open wide!!

Levi had his first trip to the dentist on Monday! I didn't tell him until we were getting ready to leave. Bring on the tears!! He was adamant that he did NOT want to go. I bribed him with a new toy AND told him that he'd get a new toothbrush! ;)

Ms. Olivia was great!! She made him feel totally at ease and even offered to sing the ABC song to him. He said "No thanks." Ha!!
He looks so big in this picture!

I asked Levi to tell me some cool things about the dentist:

1. He got a green toothbrush. His favorite color!!

2. His dentist's name is Todd, which is the name of our neighbor.

3. He got to pick out a new semi truck.

4. Papa Bobby, Papa Phil and Curious George all go to the dentist too.
5. He got to hold the "slobber sucker" all by himself. :)

thankful

After my little jaunt to Bowling Green, I was a little excited for some down time over the weekend! Friday night, my mom and I went to my sister-in-law's Thirty-One party. I really like their stuff!! In fact, I was able to buy three Christmas gifts and am excited about that. :)

Saturday, Eric spent all day putting up Christmas lights outside...YEA!! I haven't taken pics yet of the inside or outside of the house. Will try and do that tomorrow! It feels so wonderful to be all decorated for Christmas. This is one of my favorite weeks of the year! I love Thanksgiving just as much as Christmas. In fact, the two holidays kind of run together for me. We have lots of family traditions over the next month. SO.FUN!!

On with my weekend...Saturday night was supposed to be some girl time at my sister's house. Jill, Lisa, Tricia & I try to get together fairly often to hang out. (We all grew up together!) THEN...my sis and her girls had to go and get the CHICKEN POX!!! Eeek! Yes, they all have them. Poor little family. :( So, plans changed and Jill, Lisa & I went to Cheddar's for dinner & the Pie Kitchen for dessert. It was really fun and just nice to sit and chat!! We haven't done that since right after I had Maggie. Time flies!

On to today. Our sermon was about being Thankful. I.loved.it. It was as if God was speaking directly to me. Be thankful in the little things. Be thankful at all times. I'm thankful for SO many things...my family, my friends, my church, all the little daily things that I tend to forget about...the list goes on. Most of all, I'm thankful for Jesus. I mean really...He died. For me. He died for you. Because of love. And that's all that really matters. All of these things in life that seem so important - they're not! It all comes down to Jesus.

I don't mean to preach...I just get happy about that. :)

So, as we head into the week of Thanksgiving, I'm planning on starting each morning by just being thankful! Good food! Time with family & friends! Shopping on Black Friday! ;)

sometimes you just have a vision

I certainly did! I had a vision of how I'd planned the perfect little get away. I'd been looking forward to it for weeks and we were gonna have so.much.fun.

Wednesday was Gretchen's birthday. Eric had Thursday & Friday off of work, so HE suggested I go down to see her Thursday night and come back Friday. He'd watch the kids. Sa-weet! So, here's how the night was supposed to go down. I'd get there around 4 and we'd leave to do some shopping, a nice leisurely dinner at Olive Garden (Yummy!!), maybe some more shopping and then find a great dessert place, stay up late chatting, hang out Friday morning and do a fun breakfast and then I would head home. Now, come on, doesn't that sound fun??? Yeah, I thought so too!!!

Let me fill you in on the real story. (If any of the following sounds sarcastic, it probably is!)

I left Indiana around 2. I was so excited! Headed down to see my BFF and go out for her birthday! Woot Woot! I stopped to get a large Diet coke from McDonalds - a great way to start my trip. I cranked up the Christmas music and just sang my little heart out. (I know...what a sight!) I smiled at all the truckers as I passed by. (Now that I think about it, I probably was giving them the wrong idea! I was just happy to be kid free for a while! They might not have seen that in my smile! Oops!) So, two hours later, I arrived in B.G. ready to have some fun! While we were sitting on the couch chit chatting and waiting for Paul to get home, Hope did a fashion show and showed me every pair of shoes she owns. She's so funny!!

