Fall Fests & Flings Are F-U-N!!

This week has been packed with fall fun.  Anna Beth had her Fall Fest at her Mother's Day Out school on Thursday.  They went around the gym, played games, and scored lots of candy for mom and dad :)

It was a western theme:

Isn't our little cowgirl adorable in her braids?

She had fun going around with her friend, Sara.

Daddy surprised her by coming to her Fall Fest!!

Then, on Saturday night, our church had it's annual Fall Fling...Light the Night for Jesus Trunk or Treat!  It's super fun.  You line up lots of cars, open the trunk, decorate it, and put a game in it for the kids to play.  They loved it AND they got to wear their precious costumes!!

Officer Creek Coleman reporting for duty

What's a good fairy without bright, green, heart-shaped sunglasses?

Lynns isn't really into the "stop and look at the camera and say cheese" thing right now -

so I take what I can get!

I love that AB's hair is long enough for me to do stuff with and when I saw this on Pinterest, I knew it was

P-E-R-F-E-C-T for her fairy costume...and I made the little button clip myself!

We love Fall Fun!!

 

What Are We Gonna Call Him?

  Jacob gave adorable little nicknames to the girls when they were both very small.  He still calls them by these nicknames and they call each other by their nicknames sometimes, too.  He calls Anna Beth "Chippy" and Lynnsie "Lynnsmeister".  How did he come up with these names? Well, let me just tell you...
 
  Anna Beth (AB, please don't be mad at me years down the road for writing this!) had gas as a baby.  She would let loose some major "toots".  After one particularly explosive "toot", Jacob said out loud, "Well, let her rip, tator chip."  For some reason, "Tator Chip" stuck with him and that's what he started calling her.  Then it was shortened to "The Chip".  And, finally, "Chippy".  I know, I know, a nickname based on your gas as a baby....whatever.

  Lynnsmeister, well, it just kind of came out one day.  And the next and the next.  It's really cute to hear AB say it...the "meister" part gets kind of nasally for her!

  So a few weeks before Creek was born, the girls and I were sitting at the table having lunch and they were saying, "I'm Chippy"..."I'm Lynnsmeister" back and forth.  And then AB wanted to know what we were going to call Creek.  I told her I didn't know, but he would have a fun "special name", too, just like them.

  Fast forward to last Thursday.  Creek was upset, so I picked up him up and tried to say, "What's wrong, Creek, baby?" Instead, "Creek, baby" came out "Creekie".  Lynns heard me and tried to repeat it and "Creekie" came out "Cricket".  And it has stuck.  They both call him "Cricket" when they are referring to each other in their special names. And I think it's perfect for him! Even sweeter that Lynns named him. 

  I just wonder how many crickets "Cricket" will bring into my house as he grows up and starts doing all the things that rough and tumble little boys do...

Pumpkins, Pumpkins...And A New Style!!

  This weekend we went to a Pumpkin Patch here in town.  They had lots and lots and LOTS of pumpkins in all shapes and sizes.  The girls had tons of fun walking through them and picking out pumpkins.  They each got to pick one and we got a bigger one to carve/decorate.  They each picked one out for Creek, too, so he ended up with two pumpkins! Not too bad for his first fall, huh?  So today, we brought them in a decorated them.  The girls decorated theirs and the one they picked out for Creek.  Creek slept through the whole pumpkin patch experience and the decorating experience.  Maybe next year...

Too much going on for them to look at the camera!

Lynns enjoyed painting her pumpkins

AB painted her hands just as much as she painted her pumpkin.

The final products :)

  Oh, and today was also a great day because Anna Beth got her first hair cut and style.  Too bad it wasn't by a professional...but that's what you get when you give a 3 year old scissors, leave her unattended, and tell her specifically "not to cut her hair".  At least the damage was minimal.  Noticeable, but minimal!

I Will Survive

"At first I was afraid....I was petrified!...

...But I will survive, I will SURVIVE!!"

  And survive is what I did today.  Today was my first whole day alone with my kids.  And I survived.  Jacob was able to take off of work for two weeks after Creek's birth and then his mom came down for two more weeks.  Today, he left for work and she left for Tennessee. 

  I stood in my living room with Lynnsie at my side and Creek sleeping in my arms and watched the front door close.  And then I thought, "Oh, great!! What was I thinking?!?! Everyone come back, please, please come back! I'm so not ready to go at it alone!!"  Tears almost formed.

  I took a deep breath and remembered that it's only a 8 hours a day and I was really not alone...God was with me and would get me through today. 

  There were tears - from all four of us.  Lynnsie is the only one who got a nap today.  I managed to pick Anna Beth up from school on time and have a short conversation with my friend outside her school.  I did a fun activity with the girls involving shaving cream and food coloring and a very long, soapy bath.  And I even got the kitchen floor mopped under the kitchen table.  I finally put away the two baskets full of clean and folded laundry (thanks to my mother-in-law).  The kids made it to bed with full bellies...so what if it was a pumpkin sugar cookie that topped off that full belly.

  So, yeah, I can do this.  Today I may have just survived, but each day's only going to get easier, right?

Pitter Patter Art Giveaway

Check out the Pitter Patter Art Giveaway from my bloglist - it's their 11 Month Waiting giveaway. She also sells art canvasas, key fobs, t-shirts...super cool stuff and all proceeds go to bringing their second son home from Ethiopia!

