Princess Boogers

My sweet little angel is the biggest Miss Priss ever. She loves all things princess, pink, sparkly, girly and anything else like that. For the past two days we haven't been able to leave the house, yes this includes going to church, without her princess crown and princess wand. This is in addition to her purse that she carries around full of baby dolls. Everyday she wants to wear a pretty flowy dress as opposed to a jean skirt and t shirt and has to have a bow in her hair even when it's a stay at home kind of day.

I must admit, it's absolutely stinking adorable. Surely you can imagine my surprise when my girly girl has become obsessed with boogers lately. Yes, you read that correctly. Boogers. She loves them.

The other day when my husband was changing her pants, she matter of factly touched her nose, stated that it was a nose, and continued on to "Pick your boogers. Pick your boogers. Pick your boogers." I'm not sure where that came from. But it got better. After she stopped talking about picking her boogers, she busted out with "Spread the boogers! Spread the boogers! Spread the boogers!" and rubbed her fingers all over her face.

Oy.

And just now as we're hanging out on the couch, she was again playing with her nose and said "Mommy, I squeak it." Squeaks it like she does her rubber ducky.

Double Oy.

But it's hilarious. Not that mom's want to admit that their children play with their noses, but I will have to see if I can catch a picture of her in a dress, a bow, a crown, a wand, a purse with her finger shoved up somewhere. It's a sight to behold.

Fluffy Mail

I love cloth diapering. I love the economical aspect, the green aspect, the health aspect, and the cuteness aspect. We've been cloth diapering since birth, and wouldn't have it any other way.

Audrey started off in prefolds and covers, which isn't as bad as it sounds, and moved into bumGenius OS aplix when she was about 2 months. She stayed using primarily the BGs until she was around 6 months. We only had 8 BGs, and we waited until after 6 months to start solids. Once we started solids, we needed more diapers. So, we bought 10 of a knock-off brand that was just launched for $5/diaper . That is insanely cheap for diapers. They held up fine until a few months ago. The PUL on all but 3 completely disintegrated. But, they lasted a year, so that's really not THAT bad. Seriously, how many people spend more than $55 a month on diapers? And we spent that for a year.

So, we bought some new ones since BG is having a sale - buy 5, get 1 free. So, I got 12 for the price of 10. We're splitting them 60-40 between Auds and Tony. We still use the original BGs, so this brings our total to 8 aplix, 8 snaps, and 3 knock-off brand. That's nearly 20 diapers for Auds. And I'm sure we'll get more, but for now, that's pretty good. For Tony we have now 5 covers and a bunch of prefolds, 8 or 10 FuzziBunz, and 4 BGs.

Well, our diapers came in today! I was so excited!

Check it out!

So what did we do with the bad diapers? I gave them to Auds to put on her babies. She had been using her old covers and some sposies that she stole from her friends. But now she's just thrilled that her babies are in all cloth. She is a little confused that they're wearing her diapers, but I think that will pass when she starts wearing the new ones.

Putting a diaper on Gymbo.

And some of her other babies. There's a whole slew of them now.

Proud of her work.

We Heart Homeschooling

I must admit, I'm far from perfect. I work with Audrey a lot with educational goodies, read to her, encourage her, etc. But, some days, I'm lazy. I'm big, I'm tired, and I have heartburn that requires it's own fire department to quench. And on those days, I pretty much lay on the couch and she brings me books to read to her. Not a bad system. On most days, however, I do try to be empathetic and patient and work with her as much as I can.

I also want to help her get a little more independent in her learning so that when Tony comes, she won't (hopefully) be completely upset when I have to nurse, rock, and tend to a newborn. So, today we decided to really jumpstart our homeschooling. We already have tons of books, puzzles, flashcards, and toys that are educational that she loves. But, I wanted to add some variety to our collection.

That and we've been so sick that we've missed all of our play dates, Christmas parties, Mommy and Me classes, and even evening church services this week that we've gotten a little stir crazy. I called up my husband and proposed my idea (I always call him before I plan on purchasing anything, even if it's just letting him know we're picking up some fruit from the orchard because we believe in full disclosure in our finances) and he liked it.

