Abby and I went to an inclusion party for her school this morning to decorate gingerbread houses. We had lots of fun 1 on 1 time, which is a really big deal for her (having her mommy's undivided attention). We are actually decorating gingerbread houses again for her birthday this year Tuesday after school , so we will get to do this twice in one week! It was fun to do this first - we got some good ideas for Tuesday, and I didn't have to do anything but show up!

Abby received birthday presents in the mail this week from Papaw (Toby's dad), Aunt Jody, and Mamaw Whitehead (Toby's grandmother). She was so excited to get a big ol' package in the mail and get to open all of her great gifts! Thanks so much, guys!!!

The other morning Abby was in big trouble before leaving for school (that is another story...). Beau tends to be a clown anyways, but he was trying to lighten the tense moods this particular morning especially. I walked into the living room and here is what I found - Beau had managed to get one of Rocky's (our 3 lb yorkie) sweaters stretched over his head like it was a hat. He thought he was so funny, and was making all kinds of faces trying to make us girls laugh. I have to admit, it worked! He is such a funny kid.

This is how we feel about the UT football team this season.

I apologize for all of the pictures of my kids in their underwear. They really just do not like wearing clothes. Something else to work on...:-)

Birthday party for Abby Tuesday, and we are leaving out for Disneyworld early Wednesday! I probably won't be posting again until we get back from there!! Hopefully there will be lots of fun pictures from that trip! Have a great week!!

Body Beauty

Sometimes as I peruse through my weekly trashy celeb magazine there will be an article on these celebrities that look fantastic. Even more so lately, they look fantastic after having had multiple children. Seriously??? I thought this article that I ran across this morning on MSN was hilarious - nothing that I did not really know or hadn't heard before, but just a reminder that it is ok to be proud of my body for the wonderful things that God has allowed it to do and not ashamed with the awful feeling that I don't do enough and can not measure up. It is very sarcastic, too, which is right up my alley...enjoy...

http://music.msn.com/music/celebrityfeature/celebrity-bikini-shots/?GT1=BUZZ1

Happy Fall

Daddy Time

We had a great weekend getting to spend some family time together. We are gearing up for a big meal on Thursday, and Mommy is putting on her "patience hat" to wear this week while I have both of my babies here all to myself! I am listening to Abby tell on Beau as I write this. Ahhh, motherhood...

The kids really enjoyed having their daddy all to themselves (aside from him working on Saturday night, mostly while they slept). We had a leaf raking evening in the back and side yards, which the kids thought was a blast! They jumped, raked, bagged, played, wrestled, etc. etc. in those leaves. Abby is a hard little worker and really enjoyed helping us bag them and carrying those big leaf bags to the edge of the street. Beau mostly played with his big ol' Tonka trucks, filling them up with leaves then dumping them out.

2 weeks until we leave for Disneyworld!!! Mommy is getting really excited! I can't believe it is so close, and that the kids still don't know! When we get back we will have 5 days at home, then take off to Tennessee until the new year rolls in. Busy, busy.

I did put out some Christmas decoration last night - the mantle is mostly done, and the stocking have been hung by the chimney with care. I am waiting on a tree - probably Wednesday. Toby keeps trying to talk me out of decorating for Christmas, but I think he is crazy. We have 2 tiny kids! I wouldn't miss the magic of decorating with them for the world, even if we won't be here all that much to enjoy it!

Happy Thanksgiving this week everyone!

Little Indians

Hello everyone! We have had a busy time lately, and are looking forward to having all of the next week off of school, ballet, swimming, etc. The only person still going strong will be Daddy, of course:)! We have plans for a great Thanksgiving dinner with our neighbors and another family that have become good friends of ours Thursday evening after Toby gets home from work. I am going to be busy pulling Christmas decor down from the attic. It is so much fun to decorate with the kids. They are so enthusiastic about holidays, and they get so excited. It should be lots of fun. We may also try to get a Christmas card picture while we have some time!

Abby had her Thanksgiving program at school today. The preschoolers sang songs and wore the cutest little costumes that they have been working hard on making all week long. After the program we had Thanksgiving dinner at her school with her. It was very fun, and Abby was so excited to be the center of our attention, of course. I did video the event, and will try to download a bit of it later.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday, eats too much, sleeps a lot, spends time with loved ones, watches lots of football (if you like to) and remembers all of the many blessings God has given us to be so very thankful for!

What's Up?

Abby running errands with me the other day

Beau's "watching TV" position - part bat, part human. This is the preferred position for 30 minutes or more at a time! Isn't that crazy?? This child is just a handful...

To the right of my stove on the kitchen counter - this is what I mean when I say that these two are right underneath me all the time! At least they're cute to look at, right?

We are good here! Today I went with Abby's class on her very first field trip to the theatre downtown here where we got to watch some good ol' children's performing arts. They acted and sang out six or seven children's book, including "If You Give A Pig A Pancake" and "How I Became A Pirate" among others. It was very good and her class of pre-k did extremely well behaving and being good listeners!

Tomorrow we are headed to our church fall carnival, and Mommy and Daddy have plans for a date night on Sunday night (barring Daddy getting called into work, of course). In that case I will be going and getting more Christmas shopping done as there is already a babysitter coming! (Yay!)

