Tired with a capital "T"!

I haven't been as tired as I was Saturday in a LONG time!

Arissa had 2 parades, one in the morning and one in the evening. Jesse and I ran down the sidewalks alongside the girls as they marched...taking pictures and cheering when we could catch our breath. Before the 2nd parade, the girls took time to try and sell a bit of their recent fundraiser to the crowds on the street, which basically meant we had to walk a whole parade route 3 times! By the time we got home, our feet were aching, our faces hurt from all the smiling & laughing, and we were just exhausted!

Nana & M&M waiting for the first parade to begin:

Marching:

After lunch, with her team friends:

Between parades, and after lunch, the team did a little photoshoot in the park:

2nd parade...lined up and ready to go:

Luckily it wasn't too cold, and it was fun enough that Arissa didn't realize how tired she was until she got in the car and fell asleep. And we get to do it all again this weekend, with two different but same-day performances!

Sweet with a capital "S"!

My little Mariah is so very sweet. She's so motherly and kind.

On Friday night, I was feeling down and she noticed I was crying. She came out of the room (where she'd been watching tv) and asked me what was wrong. Note: As soon as she noticed something was wrong, she used her soft sweet voice...like the way you'd talk to a baby or a kitten or something.

And this is the rest:

me: "oh, nothing, i'm fine. I'm just a little sad."

mariah: "do you miss your mama?"

me: "yeah"

mariah: rubs my arm, looks around, thinks, then says "if a pin pokes us, do we die?"

me: "you mean like a needle? no, that wouldn't make us die. how come?"

mariah: "cause I want you to die so you can be with your mama, you miss your mama."

me: "oh, but I don't want to die, I'd rather be here with you guys"

mariah: still in that super sweet, high voice "well its okay, we won't miss you, we have your picture"

:o) needless to say, I was fine after that. What a sweet girl!

Random

Seems like I neglect to post for weeks on end...and then I finally upload like 90 pictures and it totally overloads my server or whatever and it takes forever! Oh well!









Random happenings, in somewhat of an order:














This sweet girl is losing a tooth! This is probably the most unflattering photo of the 20 I took of her, and yet it's the only one where you can actually see the tooth.








Thanksgiving was lovely! Starting with the weather...it was rainy and cloudy and cool, I LOVED IT. Dinner was fabulous, as always. There was lots of talking and laughing and hanging out with family. I don't know how my Nana manages to cook for 15 people at her age, but I'm glad she does. My poor family is going to really miss her Thanksgiving meals when it's all bestowed upon me someday. :O)


















Friday Jesse got up early (before 10am!) and started working on the star. And yes I joke about him getting up "early", but to his credit, he really did spend mostly the entire day working on that star, and the lights, and everything.




This only lasted for about 5 minutes and my nerves couldn't take it anymore, so down they came:


We also put up all our Christmas decorations, and our lovely tree (not pictured):



Hallelujah! I told myself I wanted to get all my Christmas cards & gifts done by the beginning of December so that I can spend the next 25 days enjoying myself and having fun with the girls...not worrying about what I haven't gotten done yet. And for the most part, I did it and I'm proud of myself! Cards are done, though not in the mail till this coming weekend:

2008 is going to be a truly "handmade Christmas"....here's just a few of what I've been making for the children in our family and our close friends' children:

And here's where the "random" part of this post comes in I guess:

How cute are these guys? (Mallory & Jesse):

And how freaking disgusting is this guy, who decided to spin a web connecting from my hydrangeas, to our window awning....right in a prime spot for me to stick my head through it when I turn on our hose???!!! I shudder everytime I think of the scene (and noise) that would have resulted had that actually happened!.....

'Tis (almost!) the season:

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Weekend of Birthdays!!!

This weekend was so busy.....it was jam packed full of birthday parties! Mallory had a party friday evening, while Arissa had drill team pratice, then arissa had a birthday party saturday at noon, while Mallory had another one at 12:30 and ANOTHER at 2pm! We didn't know how we were going to do it all, but we couldn't find a fair way to pick and choose which to attend and which not to. So we did it all! Jesse played chauffeur and drove everyone around, while I prepared the gifts and looked after Mariah...who's schedule was empty. :O( But we took advantage of the time alone to do some special stuff. Friday night I took her to build-a-bear, which gave her the thrill of her life! I made it a surprise and didn't tell her until we got there where we were going, and she flipped when she saw the store. I SO wish I had the camera with us, but Jesse had taken it to the party he took Mallory to. But we had fun nonetheless. Then Saturday she and I browsed at Barnes & Noble, and then had lunch together. It was nice and quiet and fun. And Mariah loved being the "only child". :O)

Mallory @ party # 1:
presents in hand for parties # 2 & 3:

Mariah w/ her new special bear: "Cinder Ella Howard"

Arissa, all ready for her big party....it was a 50's dress up theme. So we pulled out this OLD hallween costume of mine, Nana did some alterations, et voila:

i give up!