So, our first order of business in kick starting our homeschool stuff was to get an area for Auds to sit. I know exactly what I want for a desk, but I can't find it. Well, I retract that; I found one exactly like what I want at an antique mall, but it's made so small that she wouldn't really be able to use it for that long. Rather than spend $45 on something that she'd outgrow quickly, we went to the Wal-Mart to pick out a table. Auds picked out a pink circle princess table with flowers. Surprise, surprise. She loves it! And it wasn't even $20, so not too shabby there.

Here she is with her little table. The chairs will hold up to 80 pounds. Considering little miss string bean like her daddy just made 23.5, I think it will be quite some time before she gets to 80. And, the table came preassembled, so I didn't have to do anything. Easy for me and instant gratification for her - win, win. Granted, I'd love for her to have a nice wooden set, but that's just not in the budget right now since the one I saw that's gorgeous is $300 dollars. $20>$300 in this situation.

After we got her a table, we went to the home school store. This store is amazing. I love going in there. And she does, too. Even the people in there love her. It's just love all around and I am so thankful that homeschooling is so accepted in this area. Even the Christian academies have homeschooling options, the local gyms/dance centers/ice skating rinks offer classes for physical education, and there's a big homeschooling organization. It's great.

So we get in there, and Auds starts showing off, pointing to things and naming them, calling out letters and numbers and colors, pretty much being a ham. And the girl helping us loved her! She even asked what Auds was interested in and helped us pick out learning toys that would be perfect. The first toy we got has a stand and four blocks. The blocks have an part of a picture of an animal on each side. When you arrange them in the stand in the correct order, the corresponding animal sound is made. Well, Auds kind of broke it already - don't ask me how, but she knocked one of the sensors inside one of the blocks loose and you can hear it rattling around. But, she still loves it. She knows all of her animal noises, so she makes those herself and doesn't seem phased that the stand doesn't make them. And, it's really helping her processing and fine motor skills to put together the puzzle in the small opening on the stand.

Here she is checking it out.

The next item we got is a definite favorite of everyone in the house. It's an activity called "Hot Dots." Basically, it's a bunch of flash cards and you select the correct answer by touching a wand to the corresponding answer's dot.

It comes in everything from letters to numbers, shapes, phonics, colors, patterns, and even all the way up until upper elementary school tasks.

This is the wand that it comes with. There's a dog for the younger kids, and a more boring one for older kids. It's pretty cool. It tells whether the answer is right or wrong, lights up, praises, etc. Audrey LOVES it. We actually didn't get it set up until my husband got home since it required batteries that are too high for me to reach. So she placed it by the front door and kept saying "Daddy come home and make puppy work" all day long. Sure enough, it was the first thing my husband saw when he got home. And the little angel has figured it out already. After the initial joy of figuring out it finally worked and just carrying the wand around, she started selecting answers on the cards - and she picked the right answers! And she loved it! If the batteries die in the wand and you run out, the cards can be used as regular flash cards as well. And they sell extra dots that you just place over the old ones if they get worn down. Definitely a good buy.

Audrey also picked out a pack of stickers - no shock there - and a puzzle with all of the various ways to connect things: zippers, buttons, snaps, laces, buckles. It's a big bear and the pieces make up his outfit. We love puzzles in this house, and this one is no different. I just forgot to take a picture of it. Oops. But it's a Melissa and Doug, so it's not hard to find.

It was certainly a good day in our house! Even though little miss is still covered in hives and I have a nasty cough that makes my heartburn worse. She loves learning and loves her new activities, so I call that a good day.

Bible 24/7

Now, I'll preface this by saying it's not for everyone. You may very well think I'm nuts for what I am about to write. But it works for our family.

My husband and I had talked about doing this for a while, and finally got around to it. We got the Bible on CD and are playing it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year.... you get the picture. Not necessarily so loud that you can't hear anything else, and not loud enough to freak ourselves out when we hear people talking at night, but it is playing nonetheless. Of course, when we really want to sit down and pay full attention to it, we turn it up. But we don't turn it off if we (read: the little princess) wants to watch Veggie Tales.

We like the idea of having the Word being spoken aloud in this house all the time. We do our Advent devotions, and we pray, and we do our evening devotions and read my husband's ministry books, pray over our house and anoint our doorways, and teach Audrey about God and all that jazz. But there is something about the Word of God that is so powerful.

But, it's not physically possible for us to read it all day and all night long. In enters the grandness of CD.

We got the Word of Promise set.

