Every Journey Begins With The First Step

Daddy left today. His 1st day on the new job, our 1st twelve days ever with out him around. It's exciting and scary. Thankfully we have lots of family and friends here for support as we start our new journey.

How did the spend there last night together before daddy left? Playing Angry Birds of course! I'm not sure why, but Audrey finds the game hilarious, and once she starts laughing everyone does.

The next 11 days ( already 1 down! ) will be hard as we make this transition to only having Aaron home 2 weeks a month, but the kid's look forward to nightly phone calls with daddy, and hopefully frequent visits from our family and friends. If you didn't catch that it was an invite, give us a call we would love some company.

A Post From John & Audrey

Today we went to breakfast with Papa John, Grandma, and Aunt Morgan, while mommy and daddy went on a breakfast date. Then Aunt Morgan came over to play while mommy was cleaning.
Once mommy finished her house work we went outside to paint the pumpkins that we convinced Papa John we needed while we where on our breakfast outing.

We had fun painting our pumpkins, and mom says they are master pieces, and set them on the front porch for all our friends and family to see.

After our naps we went to the park with our friends the Taylors. As usual mom was taking lots of pictures.

Our Trip to the park was fun, but not with out it's tears. John was trying to keep up with some of the older boys and scared mommy to death when he jumped off a high spot on the playground equipment. Mommy said thankfully he just twisted his ankle but she was sure he had broke his arm the way he landed on it.

After an hour and half at the park Daddy decided to break the rules and take us out for ice cream, at 5:30 pm. Mommy said we better eat our dinner.

Then we went to the Taylor's for dinner, where we had more fun with our friends, ate good food, and then had home made cookies and apple crisp. It was the perfect Saturday!

Welcome Autumn!

I love fall! I think I can safely say it's my favorite time of year. I enjoying watching the leaves change, and seeing mums and pumpkins find homes on my neighbor's porches. I love to bake and with the temperature dropping I don't mind turning my oven on. Just last week I made pumpkin pie, crock pot apple sauce, and chocolate chip pumpkin bread. I think apple crisp is next on my list!

I also love doing crafts with the kids, and am always searching the Internet for new fun, toddler friendly, and thrifty craft ideas. Yesterday I ran across a blog with an awesome fall craft that I knew we could do. I changed it up just a little bit, because I'm not a fan of handing two four year old boys and my two year old daughter paint brushes and letting them loose.

First we had to have a tree, so I convinced daddy to help because I have NO drawing ability.So thank you daddy for helping my thoughts become a reality. After he drew the outline and I cut it out, i tried taping it to our storm door. I had imagined it there all day and was very disappointed when I realized the glass was so cold the tape just wasn't going to stick. The only other place I could think to put it was in our stair well and while it's not what I had imagined, it works.

With the tree up and ready it was time to set the kids to work on the leaves. So I took out some coffee filters, and some red, orange, and yellow markers and let the kids color them however they wanted.After they finished coloring I had them use a water bottle to
spray to coffee filters so that all the colors would bleed together.

After we sprayed all the coffee filters I laid them out to dry and put the kids down for their naps! While everyone was napping I cut the dried coffee filters into leaf shapes and taped them on our tree using double sided tape.

Our finished project!

Searching For A Way To Slow Time.

As a mother there are days that feel like they are never going to end. As if time is standing still, and we will never get past this moment or this stage and all I can do is try and remind myself that this too will pass. Then there are days when you look at your children and wonder if it's at all possible to stop time, because they are growing to fast. Each of of my children have reached huge milestones lately, and as exciting as they are and as long as I have anxiously awaited them, it has thrown me into one of those I need to stop time Frenzies.

Just what are the milestones they reached, you ask? Well, Audrey is potty trained! It's been a solid 3 weeks now almost 4, but she transitioned into undies and has not had a single accident. I find it true that it is easier to potty train girls over boys. John didn't completely catch on til just before his 3rd birthday, Audrey is just over 2 and other than still wearing a diaper over night, she's got it down! I would love to claim that for the first time in four plus years I no longer have a child in diapers, but like I stated she still wears one to bed. Some nights she wakes up dry and other nights not so much. So I guess for a few more weeks or months I will continue to invest in diapers. Either way I am so very proud of my baby girl, which she refused to be called anymore. She says "mommy I not baby, I Aubrie." Yes you read that right I said Aubrie not Audrey, as often as I have to tell people her name is NOT Aubrie but rather Audrey, that is how she pronounces it. So very frustrating, and I correct her every time. I say "your name is Au..DREY", and she says "yep Au..BRIE." GRR... Frustrating I tell you!

This past week was also a big week for John.

On Wednesday he started preschool, and his excitement was contagious! He started counting down the days the Sunday before, and by Wednesday morning he was ecstatic! He had picked out his clothes the day before, and was up and dressed by 6: 45 am eager to show off his dinosaur shirt to all his new friends! As I have mentioned before, I watch another little boy the same age as John. They have been and are the best of friends, what ever best friends means at four years old anyway. I felt so blessed to watch these two boys, my son and the son of one of my best friends share in the excitement of their very 1st day of school , and I cant imagine having done it any other way. The 1st day was a short day, only an hour. They came back with smiles as big as they had when the left, and just as excited and eager if not more so to return. Friday ( they only have class Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays.) was just as successful, they couldn't wait to go, and came back full of excitement and stories. Audrey did not shared in the excitement, she was actually a bit upset at first that she couldn't go with the boys. She spends a large majority of her weeks with them, and figures what ever they do, she should be included. It wasn't to hard to change her mind though.

She is quite taken with Noah, the baby I watch and until now( because he can now support his own head) I haven't let her hold him. So with a simply reminder that I needed some help with the baby, and that she may even need to hold him for me she was more than happy to stay home with me. On Friday morning with the boys gone for a longer period of time we even got some one on one time while Noah slept. We did puzzles, and colored, and she helped me clean ( for now she still finds that exciting!).

I'm slowly moving out the diaper stage of motherhood ( hopefully not for good though!), and into the school stage. And well it came just a little quicker and I wanted or even anticipated. It's hard not to be excited for them, and it's hard not to be just a little sad. So I tell me myself a little more every day, enjoy this time, this day this very moment because you'll never get it back.