Yesterday and Today.

Here are some photos of yesterday that I forgot was too lazy to post then.

Dylan loves the crowns that they give away at BK. He was so sweet, he grabbed one for himself and then one for London and said "She is a princess and I'm a king!" It really melted my heart!

I decided that I would be extra fun and let London have some of Dylan's chocolate milk. He sweetly agreed. So, I got a plastic cup and poor 90% of the milk into that for Dylan and gave the rest to London with a straw in it. I grabbed my camera because I knew her face was going to be priceless. In less time than it took me to do that, she had pored the whole thing down her shirt. Her white shirt. And we still had two more places to run to. Sheesh.

I mentioned yesterday that London went up and down this play thing all by herself for the first time. She has just recently started playing when we go to play places. Until now, she was happy sit with me and maybe tot around the play area. Not anymore though... she thinks she is BIG GIRL!

Of course, she does have an awesome big brother to show her the ropes.

And just for fun, I decided to throw on some red lipstick yesterday. I was just feeling like my outfit NEEDED it. lol. I never wear colored lipstick or lipgloss, but I thought it was kind of fun. I got several compliments at work over it. :) Maybe I'll do it again sometime... next time I'm feeling a little sassy. ;)

Today, London ate with her high chair pulled up to the table for the very first time. She also ate with a baby fork and a real cup too. I couldn't believe how grown up she looked sitting there.

A Day at the Park

Down here in the South, we are NOT use to extremely low temperatures. So, last week when it was in the teens and twenties, our whole town pretty much shut down. Well, not literally, but schools were closed and everyone I know was staying home. I know Northerners probably get a good chuckle at us, but its just the way it is! :)

So, after a week of being prisoners in our own home staying in doors, the kids were about to EXPLODE if we didn't get outdoors.. FAST! Monday it was still a little chilly, but we did get out a bit. But Tuesday was BEAUTIFUL, the kids didn't even need their jackets, so we went to the park for the first time in at least a month!

To watch Dylan and London enter the Park, you would have thought it was Disney World. lol!

London LOVES to play outside with her big brother. Mainly, she just toddles behind him everywhere that he goes. And while he's climbing up int he play area, she just toddles around the area watching him. Its quite cute!

We have several parks in our area, but this is Dylan's favorite. He calls it the "wooden park" because, well... its made of wood. lol. He's creative that way. (Another park that we sometimes go to, Dylan calls "The Lost Puppy Park" because the first time we took him there, we saw what seemed to be a lost puppy! That kid is just funny!) Anyways, its built like a big ole castle and is just perfect for Dylan because he is all into Knights and Dragons and such.

They both stay so busy while we are at the park, but every now and then they stop for a breather and I can snap a couple of cute pictures! haha!

This is my Knight in action!

We usually save the swings for last, because its a good time to calm down and relax. Well, usually... when Dylan isn't too busy pretending to be spider man instead of swinging on his bottom. :)

For some reason, London was not loving the swing yesterday. I don't know why, she usually LOVES it, but she seemed a little freaked out by it. It may have been because her diaper was about to EXPLODE due to being away from the house for to long and me forgetting her diapers at home (did I really just admit that? Please don't throw stones ;p )

*Sigh*

It was perfectly beautiful day at the park yesterday. Even if I did have to break Dylan's heart because I didn't have single cent of cash on me, only a card, and couldn't get him ice cream from the ice cream truck. No worries though, I stopped to get cash today, and will more than ready for Mr. Ice Cream Truck Man tomorrow. Yes sir!

Today we ran a few errands and have just a couple more to run. I STILL need to get to groceries store, but I have to work tonight, so we might be doing fast food and then I'll go tomorrow. I took the kids for a special treat to Burger King for lunch. Dylan LOVES to go, but we next to never do because I can't stand the food. I managed to deal with a burger today though (the things we do for our kids, huh?). London climbed up the toddler play cube and went down the slide all by herself for the first time! I was pretty proud of her.

Off to do some laundry while kids nap now!

Happy Twenty Ten!

So this is my first post of the New Year!! And also my first post in weeks. Sorry about that. I going to do better. That's a promise. I know, I've said that twice now, I think, maybe more. But its true(ish) this time. :)

Not a lot of new to report as for our family this New Year. We do have some exciting thing on the horizon, but I'm not quite ready to spill the beans on those yet. Its NOT baby number three, I will say that!


