Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Pictures...Take 2

We had a great Thanksgiving with family!  I love being with my family.  :)  After Thanksgiving dinner with my mom, two friends and I left to go shopping at 10:30 p.m.  Yes, that says P.M.!  I had never done the shop all night til you drop on Black Friday thing!  Well, I have now, and I have NOTHING to show for it!  I didn't get any Christmas shopping done!  The crowds were just mobs of people.  I had seen it before on TV, but NEVER understood the intensity of it until I saw it with my own eyes!  People were camped out, tailgating, and sleeping on cots in front of various stores!  Cans and cans of RED BULL lined the sidewalk into one store where people had been drinking the SUPER CAFFIENE drink to stay awake!  It was unreal.  Anyway, I can mark that task off of my bucket list, and I think I'm over it.  No need to re-visit that scenario again.  :)  I came home and did a lot of online shopping, and now I'm almost finished!  :)  Online Christmas shopping is the way to go! 

After church this morning, I took some pictures of the kids.  They turned out ok, but I sooooo wish I had a nice camera and some snazzy software to create some incredible images.  Anyway, I am grateful that I have what I have, and can at least preserve some images to remember what my children looked like on this day. :)

 I love Claire's hair and her sweet face in this pic, and Connor looks like such a handsome  "tween"ager. 

My mom made this cute jumper for Claire.  I'm so blessed to have a mother that is talented in so many areas!  My mom rocks!  I love her so much!

Well, hopefully I'll get some Christmas decorations up soon.  I'm having a hard time finding the motivation to do it.  When I do, I'll post some pics.  I did let the kids put their little trees in their rooms last night.  I let them decorate them however they wanted.  I'll post pics of those when I post the other Christmas pics!

  Until then, keep checking for fingerprints!

Kellie

Two elves, a dog, and a Christmas wish...

Whew!  We had a busy weekend.  It has flown by and now tomorrow is back to work for another productive week.  Anyway, Eddie and I spent Saturday cleaning out the kids' old toys.  We've been planning it for months and I've been gung-ho about getting rid of the clutter...until it came down to the sorting and decision making of what stays and what goes.  I was surprised at the emotion I felt when we would talk about different memories with the toys.  I know my memories are not held in the physical toy, but I felt like I was giving their "toddlerhood".  I know the "give aways" will make some preicous child as happy as each toy made my babies when they played, but my eyes are stinging right now just thinking about how much time has passed and how little I have left with mine. I know they are still young, (11 & 7), but I look back at how quickly these last 11 years have gone by, and I can't imagine that in not much more time than that, Eddie and I will be empy nesters.  Shudder.  Each day is a gift, and lately I'm finding myself considering this thought more when I tell them to be quieter, and I get aggravated at the "play stuff" that doesn't get put back where it belongs.  Even though I know I have to be consistent and hope they are learning from my guidance, that little voice inside tells me "you won't have them to make noise much longer"...and "you won't have to clean up their "play stuff" much longer".  The parenthood years are such a sweet, treasured gift, and I look back and realize that I don't think I've enjoyed it enough. There are lots of things in my life for which I wish I could have a "do-over", but if I really could choose one, it definitely be to stay home with my babies, and soak in every moment.  Wow.  Not sure where that came from, but I'm glad I shared it.  Now, on to the real reason I started this post:  What was it?  Oh, yea...
Worley and Tallulah are back.  Mom and Dad were not quite ready for these two silly elves, but here they are.  Last year, Connor and Claire didn't have much time to enjoy having their elf friends visit from the North Pole, so I'm hoping for fun-filled holidays, without a lot of elf mischief!  However, my children know the rule...they are responsible for cleaning up any mess Worley and Tallulah make or they will have to go back to the North Pole.  Yep, I guess I'm a tough mommy.  They've been pretty good so far.  This morning, I woke to find this scene:

That's my breakfast room table and an opened box of clothes I ordered for Claire.  Worley put on the brown dress and Tallulah put on the plaid tunic.  Connor and Claire thought they were hilarious.  They thought the funniest part was that Worley (a boy elf) put on the dress.  Ha!

After an awesome church service,  Claire went to her end of season soccer party with her dad, and Connor went with me to the church to do some painting.  When we got home, Claire and I walked around to find some leaves that we could "wax".  I got the idea from "Clover Lane" blog and want to try it.  I didn't have a disposable pan, so we didn't get to try it today, but we got some pretty leaves.

 LEAVES?  Did someone say leaves?    Check out these pics of how pretty the leaves are here right now:

Jonah even walked with us in the woods behind our house to help us find leaves.

Now, for the Christmas wish...

Two front teeth, of course. 

Checking for fingerprints,

Kellie

SEC West Champs!!

I believe in Auburn and LOVE IT! LOVE MY TIGERS!! They just beat Georgia,  and that makes AUBURN the SEC West Champs!  WOW!  We've come a long way since last year, baby!

WAR EAGLE!!