Mommy's Little Secrets

I have the fun and sweet thing I do with kids.  Its mostly with the girls for now because, well, Creek doesn't talk, obviously, but I still do it somewhat with him.  I tell them little secrets.

Mainly, it's the same secret over and over.  I call to them across the room and say, "Come here.  I've gotta secret for you." They smile real big and come over.  I put my hands on their cheeks and lean them in real close. 

And then I whisper, "I love being your mommy." and I sit back and look at their big smiles.  Then I say, "I have another secret for you." I lean back in and tell them why I love being their mommy.  Sometimes, when I'm done with my secrets, I just go "pshpshpshpsh" in their ear to hear them giggle.  They usually scrunch up their shoulder because this tickles their little necks.

I do this a lot with Lynnsie at the end of the day when I am rocking and 'nuggling with her before bed.  Last night was not any different.  I leaned her in and said, "I love being your mommy."  She sat back and smiled. 

Then she put her hands on my cheeks and leaned back into my ear and quietly said, "I love you being mommy." So sweet. So precious.  Then she said, "I have another secret for you." She took my cheeks and leaned back in and said.....

"CHEEEEEEEEESE!!!"

Pinned It & Did It: Prayer Pail (or Jar)

  Pinterest strikes again.  I love that site...probably too much.  Anyway, we've now done 2 of the "more than few" things I've pinned.
  I loved this idea when I first saw it...prayer & kids...how much better can it get?! Mawmaw came home from another outing with a bag of popsicle sticks and I had just decided to save the empty jar of pizza sauce (if you know my mother in law, then you know that me saving a jar made her smile really big).
  So, one sunny afternoon (today) the girls and I set out in the front yard and made our prayer sticks.  I wrote several different prayers on a stick and let the girls color them.  They had lots of fun.  Each night, as a family, we will each draw a prayer stick out of the jar and pray for that specific person, place, or group of people.
  I am hoping that this will teach the girls - and someday Creek - that there are so many more things than our food that we can pray for :)

Coloring our prayer sticks.

Our prayer sticks - they mostly colored the back of them.

(Sure wish I knew how to rotate pics on Blogger ;) )

The prayer jar.

  I'm thinking that when the kids get older and they have the attention span for bedtime prayers to be a bit longer, you could have a "missionary jar", "church staff jar", "family jar", "friend jar", etc., etc. with names of people and each child could pick one prayer stick from each jar.  Let's Pray!!!



Original idea from: lubirdbaby.com

Pinned It & Did It: Pipe Cleaners/Colander Activity

  Have you heard of Pinterest?  If not, don't go looking for it unless you need an addiction.  If so, I'm sure there's a help or support group out there somewhere for us addicts.  It truly is awesome...ideas for everything under the sun...recipes, kids stuff, decorating, DIY...millions and millions of things from the world wide web that you can "pin" to your own virtual pin board in the hopes that you will come back and cook this recipe or do this DIY project or sew this or do that activity for you kids.  Well, right now I have 17ish pinboards and a couple hundred pins...I've done none of them.  But I will, I really will!!

  This activity really caught my eye and I was super excited when my mother-in-law came home from a trip to the store with the only non-household supply it needed...pipe cleaners!! Colorful, fuzzy, bendable pipe cleaners.  Apparently, she had "pinned it", too.  So, we got out the colander and let the girls go to town.

Insert one end of the pipe cleaner into a hole and the other end into another hole.

Simple. Easy. Fun. (And (mostly) quiet.)

We made swirlies.

We grouped them by color.

  We also made a swirly flower bouquet that we put in the top and we flipped the colander over and slid the pipe cleaners in on one side and out the other, making a colorful web of pipe cleaners.  The girls had fun doing it and me and Mawmaw had fun watching them.  And Jacob was "super excited" that we got the girls happy about Pinterest, too!!

Original idea from: no1hasmorefun.blogspot.com

Two Sisters & A Brutter

Dear Creek,

You have two awesome older sisters.  They love you.  They hadn't seen mommy very much for two days, but when we brought you home from the hospital, they ran right past me and climbed all over daddy just to get a look at you.  It is precious watching them run to you first thing in the morning just to look at you.  They like to touch you on your arm, leg, back, head, and sometimes your cheeks...a lot of times your cheeks, but we don't always let them.  They like to remind people that you can't talk when someone talks to you.  They stand on the changing table so they can see mommy and daddy change your diaper.  (Please be nice to them when they do this and don't pee on them :) )  They love introducing you to everyone who comes by as their "baby brutter" and they stand protectively close to you when anyone comes near to sneak a peek, with a huge smile on their faces as if you were there pride and joy.

You will survive them.  We will not let them dress you up in dresses or force you to play with their dolls.  They even brought you a block to play with yesterday.  Lynnsie couldn't understand why you just looked at it.  I tried to explain it to her, but she thought you weren't being very nice.  And they really don't think you're hitting or kicking them when you move your arms and legs around when they are close.  They say you are, but we know you really aren't.

First peek

One happy Big Sister

Two Sisters & Their Brutter

Lynnsie said, "I wanna 'nuggle Creek." That means she loves him.

I hope someday you look back on the pictures of you and your sisters in the first few days of your life and remember how much they loved you from the very beginning.  I know there will come a day when you will feel very protective of them, even though you're the "little" brother, and people will have to get past you to get to them. Your daddy and I have loved watching them with you.  It makes our hearts smile to see how much you already love each other.