Trying to recap a big chunk of time (like since the last time I blogged) is just stressful to me, so lets just start afresh, okay?

This past weekend I had to work both days and long, gross shifts. I think its about time for me to think of leaving my little part time job. It really use to be a source of fun and little extra cash for shopping, but its becoming more of a stress and I would quite frankly rather not shop (GASP!). I plan to make up my mind in the next few weeks.

Saturday morning, I was able to spend some much needed time with he family before heading of to work. We often hang out in London's bedroom for one reason or another, and thats what we did on Saturday morning. We just hung out, played with kids, laughed and talked. It was perfect. I love my little family so much! I (of course) had my camera near by. I started snapping some photos, but then in a strange twist of events, I ended up in front of the camera and Daniel behind! haha! I'm not so good in front of it, but that's okay! I may have actually ASKED him to snap a few shots! haha! I would say he's pretty good, no? Ugh. He's good at EVERYTHING he picks up. He's just one of those people. Once, he picked up a harmonica, which he had never played one of before, and with in 10 min was playing a little song (I can't remember which one.. but it maybe Twinkle Twinkle?), and that's a true story. I could list several examples like that. He's just gifted at a lot of things, I guess. I hope our children picked that up from his gene pool! haha! Its one of the millions of reasons I love him. :)

Here's his handy work:

Okay, well this one is mine, but I just love these two boys so much:


Monday was pretty much just a throw away day. I had planned to catch up on house work, but I didn't. I really didn't do much other than play with children and hang out. I had an AWFUL headache, to my defence. And also to my defence, I've been doing house work all morning.

Along with catching up on housework, I plan to take Dylan and London to the park this afternoon and we have to get groceries. Sounds like an intriguing day, huh? :)

Christmas 2009

We had an amazing Christmas Eve night and Christmas morning at our house, just the four of usthis year. It was a pretty traditional (or at least traditional for us) Eve. We put London to bed a bit earlier than I planned (and if you read the last post, fill free to chuckle at me), so she didn't partake in quite everything, which is really OK because she wouldn't have really cared eitherway. But Dylan REALLY enjoyed every tradition this year.

The night was started off with a new thing for us,we had an ardors dinner, just a bunch of finger foods and dips. We let the kids sit in the living room around our coffee table with tree all lit up. It was so laid back and easy. We love it and Daniel and I plan for this to be a "forever tradition".

Then I read The Night Before Christmas to the kids. I always get a little choked up when I hear or read the first few lines of that story... it really does get me every time! After that, we put London Lou in the bed and continued the night with Dylan.

He and I made cookies for Santa, then laid on our bellies under the tree to write Santa a letter. I had to show him how to write a few of the letters, but he did "Dear Santa", "I 'heart' (with the heart shape) U", and signed his name. He interpreted the rest to me to write out for him. He also drew Santa a picture. I think the picture was of Dylan being Iron Man, or Zelda (I wish I would have written that down!). The text that he had asked me to write said "I want lots of toys. I have been good every year. That will be all." I had to giggle!Part of me wanted to prompt him to say a little more, but then the letter wouldn't have been straight from Dyl, so I let it be!

By then our cookies were ready, so we put them on there special plate and laid them by the chimney. This is when panic set in for me that we had used that last bit of milk already! It was snowing out (and we don't drive well in snow down here in the south!!) and everything was closed early due to Christmas Eve. So, I sent Daniel next door to our SWEET neighbors house to borrow a glass. Our neighbor just chuckled when Daniel asked for glass of milk for Santa and sweetly let us have. Whew. Crises averted. London was going to need a milk sippy first thing in the morning... so Santa saved the milk for her! haha.

With Milk and Cookies laid out, we curled up onto the couch and listened to Daniel tell the Christmas Story. It was nice to share the Birth of Jesus with Dylan and let him know why we, as Christians, celebrate the season. Then, it was bedy by time for him!

Daniel and I stayed up and put together a play kitchen for the two of them from "Santa", fixed up the stockings, and placed the presents under the tree. I was so excited to see the kids faces in the morning, that I was the last to bed and first awake!

Christmas morning was pretty much perfect, complete with it being a WHITE ONE (the first white Christmas I have EVER had!). I couldn't have asked for anything more. I just kept thinking the whole time how happy my heart was, watching my two sweet babies experiencing Christmas joy. The kids loved all of their presents. Dylan ripped into all of his, stopping only for a second to admire what it was that he had gotten. London wasn't too into the unwrapping process. She would get excited to see a baby doll or pony, she just didn't want to open it herself.

