Busy having fun

Zoe, Emily, and Eleanor are having a fun couple of days. They had a half day of school yesterday, so they were able to go to Kayla's birthday party in the afternoon. They received an official letter from Hogwarts and they were excited to act out Harry Potter at the party. Eleanor ended up going shopping with me at Walmart since she hasn't read the Harry Potter books, so she didn't understand anything that was going on. We had fun buying a birthday present for her friend, Lucy.

Zoe had her first basketball practice this morning and then we went to the library to pick up the last Harry Potter book for her to read.

Zoe and Emily spent the rest of the day at Mary's house making gingerbread houses and playing with Madi and Shelby. They had a great time making forts outside.

Zoe took these pictures of her gingerbread house before it collapsed.




Emily's gingerbread house is still standing.


I brought Eleanor to Lucy's house for a sleepover this afternoon. We'll meet up with Eleanor tomorrow at church.

Zoe and Emily are now on their way to see the Nutcracker with Caitlin and Cassidy.

Fun times!

13 years and counting

Matt and I celebrated our anniversary this evening! We went to Bugaboo Creek for dinner and we did some shopping. I love you, Matt!

Let it snow

We are in the middle of a storm, so I'm getting my computer time in while I can. We expect to lose our power at some point. Matt is cooking dinner right now and hopefully it will get cooked and eaten before the power goes out. It started to snow around 10am, so the kids got out of school early today.

My mom and I finished Christmas shopping for the kids last night when we went shopping with Victoria. Yay! Let the wrapping begin.

Noah woke up yesterday with a chest cold and a fever, but the fever is gone today and he sounds much better. I shouldn't have put him down for a nap, though because he woke up grumpier than he was before his nap!

The kids love snow!

I love snow in December, too. Zach and Kate went outside 3 times today to play in the snow. All of the kids, except Noah went outside around 4pm to play until dinnertime. I discovered today that Noah's boots are too small. I put a pair of boots on him that were too big and brought him outside to play with Zach and Kate. I don't know if it was because of the boots, the snow, the cold, or the fact that he is getting a bunch of molars, but he did not want to stay outside. That was fine with me because bundling up 2 kids to go outside is enough!



Emily unwrapped "The elves and the shoemaker" this evening for us to read. The older girls were so excited! There were many comments about how they love this book and the fact that Grandma gave us the book last year. The kids were very good about listening to the book this evening. :-)

The parade is over!

Life is good.

Friday night, we met Mary and her kids at the Creche Exhibit. Kate loved looking at all the nativity scenes. She wanted to stop and look closely at each one. There are about 500 of them! When we made it to the children's room, we spent a lot of time there. There were cookies to decorate and eat, costumes to dress up in, puppets to play with, many hands-on nativity scenes to play with, books to read, and many crafts to make.




Zoe figured out how to make this paper star. She taught the adult volunteer in the children's area how to make it.






Yesterday morning, I went over to my parents' house so my mom and I could organize what we have bought the kids for Christmas. Then the rest of the day was spent getting ready for the parade. Zoe's friend, Hailey and Hailey's 2 brothers marched with us and Zoe's and Emily's friends, Caitlyn and Cassidy and their mom, Jen marched with us.

The kids looked great in their costumes!

The older kids should have been the shepherds instead of the wise men because they would have been more cautious with the shepherds staff. I'll know better next year.

My dad and I carried this banner. I am so grateful that Angie ordered the banner and decorated it to make it look so nice.


Jen carried the radio which was playing Christmas songs from the Children's Songbook and hymns from the hymnbook. The parade all worked out perfectly, as we knew it would, but not without some stress first! We had a few minor incidents like Zoe's crown breaking as she was putting it on, 3 of the candles got broken before and during the parade, and I dropped my side of the banner during the parade, but we all had a great time. It started to snow as we were marching, which was so pretty and perfect for the occasion. I had to encourage Eleanor to pay attention to where she was walking instead of trying to catch snowflakes in her mouth.

