Gotta be grateful

It dawned on Kaiya the other day that we do not have a chimney (gasp!). We told her that we would leave the door open for Santa. That seemed to be okay with her. Then a conversation with Kaiya in the car yesterday went something like this:

Kaiya: Mama, I see a lot of houses with chimneys!
Me: A lot of these houses do have chimneys.
Kaiya: Yeah, but you just have to be grateful for what you got on top.
Me: Giggle. That's right Kaiya.
Kaiya: Yep, just gotta be grateful.

Sounds like she is listening to us occasionally afterall. :) And I was glad I remembered Tony's mom has a fireplace and chimney. We had to call Nannie right away and make sure Santa would be able to use her chimney. Nannie assured Kaiya that she was going to clean the chimney out.

da Grinch

This is Kaiya, 3 years ago with the Grinch. Kaleb is terrified of this particular Grinch. We've had to keep it up in Kaiya's closet because it brings him to tears just seeing it. But the kids watched it on TV the other night and really liked it. So it has come down from the closet for a little while. Kaleb still starts backing up and saying, "no, no, no..." whenever he sees it. Kaiya's been sleeping with it this week.

Last night her bedtime prayer went like this: "Dear God, Help da Grinch not to do naughty things tonight. Like take our tree down and put it on the sleigh that he made. And keep me awake. In Jesus name, Amen."

Found a couple cute pictures of my kids on their Uncle Aaron's facebook page. The pictures are from earlier this summer and especially Kaleb has changed, but fun for a Monday post!

Mmmm... those eyes.

A Rarity

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving I was able to spend the afternoon and evening with one of my best friends! Her parents live in Raleigh (about 4 hrs away) and so we met halfway and spent 6 hours together. It had been a year since I'd seen her and one of the first times that I was kid-free doing what I wanted to be doing (i.e. not working). Ahhhh... it was wonderful. Catching up, shopping, eating. Here is our token picture in Old Navy. The cashier probably thought we were nuts, but I looked in my purse, saw my camera and had to take it before the day went by and I had forgotten.

Thanks B for a great day!

Haircuts!

It was time for haircuts in November! Both kids cooperated extremely well for me. I let them choose what show they would watch and I worked as quickly as I could.

Mmmm Candy...

After trick-or-treating we let the kids pick out two things to eat. Kaleb, having no idea what candy really is, picked out Swedish Fish for one of his choices. And I don't think he realized how long it takes to chew one of those fish. He just kept shoveling them in his mouth. It was almost as if he thought we might suddenly realize it was candy and take it away.

The drool was running down his arm.

Costumes

This kids were so cute. Of course... slightly biased, but seriously. Kaiya was kind of forced into being Pooh. A couple weeks ago she told me that she really wanted to be Ariel - The Little Mermaid, but I told her that it would have to wait until next year. I had gotten Kaleb's costume a year ago June at a yard sale and since he was the Honey Pot, I really wanted her to be Pooh. Dream crusher that I am. And actually... she looks quite sad in this picture below. But I promise -- she warmed up to the idea after I found her costume at a yard sale this summer.

I wanted to give her a black nose. Well, Kaleb saw that and just had to have one too. I gave him freckles instead. Of course Kaiya saw that and had to have freckles too. At which point he remembered that I never gave him a nose. So they are both freckled and nosed. :)

Tuckered out. It rained for about 20 minutes while we were out. The kid insisted on walking by himself, carrying his own bag without any help. It was pretty cute. But he was spent.

Pumpkins!

On Halloween morning we went to a fall festival in the neighborhood. The kids got their faces painted. Kaleb happened to get the 11 year old aspiring face painter... she tried. :) We came home, grabbed lunch and then started carving. The kids helped pull all of the seeds out. Kaiya wasn't a fan. Kaleb thought it was awesome.
After the pumpkins were scraped out I put the kids down for naps and got started. There were special requests this year -- Elmo & Ariel. Thankfully I managed to pull it off. For the record, I got a blister scraping the outsides of these... the best tool I had was a lemon zester. Yeah. It was awesome.

More wedding...

More pictures from the wedding!
She was a dancin' fool.
Kaiya & Uncle Brent

Awww...

Dear Aunt Ruthie & Uncle Chris: Thanks for having our favorite food at your reception. We LOVE breakfast food and our parents actually let us eat most breakfast foods. :) Eggs are the best! And we even got to eat fresh fruit instead of cake. A-mazing!

Wordless Wednesday

Kaiya at the beach

Kaiya had a blast at the beach too! Her favorite things were getting buried in the sand (and burying Papa),

building and decorating sand castles,

throwing seaweed at Uncle Brent,

and swimming next to 4-5 dolphins! Papa was holding her out in the deeper water (waist high on Papa) and a huge group of dolphins came within 3-4 feet of them. When we came down in June she saw dolphins from the shore. On our car ride down to Florida this time she said, "I really hope I see dolphins this time!" So cool that she really saw them this time!

Wish I could tell you that I took a whole month off of blogging on purpose. But nope. I didn't. It just sort of happened. :) Got my camera connected to the computer here, so I can share some pics from our trip to Florida for Ruthie's wedding. We had such a great time!

Here are the pictures of the beach time that we had. Ruthie was super organized so most of our time was spent relaxing before and after the wedding. There wasn't too many last minute things to take care of. Well... except for maybe the bouquet. But I couldn't really do that too far in advance. I'll have to post a link to the picture of it. Cause it turned out pretty good for only having half an idea of what I was doing. Oh the trust she had in Bekah & I. :)



A little sequence of Kaleb pictures. He was being a stinker and didn't want to smile for me.

























Eventually I got one out of him...