Then it happened. Gretchen's phone rang. She was expecting Paul to call and say "Hello my darling Love Bug, I'm on my way home so you can go out and have a carefree evening." But, that's not what he said. At all. It went more like this "Blah, blah, blah...I won't be home until 8." I saw Gretchen's eyes get really big and in her high-pitched "trying to be nice but I want to scratch your eyes out" voice, she said "Okay. Um. Okay. Are you serious? You're kidding, right?" He wasn't kidding. So, us, being the incredibly cool and flexible moms that we are decided "Kids, we're going to Olive Garden!" I mean, still gotta eat, right?? Just going to do it with kids now. Hope was excited because they have mac n cheese. Pierce, on the other hand, was not so excited because this was the place that took "a long time to get your food". ;)

Insert cute pictures at Olive Garden
Cool and flexible birthday girl & her cutie patootie

Happy go lucky Tracey & my adopted daughter, Hope

Salad. Need I say more?? MMmmmmmm

And something fruity!! :)

I know, I know. The excitement of this night is killing you, but there is MORE!

We took Hope to Master Cuts in the mall for a hair cut. :) (Pardon me. I forgot after shots!!)

And to top off the Mall adventure, we checked out new eye glasses for Gretchen.

Um, these weren't my faves:

What about these? (Has anyone seen NCIS Los Angeles? The little lady on there?? Yeah, she's Gretchen's twin!)

And the winner is (Drumroll please...........)

Super sheik, super cute, totally DKNY! What a cute soccer mom, don't you agree?? :)

Let's see. At this point, it's time to take the kids home for bed so that Paul can take over and we can go out for some dessert.

Look at these cuties!

And, self pic. Same pose, different clothes. ;)

That's all the pics I have. The rest of the night was less exciting. I called to check in on my peeps back home. A little background info: I took Maggie to the doctor Wednesday after we were up all night together the night before. Walking the floors until 4:30 am = not fun!!! She had a double ear & a sinus infection. Poor bebe. Okay, back to the story. When I called Eric, this is what I heard in the background:

"Waaaaaaaaaaa"

It doesn't look that bad typed out, but over the phone, it was a screeching scream. A non-stop scream. Eric said she wouldn't calm down. She wouldn't let him sit down. Just screaming. I looked up at Gretchen while I was still on the phone and she said "You're leaving, aren't you?" Yes. The Mom in me took over and in the next 15 minutes, I was Indiana bound. I probably over reacted, but I've been there, done that, and know how hard it is to console a baby. Didn't want Eric to have to do that alone. I'm a sucker for my kids. A sucker who walked in my house, saw two sleeping kids and breathed a sigh of relief. I kind of wanted to kick Eric in the shin REALLY hard because of how the night panned out, but I refrained. ;)

So, that's how my FUN BIRTHDAY evening turned out. I feel thankful that I got to see Gretchen for a little while, even if we did it with kids & me choosing to leave abruptly - both not planned! But, when you become a mom, I guess things don't always go as planned! It's a wild ride, but one I wouldn't change for the world.

Love you, G, and I hope that despite the craziness, you still had a good birthday!!!!!!!

my baby girl

Maggie is 6 months old today!! I can't believe how quickly the time has gone by. Even though I love each new stage she reaches, I am sad to think that my baby is growing up!

Maggie, you are so precious! Anytime someone looks at you, your face lights up and you have the cutest smile. You love, Love, LOVE your big brother and when he walks into the room, you stretch any way you can to see him. You have the biggest belly laugh I've ever heard when he talks to you. In the mornings, when he walks into your room, you scream with excitement!

You don't have any hair, and even though I dress you in pink, some people tell me you are the prettiest boy they've ever seen! ;) One day you will have lots of hair and I will delight in using a ton of bows!!!

You are all.over.the.place! You "army crawl" or roll to get what you want and just in the last two days, you get up on all fours. You will be busting out soooo soon!

You love the music and fish on your crib aquarium. You love applesauce and sweet potatoes. You also love your bouncer and get quite a workout while you play in it.

You moan really loudly to put yourself to sleep. When I rock you at night, sometimes Daddy & I have to turn the tv way up because we can't hear it over your noises!!

Daddy & I call you Mags and your big brother calls you Maggers or Sweetie Pie. I hope you will always remember how much we absolutely adore and love you!!! You bring our family such incredible joy and laughter. I love you, Maggie May!

First trip to Bowling Green!

