Indian Summer

We must be having a little indian summer here in the Carolina's b/c it was warm today and it looks like the next week is going to be beautiful! I was outside with the girls doing a little fall maintenance on the flower beds. This summer there was a brown snake in our veggie garden and after that freaking me out I am a little jumpy when putting my feet in the beds to tidy them up. I am about 95% positive that I killed a black widow while outside just today. We have major spider issues and actually have a bug guy come every 3 months to try and keep them somewhat at bay. They totally skeeve me out so I really like my bug guy. Here is one of the ones that I knocked down - this was taken a little ways away b/c it was up on the garage and still looks huge to me!!



These girls will ride their bikes all day long if we were to let them. I haven't mentioned our fabulous find at Goodwill a few weeks back. This will sound very hard to believe but I promise true story. Our friends lent us their daughter's bike to see if Piper should move up to a 16". She did need a bigger bike so we decided to look around for one. It was a Sunday morning and we all went to a sporting goods store to try and find Matt a new pair of shoes. While there we checked out the bikes and saw this Diamondback for $139. There is a little bike store down the street and we looked there too where the same bike was $149. On our way home we had to drive by a Goodwill where I thought I saw some bikes out front so I asked Matt to double back. He went out to check them out and came back with the EXACT bike and in really great condition for being used all for the price of $10. Yep, $10. We never get deals like that. Piper loves her bike and so does our pocketbook :)

Here are our happy girls enjoying the day. Big fun tomorrow and this weekend. We love, love, love Halloween!

Minivan Schminivan

Family of 5 going to get a tree and bushes. 1 Ford F150. 3 Britax Marathons. Why did we buy a minivan again?



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Vocalpoint

I clip coupons but we only get 1 newspaper and I will clip what our family uses out of the Sunday edition. A lot of the coupons are for things that we don't use so they get recycled. Our family does not pay for any health or beauty products b/c I have figured out how to shop at CVS using their Extrabucks. I actually do donate what I don't use to a friend's church group. Who doesn't like free things right? It is sort of a rush but it is really hard for me to do it too much now with the 3 little ones. I found an AWESOME website that will send you things to try and then you review them. They also send you pretty sweet coupons along with the product you are trying. I have received Kashi brand items 3 times so it isn't all junk. Have you heard of Vocalpoint? Saturday I received a 28 day trial of Olay Pro-X, you know the stuff that they have on the commercials that is supposed to be as fabulous as the $500 wrinkle cream? Well, at $47 a jar it is still a bit out of my league but I am going to try it. Today when Piper gets home from school I am going to have her take my picture and in 28 days I am going to review it. Olay doesn't know this of course but I am interested to see if there will be any change in my skins appearance. Anyway, I know that I have a few people out there that read this blog so go and sign up for Vocalpoint and start receiving stuff to try!

Together we planted a tree

It was our first. In 10 years my husband and I have never planted a single tree. I am really surprised b/c we have planted just about everything else under the sun. Yesterday afternoon we got a break from the rain and so our family headed to a nursery near us to look at what they had. I love birch trees. They may not be the most practical but I just love looking at the peeling trunks. Totally cool. While we were there I also got a hydrangea and a few bushes that I have no idea the name of at the moment :) I just can't wait to see everything bloom next year! Now, Matt dug those holes all by himself with me just there to watch the kids and supervise. Today, so that I felt like I participated some, I put down the pine straw. I can't believe how tough it was to dig those holes in our hard red clay - job well done!

Before



and after with cuties who were out there "helping"



BTW - while I was throwing straw around the girls were walking up and down our driveway with their strollers exercising so that they would get "skinny like Miss Dana". They say that about everyone who exercises now :) I just thought that Miss Dana might think that was cute :)

Misca Musca Mickey Mouse

It was supposed to be a family day. We woke up and Piper and Ruby were both a little under the weather. The weather is a whole other story. Raining, AGAIN. That is when I decided that pancakes and bacon would bring up everyone's mood. I cooked for 45 minutes, 4 plates were set, 3 glasses of milk, a coffee, and the pièce de résistance a plate of pancakes and a pound of bacon (healthy right?). That is when the call came in - Matt had to go to work. Really? So the girls and I ate alone. I decided not to let the rain or the fact that daddy wasn't here affect the day so we pulled out our Mickey Mouse Yahtzee Jr. game that I bought last week for game night. Love.This.Game!! Normally I am so cheap that I will only buy the girls games that are on clearance (and why are they on clearance?) or at our local thrift store but this time I splurged (8.99 at Target) b/c I just knew they would love the jr. edition as much as we love the adult version. Fun ensued!

