Nap Time

Nate decided his crib was just not a cool place to sleep anymore. 

No, no, no...his new "ball pit" is much comfier!

Whoooo are you looking at?

Tonight is a night I have dreamed of for 4 years.  It was the first year we actually carved a pumpkin...as a family...with the kid's help!  For the past few years, Nicole was a bit freaked out by the pumpkin inside and didn't want to touch it.  This year however....she enjoyed every "ooey-gooey" moment.  She even named it "ooey-gooey-goo".  Hannah, with the encouragement of her bigger, braver big sister also got in on the action with very little complaint. 

Jeremy bought a pumpkin carving kit, complete with patterns to carve.  The girls picked out the owl pattern.  Enjoy these picture of our family working on the pumpkin. 

 The Dynamic Duo!

 Check out Hannah's expression in the background!

And....this is where Nate was for most of the pumpkin carving this year

Mommy Brain?

This is what happens when I run out to the grocery store...

Can I blame my mismatched shoes on "mommy brain"?

Girl-ology and Boy-ology - The Art and Science of gender specific parenting

This morning, our MOPS director, Jennifer spoke to our group about the differences in parenting boys and girls. 

I think the one comment she made that made an impact on me, and that I want to remember for a long time is this...

I am not raising a baby boy - I am raising a man!

Now, my son is only 11 months old, but already I have had conversations with friends about how I realize that one day I will not be "the woman" in his life.  My job is to raise him to be a Godly husband and maybe even father one day.  It's weird to think of your babies that way...but I think it is good to have the goal in mind at times.  As Nathan grows up, I need to be teaching, sooner rather than later, how to be a gentleman, how to treat women, how to control his energy and maybe even temper. 

There are certainly very distinct "girl" and "boy" qualities, that for some crazy reason our culture tries to blur together.  NO, I want my son to be a Man, and my daughters to be Women. 

Jennifer gave a short list of some ways we can be with our boys.
1. Encourage Adventure
2. Provide physical activity
3. Show him respect as a person (age appropriate of course)
4. Encourage a strong relationship with his father.
5. Teach him about Who he is in Christ, and what His roles are to be.

And a short list of ways we can help our girls be girls.
1. Embrace their inner princess (I think every little girl likes to dress up and ask if she looks pretty...but then to also remind her that it is her heart that is even more beautiful than the dress)
2. Help her discover her talents
3. Remind her of Who God says she is
4. Encourage a strong relationship with her daddy
5. Limit Media (check out this short video before of the evolution of a regular looking girl into a super model.  THIS is what our children (and us) see.  These people we see in magazine and on TV are not real...you can't call what they do "real".  We need to limit the amount of exposure our children receive to things like this)


There are so many differences on so many levels of how we need to be raising our sons and daughters in different ways.  This was certainly not an all inclusive list...but it gives you a place to start.  I have been doing a lot of thinking lately on how I will raise Nicole and Hannah in different ways than how I raise Nathan.

Garage Sale Saturday

This morning, I got to hit up several large garage sales, included a community garage sale.  I went all by myself, which was nice...but lately, Jeremy and the kids have been coming too, and that's also fun.  Today though, I parked my car and walked all over this community looking for some great deals. 

My favorite find was a large trashbag full of pit balls and a blow up swimming pool (the pit) for $3.75 (all I had left).  It is already a huge hit in our house. 

I also found this beautiful lamp shade.

It's exactly what I've been looking for to place in our bedroom.  I am slowly "re-decorating" it.  We have a black and white (with a little green) comforter, white shelves I bought at a garage sale and a few odd and ends to help tie things together.  So, now I have the lamp shade, I've been envisioning...but no lamp.  This is what I want. 

I am willing to find something in another color and spray paint it...be it at Goodwill, a garage sale or something.  I've also considered "making" a lamp if I find a really cool black pedestal that I can run a wire through.  Let me know if you find something to help me complete my piece.  I would LOVE to buy a new bedroom suite too...a black one, but I also think it's absurd to spend $1,000 on something I want but don't need.  Something like this or this,   Our bedroom furniture is great...it's lasted a long time, and I'm pretty sure it'll last many more years.  If I happen to find a great deal somewhere and we have cash on hand, maybe we'll "move up" to an adult set...if not, what we have has been working fine.

Also today I bought a lite-brite for Nicole for Christmas and Twister for a family game night.  I found a big giant, soft truck for Nathan to roll around and several great math books with lots of practice problems.    I feel like I had a pretty good garage sale day. 

When I got home, I took the kids outside to play in the water while Jeremy worked on the yard.  Check out these girls!

Last night after dinner, Jeremy was playing with the girls.  They were chasing around the house, throwing balls at each other, and basically just having a lot of fun.  But, at one point, he focused all of his attention on Hannah and she started screaming "No....No...Daddy No" (in anticipation of him tickling her or something).  Then she yells....

