps the crap out of me. true story, can't stand it.

"If you have a mom, there is nowhere you are likely to go where a prayer has not already been." ~Robert Brault

it's okay...

it's okay if you want to occasionally strike a pose...(in fact, i recommend it) it's okay if it takes you a minute to look at things from a different view...
it's okay to let the sillies out... it's okay to call it quits when you need to...
it's okay to do what's habit... it's okay to yell when you're not feeling heard...
it's okay to dream big...
it's okay if you're thinking you'd kill for these eyes... or these eyes...
it's okay to ask for a hug...
it's okay to get caught up... and then it's okay to let it go...
it's okay to make a wish like you did when you were a kid...(seriously, how cute are they?)
it's okay to get those frustrations out...
it's okay to just be yourself...
no matter who that is... it's okay if you totally want to "nom" those cheeks... (and you sooo know you want to) it's okay if you only look at this blog to see pictures like this...
cuz so do i.

"Most of the shadows of this life are caused by our standing in our own sunshine." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

the haunted house

in case you're wondering what happened to it... they ate it...
or at least a little of it...



maybe next year a house made out of carrot and celery sticks and then they could really go to town...
ha. cuz that would be fun!

"Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie." ~Jim Davis

guess who

guess who POOPED ON THE POTTY tonight?!!
miss adelyn!!
yep, total fluke. we are NOT potty training. we sit on the big potty before bath every night cuz she pee's in the bath every.single.night. she likes it and often pretends to strain and go, but never does. but tonight, tonight she pooped! it was smaller than a fingernail, but it was a turd! yay ad! no, this does not mean we're potty training.


guess who can now REACH THE LIGHT SWITCH all by herself?!!
miss elena!!
she's always used her stool to turn on the lights. yesterday she was playing in her room and i noticed her light was on, but there was no stool. i asked her how she turned her light on and she went right over and flipped the switch. well she stands on her toes and reaches with all her might. it's the cutest. yay e!


and guess who got something THROWN AT HER while taking an evening run?!!
seriously...me.
so yea, i went for a run. my first run in a long long time cuz my good friend asked me to run a 10k with her. up for the challenge, i said yes. and i have 5 days to 'train.' so whatever, i went for a run - to basically make sure i still could. and someone leaned out their passenger window, yelled at me (i don't know what cuz i had dre blaring in my ears) and THREW SOMETHING AT ME! she missed. and i thanked her. cuz she made me run even faster...and i pounded the frustrations of stupid people out on the pavement. and it felt good.

"Now that it's all over, what did you really do yesterday that's worth mentioning?" ~Coleman Cox

oozing halloween all over your computer...

we did a bajillion halloween themed activities this year...and here they ALL are.

it started with the y's 'boo bash' - where elena played games and collected prizes and adelyn didn't leave my hip and threw her hat down often. ;)
then it was off to the city's halloween parade, where the costumed kids ARE the parade. and where strawberry shortcake and her strawberry got a "cutest costume" award. :) we walked with our friends...cow, cinderella, astronaut and alien (not pictured). and also with cat in the hat and foofa... they had more fun than they express in these pictures, i promise. we continued celebrating by decorating our pumpkins with some sticky faces... elena loved figuring out where the mouth, nose and eyes would go....adelyn loved to give it the 'no look, just stick' try (top right pic)... a few nights later it was time to carve some faces in pumpkins...e loved cleaning them out! adelyn not so much. she just kept turning away. she wanted to draw on them only. so adelyn got to help draw the faces (a mean one and a silly one) and elena got to help daddy and i carve! of course we baked some of those pumpkin seeds... the strawberry and i greeted elena and her class at her trunk-or-treating at school. e was a bit shocked when she saw mommy dressed as bat girl (bottom middle pic). elena, in her true fashion, was the caboose of the entire line (bottom right pic) and enjoyed every bit of it! the girls and i made pumpkin cake...where they drew all kinds of designs in before we baked it. ;) then we snuggled up with some popcorn and pumpkin cake to watch a movie that the jack-o-lantern man left on our doorstep. he left 'monsters inc' and some halloween chapstick.
ad is searching in e's bowl for the hidden m&m's that were in their popcorn (top right pic)... then e got to bake her great-great aunt lily's cut out cookies with bobbi...and then we all reeped the benefits. mmmm. we also made a gingerbread haunted house... e had so much fun decorating it....ad had so much fun swiping frosting off of it... then we packed strawberry shortcake and her strawberry up to trick-or-treat at their grandparents and great-grandparents...
finally, it was time to trick-or-treat... as a family... e mastered the concept right away. she marched up, said "trick-or-treat," collected her treat, said "thank you" and hopped back into the wagon to make the trip to the next house...pointing which houses had their lights on for us. ad, on the other hand, would get out of the wagon, walk 2-3 steps and freeze. she would stand several feet from her treat destination and just stare (right pic). sometimes they would kindly come to her and more often she would just get back in the wagon after she saw elena coming back to the wagon. maybe next year ad. she was indeed excited to fill her pumpkin though...she kept pulling everything out and examine it. they would ooh and ahh over each treat once back in the wagon...it was too sweet.
it was hard to get a picture cuz they wouldn't leave the pumpkins alone... but happy halloween!!! from strawberry shortcake and her strawberry!

"Once in a young lifetime one should be allowed to have as much sweetness as one can possibly want and hold." ~Judith Olney