Earth Shattering

Did you feel it? It was hard to miss, the Earth shook this weekend! No really, I promise it did...well, something must have happened...here is why....

Pratt was out of town for a golf trip this weekend and when he leaves I usually try to do as much as I can away from the house and not venture into a world of the unknown, but something was different this weekend and while my house is dirty, the laundry basket is overflowing with dirty clothes, and my sink has a few dirty dishes in it; I feel quit accomplished right now.

Saturday started dark and early when JP decided at 4:45 that he need his fingernails cut and refused to go back to sleep. By the time 7:00 hit we were ready to go so after some tv time I got the children loaded up and we went to B-town Donuts-YUMMY!!!! Then, not wanting to return home just yet, it was only 9:35 after all, I got an idea to go to Micheal's (yes, the craft store). We picked up some craft stuff while we were there and when we got home we did a craft.

Shelby picked out this kit that came with paints, stickers and a wooden picture frame. She decorated it beautifully.

The finished Frame

JP picked out this little kit that has supplies in it to make 3 snowmen necklaces and 3 reindeer necklaces. He needed some hands on help, but we got it made and he wore a lot of the day.

JP's reindeer necklace

Then today, when we got home from church I needed to make some banana pudding for our church's annual Thanksgiving dinner. This is one of my favorite things to do with our church: there is food, fellowship, and fun-how can you not like that, especially the food part. Anyway, in an effort to be a less control freakish mom and more of a relaxed, let the children get involved and who cares if they make a mess mom I let them help with the stirring parts to making this delicious pudding. Everything actually went really well and there was no big mess to clean in the end!

The Banana Pudding (I know you are drooling right now and I totally get it because if you could taste this pudding you would freak out over how good it is)

You are probably thinking that there can't be more, but wait, there is!!! We usually do a thankful turkey this time of year where we add feathers to the turkey throughout the month of November with things we are thankful for written on them; well, up until this weekend I have been kind of a slacker mom on somethings so I got this great idea. While at Micheal's I got a roll of paper, some paint and some paint brushes. And this is what we have this year.....

So through out the remainder of the month I am going to write what we are thankful for on this little poster and I think that this is one we will keep because it has the children's hand prints on it. This poster may replace the thankful turkey as it will be fun to have a little timeline of how the children are growing through their hand prints each year.

And now, I am exhausted!!! I think I used all my brain power on this one weekend....time to recharge my batteries:) Hopefully by Christmas the creative juices will start flowing again.

Introducing Daisy

We have adopted a dog! It started with puppy fever when we saw the cutest puppies ever at the Bluffton Arts and Seafood Festival and ended up with this endearing 8 month old mix of a dog. She is fairly well trained and super sweet!!

I just really like this picture because for some reason it seemed like a scene out of a movie to me when I watched the sequence unfold. Probably doesn't mean much to you, but hey, this is my blog so I get to do what I want:)

Underwear

Me: "JP, where is your underwear?"
JP: "They got lost."
Me: "Where did they get lost? Did you take them off at school?"
JP: "No, they just fell off while I was sitting."
Me: "What? They fell off. Do you want to put some new ones on?"
JP: "No, this is good."

A Month in Review in Pictures

I had full intentions every week of sitting down and updating the blog because I really wanted to keep it up to date through the month of October as I knew that we had a lot going on, but good intentions didn't get me very far. So I am just going to do a review in pictures and throw in a few stories here and there.

We had a very busy month with something planned every weekend. The first weekend was Clemson Homecoming, the second weekend I went to UNC with two friends to watch CU vs UNC which was tons of fun, the third week Pratt was in DC for most of the week and we had a wedding that weekend, the fourth week was the Arts and Seafood Festival in Bluffton, and then we had Halloween this weekend!!! Whew, that kind of makes me tired just thinking about all the fun we packed into one month.

Our pictures start with the Arts and Seafood Festival Weekend.....much to our great surprise, Pratt had that Saturday off so we started the morning with a little family trip to Cahill's for a pumpkin hunt. After some fun running around in the hay maze and time of contemplating the perfect pumpkin, we made our purchase and headed out to run some errands before heading to downtown B-town for the festival.

Check out the pose-you can tell they just had school pictures

A little love goes a long way

The festival was a lot of fun and we had a great time. Shelby and JP's school did a little carnival for the children and we spent most of our time there.

Shelby doing a puppet show for me

Pratt multi-tasking

Monday night we carved our pumpkin. Pratt did a great job, don't you think?

JP and Campbell swinging on the swings at Hampton Lake

Friday some friends on mine had their parent-teacher conferences so I agreed to watch their children. After I realized that I would be outnumbered 6 to 1 I got a little panicky, but it ended up being great! All the children played so well together and the older ones did great including the younger ones and watching out for them. We ended staying at the playground for 3 hours.

Saturday was a very busy day. The morning started out really early for Pratt as he got up to go to the store to buy the ingredients for his chili that he was making for the ever-so-competitive chili cook-off at our church's fall festival. Then we went to Hampton Lake for the Tiger Bass 5k. This year they were raising money for the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life. Some of my friends and I all wore purple for the race in honor of my mom and Johnny Ussery. It was my first run and it was sooo much fun!! Katie and Erin were great running partners. They really challenged me to keep up and thanks to them I stunned my husband by finishing the race in just over 27 minutes.

Later that day we went to the fall festival at our church. It was a great time and there was a huge turnout. There were all sorts of games for the children to play, bounce houses, a fire truck and ambulance, a performance by the Bluffton School of Dance, two cake walks, and a chili cook off. I am sure that there are some things I am missing, but it truly was the best fall festival yet!! We had planned on not staying the whole time, but the children were having so much fun that we ended up staying the whole time, plus Pratt couldn't leave without knowing how his chili did.

Shelby as a cow

And the winner is........

Pratt won the cook-off!!!!

After that we raced home, bathed the children, put them to bed and got ready for a party that some friends of ours were having. I don't have a great picture of my partner in crime and I from the party, but Leslie and I dressed up as the first and second runners up from a beauty pageant. We wore pretty dresses, had a sash and crown and then smeared mascara down our face to make it look like we were crying because we lost....we looked great! (if I do say so myself)

I don't really know who Pratt was supposed to be, but everyone else did and that is all that matters.

Last night we had a great time with our neighborhood friends. Before trick or treating we had a pizza party and then loaded up the hay ride to make our rounds in the community. The children hit the mother load with candy and had so much fun. It was a blast watching Shelby and JP this year. They finally figured out the concept and went crazy running from house to house.

Me and my honey riding on the back of the golf cart

My limit was finally reached and I crashed into bed last night. What a fun month!!!!!

Two quick stories-Meme has purchased the children a really nice playground for the backyard and they are so excited. Shelby tells me repeatedly that when we get our playground she isn't going to watch tv anymore, she is just going to be outside all the time playing on the playground.

We got a puppy this month too. Both Shelby and JP are so excited. When we told them that we were getting a puppy Shelby asked me if we could go lay in her bed and talk about what we are going to do with the puppy. It was so much fun to see her excited about it because she isn't a huge fan of dogs, but hopefully she will take well to Daisy.