Next year, our family Christmas photo is just going to be a handrawn rendition of the 5 of us or something.....cause I just can't handle the stress of putting together a nice family shot!



I had put it off long enough, so yesterday we headed out to take the family christmas photo. I don't know why I thought it would be quick and easy. I know it's not the girls' fault, I know they have short attention spans, but I just wanted ONE good picture I could use, and it was nearly impossible to get them all looking in the same direction (AT THE CAMERA) and smiling. And they each have a version of a forced smile that I had to try to avoid. You know, where their face is frowning but their lips are smiling. And then inevitably, they started to annoy eachother, they had to sit next to eachother for 2 seconds too long and it erupted into near bloodshed.



I realize these pictures are still cute in their own way, but they are also very FRUSTRATING for a mama who just wants to get a nice picture where everyone looks natural and happy and christmas-y:

I don't have a Border Terrier, or any dog for that matter, but you can bet that if I did I would totally buy this:

or maybe:how cute is that! :O)

I love this one too:

halloween

These cheap little costumes I got at walmart that caused me so much guilt (over not buying or making really super NICE costumes like I should have) turned out pretty cute after all. I guess it all depends on the kids that are wearing them! :O)

The bunny:


The kitty:

The devil:

It is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to get all 4 of these people to look at the camera and do something close to a smile at the same time! And Nana is just as bad as the girls! I took like 6 shots and I got this one right before they all got frustrated with me and ran off:

starting our walk:

We made our rounds w/ one of the girls from Arissa's Sunday School class, so M&M stuck together as well:

The girls had a great time. We got several compliments on how polite they were, which made me happy. :O) I told them: "there's two parts to trick-or-treating....saying trick-or-treat, and then saying thank you!". They did great.

The house adjacent to ours offered a free haunted house from 7-9pm, at first all 3 girls wanted to go through, then Arissa & her friend changed their minds and I changed Mallory & Mariah's minds for them when we heard grown adults running out of it screaming. But fortunately, we could still hear all the sounds of it from our house, and Arissa & Jesse spent awhile in the backyard peering over the fence and watching our neighbors scare OTHER people to death. :O)

the pumpkins

As Jesse pointed out, you'll notice, even in these blurry below-par photos that there's still lots of insides left in them.....and my response to that is it's quite a tough job to do 4 in one night, and I'm lucky I finished them at all! :O)

Here they are:



Mallory's pumpkin, cat on the moon:

Mariah's pumpkin, star eyes and 'kissy' lips:

Arissa's pumpkin, silly face:

Family pumpkin, scared face:

And here's my pretty little "tiny tot" dancer in her brand new leotard:

And here's the recent little gal that I made (her skirt lifts up to show white little underpants) :):

School pics ~ Boo Parade ~ Pumpkin Carving

Arissa & Mariah got their school pics in yesterday:
Arissa, third grade

Mariah, kindergarten

Last weekend was Arissa's first actual parade with her drill team. It was hot as all heck, and by the end of the parade route, every girl on the team had red cheeks and could barely force a smile. :O) But they did great, it is so amazing to watch them. They're just little girls but they memorize all these complicated routines and they are super performers. Not to mention they're all super super sweet kids.

What was NOT sweet, however, was the fact that our camera broke JUST as Arissa's group rounded the corner into view. So I have no actual shots of the team. Seriously, it worked seconds before they marched up, and it worked after. Go figure.

But here's what I did capture:

How to keep 2 little tinies busy while you wait 2 hours for the parade to start:

take 'em to Burger King and give 'em an ipod:

The girls waiting for sister to march....with Aunt Nancy and Cousin Marcy visiting from Utah:

And the pumpkin carving! I so wanted to get those new pumpkins I had seen at JoAnn's....they're plastic but they're meant to be carved----so there's no mess and you can reuse them. But then I figured, we already have a fake Christmastreee, we can't have fake everything or why even celebrate! So we got a big pumpkin and the girls helped clear out the insides. Arissa REALLY wanted to do some cutting, and we let her do a little but then I couldn't take it anymore...I was scared she'd slice off a finger.

don't you love how Mallory is blurry in this photo? It's just like real life...she's always a blur of movement!

Then last night Jesse bought FOUR MORE pumpkins...because the girls all fought over what we would carve on the first one. So I printed out several tempaltes and let them each choose, then I spent last night carving them all. Our porch looks quite Halloween-y, I love it. I have to upload those pictures, so pumpkin pictures will post tomorrow!