It's pretty darn cool. Instead of just having one person read it straight through, this one has a lot of big named actors putting on a huge production. It certainly makes it more entertaining and easier to follow during conversations. Plus, Audrey really likes all the sound effects. It is reminiscent of the old days of radio.

It's packaged so nifty. Each section has it's own CDs and then there is a big CD case that comes with it so you can keep it in your car if you want to listen to it on the go.

We just started, but we're impressed so far. And, the best part, we didn't have to buy the set. I got it for free using Swagbucks. If you don't know the wonder of the SBs, leave me your email and I will send you a referral link. It is seriously the best thing ever.

It has 79 CDs, so what we're doing is playing one CD on repeat for an entire day. The next morning, before my husband heads out, we switch it out. That way, I don't have to keep up with changing CDs throughout the day, and if I miss a part of the story, I can always catch it when things quiet down.

Auds and I listened to it today while we cleaned and it was great. Auds walked around saying "I listen to the Bible on TV (even though it was playing on my old as Methuselah CD player, but she gets the concept). It's church. " The things little ones say.

Shaklee Goodness

I wrote a long time ago that I won some cleaning products from Bonnie over at House of Grace. Things have finally calmed down enough where I can do a before and after post about them.

So here we go.

My daughter absolutely LOVES stickers. Adores them. She lives and breathes stickers. And she also loves to put them all.over.my.house. She sticks them on the windows, the floors, her babies, herself, me, every where she can think of.

This is her sticker window. Thankfully, they're pretty much centrally located here. She doesn't put them on every window. I wouldn't mind so much, but she gets tired of them being on there, and will try to pull them off. Hence the princesses with their heads ripped off.

Here is a small section of the floor in front of the window. There's a lot more in the surrounding areas.

Basic H All Purpose to the rescue!

Look at that! It's clean as a whistle.

And the floor, too!

Here's another section of sticker-ed goodness in the threshold between the studio and the kitchen.

My beautiful assistant.

And the after.

How about that?

How long do you think it took to clean this mess? 20 minutes? 15? 10?

5! For all of those stickers. All of those stickers stuck everywhere. And that's with my daughter stealing my bottle half the time.

And not only did this get cleaned super quick, but it was a great learning activity as well. Audrey got to see a domestic example being set, and got to learn some other stuff as well. She noticed that the bottle top was purple, so she walked around saying "Purple soap, purple soap, Mommy's got purple soap." And then she would steal it and sing "purple soap, purple soap, Audrey's got purple soap."

She also noticed the H on the bottle, as well as the other letters, and pointed them out.

She had a lot of fun. We got a lot clean. It was a very productive morning. And we did this all while the plague has infected our house.

The Yarnies

I wrote about the yarn people that Audrey and I made and how much fun she had. She still absolutely loves her Yarnie. Yarnie goes everywhere with us.

This is the little man Yarnie that we made for baby Colt.

This is Audrey's Yarnie. It has been loved on every day and every night since we first made them. Yarnie has been in the playroom, the living room, under the couch, in the car, the store, her Mommy and Me classes, friend's houses, you name it. And we all know how tough toddlers can be on their toys. But she's still holding up well.

So if you're worried about how well yarn dolls hold up, there's your answer. It's a great activity to do with your kids. They're a hit in our house!

Oh - New Pork Chop Recipe

It's so easy peasy - which you can't beat when you're pregnant and have a toddler.

Cut up mushrooms and garlic. Add onions if you fancy. I LOVED onions and cooked with them in everything until I got pregnant. Tony HATES onions. Just the smell of onion powder makes me sick. So it was just mushrooms and garlic for us.

Put your pork chops in.

Add your veggies.

Smother in organic creamy soup - the kind that you use for cooking. It can be whatever flavor floats your boat. I used mushroom and garlic. Fancy that.

Drench that in some stock. I always, always, always have stock on hand. If I'm cooking with the crock pot, stock is in there 9 times out of 10.

Cover and cook on low for 8 hours. Serve with rice. Rice is another staple in our house. We eat rice and gravy and meat all the time.

There you go. Quick, easy, and yummy.

Mission to Accomplish

We are nowhere near prepared for Tony. Thanks to his godmother, we have some covers for his prefolds (we'll be using the same ones we used for Auds... unless I can convince Honey to let me upgrade...). Otherwise, we have about 8-10 (I honestly can't remember) small FuzziBunz diapers, white onesies and and a few gender neutral sleepers from when Auds was a newborn. We're going to use her old car seat and stroller, which I got in a gender neutral pattern and we have the crib already side-carred. That actually sounds like a lot. But, as of right now, we need clothes, blankets, a new moses basket and stand, and a closet organizer. And we need to get some new FuzziBunz for Auds.

