October 2008

Well, this is the month that "did me in". What a busy month it was, but it was a great month! The girls and I got to take one last trip to the park on one of our last warm days. Jeff got his annual pair of rats at school, and the girls LOVED them. The girls were able to pick out their pumpkins and carve them. We had a great Halloween by passing candy out to the boys and girls at Jeff's school, and then on Halloween night, we went trick-or-treating with all of our friends. Yes, there was a "Fall Break" in there sometime at the end, but I spent that whole week in the nursery at church with my best friend. I took over the responsibilities of Nursery Coordinator in July, and Jennifer (the Children's Minister at our church), Jill, and I worked together on a plan to make the nursery have a more "homey" feel to it. Jill and I literally spent an entire week in the nursery. Thanks so much to my mom, Jeff's mom, and Jeff for taking such great care of the girls while I was totally consumed with that. It is beautiful! It was a lot of hard work, but Jill and I had a great time. It was a very busy - the fun busy - kind of month.

Elaina fell several times during our Trick-or-Treat experience (those silly dance shoes). Emily was quick to comfort her each time.

Elaina and Hannah Trick-or-Treating.

The girls Trick-or-Treating at our sweet neighbor's, Ruth, house.

Our gymnasts! Oh, how our girls love to do their gymnastics.

Elaina mid-move.

Emily's first sucker. She LOVED it, but oh what a mess!

Elaina passing out candy at Daddy's school for Family Reading Night the eve of Halloween. She was so good. We didn't let her Trick-or-Treat this night. We told her she was going to share her candy with other boys and girls. She was so happy to do it, too.

Elaina playing a game at Northwood's Family Fun Night.

Emily and Daddy playing a game at his school.

The girls each won a prize for winning the game! They each got to pick a new book to take home!

Our carved pumpkins. Daddy and Emily worked togther, and Elaina and Mommy worked together.

Before the carving.

Elaina was determined to pull the wagon at the pumpkin patch.

Emily pointed to a lot of pumpkins that she wanted.

Elaina checking out the pumpkins trying to pick the perfect one.

One of Daddy's experimental rats at school.

Elaina loves it when Daddy gets his rats each fall.

The kids playing while we were painting the nurseries at church.

Hours of chalking and taping.

The "infant side" stripes.

The "toddler side" before the stripes.

Thank you, MeMe for helping us ou during the week of painting. The girls always love it when MeMe visits. They get to make blueberry muffins with her!

A Saturday at Great Grandma McCrary's

Collecting nuts at Great Grandma's.

Emily and cousin, Haddie, playing with sticks at Great Grandma's. Haddie is one month younger than Emily.

Mommy and the girls spent the last warm day of the fall at the park.

Beautiful girl.

Silly girl.

I'm Working on It . . . I Promise!

I know . . . I know . . . it's terrible! I was such an active blogger, and I have completely dropped the ball on it for the last three months. I know some of you finally got sick and tired of seeing "Saturday Morning Donuts" as my most recent blog entry that you have probably all together quit checking the blog, but I promise . . . I'm working on it. Tonight, I have downloaded almost three months of pictures from my camera and am working on organizing those. This week will be the week. There will be new blog posts! I have really missed it, and I am so upset with myself that I let myself get so far behind. Things just got completely crazy at the end of October when I spent an entire week, night and day, totally restyling the nurseries at church. I loved doing it, and I can't wait to share pictures with you, but I had a hard time catching up around the house after that. After I was done with that, Thanksgiving snuck up on me and then Christmas, and here it is 2009! I will be flying through some posts this week just so that I can get some pictures posted and a few memories written down for the girls. I'm just so bummed! More than anything, I just feel like I have let them down by not getting all of this recorded. I WILL get caught up though . . . this week . . . I promise!

Saturday Morning Donuts!

Earlier this week, Jill and I went to Sherwin-Williams to pick out some paint colors for the nursery at church. At the paint store, there was a little nook with some coffee and donuts. The nice associates offered the kids donuts, and of course, they accepted. Jill and I each had one, and we were sold. These donuts were so yummy! They are the best donuts in the area. They remind us of the donuts in Destin, FL, and those are the best donuts on the planet! After Jill and I left Sherwin-Williams and Kohl's, Jill went right over to the new bakery and bought a dozen for her family.

I told Jeff about these donuts, and we planned for a Saturday morning trip to the bakery. So, this morning, we literally got in the van in our pajamas as soon as we woke up and headed over to the bakery. On the way there, we asked Elaina what kind of donut she was going to get, and she proclaimed that she would be getting a BLUE donut. I was hoping that she wouldn't be too disappointed when we got to the bakery because I was not optimistic that there would be blue donuts available. Fortunately, there were PINK donuts! Both the girls were excited about the pink donuts with fall sprinkles. When the employee asked Elaina what she could get for her, Elaina held out her hand that had a quarter in it and told her she wanted a pink donut. So cute!

We picked out our dozen donuts and headed home. On the way home, I thought that I would tease Elaina and tell her that I couldn't wait to get home so that I could eat a pink donut. Elaina said, "No, Mommy. Those are my pink donuts. You eat Daddy's donuts." I replied, "So, you'll eat the pink donuts, and Mommy will eat Daddy's donuts. What will Emily eat?" Elaina quickly responded, "Crumbs." Nice. Real nice.