7 months!!

I can't believe it! I swear it felt like yesterday that I was writing the post about her being 6 months old. This is all going to quickly for me! Ruby has taken a break from pulling herself up on things which makes me sigh with relief - mama wasn't ready to have all that yet. Today my baby has that terrible barking cough that little ones get :( She also has a runny nose :( :( Most days she is just such a happy babe, right now she is sitting next to me playing and laughing at her toys sick and all. LOVE HER! She should be napping but... she has her own little schedule and doesn't realize that mommy wants her on a different one (like one where all girls in this house nap at the SAME time!!). This little one is so loved by everyone in our house (even the dogs!!) - she is the perfect completion to our little family!

Yellow Finch Designs GIVEAWAY!!!!

Yellow Finch Designs GIVEAWAY!!!!

Soak Up the Sun

It's been cold. Too cold for October IMO. These photos reminded me of a warmer time.





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Are you on Facebook? Friend me!

I am torn on my feelings for Facebook. Now on one hand I love it b/c it has let me catch up with a ton of people that I really missed from my younger days but then on the other hand I get these crazy friend requests that I have no idea who the person is. I either have to dust off my yearbooks or email someone to figure out who they are. I enjoy going through their photos of the kids and to see what they look like b/c most of the time it has been 20 years since I last saw them. So today I found out I got "unfriended" by someone and was all "really?". I was on my sister's wall and looked at our friends in common and he didn't show up. See this person asked ME to be their friend back when I first joined last year and now he "unfriended" me. He was someone I hid b/c of all his gaming so I never actually knew I had been "unfriended" but why did he ask to be my friend if he was just going to delete me? Why did he ask at all b/c I never really knew him very well but how can you say no to someone that asks to be your friend, kwim? It isn't very often that I put myself out there and ask for friendships. What if they say no to me? What is wrong with me? Why don't they want to be my friend? See, it makes me nuts! I would love nothing else but to clean up my "friends" but I don't want to be that person that "unfriends" someone b/c then they might be sitting at their computer wondering what they did to deserve it :) Now, if you Facebook you will know the hide feature. I LOVE that! I guess that is how I "unfriend" people, I hide them b/c their posts/games/quizzes drive me crazy! As a matter of fact I just hid 2 more people this morning after I signed on. So I have all these "friends" and about 1/3 of them are hidden. I just don't get it at all, I need Facebook therapy, seriously :)

Trunk or Treat 2009

BRRRR!!!! A mom group that I belong to held their 3rd annual Trunk or Treat and our family attended. The girls and I have gone the past 2 years but this year b/c of a rare Saturday night off Matt joined us. I am bummed that the picture isn't better but honestly there was so much going on and I am more of a "let's have fun" rather than "I need to get this picture" kind of person lately. It will get back up into the high 70's again this week so I will drag the girls outside so that I can get their Halloween picture :) I think we are still trying to warm up 12 hours later! We have Lilo, Stitch, and Tinkerbell if you are unfamiliar with Disney (now get to the video store and rent these movies b/c they are fabulous!).

I am always amazed

I love where we live. We might not always love the house that we live in b/c functionally it isn't the best for a family of 5 but location, location, location right? We see it all on our little cove. It was a rare and special Saturday morning b/c we had Daddy home with us, he walked out back and this is what he saw - he also took these pictures. Matt and Violet walked down near the swans and they came right up to them so they must be tame or someone's "pets". I could get used to these beauties visiting us every so often.

Queen of Hearts and Alice in Wonderland Costume Set GIVEAWAY!!!!

Queen of Hearts and Alice in Wonderland Costume Set GIVEAWAY!!!!

It was bound to happen sooner or later.