I'd say this is the point where I'd pull a Jessica :) and list out how much we've saved on cloth diapering. But we've only ever cloth diapered except for the occasional trip, so I have no info on that. I can't even tell you what diapers and wipes cost. We do get the natural wipes for when we're on the road and Audrey finds something sticky, but we go through those like one every couple of months.

Anyway, in addition to needing stuff for him, we also will very likely be moving (we'll know by the end of the year) right around the time he is born. So, I'm trying to compile a list of stuff to complete before March.

1. Buy bins from Wal-Mart. Bins are so much more sturdy than boxes and can be reused for various stuff from clothes to decorations to compost bins.

2. Pack up what isn't needed every day. This includes toys, bedding, clothes, dishes, studio stuff, craft stuff, movies and DVDs, and books. We're going to turn the teeny tiny guest room into a storage room. I'm sure that will look lovely.

3. Clean. I clean all.the.time. One of my best friends jokes with me coz I'll keep apologizing for the mess and she just can't see it. My water broke with Audrey after I dusted the ceiling. Maybe cleaning will kick-start labor.

4. Prepare food. I want to buy and chop veggies - the holy trinity (onions, celery, bell peppers), broccoli, kohlrabi (I have a great recipe for kohlrabi pickles, the whole house is thrilled that it's kohlrabi season again), and pretty much anything that's not carrots or corn. That way I can just grab some to cook with. No running to the store. No chopping with a newborn and a toddler. Just grab and throw.

5. Prepare dishes. I want to make and freeze a bunch of stuff to make it easy. Before I got pregnant and couldn't handle smells anymore, I'd make and freeze rolls, kolaches, pancakes and other stuff to make it super easy to make breakfast for us. I want to stock up on those and make dishes. Red beans, casseroles, lasagnas - any easy recipes would do.

6. Prepare meat. I do this anyway, but it's never bad to stock up. We can't afford to buy a whole cow, and don't know any one to go in portions with, so I buy meat when it's BOGO at the grocery and freeze it. Then I can just throw it in the crock pot or dutch oven and it's all good.

I know I'm missing probably a million things. What else needs to be done before a baby and a move?

Yarn: A Mom's Best Friend

It has been cold here. Like in the 40s cold. And we hate cold. But it is winter... That means a lot of days bundled up inside cuddling. However, as much as I love cuddling with my daughter and as much as she loves cuddling with Mommy and Tony, there's only so much that can be done before one of the aforementioned parties gets bored.

I was wracking my brain for ways to keep her entertained that weren't the same old, same old. Then I remembered an old skein of yarn I had from a photo shoot about a year ago. It took an entire day to untangle the massive bundle of loops and fuzz, but we did it. Yarn is so versatile!

Our first project was keeping it untangled, so we (mostly me, but she's my little helper) wrapped it around the cardboard part of a DVD case. It. works. perfectly. Try it, you should. Then we made yarn dolls. Audrey absolutely loves her Yarnie. She's got one because she absolutely loves dolls. We then made some for her friends' little siblings baby June and baby Colt because they make perfect teething toys! They can't choke on them (if I made them secure enough ;) ), they're washable, and they're not the typical cold plastic teething toys. Audrey HATED the plastic ones with a passion, but loved the cloth ones we had.

June got a girl doll and Colt got a boy doll. The yarn is various hues of blue and brown, so it's not too feminine for a boy. I will take pictures of those later. Audrey won't let me take her Yarnie, I can't let her see that there's another one in the house or she'll want it, and she's absolutely obsessed with cameras. She seriously found my little one and started taking pictures of people at prayer meeting on Monday. And this was not a quiet activity. She would scream "SMILE!" as she was doing it. Not a photographer's child at all.

Today we made God's Eyes. I remember making them way back in the days of summer camp. We already had the yarn and popsicle sticks (which are also very versatile) so we had another free craft. She has renamed them "cookies." I know I'm no Bakerella, but my cookies don't look that weird! I don't know where she got them. Yarnie is playing with the cookies, so pictures of those will be taken later as well.

