Tuesday, October 30, 2012

When You Turn Off the TV

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One night this past week I decided we would try no TV one night while we cooked, ate dinner, did bath time, and waited for daddy to get home.

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It was so much fun.  I plan on doing it more often with them. 

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I got in the floor with my camera and had the best time with them…though some of the pictures were blurry…it was still fun!

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After dinner we moved from the kitchen to the living room.

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I was educated by little man about the lift on his tractor ramp.

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Baby girl watched and learned as well.

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It is amazing to me to see their creativity and how well they played together, with no TV for distractions.

 

I wont be a TV drill sergeant but I will try to turn the TV off a little more!

Monday, October 29, 2012

I Can Explain

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We are just weird.

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A few weeks ago I was taking my jewelry off and heard my hubby snickering…

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I turned around and he had the camera.

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When he has the camera, it’s like the paparazzi y’all!!

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So, I just started popping him some poses. 

 

I can explain…we are just weird!

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Cat Pumpkin and Spider Web

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Our Halloween craft this year was really simple and easy for me to plan, dollar spot at Target!  They had these little kits that claimed to have everything you need inside, and only $1!  Hubby and I looked at each other, score!  I love planning crafts and activities for the babies to do, it’s great for their motor skills, but some times it is hard to come up with something “kid-friendly” and some times I don’t have all the stuff I need at home and can’t find it.  So when we ran into these at the dollar spot, I couldn’t resist.  Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of the packaging.

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We picked up two kits, one was a pumpkin and one was a spider web.  Opened the kits and realized everything really was in the kit that you needed.  Even little sticky dots to “glue” everything together.  

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Little man started working on his spider web with his Daddy.

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The stuff was all foam, it was soft, and the babies loved squeezing it.

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We did have to help them peel the stickers off the back but they got to help us place them and push them on.

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After we were done making our craft we began discussing how we should display them.

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Little man had the best idea, we should hang them up!

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The girls’ cat pumpkin.

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Daddy photo bombed us!

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The boys’ spider web.

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Best picture I could get of the babies and their crafts. 

 

So where did they decide they wanted to hand their crafts…

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yup, right there on the front door!

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After they hung them up, baby girl had to give her cat a kiss.  I guess because she figured, as her Daddy and I did, that due to the weather this cat pumpkin may not make it long.

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They were so proud of their work  and didn’t want to leave them hanging up.  We had to explain to them that decorations are meant to look at and not play with.  We have this talk daily as baby girl thinks mommy’s inside pumpkins are to be chunked at her brother when he takes a toy from her.  Or to carry them around as if they are her new baby doll.  While little man thinks the pumpkins that light up, are actually there to test his skills on “ringing the hole” while he tries to unplug and re-plug them in, over and over again.  These are lessons we have daily trying to teach that decorations are meant to look at and not touch.

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But as for this year’s Halloween craft, I say it was a huge success and they were so proud!!

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Pumpkin Carving 2012

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We finally got around to carving our pumpkin.  We have had the thing since the beginning of October so I guess it was about time.  I LOVE pumpkin carving, it’s almost my favorite part of Halloween.

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Daddy dived right in!

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Some people rather play with the bowl than help carve pumpkins.

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This pumpkin had the thickest…skin?…whatever.

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He makes me smile real big!

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It was time for me to start cleaning out the “guts”. Little man and baby girl got in on the action too.

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She loved the slimy feeling…I was surprised!

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She was really into cleaning it out, but if you look in the background you can see that little man got bored pretty quickly.

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There wasn’t very much guts in this pumpkin, thankfully.

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Baby girl wanted to carry the bowl around.

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I finally convinced her to put the bowl down.

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When hubby gets behind the counter…

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We get some funky pictures.

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“here daddy take my picture”

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See I told you…funky pictures!  oh and by the way, he took 50…yes 50!  I only saved “the best”.

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Did I already mention how much they LOVE their new play house?

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Didn’t take us long to decide on a design.

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Again, loving the play house while momma and daddy work on the pumpkin.

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Go figure right!?

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Time for a picture.

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He had to check up on Daddy and make sure he was doing it right.

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All done!!  They LOVED the pumpkin, thought it was so neat that Daddy put “the mickey mouse” on the pumpkin!

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

New Look!

