Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Giving Thanks

Audrey has been in Houston celebrating Thanksgiving with her Daddy, Nana, Papa, Auntie Moo and Uncle Rick  for the past few days.  She left on Tuesday and is finally coming home tomorrow, Sunday. Audrey has been so excited leading up to Thanksgiving.  She loves all of her family so much, especially her Auntie Moo.  They have such a special bond.  James sent me this picture of Auds getting a little mani/pedi from Amanda.  Must be nice, she is even buffing her toes!  :)



So as I've had these past few days to myself, I've gotten a lot done.  Caught up on The Real Housewives of Miami.  And Beverly Hills.  And Atlanta.  These ladies have some drama!  I even got my car cleaned out and organized, made and ordered our Christmas cards, sent one of my best friends a baby gift that I've been meaning to send out for the past month, I bought a new book and actually finished it in one day (well, y'all know that's usually how I read a book when I find one I love!),  AND I finally got around to framing and actually hanging some pictures that I've been meaning to do for awhile now.  (Um, and I hung the pics all by myself.  To quote one of the Real Housewives, HOLLA!)  I'll be really honest for a minute and admit that this has been one of the hardest parts of living on my own now.  James is an architect, with a very good eye for all things artistic.  So he would always hang the pictures in our homes.  (And I mean homes as those we've had throughout the years, not the many homes we've kept across the world.  Just in case you were confused.)  So I've had to learn how to use a tape measure, and a hammer, and find the right nails.  But I think I did a pretty good job and it was rewarding to do it on my own.

Here is my new FAVORITE thing in our house.  My friend Heather owns her own graphic design company, Design Roots (http://www.design-roots.net/) and she made this really beautiful print that I just adore.  It lists all of our "Family Values" that we try to follow in our house.  I hung it in Audrey's playroom and I can't wait to show it to her and talk about everything it says.  It's just a really nice reminder of the way I hope we live our lives and it's nice to have such a beautiful reminder posted on the wall, you know, so I can read it over and over again while Auds is in timeout and I've reached my limit. :)


Next I hung up Audrey's new school photo on the wall next to all of her other framed photos.  I'll be honest again.  I haven't hung up a new, framed photo of Auds since we moved in.  Almost two years ago.  But I finally hung up her new photo and I just couldn't stop staring at the first framed photo we had of her and the one of her now.  SERIOUSLY??!!  She has gone from this . . . .

To this.
 I know that every mother talks about how time flies, and the days are long but but the years are short, but really?  How are we about to reach Audrey's 4th birthday?  I can't believe what a big girl she is.  And then I got to thinking about how thankful I am for everything in our life.  No, we are not the "normal family", but I am thankful for where we are and where we are going to go.  :)



Sunday, November 18, 2012

Outtakes from the Christmas Photo Shoot

Well, it's almost that time of year again.  Christmas!!  My most favorite time of the year.  I cannot believe how quickly this year has flown by.  I swear just yesterday I was at Target at 1:00 am on Black Friday to buy Audrey's Princess Tent.  (Which has proven to be a truly worthwhile endeavor by the way, she plays with that thing every day!)  For the past 3 years, I have had Audrey's Christmas photos taken at Buy Buy Baby.  They did a great job and I was always really happy with how they turned out.  But this year,  I didn't want the traditional Christmas outfit and store manufactured Christmas Photo.  So Hilary volunteered to take Auds' photos.  We were all into it, planning outfits, locations, and Hilary even had ornaments to hang in the trees, Santa hats to wear, etc.  But then Hilary's husband scored awesome Cowboys' tickets for the day of said photo session.  So Hilary said we could still do the photo session, but just from 7:00 am to 9:00, before she went to the game.  So this MOTY decided that SLEEP was such a priority in our household that we would cancel the Photo shoot and my mom and I would just take Auds to the Arboretum in the afternoon to wing it and hopefully find one Christmas card worthy photo.  And I did!  But here are some other fun shots from the day . . .












Saturday, November 10, 2012

Halloween!

I feel like Halloween came and went so quickly this year!  After much debate between all the Disney Princesses, Audrey finally decided to be Aurora from Sleeping Beauty.  She was SO excited when we got her costume.  I think this is my new favorite holiday with her.  Her excitement in the weeks leading up to her school's annual Halloween Carnival and the actual day of trick or treating was just too fun.

Here are some pictures from the Halloween Carnival.  I didn't get too many.  I was having camera issues and there was just so much going on to take as many pictures as I wanted.  I didn't even get a picture of Audrey and me or one of her and Grammy, who came with us.  But Auds had a BLAST.  She loved seeing all of her friends and teachers dressed up, playing games, and of course the candy!

Here are a few of the random shots I managed to get: 





I have so many Halloween pictures of trick or treating to go through, but this is one of my favorites.  After we got home, James taught Audrey the tradition of dumping out all of the candy, sorting it into groups, and analyzing which ones were your favorites.  She was so into it!
E

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Arts and Crafts

My new favorite thing to do with Audrey is craft projects.  Now, we all know that I am seriously lacking the artistic gene.  I don't make those cute Pinterest wreaths like everyone else, I have no interest in art museums, and I begrudgingly plan an Art Station for my kids each week.  (And when I do it's not at the level of the other classes.  This was the first year ever that I let my kids sponge paint!!)  But slowly I'm learning that I really do love doing artsy things.  Well, artsy things at a 3 1/2 year old level.  ;)  Audrey is her father's daughter, so we know she's bound to wind up being pretty artistic.  She's always been into coloring here and there, but lately it's become her THING to do.  I can always find her coloring in her coloring books, putting stickers on her papers, or just plain doodling in her notepad.  I tended to join in here and there, but ya know, it wasn't really my thing like reading books with her.  And then she got the Star Student poster a few weeks ago.  And we had to color and decorate it.  And that took some serious time and dedication.  But it was FUN.  Serious fun.  I got to sit and just talk with Auds while creating something.  And she LOVED it.  But I didn't really think more about it or take it to the next level (like a Super Mommy would have, but there's always tomorrow) until her teachers sent home her school's annual Thanksgiving Family Turkey project.  It's a turkey that the kiddos have to work on at home and decorate using something other than crayons or markers.

Usually I dread this project because I usually just end up doing most of it and it's just something else to cross off the list, but when I got it this year I was so excited!  Audrey and I talked about ideas the whole way home from school.  I threw a few ideas out there and Audrey decided she wanted to use Fruit Loops.  (We had the multi-colored Cheerios at home - perfect.)  

When we sat down to work on it, she was all organized about it.  "Momma, let's use purple ones for this feather, and then yellow for the next one.  Ok?  You do this one and I'll work on this."  Again, it was a serious good time.  We sat and glued cereal and talked.  She told me all the random little things that popped into her head (like "Hey Momma, I really like Fifi at school.  We play school in the home center.  Fifi has to bring the babies to school and I bring them home.)  It also is a good time for her to learn about hard work and finishing what she starts.  Halfway through she got tired and said she was done.  But we talked about how she had to finish it and why, and she got right back to work.

But the BEST part of the project was the random "I love you Momma.  This is fun!"  Seriously.  I think we'll be adding craft projects to our weekend schedule . . . 

Here's the little artist hard at work:  


The finished project.  Pretty good if I do say so myself!


Yay!