One caveat... if you have colored popsicle sticks, don't let a toddler chew on them. Said child's teeth, tongue, mouth, face, hands and anything else in the nearby vicinity will be the same color. Audrey decided red was the color of the day.

We Could Never Be Catholic

This isn't a slam against Catholics at all, so don't worry. One of my best friends is a very devout Catholic. And I'm sure that had Audrey been brought up in a Catholic church she would know about the customs and how to be quiet. However, that was not the case yesterday at the baptism we went to.

The baptism was in a beautiful old cathedral and the prayers were said in Latin. Audrey, however, thought that the little book they gave us to translate was for her Dolly to read, so we didn't really know what was going on. She actually did fairly well for the most part. Until she noticed that there were stars on the ceiling. And stars on the tights of the little girl next to us. And when she realized that she was wearing her baby Jesus dress.

Audrey has the most beautiful nativity scene smocked dress that she just HAD to wear yesterday. She would look down and tell everyone she was wearing baby Jesus and point to him in the manger. Well, she started saying this very loudly in the church, and very much enjoyed her own echo. And then she took off to the back of the church to look at baby Jesus in the stained glass window. I must admit, it was funny and cute. Just not particularly appropriate at the time.

At least she sort of understood what was going on. I explained to her beforehand that we were going watch the baby get baptized. We personally feel it is a decision for each person to make on their own when they reach an age of accountability, and she's never seen a baby baptism. So, I tried to explain it to her as much as she could understand it. During the actual baptism she hollered out "Baby June gets 'tized!" That was pretty adorable.

I also learned that my daughter loves Veggie Tales a little too much. A friend of ours who was also there has a little boy named James, but everyone calls him Jimmy. Audrey saw him and said "It's baby Jimmy Gourd!" The associations her little mind makes amazes me sometimes.

We didn't get to see the house this weekend, the owner cancelled at the last minute. He was laying grout at a new house and due to our humid weather, it wasn't drying quickly and he had to stay there until it did. So, we're going to hopefully see it this coming Sunday. *fingers crossed*

Other than that, things have just been busy here. I got a little bit of food poisoning last night from eating fast food. I know it's never good to eat, but it was 7:30 at night and I hadn't eaten since noonish. And in a small town like ours on a Sunday evening, everything but the fast food places was closed. But I won't be eating from there ever again. Oy.

I'm going to try a new recipe for pork chops tonight. Usually I make sweet and spicy pork chops with honey and molasses and stuff. But tonight I think I'll try for some creamy mushroomy pork chops. I'll write a good report if one is worth writing. Until then, I've got some cuddling to do.

Ode to Warm

Being in the South, our house was made to accommodate letting as much cool air in as possible to make the insanely hot summers possible. Add the cracks and shifts that come with age and the fact that most everything in our house is original so 100+ years old, and it becomes a very drafty situation. Our house is a pier and beam home, which means it was built off of the ground to let the air circulate under the house and cool the floors. This in the wintertime is NOT fun. Our house is basically divided in half, the right for the living, dining and kitchen (as you can see in some pictures), and the left for the bedrooms. My office is at the very back of the house and goes across the width.

Our house also faces east, which means one side gets the morning light, and one side gets the evening light. The side that gets the morning light stays warm during the day, while the other side in the shade is cold. At night, that reverses. See, that's not that good coz our bedrooms are on the side that is cold at night and the thermostat is on the side that is warm. So while our dining room is warm, our bedroom is frigid. Or, at least to us Cajuns it is.

Enter my new best friend:

I bought this little heater as a business expense to keep in my office during the winter. See, my office is surrounded by windows; 5 - 2ft. wide by 4 ft. tall windows. That's a lot of windows. That's a lot of drafty windows. That's a lot of cold woman shivering in front of a Mac editing into the wee hours of the morning. This thing is AMAZING. It can warm up the back office that remains about 10-15 degrees cooler than the rest of the house up in less than 5 minutes. It's about 2 feet tall, so it's small and it's pretty cute. It is also ceramic, which means it is cool to the touch.

The top has a set of buttons that I can set to customize my warming needs. It has a thermostat that goes from 60-85, and once it reaches the temperature you set it at, it stops blowing. It oscillates, and you can set it on a timer. The default is 7 hours, meaning if you don't touch anything, it will only run that long. So if you forget to turn it off before leaving, it won't run all day. Otherwise, you can set it to 1, 2 or 4 hours.

