Dear Christopher

And a big shout out to Chris! Happy Birthday brother! Woot woot!

Missin' my Momma...

I still haven't posted about all the fun things I did when my mom was here! It seems like I was immediately thrown back into the "real" world once she left. Come back, Mom!

I took a lot of pictures of her with the kids, but we managed to go ten days without getting a single picture of us together! So this will just be a log of sorts.

Even though Nathan was working non-stop while she was here, we managed to get out by ourselves twice! We went to a great little Mexican restaurant here and out to see The Secret Life of Bees. We did a lot of shopping- including all my favorite consignment stores. We found a thrift store called Everything Goes that we both fell madly in love with and visited three days in a row. There are no words to describe how awesome this place is. No matter what your style is, you can find something you love at an amazing price. Thanks to this store, I finally have furniture in my dining room! My wonderful mother bought me and Nathan a table and chairs for an early Christmas present, and I found a gorgeous dresser for $32 that is also in the dining room and I am storing all my music in it. I will put up pictures when it is all put together....which will probably be no time soon.

I wish I could wake up every morning in the middle of this store and stare at all of the beautiful things they have. I think I will go back tomorrow....

Let's see...what else did we do? We made Chicken Tetrazini (which I ate for every meal until it was gone). We made and ate through three pans of the famous Erwin fudge. We went to garage sales. We visited Owen at school and went to his Fall festival. We stayed up late watching recorded HGTV shows or nightly dramas or a movie....whichever sounded best at the time. We went to the gym a couple of times. We had a couple of visits with Chris and Erin and Baby T. It was just fun to have her around. I'm glad she was able to survive all the noise and chaos that comes with our family.

DANGIT!!!!

This is Owen's new word. He says it a LOT. I wish you could hear him saying it, though. It blows my mind that his southern accent comes out so often when neither of his parents have one.

So- anyway....I am saying Dangit because I forgot to post yesterday. I challenged myself to post every day this month and I screwed it up within the first week!

I came around the corner the other day to find Hazel making "Cat cupcakes"

"Try it Carly!"

Then she ended it with a big hug! Isn't Carly such a lucky cat?!?!

Nerd Alert...

WARNING: Fits perfectly in a three yr. old's nostril.

When I put Hazel in the car to leave this morning, she had a tissue in her hand that she kept trying to stick up her nose. She had been doing this for about the last 20 minutes, but I didn't think anything of it since she has had a little bit of a runny nose lately. After buckling her in her carseat, I finally took the tissue from her so I could help her wipe, and I looked up her nose to see some kind of white bulbous thing filling up her nasal cavity. Of course I went into panic mode and reeled through a list of possibilities in my head while jumping in the car and speeding towards the doctor's office. After a couple of minutes, I calmed down enough to convince myself that it wasn't a tumor, and I turned back towards the house. I used a bulb syringe and a little white NERD came out on the second try.

Thank goodness I didn't waste that $20 copay! I just think it's hilarious...and strange...that she didn't come tell me right away. Usually her fear of being hurt outweighs her fear of being punished, but I guess the latter won this time around. She got a long speech about putting stuff in her nose and ears....including threats of going to the hospital and having her nose cut open! I'm pretty sure that will do the trick.

And the winner is....

Today Owen got in the car after school and said "I voted online for the president today."

Me: "Oh yeah? Who did you vote for?"

Owen: "John McCain"

Me: "Why is that?"

Owen: "Because he's the president"


I'm not sure what he meant by that, but I have a few ideas. I tried to ask more questions to figure out why he felt compelled to vote for McCain, but the most I could get out of him was that he had seen pictures of them. I guess he just thought McCain looked like what he assumed a president looked like.

Then he told his G-Mommy the same story but he said

"I voted for John McCain and some lady. I didn't know that lady was on there. My teacher just told me about John McCain and Orama."

Then we had to explain to him that there was a vice president because he wanted to know why he had to vote for two presidents. Such a funny conversation. I should have recorded it immediately, because I'm pretty sure I have forgotten half of the cute things he said....

"Bumblebee and a pink poodle!!!!"

For Halloween, we went to a block party in my friend Bekah's neighborhood. When we went trick-or treating around her block, we stopped at one door where a sweet little old man answered and was trying to guess what everyone was dressed as. The boy in front of us was Thomas the Train and the man said "Oh- Spongebob!" if that gives you any idea of his guessing abilities.

So our turn comes, and my kids step forward. He says "Ohhhh...what do we have here? A princess and a space man!" and Hazel yelled, "Nooooo! Bumblebee and a pink poodle!!!!" but he just smiled and nodded and moved on to the next set of kids.

I think the space man was a pretty good guess for a guy his age who has probably never seen Transformers, but what kind of princess carries around a big dog head?! Weird.

We have been on a sugar high for 4 straight days...how bout you?

G-Mommy brings us Halloween....

The next few posts will be catching up on my mom's visit. We had tons of fun and I had to rest from it all for a couple of days before returning to the real world.

I am ashamed to say that before my mother arrived, I had NO Halloween decorations. It's just not a "holiday" that I really get into. But my kids adore all the creepy things that come with this non-holiday. So we made a run to Wal-Mart and bought a bunch of marked down decorations (that's the plus when you are shopping three days before Halloween!). The kids have been thrilled with the spider web on our porch. They threw a bunch of bugs and snakes and such and shrieked with joy every time one stuck.

Oh, the happiness of which I deprive them on a regular basis. Thanks for setting me straight, Mom. ;)

Trying to pose for a picture when all they really want

to do is rip that package open and get started!

The finished product!