We sang this song in front of the judges...
We wish you a Merry Christmas
We wish you a Merry Christmas
We wish you a Merry Christmas
And a Happy New Year

What joy it will bring
to you and your kin
when you visit the Creche Exhibit
this weekend for free!

Having to sing the song stressed us out (we didn't have to stop in front of the judges, but I decided we would when I filled out the application), but the judges seemed to like the song and it gave us a fun way to spread the word about the Creche Exhibit.

The kids LOVED being in the parade, but they hated the wait before the parade started. The long wait didn't stop them from saying they want to be in the parade next year, though. After the parade, Hailey's mom said they have a trailer that we could decorate next year and ride on and she and her husband are all for helping us and would love to be in the parade with us. Yay!

I took Zoe, Emily, and Eleanor to McDonalds after the parade. Matt and I are still on our diet, so I was good and drank water. A lot of other people who were at the parade had the same idea, so it was crowded, but the girls enjoyed the treat.

Now I can focus on Christmas cards, Christmas gifts, Christmas goodies (for everyone else), and enjoying this Christmas season.

It's looking like Christmas around here!

In full swing

All of our Christmas countdown activities are finally finished! Only a few days late, not bad. We have our most popular countdown activity, which is the unwrapping of a book to be read before bedtime. Only a few of the kids actually sit and listen to the book, but seeing what book is going to be read is so exciting for the kids! Zoe unwrapped a book this evening.

It was Mary Engelbreit's A Merry Little Christmas...Celebrate from A to Z. Zoe read the book to her siblings.

Emily moved the doll to bag #3. Last year, we couldn't find the doll that we always use, but I found her this year. Yay! The doll reminds me of a little girl anxious for Christmas to arrive. I have several of those girls. :-) It is so much fun to see the doll get closer and closer to the Christmas Eve bag, which is just the #24 bag.

Our hallway is too narrow to get a good shot of all the bags.

Zach did our Christmas around the world activity and Kate did our "scripture tree" activity. I took a picture of them, but you can also see them here and here. Sorry, the second link isn't working.


Eleanor put an ornament on our "ornament tree".

This is new for us this year. Zoe made most of the tree and she did a great job! The kids can either make a paper ornament or pick a paper ornament that is already made to put on the tree. Eleanor and Zach had fun making ornaments last night while Zoe was making the tree.

In other news...

Our Nativity costumes arrived last night, right on time. :-) Here is a sample of what they look like.

Before the costumes arrived, all of the girls wanted to be Mary. Now they all want to be shepherds or wise men because the costumes are so much fun! We have 2 friends of Zoe and 1 friend of Emily joining us in the parade, and hopefully we'll be able to round up a few more. We have 9 costumes in all, so it would be fun to get 9 kids to participate. Zach is going to watch the parade with my mom and Kate and Noah will stay home with Matt. It looks like it may be warm for the parade (45-50 degrees). I really hope it is!

Matt and I are still on our diet. There has been no cheating yet. :-)

A moment with Zach

I was talking with Zach's primary teacher this morning and she told me about this cute experience she had with Zach several Sundays ago during the primary presentation. Zach tugged on her skirt and was trying to get her attention. She thought he was going to tell her that he had to go potty, but instead he whispered to her, "Sister Butler, I really like your new hair cut." So sweet!

Momma's helper

Here is a picture of Noah "helping" me with the Christmas lights. He is such a cutie!

Are you in the Christmas spirit?

For some reason, I'm having a hard time getting into the Christmas spirit this year. I think it has to do with the weather. It has been so nice here that in my mind, it is still too early to be digging out the Christmas decorations and singing Christmas songs.