Kaleb had so much fun at the beach. Glad I had so many eyes watching him, because at one point I looked up and saw this (and I am at least a half zoom on my camera):

Kaiya will get her post tomorrow! I'm determined to get back on the blogging routine. I've gotta have something to document the kids' lives! I'm too busy otherwise and it's all gonna just slip by. :)

One of "those" mornings...

You ever have one of the those mornings? I don't mean the straight out disaster kind... I'm talking about the kind of morning that appears to be going perfectly and then out of nowhere... everything turns upside down. The catch-you-by-surprise kind of morning. That was yesterday.

Kids let us sleep in 15 minutes late. Everyone is in a joyful mood. No squabbling over what to wear or how to do our hair. No complaints about breakfast. It is looking like we are going to be 2 minutes early for church today. And that, my friends, is a major accomplishment. You see, we have no problem getting to church right on time. But then we have to check the kids in. Take them to their rooms. And then head into the service. So essentially, we are usually 10 minutes late for the service. But today... we are looking good.

I grab my Bible (another accomplishment because this is usually forgotten) and my purse. Both kids are walking out the door. We get to the car and it is locked so I reach down for my keys and they are not in my purse. I hear Tony unlocking his car from inside the house. I hustle to the porch to let him know that I don't have my keys. He has already shut the door. I tell him that I don't have my car keys and he says, "Where is your house key?" Umm... on the same key ring as my car key. And we are now locked out of the house.

He's annoyed. I'm annoyed. The kids are oblivious. My mom was trying out a new church this morning, but had to stop at Elevation before going. I try calling her and get voicemail. All 15 attempts to call her. Great... she might be home around 1 p.m. It's 8:29 a.m. We try all the doors and windows. Nothing. Tony gets in his car and sits to think. Kaleb comes over and starts pushing buttons on Tony's car. He got two warnings to stop and just as he went for a third try, Kaleb sets off the car alarm. Lovely. Now our neighbors are going to egg the house. Horns blaring at 8:30 on a Sunday morning. Apparently the alarm repeats the cycle until properly shut off. We can't properly shut it off because #1 - we have no idea how. #2 - even if we did, Tony's key was locked inside the house. Tony decides that he will walk to Elevation and hopefully catch my mom before she goes to the other church. The kids and I start playing on the porch.

I decided to check the tool box for small objects that I could break into our house with. They make it look so easy on Ocean's Eleven. I attempted with a small drill bit, but couldn't make any progress. I muttered something about just wanting to kick the door in. (Don't worry Tim (house owner) -- my good sense came back before I tried it.) I gave up breaking into the house and started praying that my mom would get the voicemail I left her.

About 10 minutes later I see my mom pull up. Hallelujah! She happened to check her phone, in the middle of the service, see the missed calls from me and come home to rescue us. I picked up Tony and we put together our second attempt to get to church. Thankfully, there are multiple service times... so we ate our traditional Sunday morning brunch before going to church, instead of the normal after church brunch.

I think this is where I'm supposed to excitedly announce that we made it to the 10 a.m. service on time. Well... we made it to the parking lot on time. There's always next week!

Do I say this every post?

I feel like every post I say... gosh, it's been awhile since I posted. Unfortunately, it is true every time. :) Am I burnt out? Out of good material? My second child is totally getting jipped. Cause I was such a faithful and consistent blogger with Kaiya.

Here's a little fun for your Friday. Actually... not sure if you will think it is funny unless you attend Elevation, our church. But these two are a drummer and keyboard player at church and they entertain us each week as they really get into performing. Last Sunday was a Student Takeover week so they made this video for church on Sunday. I think the students thought it was as cool as us adults did. :)

"Tippity Top" Music Video from Elevation Church on Vimeo.

Overheard from the Kitchen

Last night the kids and Tony were playing in the living room while I did some things in the kitchen. Tony had to tell Kaleb to settle down and after he finished I heard Kaiya say to Tony: "You are not the mommy!" (wonder if she has heard that before?)

She then turned to Kaleb and started bossing him around herself. In which case, Tony pointed out the same to her.

Geesh! Guess the mommy holds some power in this house! :)

Wow guys... not much energy going into the blog lately. I've really missed the consistency of posting frequently. Gonna have to get inspired soon. :) I've been working a little on generating content for the office website. It's a work in progress with several more elements coming, including my own little page, where I will be posting healthy recipes and tips. Should be fun. Keep in mind it is very rough right now... but you can check it out: www.providencefamilychiro.com

Have a great weekend!

Kaiya saw me light the grill. She didn't come back outside until I was ready to take the chicken off the grill. When I opened it up, she exclaimed: Mama! I didn't know that fire turns into chicken! She was utterly amazed. And it was just too cute to correct.

Tony's cousin, Becca, watched the kids at the mall play area yesterday while I promoted our Extreme Makeover Event from the mall booth. Kaiya and Kaleb both enjoyed playing and Kaiya made some friends while she was there. She had been playing with two Hispanic girls and at one point ran over to Becca and said, "I am calling them Indians and I am the Sailor." She had just watched Pocahontas that morning. Nice. Disney is teaching my child about different skin colors. I think it is time to intervene.

Need some help!

Doing some research for our Extreme Makeover Event on Saturday. Here's what I need... leave me a comment with 5 things that are on your grocery list each week (or however often you shop). I need these to be items other than staples (i.e. bread, milk, eggs, meat, fresh produce).

Gonna post this on Facebook too...we'll see what we come up with!

Some good reading!

I came across this article today and thought I would post a link here. Dr. Josh Axe is a Maximized Living Doctor in Nashville. It's so hard these days to sift through marketing terms on labels. He breaks it down:

Natural Doesn't Always Mean Non-Toxic