Eating My Words

My dad had his birthday recently, and he really wanted some pictures of all of us. Sooooo everyone came over and my sister got some really cute shots of the kids...

and some of the 3 daughters (James took that one!)

I was really excited about how cute the kids looked in them.  James and I, however, couldn't produce a single decent picture.  So Court came over again today after church to get a family photo for our Christmas card. 

Disaster would be an understatement for how that went. 

Here's a preview...

Just imagine about 50 variations of that, and you'll have a good idea of the choices for this year's card.  So I'm heavily leaning toward just sending out a card with only my kids' pictures because as you can see, they are so cute in their little red shirts. 

BUT.

I've always said that I'd never send a picture of just my kids on a Christmas card because there are several people who get them who don't even know my kids and quite possibly have never seen them.  Plus it's completely annoying to me when it becomes all about the kids. 

Now I get it, though.  It's not that people think that it's only the kids that make up the family.  It's that it's virtually impossible to get a good picture of everyone when small children are thrown into the mix.

So once again God is showing me that I need to stop with the judgement already.  It seems like everytime I make a judgement about a situation that I can't possibly understand because my life hasn't gotten to that point yet, God quickly takes me to the exact place where I get the blessing of doing exactly what I had so harshly judged just 1year (or less!) before.  Hopefully I'll learn soon...and hopefully next year the 4 of us can get it together with coordinating our pretty smile days.

Treasures

I picked up my camera from Wolf yesterday, and the minute I got in the car, my sweet son smiled big for me so I could test it out....

He's such a pleaser.  And I think a small part of him was excited to once again be the subject of obscene amounts of picture-taking...or maybe he was just feeding off of my energy.  If I've learned anything from parenting a toddler, it's that if you act super, super excited about something, you can make your toddler do essentially anything...just don't let them escalate to the fit-throwing level first because once they're in the middle of that, there's no hope.

So when I went to look at the picture I had just taken, I found some old ones.  It was better than finding money in my coat pocket or finding my long lost favorite lotion underneath the bed.  Here they are...

Lunch at Thomas's house...

Naptime with mommy...

(James must have taken those!)

Goofing off at the dinner table...

Cutest. Smile. Ever!

Gotta go get reading for my picture-filled Thanksgiving!  Y'all have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Tall

Doesn't my son look like a 5 year old?

A "mine" proclaiming,

"NO!" yelling,

diaper-wearing,

fit-throwing,

yoga-posing,

happy skipping

5 year old. 

So maybe most of his actions let you know just how much of a 2 year old he is, but everyday he gets longer and leaner.  Everytime Hunter says, "two" in his sweet, soft voice after a stranger asks how old he is, we get the same response..."He's so tall!"  Yes he is, and we're hoping he stays that way.  James is wishing for a linebacker, but I still plan on pushing for basketball.  Y'all know how I love the indoors:)

Top Ten

I have no camera...again.  Apparently, being a maniac papparazzi mommy leads to many broken cameras.  Well, that and sending your camera crashing to the ground after tripping at the DART station.  I'm having a bit of a lens issue now, so my camera is sitting at Wolf Camera, where it's been for OVER 3 WEEKS, "being repaired".  Right.  Because it takes that long.  Hey Wolf, let's bump up the productivity standards a little, k?  Thanks.

So since I haven't had cute pictures to upload, my motivation for posting has been close to zero...and maybe the fact that I have no time for anything these days has a little something to do with it too.

Here's a top 10 of things I've learned over the past couple of hectic weeks...

1.  Being a mother of two who works full time outside of the home is much, much more difficult than being a mother of one who works part time outside of the home.

2.  If you start to get your priorities out of whack, God will find a way to bring them back into place.  I cherish my time with my family now.  I ache for them at times throughout the day while I'm working, and there is no one I'd rather be with at the end of the day than them.

3.  It takes a really, really long time to adjust to waking up at 5:15.  Hopefully one day I'll actually get out of bed on time and be able dry my hair before I leave the house in the morning.  Let's hope that day is soon so I don't freeze when winter hits.

