Saturday, October 22, 2011

A Little Belated - but it's the Fair!

Well, this is a little late, but at least it's here!  Last month was the County Fair!  As I said last year our County Fair is one of the last purely agricultural fairs.  No ride, but just animals and quilts and pies.  :)  It's lots of fun!

Warning for a minor picture overload ...

Big pile of Sheep's wool to feel

Baby Donkey!  Have you ever seen anything so cute?

The kids love the goats

Pretty Quilts

Basket making

Children's entries

BIG sunflower!

Claire and Chandler got to enjoy an ice cream

Pumping water like his great-grandmother!

Claire had to give it a try too

Whittling spoons

Sunday, October 16, 2011

My boy is growing up!

Last night my boy put away another of his baby things and it was a big one. Chandler's crib is no more. Such a big boy! We got him a twin bed and Daddy built a beautiful bed rail for him. On the trip to Charleston he slept in a bed in the hotel room and fell out 3 times each night. We knew he wasn't ready to be in a normal bed without help. We set up the bed and bed rail and then hurried off to dinner at my in-laws. When we got home it was late and it was almost time to get in bed. We were prepared of a long night of "return the baby to the bed" but he surprised us! Daddy read them a book in bed, we tucked him in and he went right to sleep. He woke up on time during the night crying, but Daddy checked on him and he just needed a little comfort before going right back to sleep.

He cracked me up this morning. He woke up and as he does every morning he sat there and called for me to get him. "Mama! Up, Mama! Eat! Mama!" I waited for it to dawn on him that he could get out of his bed on his own. Finally Claire got out of her bed and told him to get out of bed himself. The "Yay!!" I heard was absolutely hilarious! We are such creatures of habit. Or maybe he just inherited Mama's inability to think first thing in the morning. Poor kid!


The beautiful bed rail Daddy built


First bed time story in the new bed


Chandler all tucked in and ready for bed. Happy boy!

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Score!

Well, Horizons Math is a big hit! We started it today after working as far as we could before Claire started getting frustrated in the Kindergarten/First Grade workbook we picked up in Walmart. We pulled Horizons out today and she adored it. We actually did 3 lessons (3 pages back and front) because she didn't want to stop. A very good sign! It was colorful and just a enough easy and new things. We discussed Right and Left today. Something that I imagine will take her a little while master, but I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't even think of introducing it to her yet!

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

That's right son!!

As I'm snuggling Chandler he looks up and smiles at me: "Mama, best girl whole world!"

Translation: "Mama is the best girl in the whole world!"

What a little schmoozer! And I love it!

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Dinner 10-8-11

On the Menu: Sesame Chicken, Rice and Asian vegetables

Soundtrack: Avril Lavigne - I guess I'm feeling a little faux punk ;)

Such a Daddy's Girl!

Claire and Daddy are snuggling ....

Claire: Daddy, you're the best!

Daddy: That's right!

Claire: You're the best worker and the best player! And the BEST snuggler!

It is true .... :)

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Nine Years? Already??

<--- Awww, look how young we were! Nine years ago today, Daddy and I got married. It's been nine years of domestic bliss. Some wonderful years, some very difficult years (I'm looking at you 2009!) but every one of them were worth it. He is my best friend, we still laugh and giggle together and he still tries to molest me in the hallway. He's the best daddy I know. He adores our children and they adore him. Claire says she's going to marry him. (When I say that she can't because I married him she says that we can share him. It's hard to tell your 5 year old that you aren't the sharing type!) I thank God everyday for giving me such a great, caring, hard-working guy.

Nine years ago I was beginning to hate the word "wedding" and I turned to my fiance and said, "I don't care about all this! I just want to marry you! We already have the condo on Hilton Head for the honeymoon, why don't we just ditch this wedding, head down there a day early and get married on the beach where we wanted anyway??" And so we did. It was perfect. We told everyone that they were welcome to come if they wanted. We ended up with 16 guests. My mother and siblings (3), my paternal grandparents (2), Daddy's father, mother, stepfather and siblings (6) and a good friend of mine and Daddy's two best friends with their girlfriends (5). We got married at 5pm on a beautiful, hot sunny day and we all headed to a local steakhouse afterwards. It was exactly what I wanted, casual and small, and the best part of the day that was I ended up married to the best man I know!

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Not bad

I don't know why, but Sunday evening I was just dreading this week. I felt like I was stuck in a weird rut and nothing about the new week got me excited. I have no clue why I was in such a funk. Yesterday ended up being a shiver in our blankets and lounge around the house day. We woke up to 29 degree weather!! Brrrr! What happened to Fall? Did we just go straight to Winter? So we watched movies and did schoolwork and the kids played in their rooms. I was lazy and played around on the computer and read and tried to lazy out my funk. It warmed up to the late 60's in the afternoon and the kids played outside in their playground while I sat in a camp chair in the sun and read. That's always good for whatever ails you! :)

Today we took a quick trip to Walmart and had lunch before the kids laid down for a nap. Chandler slept well and I made some more laundry detergent and did a bunch of laundry already. Claire and I did minimal schoolwork (Bible, Math and Handwriting) before we all went outside to play. It's not been bad at all and I don't know what I was dreading so much. Daddy is working late tonight, so I'm glad we've had a good day. Nothing worse then cranky children and no relief at 5 o'clock! Hope every else's day is going well!

Monday, October 3, 2011

Dinner 10-3-11

On the menu: Linguine Alfredo with garlic bread

Soundtrack: The Beatles

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Poor little Han

I thought I had posted this before. Last Saturday morning I woke up to find our sick kitten in bed with us. He had passed away in the night. We buried him the next day under our apple tree. It was very upsetting to Claire. Chandler is a little young and I don't think he understood. But Claire and I had to have "the death talk". Not a fun one. She's been bringing up questions and thoughts all week. Poor little thing. Death is a very hard concept to grasp and deal with, I just hope I did it right.

We will miss you Han ...