Last night, I realized that today was going to be December 1st and I was not even close to being prepared for our Christmas countdown, which always starts on December 1st. Well, I did have Matt pick up Christmas books at the library last week and then he handed the books over to my mom that evening and she wrapped them all, but other than that, no preparation. I know, I have a GREAT mother! I am so glad she loves to wrap. When I was on the computer last night, I looked up countdown ideas from the most recent Friend magazine and I looked at past issues as well. I came up with 3 more countdown ideas, but we don't have any ink in our printer, so I asked my mom to print what I needed at her work. Again, I have a GREAT mother! My lack of preparation however resulted in only 2 of the 5 countdown activities being completely ready for this evening. The kids were understanding, though.

I went Christmas shopping with my mom and Victoria this evening. I was supposed to bring home the papers that my mom printed off today, but I never got them from her. Hopefully, I'll get them tomorrow. I wanted to make a paper tree today to put paper ornaments on as one of our countdown ideas, but I didn't get it made and the girls were not excited to make one, so that is on my list of things to do tomorrow.

I did force myself to dig out the Christmas lights today and put some up around the windows in the living room and along the ceiling in the kids' room. I'm glad I did because the excitement on Eleanor's face when she walked through the door after school and saw the lights was worth the effort.

The South Beach Diet

The holidays are here and Matt and I are on a diet. I wanted to start the diet on January 1st, but Matt was determined to start the day after Thanksgiving to avoid gaining the holiday pounds. Good idea, but I wasn't determined to do the same. Matt started the diet the day after Thanksgiving and I enjoyed the leftover pies. Matt went to the temple that day, so I was able to eat without tempting him. That night I felt super full, fat, and blah. I was ready to start the diet. So, Saturday was our official 1st day of the diet together. It was easy for me since I was still full from all the desserts I ate the day before. I got sick that night and was still recovering on day 2, so the second day was easy as well. Today was a bit more challenging. I was craving a tall glass of orange juice this morning, but I drank water instead with my breakfast. I would have drank milk, but all we had was whole milk, which is not allowed. The rest of the day wasn't as bad. I'm not flirting with the idea of abandoning the diet anymore as I was while eating breakfast.

Matt started feeling sick before he got home this evening, so he skipped dinner. He made it through FHE and then he went to bed. We are hoping this flu only hits us all once!

The kids are already noticing that we are all eating healthier as a family now. Kate was snacking on a celery stick this afternoon and everything on the table this evening was healthy. The kids were impressed! There are a lot more green vegetables to choose from at dinnertime and the salmon we had the other night and the london broil we had this evening were delicious! I am not a salmon fan, but I loved this salmon!

We will lose weight not gain weight this holiday season! That's the plan, anyway.

Recovering

About 24 hours ago, the sickness caught up with me. We all stayed home from church today. I had already asked someone to teach my class for me since some of the kids were still suffering from some symptoms of this illness and I was planning on staying home with all of the kids, but I didn't realize that I would be suffering as well. Matt took care of the kids today. It was a long day for everyone.

Round 6

Kate has been throwing up all morning. Somehow she managed to throw up the first time on Zoe's pillow, but not on Zoe.

One week from tomorrow

The parade of lights is next Saturday. My neighbor called me today to let me know that her family has something else going on that Saturday that she had forgotten about, so they won't be marching in the parade with us. Part of me is stressed about this, but the other part of me is just going with the attitude that everything is going to work out regardless, so whatever. The stressed part of me usually dominates, though. Right now I'm thinking that just Zoe, Emily, Eleanor, and I will march in the parade and see if we can carry a radio playing Christmas music instead of having us sing. That would eliminate the stress of recruiting other people to march with us and eliminate the need to memorize songs. I would like to eliminate marching in the parade altogether, but I won't do that.

The good thing that came from talking with my neighbor is that now we are going to meet at the Creche Exhibit on Friday evening. That will be fun!

Plan C

Well, this Thanksgiving hasn't gone as planned, but it has still been a nice day.