Also, I have made a separate sewing blog so if you are interested in that just click on the site on the top right of the blog. There are more Christmas shirts on there!!! If you are interested let me know so I can go ahead and be working on them!!

Hope everyone else is doing good! Have a great weekend!

Christmas Shirts and Beautiful Beau

Mod Trees (on a size 3T)

Candy Cane (on a size 4T)

Lipstick Beau - and check out that shiner on his forehead!

Tonight Toby got called into work for a while so I spent the evening chasing the kids:) They seem extra hyper - I can't imagine why - wouldn't have anything to do with ALL of the Halloween candy that has been consumed over the weekend or anything. Anyways...while I was on the phone with Aunt Jody (bottom picture) Beau came running up to me after his bath talking about something or another. I looked down at him and had to do a double take. He had gone and found a tube of lipstick somewhere and very carefully applied it to his bottom lip. It was so funny because it was on so well for a 2 year old boy. Of course, Mommy took a couple of pictures right away and then left it on so Daddy could see when he got home. Of course, Toby was "take that stuff off" when he got home. I told him his son was the one that applied it. Maybe I should be worried!

The two shirt are my first two Christmas creations. They have been lots of fun to work on. I think the candy cane could go for a boy or a girl, but both of the above were done on girls' shirts. The above samples are for sale!! I just went ahead and made them so I could go ahead and let everyone know what some options were. I am working on several others, but I am waiting for my shipment of shirts to come in!! In the works are snowmen (which will be cute for the boys, I think), wreaths, more Christmas trees, holly, birds, and crosses.

Halloween Happenings and More

Ka-Chow (for those avid Cars fans out there - you will know what that means...Beau says it all the time...)

Before leaving to trick-or-treat on our front porch steps. Abby seriously would strike this pose every time she was holding this gun - hilarious. In case you can't tell, they are Luke and Leia from Star Wars.

Just a sampling of how very into Halloween our neighborhood is - so much fun for the kids. This is our neighbors' house two doors down.

Two blocks up on our street there is this big ol' white house that is so pretty that is owned by the guy who made the Roly-Poly movie, among other things. They go ALL out for this holiday. They had stuff all over the place - including a tent from a funeral home set up. Craziness!! They are really sweet, and she let the kids pick 5 pieces of candy each, which they just loved...

Snow White (by Mommy) and Lightning McQueen (by Daddy). We thought Daddy did a fantastic job of his "challenging" pattern of McQueen, didn't he? I was just happy you could tell who Snow White was (and mine was "moderate" difficulty - ha!). The carving of the pumpkins was so much fun, and especially fun to see the end results.

The kids posing by their pumpkins

The cookie gram sent by their cousin Will! Thanks guys - they LOVED this and ate one each while they carved pumpkins.

Picking their cookies

Carving pumpkins

Beau playing with the big kids after Abby's pumpkin hunt at her school

Lined up ready to hunt pumpkins

Giving out treats in class

The yummy cookie cake for Abby's class party

Enjoying pizza in the park after a masquerade/trick-or-treat with her class. Aren't they cute?

Abby showing of her masquerade mask she made - a witch

After trunk-or-treating - Abby is posing again with her gun...

With mommy trunk-or-treating

With Daddy trunk-or-treating

This about sums up how we all feel after this week!!

I hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!!

Material and More

Apple Tree

With the matching ruffle pants

Bubble pants

Abby and Beau enjoying coloring in their new Halloween coloring books with stickers and crafts that Austin and Lola sent for them. A big thanks for the sweet package Niki!! Another big thanks to my mom for the Halloween treat tins you sent. The kids loved em'.

Beau and Toby on one of these many recent mornings that we have woken up with this particular child in the bed with us. As much as I can't stand how I fell after getting up several times a night, it does make an awfully cute picture!

I am thinking about making a separate blog for my sewing projects - may be easier than posting this stuff on the personal blog. Above are a sampling of some of the materials I have on hand to work with. I am about to start working on some Christmas shirts, so stay tuned!!

In other news, Abby and I went to see HSM3:Senior Year (High School Musical for those of you not there yet) last night. It was opening night, but the theatre was not totally full as I thought it might be, which was nice. It probably helped that we went to an earlier showing. I'm not sure that Abby breathed through the entire movie. She came home telling Toby all about the different songs, hairstyles, dresses, make-up, etc. etc. etc. etc..... She is already asking me when we can buy the dvd. She is definitely 4 going on 14. It was really so much fun to go on a "girls date" as she calls it and watch her enjoy something so intensely and fully. I thought the movie was every bit as good as 1&2, in case ya'll were wondering...

Today Toby had the WHOLE day off (a true rare treat) so we decided to take a day trip to Tyler, TX (about 90 miles away) to go to the zoo there. This was Toby's attempt to console me for not being able to make the 13+ hour trip to Pigeon Forge to spend a weekend with our families shopping, eating and going to watch UT play. It is a really fun weekend we have been doing yearly for about 3 or 4 years now, so I was bummed to miss it! However, the zoo was tons of fun and the kids loved it, so all is good. We were home by 3ish in the afternoon, so the kids still got a good nap and we are getting to watch UT get spanked by AL right now! C'mon Vols. Seriously. I will post pictures of the zoo soon - maybe tomorrow...

Sorry for the rambling flight of ideas post...