"I Know You..."

Halle's current obsession are Disney princesses. I am not a princess person. I have to admit, though, that I have always loved Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Beauty and the Beast (I can do without the rest- Jasmine, Ariel, etc.) So I can handle her princess-love up to a point.

When Cate started singing this on her own- no prompting at all- I ran for the camera:

And then, of course, Halle had to have her turn singing it the "right way":

To watch the real "Once Upon a Dream", click here.

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And a bonus video for you:

Thanksgiving

We did Thanksgiving in Batesville this year with JD's side of the family.

Here he is with our girls and his sister's boys:The "Kid's Table":These two love their newest cousin, Parker:Aunt Kristi caught them singing to him in his swing:The Cousins:

(Caleb, Cate, Jake, Parker & Halle)We did our second round of feasting at Aunt Kathryn's house. Here she is with Cate:

Jake, Halle, Pepa, Gran-Gran, Caleb & Cate: This picture is a perfect illustration of these girls' relationship- Cate will not be left out of anything. And Halle is always good to help her:

Happy Thanksgiving!

basketball & other silly stuff

I can not get a good picture of both girls at once anymore... That was before the game tonight. We actually got there with more than a couple of minutes left in warm up! That meant some extra run-around time. Yay!
We beat Williams Baptist tonight by 8. We did not look as good as we have been. Oh well. 8 & 2 isn't too bad of a start!

This is after the game with Beau (graduated last year)- he is wearing JD's jacket: Yesterday we made smoothies* for snack time. I had two VERY excited little girls!Mm-mm, good!These glasses are my favorite thing in the dress up box. I get the giggles whenever one of the girls comes out wearing them!I'm even giggling right now...AHHH HA HA HA!

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*Their smoothies were just frozen strawberries & peaches blended together with milk. Um. Yeah. I had to hide mine to add a little sugar. Sometimes I get this suspicion that maybe things like that were common occurrences in my world as an oblivious child. Mom? Am I right?

'Tis the (Pre)Season

Thanksgiving might be my favorite holiday. Food that rivals any other holiday (okay- minus the Christmas cookies.) Family that gathers for no other reason than to love each other, be thankful, eat, and watch football (plus a little college basketball.) I love it.

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Having said all that, I'm the tiniest bit embarrassed to confess that I'm also one of those people. You know- the ones that trade in their Thanksgiving and fall decorations for Christmas stuff before Thanksgiving even comes. For me, it's a time thing. Our tree is beautiful, but very time intensive. And we travel for Thanksgiving. And the week before we leave is always filled with basketball games and other weird stuff that pops up (like feeding the team tomorrow night.) So there are my excuses. Forgive me, True Thanksgiving People. At heart I am one of you.
The first decoration that goes up every year is my nativity scene on the mantle. It's the big Willow Tree one that I got the first Christmas after we were married. I get giddy getting it out of the box (but you all know I'm a little weird.)

This year the girls got to open up the nativity ornaments that Aunt Kathryn gave them while I did the big one:Cate probably pointed out her "baby Dee-sus" 50 times. And Halle laughed every. single. time.:Guess who put the star on this year?She put the "ord-a-ments" on just right:Cate had to have "lessons" from Halle. Most of them still dropped straight to the floor.

(See her curls? Some days it is just long and mullety. Yesterday I made up my mind to cut it. But when she got out of bed and dressed for church it curled up and looked so precious I just couldn't get out the scissors...)Ta-Da! The girls' handiwork:

(It looks about like last year's.) Somehow this medal made it on the tree when I wasn't looking. I'm pretty sure Halle dug it out of the dress up box:

We're far from finished with the decorations, but the tree is almost done, and looks good. It looks like home. And looking at it makes me forget that I'm supposed to feel guilty about cheating on Thanksgiving.

So. Happy Thanksgiving Week!

I promise I won't post anything else about Christmas until after Thankful Day.

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This just made me laugh (kind of):

**Note to self: do not show Halle this post...

It's the first time in the history of the world

that any mother has punished her child by saying "no more peas." It happened an hour ago at lunch. And it worked. She cried hard.

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The punishment came after "dessert" (oranges) when she was begging (?) for more peas. She was trying to convince Cate to share her last few when she knocked Cate's plate on the floor.

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The rule: you do not touch other people's plates (an ongoing problem.)
The general punishment: no dessert. Today it happened to be peas.

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I'm telling you- I do have crazy kids.

WeWON

We beat Lyon tonight. By 20. By more than 20. Yippee!!

I wonder how strange it really is for JD? I mean, he sits in his office every day with Lyon stuff on the walls (diploma, pictures, etc.) But then, after this year he will have spent as much of his life at EC as he did a Lyon. Hmm. Life sure speeds up, doesn't it?

Playtime

When Halle informed me that they were playing "Cinderelly," I wasn't sure what she meant. Until they showed me the "dress" they "made":I coudn't get her to tell me which one of them was Gus-Gus. I just assumed it must've been Cate:Here they are playing "puppies" with daddy:ATTACK DOG:I've been doing a lot of sewing lately. (Santa's workshop and all that...) Halle has been begging to make something of her own, so this morning while I let Cate take a morning nap Halle went to town. Here she is finding out that safety scissors don't really work on anything but paper:She chose to "make" a diaper bag for her babies. She picked the material and helped me cut it out and sew it together:And picked out the ribbon for the handles:Wow, huh? (Sarcasm.) But she was proud of it:A little while later Cate came to me with two bags saying something I couldn't figure out. It took a few tries, but I finally got out of her that she wanted groceries. Oh, I laughed so hard. And then I gave her two cans of tomato sauce for her grocery bags: These kids are crazy.

Bath Night

Before-Bath Potty Time:

Notice how Cate repeats the letter sounds in these two videos:

Halle is LOVING this hand-me-down bathrobe. It serves its purpose well: keeps her warm while she waits for her turn to get jammies on:

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I can hear you thinking (relatives), and yes, it has been a long time since I posted a video. (Sigh.) That's because I "lost" the battery charger cord for the camera. I've since discovered that JD's charger works just as well. About a day after I figured that out guess what I found? Yep. Mine. Maddening.

Oh Boys. (Basketball Update)

They won. (The Jayhawks.) Barely.

We lost. (The Royals.) Not-so-barely. But in all fairness, we weren't supposed to. After all, that's why they were paying us. (Northeastern State in OK- Div II, and good.) The coach did pay us some big compliments that JD was rather proud of.

Last weekend, though- that was a different story! Our boys (The Royals) played well and beat Rhema and Robert Morris. We're now 6-2 and face Lyon again tomorrow night.

Girl Party!

This weekend the girls and I traveled to KC to meet my mom, grandma, sister-in-law and niece for our annual Christmas shopping trip. Halle was so excited about it this year and kept calling it our "girl party"- she kept telling us who couldn't come: "Daddy, Papa and Uncle Tyler because it's ONLY for girls!"

Waiting for Nana and Grammy:How could we have a party without presents?!The party!

(It's cranberry Sierra Mist, people!)Cate LOVES her cousin Maddie, or "Mannie!" as she calls her:The girls:

(Cate- 18 mo, Halle-3, Maddie- 8 mo)Shopping with Grammy:Same store, same bench, last year: Bath time!What a ham!Last year:Bedtime:Getting ready in the morning- Halle and Cate got to join in:Someone wasn't watching, and Halle really did put on some makeup:

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To see last year's Girl Party click here: 2008