At the new bakery in our pajamas.

Elaina enjoying her yummy pink donut.

Emily knows what the best part is . . . the icing!

Pacifier Free Emily!

What a big girl!

I forgot to post this last week, and I just have to share. We had a big accomplishment in our house last week . . . Emily got rid of her pacifier! She has only been using it at naptime and bedtime for several, several months now, but still, she was extremely dependent on it for those times.

We took Elaina's completely away from her at 14 months. I remember being 7 months pregnant with Emily at the time, and when Jeff got home from school that evening, I demanded Donatos pizza, breadsticks, a Coke, and a white cream filled caramel iced donut. I remember vividly it being a day and a half of no fun! That was all it took though, and it was over.

I ended up letting Emily have her pacifier a couple of months longer than Elaina because when Emily turned 14 months old, she was getting four teeth in at once, and we were getting ready to embark upon a 2600 mile roadtrip. Taking the pacifier away at that time just didn't seem to be such a good idea.

So, on Monday evening of last week, I realized that Emily was 16 months old, her chompers were in, and it was time to get rid of that thing. The first night, it took her an hour and a half of crying to fall asleep. Jeff was so wonderful and took care of constantly going in her bedtime and comforting her. The next day for nap, it took 50 minutes. That same day at bedtime it took 30 minutes. Then on Wednesday at naptime, it was over. She was asleep with no crying. Now, she still does wake up once in the night and struggles to get back to sleep, but we know if we stick to it, in time, that will pass too.

The day and a half of crying at bedtime and naptime was again well worth it. Our home is pacifier free again until it's time for another McCrary baby to be added to the household. We're so proud of our little Emily. She's becoming such a big girl!

Franklin Fall Festival 2008

On Saturday, we went downtown Franklin to the Franklin Fall Festival. There were a lot of fun things going on, and we had a great morning.

Elaina immediately spotted the street that was blocked off to host the dance and gymnastic teams from the area. She was so excited and loved every minute of it. She has become quite the little interpretive dancer/gymnast/ballerina around here lately. She didn't take her eyes off of all the girls performing. We would start to leave, and she would say, "Wait! There's one more t(c)omin'!" She replaces the "c" sound with the "t" sound a lot.

J.P. Parker is a floral company here in town with locally grown flowers, and I LOVE the sunflowers that they get in every year at this time. I never buy any for myself (and neither does my husband! :) ), so I was so excited when I looked down the street and saw that they were giving them away for FREE! It was so beautiful, and I wish that I had taken a picture of it. There were containers all through the middle of the street filled with beautiful sunflowers. It was gorgeous!

Next, we painted pumpkins, and that was free, too! It was so much fun. The girls each picked a pumpkin and painted it. They did such a great job!

We stopped by our church booth, too, and got balloons, cookies, and popcorn. The girls had a ball with their balloons.

We had such a great morning, and the weather was beautiful, too! We love our Saturdays together!

Emily and Elaina watching the gymnasts and dancers.

Elaina painting her pumpkin.

Our pretty sunflowers!

So proud of their painted pumpkins!

Our Week in Pictures

I just thought I would share some pictures from our week. We are so excited that October has finally arrived and FALL is here. Pumpkins, leaves, cool breezes, apples, warm blankets and pajamas, Daddy having a fall break from school, . . . the list goes on and on with the things we LOVE about fall. We hope you're enjoying your first little bit of fall, too!

On Tuesday, we spent the evening together as a family playing with Play-Doh.

Emily decided that it looked like it might taste yummy. Oops! We caught her just in time!

Elaina working on her Play-Doh necklace.

So proud!

We stayed in all day on Wednesday so that I could clean the house from top to bottom. That night after Jeff got home from a meeting a church, I met Jill at the new Kohl's that just opened in Franklin. Before I left, I gave the girls baths and had them all ready for bed. All they needed was to have their teeth brushed . . . does this sound familiar?

While Mommy was at Kohl's, Daddy became the Super Hero with bedtime Boston Red Sox hat wearing and miniature white powdered doughnuts. Did I mention that I had just spent the day cleaning the house from top to bottom? Yes, that would be our two daughters sitting on the kitchen floor (nice and clean, I might add) eating their powdered doughnuts.

On Thursday, Jill and her kids and Hilary and her daughter came over to play and have lunch. This is a picture of the girls standing at the door awaiting their friends' arrival. At this time I was saying, "Girls, Mommy just cleaned all of the fingerprints and kiss marks off of that glass door."

Elaina replies, "It's alright, Mommy. I'm washing it for you."

Elaina LOVES "Little Bear." Her sweet friend, Hannah, bought her this Little Bear with her very own piggy bank money. How sweet! (Notice her outfit. She likes to pick out her own clothes now, and on many days, she likes to layer!)

Thursday evening after dinner, I met a friend to have bagels and coffee. Jeff was working on putting Emily down to bed. When he was done, he noticed Elaina reading and snapped this picture. Elaina LOVES to read.