Black Friday Treasures

I didn't get up at 3 am or even 5 am on Friday. I got up after the sun and we took our time getting going. We went to Bath and Body after breakfast and got the one thing I look forward to every year. They only carry it for a few weeks and it sells out quickly. The Twisted Peppermint smell is my favorite one the store carries. As soon as we got home from Tyler today, I lit one of the candles up to make it smell even more homey. My whole house smells like peppermint and we all love it! Hope your Thanksgiving was great. We had a wonderful time in Tyler although we felt like even though we got to see everyone more than once, we didn't get to see anyone for too long at one time....maybe at Christmas. Enjoy the next few weeks of wonder and joy!

Pilgrims and Indians

Holidays are always so much fun when you're part of a school, whether the teacher or the parent. Elle has been bringing home the cutest projects and preparing for a Thanksgiving play that her class did today. Here are a few pictures from the last week's activity. She was a pilgrim for the play and her line was "I think I see land!" She said it just right in a nice non-mousey voice! Yeah! :)

The pilgrims and Indians sharing the 1st Thanksgiving meal.

This is her Indian outfit she worked on. Each feather in her headress was for some piece of information she knew, such as her phone number and her address. She was one of the only girl "chiefs."

I took a picture of the back because she drew a picture of herself as an Indian shooting a bear with her bow and arrow.

Home Walkabout

Yesterday I decided to roam the house and take pictures of what I see on a daily basis, things that inspire me, and things that just caught my eye.

It is officially "winter." We turned on the heater yesterday morning. We were all freezing!

Four chairs in a row.

Don't think they make fold up chairs for baby, but they will be in my lap for a while anyway.

Our stairs on a daily basis.

Most of the time Shawn, me and Elle have a pair each and Ava has around four pairs sitting on the stairs.

Shoes that Elle has outgrown.

With every change of season comes the changes of the closets....a big task where I have to put up the old season of stuff and the stuff that doesn't fit, and pull out the new hand me downs.

Inside Ava's panty drawer.

I wouldn't expect anything less. She loves vehicles.

Loving this ornament.

This caught my eye yesterday at Hobby Lobby and all the ornaments were half off!

Loving this smell.

I have this bag opened up in my craft room and every time I go in there I get a strong smell of cinnamon and I love it!

Some little crafty things that will go on the invitation for December's bunco which I'm hosting. The theme is Sugar and Spice...all things peppermint and cinnamon.

4 months

I am four months preggie today. That translates to 18 weeks and 3 days pregnant...I think that sounds more substantial so that's what I'm going by. Most of the yucky symptoms are gone, thank goodness, but the back issues are still constant. I am learning to cut my to-do list in half right now and that's very hard for me. My brain wants to go go go, buy my back says no no no! Right now, food is a glorious daily event in my life. I love the smell, taste, sight, and anticipation of every future snack and meal during the day. Food tastes so good right now. Things I've eaten many times before all of the sudden are the best they've ever tasted. Now my job is to not let that go too far and gain too much too soon....so hard to do!

Preggie

Yesterday I took some pictures of a mommy-to-be. She has about a month left, and as I expected, she was glowing and beautiful. Here are a few of my favorites.

Campin Out

We weren't far from an airplane community and they were launching a few hot air balloons the next morning. Not the best of days for a hot air balloon ride.

Kind of on a whim, we decided to go camping this past Friday night. We invited anyone from the MASH group that wanted to go, to meet us Friday night. We camped on some property owned by one of the members at church. The weather was pretty good. It got REALLY cold that night though and made it very hard to sleep. Also the air was so wet and although it didn't rain, everything the next morning was sopping wet. The kids of course loved it and did so good. What a wonderful time, but we definitely have our sites set on a pop up camper in the next 5 or so years.

Anticipation

Imagine that it's Christmas Eve. You go to bed with such anticipation that you barely sleep at all. You toss all night checking your alarm clock hourly just waiting for it to be time to get up. FINALLY Christmas morning comes. You run downstairs to the living room to see all of the gifts that Santa brought. To your astonishment, not only are there no presents, but all the decorations, twinkling lights, stockings and Christmas cards are gone and your living room looks like it does in May. On top of that the weather forecast for your wintry day is for highs in the 90's and full sunshine.

Okay, well that's kind of how my day has gone this morning. Yes, I'm dramatic. I come by it honestly, because my dad knows how to dramatically tell a story too. This morning we were suppose to find out what this baby is. As you can tell by the story that didn't happen. The doctor did three different ultrasounds trying as hard as she could to tell what it was. The baby just wasn't lying quite right. She could see sort of between the legs, but not good enough to give us a 100% answer. She said she was 95% sure but that's not good enough for me. She advised us not to tell what her 95% guess was because she was just sort of iffy on it and didn't want everyone thinking it was for sure one thing and then it be another.

I am beyond disappointed. I will say I made it to the car before I started crying so there's my feat for the day. I have been saying for weeks though that I was sure that for whatever reason, we wouldn't be able to tell today. I think it's because there has been so many unexpected and upsetting things happen in this pregnancy that I just prepared for more disappointment. Now I will have to wait three, count them, three more weeks for the next ultrasound. MAYBE, this child will be in a better position by then and we'll finally be able to say.

Onto the good news, which it's hard to be excited about because I'm just so disappointed! But it is wonderful news. My placenta has moved all the way to the top of the womb now and is completely out of the way. The complications I was having seem to have gone away and she did a lot of measurement and looking at body organ and structure and every single thing she looked at was perfect. I am thankful for that, but I need to swim in my disappointment a little longer before getting out and drying off.

So there's the news for today. I feel sort of numb because of all the excitement I put into this day and how sorely disappointed I am. I really hope that this child is getting out all it's orneriness now before it's born because it has already put me through A LOT!

It's a Girl!

But not for me...at least not that I know of yet. Actually I took family pictures and baby pictures for friends of mine today. There daughter was born about 2 months early and now at 5 1/2 months old is doing marvelous and I got the privilege of capturing her sweet cheeks this morning. Here are a few of my favorites.

Close Encounters with a Bee

I got to take some pictures of a very busy bee today. She was so cute and it was so much fun to chase her around.

Witchy Women

Here are some of my favorite pictures from Halloween night. The girls collected enough candy to satisfy my sweet tooth for at least a few weeks. Good job girls!

The newest witches don't ride on brooms anymore, they take their trikes.

This was taken at our neighborhood Halloween party.

This pictures looks like something you would see in a magazine. I have to credit my husband for taking most of these pictures. He did a great job!


I told you Ava was pregnant also :)

Checking out our loot...very nice!