This little heater is so fantastic, it has made the rounds all over the house. We put it in the bedroom to keep us warm at night. We have a huge master suite, so we sleep on one side and Audrey has a bed set up on the other. That way we're still co-sleeping, but we've all got our own space. It even goes into the living room during the morning hours to keep us warm while we play in there. If we go in the playroom, we don't have to worry coz that's on the side of the house that is warm during the day.

I absolutely LOVE this heater. I promise I'm not getting paid to write this and it is completely unsolicited. I wonder if I linked this to them if they'd send me a free one?

But, anyway, it's perfect because it allows me to keep the heater lower (reducing our energy bill) but still stay warm. Because it doesn't matter what the thermostat is set on, if it's windy and you have drafts coming in from the windows and the floors, it's going to be cold. It would be outrageous to replace the windows, and we've already put insulation on the bottom of the floor under the house, so we don't have THAT many options.

So if you're looking for a way to keep warm, keep the cost down, have a safe heater that won't burn your kids or pets and doesn't look that unappealing, get this. It's only about $40. I'd say it's worth its weight in gold.

Easy Peasy Quiche

This is a recipe that is perfect for leftovers. I just kind of threw in what I had and will write down the approximate, so yours might look different. Set your oven to 350.

You will need:

Some eggs. You can certainly use more. I only had three. I wouldn't recommend any less than three. Salt and pepper those bad boys up.

Cooked spinach. Be sure to drain it. I think I have about 12 oz. here. It can be frozen, canned, or cooked yourself in a steamer. I just don't think fresh leaves would work well.

Whisk your eggs real well. Or, as Audrey says since I make the pumpkin spice cake with a whisk, "pumpkin eggs" real well.

Put your pie crust in your pan.

Smash up about a cup of croutons, or whatever is left of what you have, and place it in the bottom.

Place the spinach on top the croutons. Layer about a cup or so of cheese on top of the spinach. I forgot to take a picture of it.

Layer meat of your choice in. This is perfect for that leftover Thanksgiving turkey.

Put about a cup, or whatever you have left, of shredded cheese on top of that.

Pour your eggs on top.

Bake it for 45 minutes.

And enjoy. You can tell where my eggs decided to congregate. That's why I'd recommend no less than three eggs. There's a little love spread around, but then there's those two big hunks.

My husband LOVED this. In fact, he's been reading over my shoulder how to make it. Happy baking!

Safari of Lights

Sunday night we headed on down to the zoo for their Safari of Lights preview night. Now, I know it shows in the pictures, but we were EXHAUSTED. So, please don't hold that against me. Yeah, I look rough. Audrey had a bit of a runny nose and didn't sleep at all the night before and woke up early Sunday morning. Couple that with the fact that she didn't think she needed to nap any more than the short amount of time she fell asleep in church mean we didn't really get much sleep - she wouldn't let us have an afternoon nap! I swear we all enjoyed ourselves and had a great time. It just might not translate in pictures. Dolly, however, looks quite rested. Ah, to be plastic with permanently perky features. There's the disclaimer. ;)

Here's little miss checking out the lights. I'm big on baby wearing and carrying little ones. However, being pregnant makes that harder and harder, and she actually likes going in her umbrella stroller. I don't think I'd ever get her in the big travel system, but she cruises in her little one. And, yes, we were that bundled up. And, yes, it was only 60 degrees. There were people there with scarves and gloves, so we weren't the only wimpy ones.

There's my tired princess. She was actually telling me about the lights here. She hand gestures just like her mommy.

With Honey in front of the carousel of lights. This was when we first walked in.

And here she is in front of the garden set up. She saw all the bugs and was talking buggy to them saying "Bzzzzzzzzzzzz" over and over again. I'm not sure what she was telling them or if they understood her, but I'm sure at least she knew.

Peacocks. Oh, yes, I am that mom. I took pictures of her in front of every display that she liked.

Noah's Ark. I thought it was cute that they didn't go overboard with Santa stuff. Plus, it's a zoo... they have two of everything anyway!

Checking out the snowman. She LOVES snowmen for some reason. It's not that we have snow here often. Heck, it was in the 70s with 100% humidity today. But, it has snowed 3 times since she's existed - which is a miracle for us. It snowed the day I started my third trimester. It snowed for her first Christmas season, and it snowed on her birthday. Maybe she has a thing with snow.