Zach stayed over at my parents' house last night and he had a great time. He was treated to McDonald's for dinner and he enjoyed special time with his Grammie and Grampie. Our plan today was to meet my parents, Zach, my niece, Victoria, and my grandmother at Bugaboo Creek at 12:30. My mom called us late this morning to let us know that Zach threw up this morning. Plan B was set in place. Matt and I stayed home with Zach, Kate, and Noah while my parents, Victoria, my grandmother, Zoe, Emily, and Eleanor went to Bugaboo Creek. Zach was acting fine, but we decided to be safe rather than sorry. We would meet up at my parents' house later on in the afternoon. Matt and I watched an episode of "Dirty Jobs", while Noah took a nap, Zach played, and Kate slept on my lap.

We made it over to my parents' house around 3:00. My parents' ordered a couple of meals to go from Bugaboo Creek, so Matt and I ate at their house. Then we enjoyed dessert. Our choices were pumpkin pie, chocolate pie, and strawberry cheesecake. Usually I buy a strawberry topping, but the stores don't sell it anymore, so Matt made a strawberry topping this morning. It is so much better than the topping I used to buy! My mom, Victoria, and I started a game of Phase 10. Noah started to get fussy and he felt warm. Matt was watching football and holding Noah when Noah threw up. Party's over. Matt and I left with Eleanor, Zach, Kate, and Noah. Zoe and Emily are staying over at my parents' house and are planning on watching the second Harry Potter movie again. They can only watch Harry Potter when the younger kids aren't around, which isn't very often.

Our plan now is to relax and get a good night's rest. I really hope this plan sticks!

Happy Thanksgiving

Eat dessert first!

I am thankful for...

my family.
my friends. I went to see New Moon this evening with some of them. I enjoyed it better than Twilight, but only because I knew better this time that it wasn't going to follow the book. Why do they leave out the best lines that were in the book???
a washer and dryer that work. I am actually looking forward to doing laundry now!
internet at home.
my health and my family's health.
the big check that finally came, which paid off all but one of our debts!
our condemned trailer.
my membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
the beauty of the Maine woods.
great in-laws.
our Thanksgiving reservations at Bugaboo Creek.

Have a great Thanksgiving!

Good news

Our washer and dryer should be working tomorrow! The new part is being installed tomorrow and hopefully we'll be back in the laundry business here at home.

Eleanor has recovered quickly from her illness, but Zoe has not moved all day.

More sickness

I interrupt the Netflix watching to let you know that Eleanor threw up in the middle of the night, all over the floor, herself, and several blankets. Now I have a pile of laundry outside that at some point I need to bring over to my parents' house to wash. Emily is the only one who made it to school today. She had about 10 minutes to get ready this morning and she had that much time because she got up on her own. Matt and I were still sleeping! It was a rough night.

Sickness & Stress

Emily is just starting to feel 100% better from her illness that started last Thursday. She has felt fine, but she lost her appetite Friday evening and it continued through the weekend. Emily loves to eat, so when she doesn't feel like eating, she is definitely not feeling well. She was eating more today, though.

Eleanor complained of a sore throat throughout the weekend and mentioned her stomach hurting every once in awhile. Her throat hurt this morning and she didn't want to eat her cereal like she normally does, so she stayed home from school today. I had a feeling that about an hour after being home that she would be active and feel fine, and I was right. Oh well.

Now Zoe is sick. Really sick. She has thrown up 5 times this evening. Poor thing. This is no way to start Thanksgiving break! Tomorrow is the last day of school, but Zoe will be staying home.

