Jumping Ahead......???

For some reason, I'm wanting to just skip over Thanksgiving and move right into Christmas this year. I've been tempted to break out the Christmas music early -I usually wait until the day after Thanksgiving- and shop and wrap and finish it all right now! I don't know what's going on with me. I just LOVE Christmas, and guess what?! This will be my first ever Christmas Eve and morning in my own house - just me, Brad and our little ones!!! Maybe I already mentioned that in a previous post, but I am very excited about it. Just thought I'd share my excitement. :)

6th photo in 6th folder TAG????

Here we go, Deana.......this is a photo of Brad and his brother, John, and sisters Shellie and Anita when we went to the beach a few years ago. I was pregnant with Mallory at the time. He'll love me for posting this one....;) I'll tag whoever would like to do it.

I love my Veteran..........

So tonight I told Bethany that in the morning we're going to meet Grandma to go shopping because she doesn't have school tomorrow. Then, I remembered why she doesn't have school...VETERAN'S DAY! I asked her if she learned anything about Veterans in school today,and she said yes, but couldn't give me anything specific. I started thinking about my dad and told her that her grandpa is a veteran because he served in a war and that many of her friends' daddies are veterans. So, I tonight I'm thinking of many of my friends who maybe read my blog....some of you are married to veteran soldiers, in or out of the military now, some of you have sons and daughters serving or other family members, or maybe your dad and/or grandpa - maybe even your mom or sister - served.....I'm thinking of all of you who sacrifice for and serve in our armed forces today. I am grateful for our Veterans, and praying for them.

A Child's Prayer

Tonight, Bethany said our bedtime family prayer. She always has very thankful prayers and rarely asks for anything, but tonight was so honest and innocent. I want to share it with you. Here is some of it....."Dear Heavenly Father, We thank thee for our good day. I'm thankful for my sister, my mommy and daddy, and all of our friends and family and my toys and my fun times and my heart, and I'm thankful that you will help Mallory to never lock us out of the house again when our backs are turned....." So, I have to stop right here and explain. The girls and I made our weekly WalMart run after school today, and when we got home I took the girls, my purse, and half of the groceries up onto the porch, unlocked the door, put my purse and keys on the chair by the door and set the groceries just inside the door. Usually the girls play around on the porch while I finish up, but Mallory had stayed in the house this time. The car is about 10 yards, if that from the front door, so I go to the car with Bethany to get the rest of the stuff out and as we get back to the porch I notice that the door is closed. I think, "OH, NO! I hope the keys are still in the lock." But, they're not. Then I think, " Well, it should be unlocked because I just unlocked it." But, it wasn't. I must have turned the key back around to the locked position. My 2 yr old had locked us out of the house! I didn't have my phone....it was in my purse, or my keys, obviously. And, she is too small to reach the door knob and doesn't even know how to work a round door knob, so now what???!!!! For a while I talked to her through the door and tried to coach her to open the door. I made suggestions like, "go get your stool from the bathroom and turn the knob, honey!", to which her response would be , "nope." I realized this must be pretty fun for her. She has complete access to the house AND the groceries which I'd just set inside the door including a carton of eggs. I start to hear the bags rustling, and I KNOW she is playing with the eggs. Oh, well....what can I do? Finally, a guy from up the street comes by on a bike, and I asked if he had a phone so I could call and try to get my spare key from my in-laws. At the same time, I'm thinking "HOW AM I GOING TO GET BACK INTO MY HOUSE???" because I knew that they were out of town shopping today. I had to track down my brother-in-law to see if he could find a key to their house (because we're the only ones with keys to their house - mine was in my purse and Brad had his at work with him) so that he could go see if he could find MY spare key and come to rescue us. How crazy is this situation?! Shortly after I send him on this errand, Mallory starts crying inside the house. I'm trying to console her, and starting to get a little panicked. Did I mention that Bethany had been saying she had to use the bathroom since WalMart and I told her to wait until we got home? Then, my hero, Ed - or as Brad likes to call him - Champ, comes around the corner with the key. I open the door to my crying baby and step over the broken eggs to pick her up and check for eggshell injuries and...... all is well. Not hurt, just scared and messy. The whole thing lasted about half an hour I think. Bethany and I had stopped at one point during this ordeal and prayed that Ed would find the key and we would get to Mallory quickly and that she would not be hurt. Our prayer was answered, and I found it so sweet that she thought to mention it in her prayer tonight......and kinda funny, too. ;)