I know a lot of readers are probably reading through Google reader, but I spent a lot of time working on a new fresh look for the blog.  If you would be so kind, take a look and let me know what ya think!

Thank ya much!!

Oh!!!  I also added a few things, so if they don't work please let me know...I'm learning, slowly, how to do this thing!!

Family Reunion 2012

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Every year my granny’s family hosts an annual family reunion.  We weren’t able to go last year, but I have gone almost every year since I was little.  My sister and I used to run through the bushes and play in the “river”.  I couldn’t wait to take our babies to the reunion this year and see what their favorite part would be.

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First thing I wanted to do was snap a few family pictures for our Christmas cards this year.  None of them turned out how I imagined so I  will share them with you.  I am hoping to try again in the next week or so.

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I wanted them to sit together, she was showing me that she wasn’t going to listen.

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No smiles from little man.

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I did like this one of us chatting.

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The park that our reunion is at is absolutely beautiful.  This creek is the “river” I remember from when I as little.  It’s funny how you remember things to be so big from when you were so small, and then to return to those places as an adult you see that it wasn’t really that big.

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It wasn’t long before they spotted the play ground. 

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This play ground was amazing. 

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It had slide…after slide…

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after slide…

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after slide!

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This slide was SO TALL, I was scared of little man going up it by himself.  Daddy helped baby girl up one time.

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She went down on her tummy, we are not sure how or when she got turned around.

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She decided to stick with the smaller slides, until she saw little man go down it again then she pitched her a good fit to do it again.  We tried telling her she was too small, she didn’t care!

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There was also this bridge that we thought little man was too small to do because the boards were pretty far apart.

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He proved us wrong though.

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Of course when she saw our excitement that little man made it across, she had to give it a shot too.

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She spent a lot of her time doing this (hugging my leg), because she wasn’t feeling well.

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The we hit the swings! 

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The swings have always been my favorite part of any play ground.

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Remember the Friends episode when Ross was trying to break Rachel’s fear of the swing?!

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I can’t help but think about that every time I swing.

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I hate that those were blurry but momma got time to practice with her shutter priority!

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I was standing farther away from baby girl so her pictures turned out fine.

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Then we did the sea-saw (is that how you spell that?!)

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I’ve never been a fan of those.

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We tried family pictures again…

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Cousins.

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Then it was time for some pickin!

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She wasn’t sure at first if she was interested or not.

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My great grandmother (Granny) and my momma (Gammy).

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Four generations…missing our Mema!

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Baby girl was tired pretty soon after we got there.

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After a brief, and I do mean BRIEF, rest on daddy’s shoulders she was ready to go again.

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This was her favorite game of the day.

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They both were fascinated with the bark on the trees.

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I swear she could have stood there for hours picking the bark.

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I told her I wanted a picture so she sat down to pose.

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She had bark everywhere, including her hair.

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The trees were so pretty!

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Taking another short break.

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We could not have been blessed with a better day, weather wise, to have this get together. 

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Shoe pic!

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My handsome little man.

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She is all about the camera and cheesing it up.

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I got some really good pictures of the kiddos.

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Eating and chatting.

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My hubby!

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The food there was amazing.  This not the main course!

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Stick fight!!!

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Too pretty to play with sticks.

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Instead she wanted to play peek-a-boo with daddy’s legs.

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Smile.

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After he realized that no one was going to play stick fight with him, he opted for a stick pony.  He started riding it around the park.

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Yee-haw!

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Babies went straight to Uncle Dee.

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They had the same name, how cool is that!?

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More pickin’!

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She was ready to dance by this point.

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Granny and little man started a game, the granny shells peanuts while little man eats them game!

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Pretty ladies!

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Baby girl was quick to learn her brother’s new game and she was right there.

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Football chat!

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So special!

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Family love.

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Baby girl was the typical social butterfly.

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Before taking our last bit of family pictures, they had to try to play horse shoes.

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Picture time.

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It is NOT easy to get adults and toddlers to look in one direction and smile.

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All is good except babygirl, I’d like to point out Granny’s reaction to baby girl’s fit!  HAHA Smile

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We managed to get this ONE picture, that wasn’t too bad.  I love our family reunions and so did the whole family.  I can’t wait to continue to make this a tradition for our family.  Family time is very important and you don’t get a whole lot of it in your lifetime.  We have always valued our family and the time with have with them, I can only hope that passion carries through to the babies!