4.  My husband is an amazing dad.  I already knew he was great with our kids, but I know most men couldn't do what he does all day.  As my sister in law pointed out, they are so lucky to have him.

5.  When you use a camera without a flash your pictures turn out like this...

and when you try to quick fix them on your computer, they turn all grainy like this...

6.  Even though it's been 10 years since I was a part of it, I still get really excited when I meet another Kappa.  Today I found out that one of the OTs I've been working with since I got back from maternity leave is my KKG sista.  Yes, I talked in my shrieky, high pitched voice out of sheer excitement.  And yes, we did the grip right there in the office.  I asked her if she wanted to sing some Kappa songs for everyone, but I think that was little over the top, so she opted against it:)

7.  Getting a good picture of both of my kids together is a lot harder than I ever thought it would be...

...especially with the awesome cameras I have at my disposal.

8.  No matter how much you push the paci, when a girl wants to suck her thumb, she's gonna find a way to do it...

9.  Don't be deceived into thinking you're toddler isn't listening to every single thing that comes out of your mouth.  He is.  And he will soak it up like the sponge he's become and repeat it back to you for weeks on end.  Here's Hunter's list of phrases we'd rather he hadn't picked up...

• 
  
  "dang it!"
  
  
  
• "oh gosh, mommy! oh gosh!"
• "booby!  booby!" (as he points to me while I'm nursing Charlotte.  And no, no one in my house uses that word, so I have no idea how he learned it.)
• "Good Lord."  (I cringe at this.  Luckily he's only said it once.)

And some that he loves to use all day long, but hasn't quite figured out the meaning of...

• "Don't worry, mommy.  Don't worry."
• "Oh!  I forgot!"

And, to our delight, proof that he actually does listen when we want him to...

• "Doggies cannot hurt you."
• "The tractors cannot hurt you."
• "Noooo jumping on the couch." (as he's jumping on it...at least he hears the words...maybe the right actions are soon to follow.)

(In case you didn't know, Hunter is really fearful of a lot of things - dogs being at the top of that list - so we've had to reinforce a million times that the dogs of our families members will not hurt him.  As far as the tractors, there is a lot of construction on 190 by the mall, so when he first saw the tractors and cranes, he freaked and started whining in the car about how scared he was that they were going to hurt him.)

10. Vampires are scary.  And no matter how much all some people disagree, that Twilight movie is frea-ky. 

Precious

Court took these pictures of Charlotte on Halloween (before her costume change!), and I thought they were so sweet, I had to share...

Our Halloween

We went to my sisters' house last night for Halloween. We attempted a family photo before we headed out for our candy filled evening, but either one kid's eyes were closed...

or both were...

And then we lost Hunter's attention...

We finally decided to give it up and let the fun begin!  We figured it was cruel and unusual punishment to make a toddler wait any longer after all of the build up to this night of candy fun.

Our first stop was Nanny's house.  Handy Manny can't wait to start filling his bag...

After Nanny gave us a ton of chocolate we hung out for a while and tried to explain to Hunter that you don't get to eat the candy right when it's given.  He didn't get it...or more likely, he didn't like it.  So Zack decided to distract him with legos...

After Nanny's, we drove back to Kate's house and started trick or treating. 

Our little lamb grew weary of it on the first street so James took her back to Kate's house while the rest of us braved the spooky night!

These people really went all out.  Their front door was open and their entire front room was decorated.  After you walked through, you could get some candy...if you had been brave enough to make it through. 

I'll let y'all take a guess on whether Handy Manny was brave enough...

He gets it from his mom.  There might be a story of a young girl who peed her pants outside of a haunted house once...and she was definitely way past the peeing in your pants age.  And that young girl just might be me.  Maybe. 

James and Cousin Zack got some inside pics for those of us that were too spooked to go in...

H was successful trick or treating at this much less scary house...

and many more after that where they were very generous givers resulting in lots of sugar consumed by our toddler last night. 

We're paying for it today.

Off to hide the candy.