In the petting zoo. The animals didn't like us because we hadn't picked up our free popcorn yet and they weren't getting any. We were snubbed. See that dirty look the sheep is giving us?

Here we are in front of the nativity. It's not the best shot because there were a lot of people here, and I didn't want them in my picture. Audrey LOVED it. The entire night she wanted to go back and see "the baby Jesus" and wanted me to pull up this picture on my camera of "the baby Jesus." Today at nap time, she said "Ni-night the baby Jesus." It is stinking ADORABLE. So, since seeing the nativity, everything has been about the baby Jesus. In prayer meeting at church tonight she was saying "I love you, Jesus! I love you, the baby Jesus!" It makes me smile just thinking about it.

"Llama, Mama! Llama, Mama!" Now, she could have either been calling my attention to the llamas, or calling me one. I choose the former. And, as you can see, we got snubbed here too coz of our lack of popcorn.

Hanging with Honey waiting for the train ride. We love this train. It goes through the open area where they keep all the African wildlife. Audrey is a huge fan, too. We ride it every time we go to the zoo. She cried the one day it was closed for maintenance.

With me and Tony. No, my husband doesn't know how to use the zoom function on the little camera. And, yes, I know I look two steps away from death at this point. Like I said, I promise we had a blast.

Watching the people get into the train cars ahead of us. She was doing some serious people watching.

Wrapped up in her blanket/princess cape. It got really chilly quickly. Yes, we're wimps.

Eating Honey's popcorn. We had a very nice unhealthy dinner out with our popcorn, our soybean burgers (my hubby had a chili dog with extra chili - yuck) and drinks. Audrey had juice, but I let her pretend to drink my sprite.

And that concludes our evening. We drove home, got the baby a bath, put her to sleep and cuddled. It was a Sunday and I didn't do any work. I'm really liking that. Granted, I have to make up for it during the week, but it's really nice to have that family time.

Where Has The Time Gone?

It seems like it was JUST Halloween, and now Thanksgiving passed and all of our Christmas stuff is up. Last night we went to the zoo for their Safari of Lights program. The reason we went last night instead of closer to Christmas was that it was free...well, free for members. We are members of the zoo, which is a fabulous thing. The tickets pay for themselves in about 2 or 3 visits, we get discounted tickets to their limited time events, like the Boo at the Zoo, and for their long-running events they have preview nights where we get to go in for free.

And that's what last night was. Not only did we get in for free, but we got popcorn and drinks free as well. They even discounted their concession stand prices for the event. Hot cocoa was only $1 and soy bean burgers were only $2, it was great. Well, not so great if you have food allergies. Audrey and I are allergic to cow's milk (but certain dairy items like butter we can handle in small doses, so the popcorn wasn't too bad. I doubt they even used real butter, anyway) and Audrey is sensitive to carrots, corn (of all things!) and some wheat products. That's why I bake all of our breads at home. I know what type of flour to buy that makes everyone alright. I do have a sensitivity to soy, but I only get those burgers once in a blue moon.

I highly recommend checking out the zoo near you for stuff like that. Granted, it's only 30ish minutes away from us so we can go frequently. But not only are zoos family friendly, but they're educational as well... which makes them perfect in my book.

I'll post pictures when I get to the back computer tonight. That'll be after prayer and after editing. And I also have to make time to prepare a Sunday School lesson in there too. My husband and I were informed yesterday that we're teaching the teenagers this coming Sunday. We had no idea, but we're gonna give it a go. The good thing about the SS program at the new church is they have a select group of teachers. It's divided into couples per Sunday so that the kids get a male and a female influence in their lives. And each could only goes once a month so there is no wearing people out. That is so nice.

At our old church, we were the youth leaders, the Sunday School teachers, as well as a million other things and had to do it every.single.Sunday. Not that we didn't absolutely love it and love working for God, but it does wear a person out trying to get parents all week to bring their kids to Sunday School, preparing a lesson when you have no idea if any one is coming, getting there early to prepare and pray, and then having kids walk in 10 minutes before class ends because the parents forgot what time everything started.

Now we are the kick start leaders and teach the first Sunday of every month (pressure!) but then don't have to teach until the next month. It'll be nice to get to teach as well as get a break!