We let the kids play for a few hours (and mommy snuck in a nap), had lunch, and then packed up and headed out to Mississippi for 5 days of time with our family. We so enjoyed our trip! I'll come back and tell more about it in the next few days. We are so glad to be home again and have spent the evening just relaxing. The morning will be all about getting things into order again.

Hope everyone had as an amazing holiday as we did!

*On a side note, this post is getting too long... so I will post pictures of Christmas morning tomorrow! :)

Christmas Eve 2009 -Unplanned.

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I am a planner. Its in my blood. I am maybe a little overyly obsesive about planning. But those who know me well, mostly all love me anyways. :)

So, I had all my plans laid out for today, Christmas Eve, weeks ago. Sure, there were a few loose ends that had to be tied up in the past week or so, but for the most part it was all neatly orchestrated in my head. Sometimes though, no matter how well you plan, even if its down to the tiniest detail, things happen... life happens... and your plans get blown away in the wind.

Today was one of those days, that plans just didn't really matter. I had planned to have my brother and his family over, as well as my mom (who has already been staying at our house since having her big surgery) for a nice Christmas Eve dinner tonight. The plan was to serve a good 'ole Cajun Christmas, just like the ones I grew up with my MamMaw making (whom I miss more than I ever thought I would), with some serious Gumbo and Muffalettas. What I did not plan was for my week to be so crazy and busy that I wouldn't be able to find time to go to the store until the last minute. Once I realized it would be, however, I did plan to go to the store when I got off work last night. Only I didn't plan to be so exhausted I could barely keep my eyes open. So, my new plan was wake up first thing this morning with London Paisley and head out to the store. This wasn't too big of a deal, seeing as how it was already in the plans to go into town to take the kids to see the Jolly Old Man.

Sounds easy enough, right? Christmas Eve, wake up super early, run around and gets erronds done, be home by 10(ish), start the gumbo, have relaxful time with the family until lunch, have light lunch, get the family ready and head out to our church's candle light service, be home by 3:30 and finish getting ready for the dinner tonight, and finally have our big Christmas chindig. Yep. Easy enough. As of last night, that was the plan that was completely mapped out (down to what the kids were wearing all through out the day (yes... with three outfit changes each.. I know, I know).

What I did not plan, I could not have. It snowed. A lot. A whole, whole lot. And messed up ALL of my plans.

My day went more like this (hold onto your seat, its a lot to follow!):

Got up at 6:30 with London this morning, acording to plan.

Had some unplanned, but much loved, girl time with my mom in her bed, snuggling up with London. This is when I found out about the snow.

Panic sets in at about 6:45 when I realize that my brother may not even be able to make it to our shindig tonight, and we can't change our plans to tomorrow, because we already plan to make our trip to Mississippi at about noon.

We go round and round about how we can work it out.

I finally decide at about 7:30 just go get done what has to get done, and leave the grocery shopping for last, that way we can see if the plan works out or not... also known as this strange thing some people do, "playing it by ear"-I for one, am NOT a fan of this method.

Get the whole family dressed and finally get out the door a little before 8.

The next couple hours, take a little longer, but do not involve any snow, and go quite smoothly... almost like they were going according to plan.

Then, wile we are still out, it starts to snow a little. And my brother watches the weather channel to find out that it is going to actually be snowing a lot.

We decide to move the get together up to "12pm to 1pm"- depending on traffic, due the pesky, beautiful snow.

Panic set in because its already 10:30(ish) and I still have quite a bit to get done. And gumbo is out of the question because there is not enough time to cook it. And I don't really have plan b. I don't really do those.

I gather myself and decide we will do some fanastic finger foods. We decide on WingStop. I decide that we need a little something extra, because thats just not enough food, and decide to go to Walmart. Plus, the baby really needs diapers.

11:00am, I have two hours (or one... depending on traffic) to get to Walmart and Wingstop, which should not be a problem because they are ony about 15 min away.

Really LONG (because, really... this is already a long enough story) and EXHAUSTING story short, It takes me much, much, much longer than I had planned to be done with my "quick run out" and I get home about 15 min after my brother's family has arived. And I bring cold wings and fries with me. And some very yummy dips.