More Halloween

Halloween Pics

Okay, as I uploaded my photos from Halloween tonight I saw, as I'm sure you noticed, that I have zero pictures where both of my kids were making picture friendly faces. So, some are good ones of Bethany and some are good ones of Mallory. Mallory was not happy to dress up or pose for pictures. I do love the heart on her bum, though. Bethany was so composed and graceful in her "Fairy Godmother" costume. She walked in those shoes the whole night.....wow! And, you won't believe this, but my kids have not asked for Halloween candy since Friday night after Trick-or-Treating. Crazy, I know, but I'm not complaining.

Grateful to be an American.....

In my prayers today, I've been so grateful for the right....the freedom to vote for our leaders, and so thankful for those who fought and suffered and even died for me to have that right!!! Race, gender, economic status.....it doesn't matter - as Americans we have this sacred right. I don't share who I vote for as a personal rule, but know that I VOTED today, and my girls will hopefully remember going to the polls with Mommy and choose to exercise their own right to do so in the future. I can't believe that there was a time when women in my own family did not have the right to vote. We're so fortunate.

Our baking project for this week...

Yesterday was the first time since last Thursday that I felt like doing much of anything, so Brad helped me clean house and then I decided to get some of my baking projects marked off my list when he went to work. Bethany and I rolled out sugar cookie dough and cut out Halloween shapes, decorated them and baked them. Mallory even helped a little. (I'm putting a short video clip of her in this post, so you can hear her little voice. I'll try not to start going overboard with the videos. Sorry.) It is so fun to do this with my daughters! Bethany decided to come up with a pattern for each cookie sheet which is a total kindergarten thing. After the kids went to bed, I decorated the cooled cookies with orange icing around the edges. They are yummy!

(Oh, and after the cookies I went ahead and did my triple batch of banana bread. I was tired by the end of the evening, for sure, but it's done! Yeah!)

First Snow....

On Tuesday we got our first snow. It was very light, but it did lay on the roofs and tree branches. I didn't mind it, though a lot of folks around here complained. It wasn't too super cold yet, and it just made me think of the miracle of seasons. I LOVE seasons! I took the pictures above from Bethany's window which is at the back of our house....they're not great, but they show what I saw and liked. :) (by the way, the next county over got several inches of snow and didn't have school on Wednesday.)

Do you ever....?

Do you ever look at your children and just want to cry because they are so beautiful and amazing? (I'm sure you do, I just need to remember how it felt tonight so I'm posting it.) This evening I sat on the livingroom floor with Bethany and Mallory and our Happy Meals....we were starting to watch the movie Enchanted together for Mommy/Daughter time. Brad was at work, and I've been feeling pretty yucky today....so, I took some DayQuil and decided to just be with my girls and not try to get anything done while we enjoyed ourselves. As I was sitting next to them, I would hear Mallory laugh at a cute part of the movie and hear Bethany sing all of the words to the songs and I found myself watching them watch the movie instead of watching it myself. I was in awe of them. I look at Bethany and see how much she's grown in what seems like such a short time. I can't believe I can hear her picking up the harmony in the songs, and I remember how absolutely incredible every minute was when I was expecting her and then after she was born. I would spend every minute of the day looking at her and kissing her cheeks and loving that I was at home with her. Sometimes I forget what that felt like, but tonight I remembered as I looked at her. I love her so much! I looked at Mallory and thought of how much joy she brings me everyday with her huge-toothy smiles and her bouncy curls as she runs around the house and dances. I seems like I've had her in my life forever, and I love her more than I could have ever imagined. I got out my camera when they started dancing tonight.....here they are.....