Cousin's party

My father in law with B. He sure loves his marshmallows!

I just love these pictures of Charlie. W has a hayride with bon fire, hot dogs, apple cider, hot chocolate, chili, and smores every year for his birthday. We love this party. It is such a great time to spend running around with the cousins.

I can't get over how small B is especially against the tracker tires. W's parents don't want him to have any more "toys". I don't know if they have found a way to be successful at this or not. Every year on Charlie and Brantley's invitations we ask for no presents and every year everyone brings them. W's invitations had this request as well (a first), but they said that if you must bring something bring a hat and gloves for the Rethread project. What a great idea! I think next year I will choose a charity that gives school supplies since the kids birthday's are so close to back to school.

After N left

B was sad that he missed the tea party so he had one of his own. The pink does not phase him.

November 8

Another playdate. This time with N. Charlie and N made cookies. These are not the kind of cookies that you eat. They are made out of bakers clay. After the girls made them we cooked them for an hour before they painted them. I know I am a horrible mom. The only kind of cookies I make with Charlie are the ones that will not make me gain weight.

My job

This is probably one of my favorite things about my job. We took advantage of the beautiful weather and took our story outside. I love reading to kids. Children's literature is something I just love. So if you ever need a gift idea...a kids book just makes my day. ( Just on a side note) I can tell in this picture that I have lost 28 lbs since having B. YEAH!

November

I can not believe that I am actually getting to post November things in November. I have just felt out of it lately. I didn't do all the things that I normally do with the kids in October and because of that I have been down on myself. We usually go to the pumpkin patch, haunt the zoo, storybook forest and carve a pumpkin. This year I just didn't have the time, money or motivation. Because of it I am beating myself up. I know that in five years it is not going to matter but it matters to me. I want my kids to remember that I did fun things with them. I want them to know that they were loved and that I spent time with them. Charlie has gotten really good at making me feel like a horrible mom. I know that years from now it will not matter. I want to be a parent and not a friend but let me tell you her "prayers" have been pretty painful lately. Things like "Please make my mommy not yell at me. I don't like it when she yells." (conviction) "Why does my mommy always ignore me and not pay attention to me? She is always doing laundry or dishes or on the computer." (conviction) But the night she said this prayer I was not checking email or playing on facebook. I was making the clues to a scavenger hunt and putting the activities together for her advent calendar. And, she was watching Charlie Brown. That kid loves tv. But that didn't make it any less convicting. I know that she does not mean for these prayers to be heard (and if she does, I'm in big trouble) but it doesn't make them any less biting. I need to get thicker skin I guess.

Halloween 2

I don't often blog about Dusty. I should. He is a great husband. This is one thing that we disagree on. I hate Halloween. I just really don't like anything about it except the ability to "dress up." He loves it. It is his favorite holiday. He loves scary stuff. Can't you tell? this is our front yard. He works so hard on it. He is very proud of it. Charlie loves it as well. I hate it! But there is very few stuff that Dusty truly enjoys. So this is one of those things that I just grin and go on wishing that it were different. Dusty and the kids have a great time setting up his "super scary" grave yard.

Halloween

Do you see these ducks? B did not want to give the duck back to get the candy. He loves Ducks.
This is part of his tantrum. We were across the gym from the duck pond and this is still what he did. I had to just take him out of the gym to distract him enough to forget the ducks.
Here is my second purple people eater. He hated the hat more than Charlie did. I never could get him to keep it on. We went to the carnival at church.


Here we are going trick-or-treating w/ Brandy Cox the 5th grade teacher at SJN. Her kids are about the same age as mine. She was wonderful to invite us to Norman. We went to her house where we had pizza. Lundyn and Creed were great fun for us to play with. Both girls were princesses. Creed was a pirate.