Auburn Tiger Walk Video

Fall Pictures...Take One

The kids and I went out in the back yard this afternoon to try and snap some cute pics with the beautiful leaves.  Well, all of the batteries for my camera were dead(not a good camera anyway, but certainly not without batteries).  I found one set that had a teeny bit of juice so out we went.    I altered these images with Picasa and I know NOTHING about doing such a thing, so I winged it.  I don't know what they will look like once they are posted on here.  I did get a few that are cute, but these are my favorites.  I can already tell the first one has too much light on Connor's face.  Back to the drawing board...

Keep checking for fingerprints,
Kellie

Oopsey Daisy: Jelly Bean Cake {yum!}

I wanted to blog this just so I would remember it later on. SOOO pretty and looks so yummy! Plus, you could decorate the top with lots of cool, yummy stuff.

Oopsey Daisy: Jelly Bean Cake {yum!}: "This is such a fun spring recipe! We made this yesterday for Easter dessert, but it is a fun one to do all spring long!! Just mix up a reg..."

Another cute fall snack

I just can't resist sharing these adorable treat ideas!

Oopsey Daisy: Turkey Favors: "One of my favorite things about Oopsey Daisy is sharing some of my favorite childhood memories with you. Every Thanksgiving morning, usuall..."

Oopsey Daisy: Fall Tree Snack

Oopsey Daisy: Fall Tree Snack: "I'm going to be short and sweet today! I just wanted to share one of the snacks we created during our 'L is for leaves' Mommy School unit. ..."

I'm smiling because it happened. :)

Yes, fall break is over, and while I'm sad it's over, I'm filled with such JOY that it happened.  I love the weather. I love that it's during Halloween, and I love that it comes at the perfect time for teachers and students to get re-charged to finish out the 3rd 6 weeks before Christmas break.   We went to WDW last fall break, and of course, I loved it.  This year, though, was even more special because we were blessed to visit our very special friends, the Latta's during our break.  These sweet friends moved away (VERY close to the beach, I might add) to serve the Lord in Children's ministry.  God is using them in a mighty way at their new church, and I feel so happy and blessed every time we get to visit their church. 

While we were visiting this time, we did a lot of visiting, some blogging, some shopping, some eating, and even stuck our toes in the sand at the beach for just a few minutes.  :)  My favorite part, though, was attending the "Heavenly Harvest" festival at FBC Foley.  Shane did an amazing job coordinating this event, and there ended up being approximately 400 people there!  What an awesome ministry!  There were games, two jumpy/bouncy thingys, yummy snacks, a hay ride, and a dunking booth (in which the "dunkee" allowed Matthew to purposely push the BIG RED BUTTON just so Matt could see him fall in...what a great sport!)   Here is a collage of pics of the kids at the festival:

Notice Connor is only in one pic and is not in costume.  He was going to dress up as a soldier, but decided not to because he didn't have boots.  He thought tennis shoes would look dumb, so he opted out of dressing up.  Makes me sad. :(  However, I did get to accompany an explorer (like Diego), and a butterfly fairy (who turned into a butterfly when her fairy tutu dress got too uncomfortable).  It was a fun night, and the weather was PERFECT!  I loved our visit and I love the Latta's!  I can't wait to go visit again!

I thought I would attach some other pics from the last few weeks,  since I'm not very good at blogging consistently.   The pics are not in order...sorry!

Our whole crew going on the hay ride/scavenger hunt to the pumpkin patch. 

Claire and me. I love her so much!  Connor opts out of pics with mom most of the time...especially when he has a friend with him. 

 This was the nice horse.  I was so proud of Claire for being brave and going back to pet the other horse.  I was so afraid that she would forever be afraid of horses!

Candy corn face painting.  :)

Heading home...just couldn't resist this shot from the back. 

Connor and D

Grinding corn.

Claire and her favorite guy.  :)

Claire and Connor love all things jumpy/bouncy.

This is her booboo face.  :(  Not bad for being hit in the face by a horse's mouth, being knocked about 4 feet in the air, and landing on your back.  She's a tough cookie.

After we got home, she wanted to climb in her favorite tree.  :)

Last week, we had a book hat parade at school.  Students decorated a hat to describe their favorite books.  Claire's favorite book (at that time) was My Big Pink Book of Everything, and that's how we decorated her hat.  :)

the back of the hat...

Whew!  I know that was a lot to take in, but I'm glad to be caught up!  :)   For our last day of fall break today, we slept late, woke up and had "brunch", VOTED, shopped for groceries, cleaned (a little), Connor had a soccer game (which Claire and I did not go to this time), cooked chicken and dumplings, and updated my blog.  Hmmm...I thought my day was pretty unproductive until I wrote it all down.  Looking forward to a work/professional day tomorrow at school.  Then, Thursday, the kiddos come back and we'll all be re-charged and ready to take on the rest of 2010! 

Keep checking for fingerprints,

Kellie

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."  Romans 15:13