That's not the only news that happened at church. My husband was definitely called out from the pulpit. Not in a bad way at all. The pastor was talking about the five-fold ministry plan that is laid out in the Bible and about the importance of preachers and teachers in developing the church. He then proclaimed "Do you think it's a coincidence that the Lord brought this man of God (points to husband) when we're experiencing great growth and are expanding our building?!" *Cue everyone turning and looking at us as I wipe my girl's runny nose* It's a good thing, and it is very exciting to know that God is going to use us there. However, had I known he was going to do that, I would have smiled and wiped the sneeze juice off of my own face (since my daughter loves me enough to sneeze at me mid-kiss sometimes)!

I swear it was just yesterday that God called us there and we were having the initial discussions with the pastor and praying about going there. And now we're actually starting to work there. I can't wait to see how my husband gets to help people. He's so knowledgeable and I'm honored to be a part of this with him.

But, anyway, where has the time gone?! Three weekends until Christmas! What? If the client's baby is born this week, I'll have a newborn session on Saturday (if not, it's a work day), then a wedding next week, then preparing for the holidays, and then it'll be time for New Years. Eek!

Am I the only one who is amazed at how quickly everything is happening and time is going by?

Our Stockings and Advent Calendar

Friday my husband worked all day, so it was just me and Audrey hanging out (and Tony too, of course). When he got back, we put up our stockings and our Advent calendar.

This is my husband's stocking. We hung everything from the same twine that held our Thanksgiving leaves.

This is Audrey's stocking. Would you believe she took this picture herself? Not to bad for a 21 month old.

Here they are hung side-by-side. I took pictures of the progress.

And mine joins in. The red and white ones are hand made. I got them from an adorable shop downtown. They were actually supposed to be priced $30 each, but on one of them the tag was mislabeled, so the owner gave them to me for $10 a piece. You can't beat that with a stick. They only had two, so we got Audrey a cream one to match. Next year I'm gonna go back and see if they have two more in a similar style for her and Tony. I absolutely love them. MUCH better than the stockings that we had since we were dating that they replaced.

Here's my husband hanging up the cats' stockings. They have the same stockings that we used to have. The $1 stocking with the fur that falls off and the names written in cheap glitter glue. He refuses to let me buy them new stockings.

Here's a close up, with a stocking for Mike as well. He's an honorary member of the kitty clan. He's so well known in this house, Audrey knows his name, what animal he is, and what sound he makes. If we're out and she sees someone with LSU stuff on, she shouts "Hi, Mike the Tiger! ROAR!" It's adorable.

This is what my monkey child did while my husband hung stuff. They say girls are more calm than boys. If this is true, then Tony will be on top of the tv. Oy. But it'll be fun to watch my monkey children play together.

Here's my husband hanging our snowflakes for our Advent calendar. No, he's not standing on anything. He is really tall. And I was sitting down on the couch, although that didn't put me THAT much shorter than when I stand up.

Almost done with all of the snowflakes.

When he finished hanging the snowflakes, I hung up the cards I made. Each card has the day of December it is on the front and a Scripture on the back. I did the birth of Jesus in Luke. I started when Gabriel came to Mary, skipped through Mary's visit to Elizabeth, picked back up at the census, and ended when the shepherds worshiped the Lord. 24 in all.

That's what it looks like from the other side. There's all the verses.

That's what they look like all hung up with our stockings on either side. I really like how it turned out. What we're going to do is flip the card over for each day as we read the verses. And that way, on Christmas Eve, we would have read the story of Jesus's birth to our little family. Can't get better than that. And the total cost was $8, and that was for the snow flakes. The cards, the twine and the clothespins I had on hand. Not to bad considering we're going to keep them and do it every year. We might incorporate other aspects, but I like the tradition of it and keeping the time about the birth of our Lord and not the presents under the tree.

Are you doing any Advent/countdown/special things this year to celebrate Christmas?

Oh, and by the way, I really wish people would not get so huffy about the whole CHRISTmas vs. Xmas thing. If they'd do their research, they would realize that Xmas is a completely CHRISTian thing. The "X" is the Greek letter for Chi, which is the first letter in Christ. It was used similarly to the fish symbol by the early church to speak of Christ without persecution in public. The "mas" comes from Latin in the old church deriving from an actual mass celebration. So it really was an abbreviated way to write Christmas and denote a celebration of Christ in the early days. It's nice to think of how despite how much man tries to dismiss the Lord and remove Him, He is still very much the center of everything. *Stepping off of soap box now*