Of course I would have preferred later. No I take that back I would have preferred never to have received the phone call at all but us zoo girls are a little on the clumsy side so I knew something like this was inevitable. I got a phone call from Piper's preschool teacher on Wednesday morning telling me that she fell and bumped her head. I cried was very close to tears. The teacher told me that Piper handled it like a trooper and only cried for a minute and she told me that she still wanted to stay and have lunch with her friends. Do you know how much willpower it took for me not to drive there immediately and bring Piper home with me? Do I sound crazy? Yes, I know I do. Matt was out of cell range so I sent him a text message and he called me immediately back asking (urging) me to let her stay there. See, he knows the real me :) So here it is. The first injury that I wasn't there to kiss when it happened. The proof that we can't keep our kiddos safe when they go into the big world. Breaks my heart that it is only the beginning.



and b/c she looked adorable in her little glow in the dark skully shirt with missing rhinestones :)

All I wanna do is a zoom-zoom-zoom-zoom

and a boom-boom. Trial run for Halloween to see if she was big enough to drive :)



For some reason I thought that this song was "All I wanna do is a vroom-vroom-vroom and a zoom-zoom" which would have been more fitting for this WW post but I was WAAAYYY off on that huh? More WW at 5 Minutes for Mom

When you're happy and you know it smile BIG!

Ruby started pulling herself up - YIKES! Matt said she pulled herself up Sunday holding on to his knees but I didn't get a chance to see that. Yesterday I caught her 2x doing it on her little light up table while playing with Piper & Violet. I couldn't get a video of it fast enough though but I don't see that far off. She does so much now, EXCEPT SLEEP!!

Test Run

I can't for the life of me get the paci away from Violet. This time we said we weren't even going to offer it to Ruby and we haven't. This morning girlie found Violet's on the floor in the living room. I quickly took it away from her :)



See the little holes in the toes of her sleeper? That is from letting her in her walker out front on our concrete w/o shoes. She wore holes in the toes within a few minutes. So much for my sewing skills, she is almost grown out of that one anyway *blush*.

Watch out

b/c here we come! While still pregnant with Ruby I had these grand ideas that I was going to start walking and the baby weight wasn't going to hang around as long this time as it has every.other.time. A mama near me posted a triple jogger for sale and I thought for some time going back and forth before finally deciding that it would be great for when I needed to walk with all 3 girls or family walks in the evenings. Well so much for that, the stroller sat unused in our garage for 6 months. Sleepless nights, hot southern days, and a babe that wasn't really grooving on hanging in a stroller while I walked made my exercise plan seem very unappealing. There were a few days last week that teased us with the promise of fall so out came the monster stroller. You want to stop traffic - come walk with us :) So much for that tease though, we are back in the 80's again or very close to it - sheesh! Today I got a picture of the crew before we left.



We play I Spy, Piper and Violet take turns telling me the house addresses, and these excursions are timed so that our babe sleeps through most of it. The stroller weighs in at 34 lbs, Piper is 35 lbs, Violet is 30 lbs, and our tiny one is 20 lbs. My heart feels like it is going to explode while I am walking up the hill to get out to the main road or walking through the grass by the golf course. This getting old is for the birds!

Hey, look over here.

"Please?"
"I'll give you chocolate."
Silliness starts even with the prospect of a fab reward.



Put baby in place and get ready to try and get a nice picture but then the sillies take over again. At least I have 1 that will look at me for another few months :)




What do you use as bribes?

How do you really feel?

I love that I can make her this happy. Of course the day will come that I will have to bribe her too :)


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Monsters Galore!!

I posted this on Facebook but I know some family is not on there so I am putting it on our blog too. This just tickled me and I am not sure why. Halloween starts early around the zoo :)

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The princess they don't know

I am quite certain that before having the girls the only princess movie that I had seen was The Little Mermaid. If I had seen the others I can't recall any of them. I am the mom of girls that confuses the princesses up constantly forever annoying our Piper b/c she then has to correct me :) So our girls like all things girlie, I have accepted that. Today Snow White is being re-released on dvd. This is a good story I think at least in the Little Golden Book version that we have of it. It is all good vs. evil and the pretty princess marries the handsome prince. We all have that life right? I wonder if they will take to it like they did Cinderella. Piper LOVES that movie now. She even tries to make her bed just like her idol :) Here are our little princesses doing what they do best - dressing up :)





Why does Violet always make that face? I will tell you. It is because "my lips are moving and I just can't stop them". Yep, that is the explanation that was given to me the other day while we were in the car. She will sit in her carseat and switch her mouth from one side to the other. It is comical to see in person. Anyway, I have given up trying to get her to smile when she isn't in the mood and take what I can get.

Sick Day

Yesterday I would have sworn it was allergies until we all woke up this morning sniffling with a cough.
It is one of those wear what is comfy,
"No Violet, we don't have to comb your hair",
"What movie do you want to watch",
"Let's ALL lay down for a little nap",
"Breakfast for supper, sounds good with me"
kind of day.
Please stay briefly :(