"No, Daddy....ME....Hannah...GIRL!"

Hahaha.  That was her way of asking him not to be to rough with her...because she is a girl.  It was so super cute and funny....and, smart. 

Boys....It Begins

Up until this point, when people ask if there is a difference between having  boys and girls, generally my answer is "Not really".  I mean, Nate was a little more gross than the girls were.  You know, some extra earwax...lots of gas....boy stuff.  But lately, I am beginning to see the "boyness" come out of him.

He is learning to throw things...which we stupidly encourage.  He throws everything and every time we applaud him.  He destroys my "baby cabinet".  You know, the one in the kitchen with the Tupperware and no door.  It's meant for the babies, buy my girls were never interested.  Nathan rips through that cabinet several times a day.  But, most recently, he seems to have an affinity for the bathroom.  If he's "missing"  that's always the first place I look.

What does he do in the bathroom?

Earlier today, I caught him crawling around the room, with toilet paper stuck to his knee...dragging it every where he went.

I came home from a night out with my mom this weekend, and I found toilet paper strung throughout the bathroom.  This picture was from this morning.

Crazy little boy.  I think he's going to be fun!  No, wait....he already is fun!  I love this little boy.

Hairspray

This weekend I took my mom to see Hairspray a fun musical that was being performed at a local dinner theater.  I bought tickets for us to go as her birthday present (yes, I know her birthday was a few weeks ago, but the show wasn't running yet).  We had a nice time.  The food was yummy, the dessert was yummy-er and the show was oustanding.  The singers were superb and the acting was wonderful.  It was better than the broadway show I saw several years ago. 
Here are some pictures of my mom and I.

First Fire of the Season

I don't know about the rest of the country, but we  had beautiful "fall like" weather here last week.  It's nice this week, but last week...oh, last week was wonderful.  The mornings and evenings were cool, there was a nice breeze throughout the day.  I even opened up the windows one day. 

So, of course, with nice weather, comes the desire to be outside more.  We like to eat on our back paver area and usually when we do that, Jeremy gets a fire going.  So, this weekend, we had the first fire of the season.  I wasn't prepared yet with marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate, but we did have popcorn, popped over the fire.  It was so much better than that microwave stuff. 

Looking forward to many more fires to come.

Atlanta

A few weeks ago, Jeremy had his annual AV convention in Atlanta.  At the last minute, I decided to pack everyone up and go with him.  We found a Days Inn in downtown Atlanta, and hoped for the best.  I was nervous about all of us being in a tiny room in the middle of a big city. 

What we found was a decent hotel one block away from EVERYTHING I needed to be near.  It was one block to the Children's museum, 2 blocks to the Georgia Aquarium, 1 block from the Olympic Centennial Park, and less than a 10 minute walk (through the park) to the convention center where Jeremy would be all day.  it was perfect!  We didn't have to drive at all in downtown Atlanta, I was comfortable walking everywhere, even by myself (well, not really by myself, I had three children with me of course), we could go to fun places in the morning and go back to the hotel for naps in the afternoon.  It worked out perfectly!

Except the first night when Nathan was up for a while crying in the middle of night.  The next day, we found the "miracle" blanket that makes his pack n play nice and soft and fuzzy...and bedtime was much better.

So, I took our children to the Georgia Aquarium the first day.  We had fun looking at amazing displays of fish

waving at SCUBA divers cleaning glass

looking at Whale Sharks

and Manta Rays

and sharks with big teeth.

We watched a 4-D movie which terrified Hannah and freaked Nicole out until she realized the fish in the movie wouldn't bit her.

We spent a lot of time in the beautiful park playing on really cool playgrounds, running in giant green spaces, and dancing at a family festival (see video)

Saturday we went to the Children's Museum.  If you are in Atlanta with small children...this is the place to be.  I hope our children's museum (which will be opening in the spring) will be like this one. 

The girls tapped dance (with Grammy...she was able to steal away from the show for a day and spent the morning with us)

Painted

Gardened

Fished

Maneuvered tractors

Climbed on a John Deere

Milked a cow (it even squirted water out when you pulled - yeah...a little weird, I know)

Played in the baby area (on a baby water bed....Nate went crazy.  Totally his favorite part of the day)

and played in sand.

We didn't get to see daddy much, but we knew that would happen.  He was out all day at his convention and had dinners each night with reps who were trying to smooze him.  But, he was near and that was what we wanted.  We did go to Hard Rock Cafe the last night with the company, which was a special treat.

In the past, I've always said I hated Atlanta.  I didn't feel hate this time (mostly because I didn't have to drive in rush hour traffic down one way roads).  We had a super fun time, and I would be up for doing it again.

Check out this video...it has a bunch of little clips including Nate on the water bed, the girls dancing at the park (they were imitating the girl dancing on stage), Whale sharks and manta rays from the aquarium...it's a fun video, I think you'll enjoy it.