Winner!

Just a quick note to say the winner of the Tiny Prints giveaway (as drawn from a hat by my two year old) is Ashlee!  Your promo code will be emailed directly to you.  :)  Congrats!

Pumpkin Pictures

Thursday morning I was having a not very good morning.  I was rushed trying to get out the door for Bible study, Huston was whining about everything, and when I tried to dump dinner in the crock pot on my way out, I realized I was missing some ingredients and had to abort that plan.

However, I had the kids dressed in some cute fall clothes, and I decided to stop outside the mall at a little pumpkin patch stand to take their pictures.  Something about getting pictures of my kids with pumpkins just makes my heart happy.  My morning was so much better after I got these sweet shots.  

Finally Fall

We haven't been up to anything very interesting lately.  

A lot of going to school:

I can't get enough of them with their cute backpacks and lunch boxes walking in to school with me.  It's just so fun!

Huston had "Donuts with Dads" last week for the letter "D."  He really enjoyed showing Clarke around his classroom (and eating his donut, in case you can't tell from the picture).  When he was first telling me about how his class was going to do this, he said, "If your dad doesn't come, it's okay, because you can just have donuts with just you."  I'm assuming his teachers told him this so no one would be sad if their dad couldn't come.  Then he said, "I don't think Daddy's going to be able to come."  I assured him that Daddy would do his best to come and would probably be able to, and then he said with a quavering voice, "But I just like to eat donuts, too!"  I guess he thought it was either your dad got a donut, or you got one if he couldn't come.  He was a lot happier once he realized he was going to get a donut either way!

Last weekend we took the kids to see Finding Nemo in 3D.  I was a little worried about the shark scenes, but they turned out to be no big deal.  However, when Nemo first got separated from his dad and his dad was crying and calling out for him, Arden turned to me with her eyes pooling with tears and a trembling lip, and then burst into tears!  I mean, full on sobbing and crying!  It was so sweet and sad - she has such a tender heart.  I held her for the rest of the movie, and later, when Nemo got flushed down the dentist sink, Arden turned to me crying again and said, "I want to go home!"  Poor girl thought it was the saddest movie she had ever seen and she kept looking at us like, "I can't believe you've brought me to see this!"

After the movie, we bought a mattress for Arden's big girl bed, which Clarke assembled on Sunday.  I wanted to get a picture of her sleeping on it on the first night, but I was so mad at myself because it looked terrible - I had no mattress pad, no pillow, and the sheets weren't washed and ready.  And I bought a regular size box spring, which was way too tall and looked ridiculous.  So Tuesday I borrowed my mom's van and drove all the way to the Mattress Firm warehouse in Irving to exchange the box spring for a shorter one.

The height of the bed looks much better now, but I still have tons to do in her room.  I change the photo below to a sepia tone, because her walls looked so garish!  I'm tired of the stripes now, and want to paint it a calmer, more neutral color.  Hopefully I'll get to that soon!

Arden's doing great in her bed, though.  She seems to love it.  The first night she didn't fall out, the next three nights she did, but last night she didn't.  Hopefully she'll learn to keep her little body in that bed!

Here's a few more "playing at school" pictures from one of the first really chilly days we've had so far this fall!

Recap of September

I've been meaning to post for awhile, but I was having a hard time trying to figure out where to start.  If I wait too long between posts, it gets overwhelming to try and catch up!  Here's my attempt, anyway...

Arden and Huston have both been loving school.  Arden has the best time playing with all the things in our room and I just love having her with me all day.  Huston runs into my room at the end of every day just bursting with all the things he's learning.  He shows me in the air how to write the new letter and number they're learning, sings the "color" songs in his room at night (to learn how to spell the color words), tells me how many days they've been in school, tells me things he's learned, like that Norman Bridwell wrote all the Clifford books, and chants the letter sound chart that they are learning.  He just loves all the more "academic" things they've been doing in his class.

I try to treasure every day at school together, because I know this is Huston's last year in preschool.  One morning we were walking to the school and Huston said, "I like the way Arden's made.  I like that dress you put her in."  It was so sweet.  (And please note, Arden was wearing pants and a shirt that day, not a dress.)

Huston spends a great part of his days lately building with the magna-tiles we gave him for his birthday.  In this picture he told me he was in his "vacation house."  Notice he has no pants on.  For the past week or so, every time we come home from somewhere he rips his pants off and runs around in his underwear.  

He's been obsessed with playing the old video game "Streets of Rage" with Clarke and pretends to defeat a "Claw" that's on one of the levels.  There's also a conveyor belt in one part of the game that he alternately calls the "convigor belt" and the "convurtle belt."  I love how he says "zilver" for "silver" and how he pronounces "something" as "somesing."  He'll say, "I just think we should have pizza or somesing."

Arden loves to pretend that everything is her baby.  If we see a giraffe on tv, she'll all of a sudden have a baby giraffe.  If there's a bad guy on the video game that Huston and Clarke are playing, then she's suddenly nurturing a "baby bad guy."  Surprisingly, she doesn't really play with baby dolls, but instead just imagines that she's holding different babies.  Baby Junior is still around, but sometimes her other imaginary babies live on her feet, too, like Baby Hank and Baby Bonnie (her Aunt Emily and Uncle Topher's two dogs - Arden pronounces Baby Bonnie as Baby Bunny).  When it's time to leave the house, sometimes she'll gesture at her toes and say, "These little guys want to come, too!" referring to whichever imaginary babies or pets are currently residing there.

Every morning when I get Arden up, she says, "I want to have bre-fest."  I love how she pronounces it.  She also has the cutest way of exaggerating her r's, so that squirrel sounds like squir-rel.  When she pluralizes words, sometimes she adds an "is" sound, so instead of baby giraffes, it's baby giraff-is.  Or "Baby Junior-is favorite toys are puppy dogs," for example.

Arden pronounces all of the "th" sounds at the beginning of words with a /d/ sound.  So her "this" is "dis," her "that" is "dat," and her "then," is "den."  She also says "den" for "when."  

When she talks, it sounds like, "Mommy, do you see dis little baby I'm holding?  She is going to school and den she is going to eat dat little cookie."

Both Huston and Arden pronounces the "th" at the end of words with a /f/ sound.  With is "wif," and Teeth is "teef."  

I love how they talk!

Here's one final anecdote for this September wrap-up:

Huston told me one day, "Momma, I love you all the way to Pluto."

So Arden told me, "I love you all the way to Mercury."

Huston said in his best condescending big brother voice, "Well, Mercury's just not that far, Arden."