Brother has to leave in a bit of a hurry because he has to drive back in the weather, which is only getting worse at this point. So, my nice sit down dinner party (with gifts to follow) tunrs into an "eat quickly and open presents fast" thing.

Once they leave, we hang out for a bit and play in our unplanned for snow and get ready to go to the later candle light service. Once we are all dressed, and walk out the front door, we realize that this crazy storm has blown in a TON of snow in the past half hour, and we can not (or did not) drive in it to church.

So we scrap that plan, and the rest of them too, and just hang out and play in the snow and with our new toys.

*Sigh*

Nothing went as planned. Really, pretty much nothing.

But you know, after the initial craziness of my plans getting blown away in the... snow... Today was one of the best Christmas Eves that I have ever had.

I had planned to have a little time to relax with the family this morning. But instead I had a ton of time to relax with them tonight. My kids got to really play with their things and enjoy them, and each other.

I surely didn't plan the snow, but would have cancelled every plan from now until the New Year to get to see the looks on my kids faces when they walked outside into our Winter Wonderland. They sounds of their giggles were worth more than all the money in the world to me.

I was a bit sad that we didn't get to have much of a Christmas gathering as a whole family, but I am glad my brother and family were able to get home before the weather was too bad.

Lesson learned this Christmas Eve; While going with out a plan is not something that I am usually very comfortable with, it is not always the worst thing in the world. In fact, "going with the flow" can actually turn out to be quite delightful. Very delightful, in fact.

Christmas Crafts

Its Christmas week! I wanted to do a craft each day leading up to Christmas with Dylan starting on Monday. We do crafts pretty often as is, but I just thought it would be fun and festive to make a big deal out of doing "Today's Christmas Craft!". He gets pretty excited to look at the options in my craft corner and pick what he is going to do that day. Yesterday was so stinkin busy for us, that we hardly had time to turn around, much less craft. So today, I told him we would do two crafts to make up for it.

After MUCH debate, he settled on doing this wooden Christmas tree. I though it would be a cute keepsake that I will put out on a table or somewhere every Christmas. I can't think of decoration I would like more than those that my kids make! I decided I would paint a little sign that said "Believe". He really took his time and tried to cover the whole tree green (like most kids, he usually slops the color on there really quickly and has lots of spaces). He dotted a little yellow at the top for the star. I told him that we needed to wait for the tree to dry before he painted any decorations onto it. I offered for him to help me finish my craft, but he decline and went about his way playing make believe. I couldn't get him to be interested in it again after that. So, here is our plane green tree. I may have him decorate it tomorrow. Or I may not. I kind of like it plane, just the way that it is. It very much characteristic of him at this age.


Dylan decided that he really wanted to wait for his Daddy to come home so that he could help us when we made our gingerbread house. I'm glad that we did. Not only was it nice to do something all together, but that thing was SO messy, and I really needed that extra pair of hands! London was already asleep when we started making it. I'm glad because my poor girly would have been so miserable not being able to eat everything and be in everything with her hands. She just thinks she is a big girl, bless her sweet heart! I can't wait until she is old enough to really join us! Dylan had trouble not eating everything on the table as well! haha! He loved the icing.

This was our first attempt at one of these things together as a family. It was so so messy and I think we added too much water to the icing, it was just every where! We had a lot of fun and giggles making it though, and its something we will definitely do next year and every year after. Next year, maybe London Paisley will be old enough to "help" out some! I bet so!

Our house is not perfect, but it does have a lot of charm!

I even set the self timer on my little camera and got a pic of the three of us. Please excuse my no make up face! haha!

Here is a pic of all of our little Christmas Crafts from today. Ahhh. I love this time of the year!

Ready. Set. GO!!!

Is anyone else's head spinning from the business that is Christmas week. I don't think I am going to have one single day between now and the New Year that doesn't have something pretty large planned. I love this time of the year, but the week leading up to Christmas always stresses me out. Not only do I have event and such to partake in this week, I have to GET READY for Christmas. I still have to wrap ALL of my presents. I still have a few small presents to pick up. and I need my carpets cleaned. Oh. And we are in the middle of (try to) redecorating our living room. Oh. And. I'm hosting Christmas Eve at my house and have not bought groceries. Fun Times.

At least I have these beauties to look at while I'm a busy bee:

Hope y'all are having a Happy Monday!