Ok, I say "first trip" because I don't really count when we helped them move. I was still in denial and trying to bribe Paul into staying in Indiana!! ;)

So, what's a couple of days with two boring SAHM's in Bowling Green look like, you ask...

Here you go!

Gretchen, quite the hostess, baked for us! Mmmmmm...
Maggie was excited to roll around and have some attention!

While Pierce was in school, Levi & Hope were glued to some dog movie (YAWN!)

Um, okay, so those are the only pictures that got taken the first day! Lame, yes. The kids did their kid things and Gretchen and I just visited. It was really nice that we both got to just be lazy together and actually be in the same room instead of texting! :)

Enter Day Two:

The kids woke up bright and early ready to play!!! (Love my children and would do ANYTHING for them, but something to be said about looking forward to the empty nest days... ;) Just sayin...)

Guns & swords...naked. Awesome.

And it is a good thing that this poor child has Gretchen as a Mommy and doesn't rely solely on Paul for all his needs. I mean, who lets a kid wear a Pats hat?? Geesh!

What else is there to do in the big metropolis?? WALMART!! Yes, sadly, we made a trip to the big W. I wanted to get a DVD player for the ride home (for Levi, not me!). While there, I wanted to take some "People of Walmart" pictures, but then decided that might not be best (we didn't want to get beat up!), so here's a cute little "smile kids, we're in Walmart" picture!!

Okay, stay with me here!! When we got to the van, we decided to tell the kids where we were going for lunch. I was gonna snap a shot of the EXCITEMENT!!! They were waiting anxiously for us to tell them....Gretchen screams "CHUCK E CHEESE!!!!!!!!!!!!" and this is what we got:

Seriously...give us at least a real smile!!

Once we got there, it was happy-go-lucky for everyone! We got a gazillion tokens and the kids took off! Can I just insert a little disclaimer here? Don't go to Chuck E Cheese unless you are willing to give them your arm, leg and one ankle. Expensive!! I guess Hope did get a necklace and a sucker and Pierce got two crayons, though. ;)

Poor Hope didn't realize that the game still needed tokens. She was just jumping away!!!

Pierce in a self portrait!

Levi chomping his third piece of pizza! Boy chowed on some food!!!

Oh, and of course, Maggie was too excited to be there!

Shortly after lunch, we headed back for Indiana. It felt like the trip happened so fast! I'm super glad we went and I know this will be the first trip of many!!! Thanks, guys, for letting us crash, eat your food, baby-tize your apartment, play with your toys, and drag you to Walmart!

Until next time...

guessing game

Guess what I'm doing today.

Packing.

Guess why I'm packing.

I'm going on a road trip.

Guess where I'm going.

Bowling Green!!!! :) :)

adorable

My 10 year old niece, Megan, was over tonight. She is awesome with the kids!! She and Levi were playing "School" downstairs. I walked down to check on them and she was being the teacher, while Levi was the student. She said "Ok, we're going to learn about nouns. A noun is a person, place or thing. Tell me a noun..."
Levi said "I just wanna color."
Too cute!!!

photo shoot

My mother-in-law brought over a dress and asked me to take Maggie's picture in it. It was HER DRESS as an infant! Isn't that amazing?? It's still in really good shape. So, I tried to get a cute picture of the little wiggle worm.

And, of course, had to throw in a sleeping baby picture! I remember the first time we put her in her crib and it swallowed her up! Now, she sprawls out and looks SO BIG. *tear*

candy overload...

We have so.much.candy here. But, I'm not complaining! ;) Trick or treating was a lot of fun. Here are a couple of highlights!

Ironman and his ballerina
While the Mommy's took the kiddos around to gather the goods, the dad's stayed in the cul-de-sac to pass out candy and boogy! Our neighbor is a DJ and he set up some of his ?? "DJ stuff" ?? I'm not sure what it is called. Speakers, music, lights.....help me out, people!!! He had some awesome Halloween music going - including Thriller! You could literally hear the music from a couple streets away! Way to go Todd!!

Mags slept during the music. Little ballerina was WORN OUT!

I didn't get a lot of pics this year, but here's a cute one of the frog (Hillary) and Ironman (Levi)

I had a great time with the kids but missed my sidekick! :(