Now on to my stress. Two years ago as I watched the parade of lights in 17 degree weather (crazy, I know!), I had a thought that a group of people should be in the parade spreading the word about the Creche Exhibit. The parade is always on the same weekend as the Creche Exhibit. We didn't make it to the parade last year because Noah was only 5 months old, so this thought didn't come to mind. Several weeks ago, I had this thought again about the Creche Exhibit being represented in the parade and I thought it would be a fun activity for our family. Matt expressed no desire to march in the parade and opted to stay home with the 3 youngest children. The older girls were excited to be in the parade, so I told them I would look into it. I gave it a few more days of thought and almost had myself talked out of it, but I have been doing a lot of reading lately on promptings and the whisperings of the Spirit and I couldn't ignore this prompting. I called Doreen, who is in charge of the Creche Exhibit this year and told her my idea. She loved it and felt it was inspired. Okay, now the fun begins. I filled out the parade application...with a vague idea of what exactly my vision was for our group. Filling out the application was actually good because it forced me to come up with a plan to carry out. I put on the application that there would be 15 of us marching, but as of that time there was only 4 of us. Hmmmm, who to ask to march with us? I asked several families I know, but nobody was committing or even a little bit excited about it. This was confirming that not only am I crazy for going to this winter parade, but now I want to march in it??? A family kept coming into my mind to ask to march with us, but it is a family that I do not know very well, so I kept going back and forth between ignoring the prompting and procrastinating. All of this time I am stressing about the number of people marching and how am I going to act on the idea to wear nativity costumes for the parade. I am not gifted with a sewing talent, so I would have to ask someone to make costumes in a short amount of time or buy costumes, which would be expensive. What to do??? On Saturday, I decided to make the phone call to the family I felt I should call. This neighbor of mine thought it was a great idea and was actually excited to participate with us! It's amazing how things come together when we act on the Lord's will. I felt so good after I made that phone call! The same day, I looked on the internet at costumes and I found nativity costumes at Oriental trading that got great reviews and are inexpensive. Perfect. I'm planning on getting a lot of use out of them, so I figure they are worth the money. I ordered them this morning and they will arrive on December 2nd. They better! More stress...will the costumes arrive on time?, will they fit?, will they be good quality? How will we determine which costume each child will wear? There are 7 children participating, so I think we should put their names in a bag and draw names to see who will wear what costume. That's fair, right? We will have Mary and Joseph, 3 wise men, and 2 shepherds. I think my neighbor and I will wear dark clothes and carry the signs that will hopefully be lit with a string of battery powered lights...another stress...will the lights work with the signs? Our Stake President's wife ordered signs about the Creche Exhibit for the parade and I hear they are very nice, but I haven't seen them yet. When I filled out the application, I said we would be singing Christmas hymns, so now we need to practice. The stress goes on and on, but at least I do feel like things are falling into place and everything will work out. I have a constant headache, though and I will be one happy person when the parade is OVER! I'm trying to enjoy the process, but it's just hard when thinking about it intensifies the headache.

1st post from home since March 15th

I am sitting in my own living room as I type this post. I love it! I will not miss going over to my parents' house several afternoons a week to get on the computer for a few hours before the girls got home from school. I would be on the computer, the kids would be demanding food and making messes, then I would get my parents' house back in order and rush home, so we would be home when the girls got off the bus. It is nice that now when I go over to my parents' house, I can enjoy their company and not be stuck in front of their computer.

Our family went to Machias today because Zoe, Emily, Eleanor, and Zach participated in their Primary Sacrament Meeting Presentation. Machias has one Primary child who comes with her grandmother, so our 4 kids made up the rest of primary. One Sunday awhile back, Zoe asked the primary leader when they were doing their primary presentation and the primary leader told Zoe that Machias didn't have enough primary kids to do a presentation. Zoe suggested doing the presentation when our kids would be there and the primary leader thought that was a great idea! It was a great idea! My parents went to Machias today, too to watch the presentation. The kids were so cute and they did a great job. Our kids travel to Machias a lot on Sundays with Matt, so the people in the branch know them. I am so proud of our kids for making the presentation possible in Machias. Zoe did a great job singing "I'll Seek the Lord Early" all by herself, the kids all did a great job saying their parts, and for a group of 5, they sang out loud and clear. I'm glad we were able to enjoy 2 primary presentations this year. :-)

Matt made apple crisp this afternoon.

It's great having a husband who makes yummy food for us to enjoy!

This should be my last post from my parents' house!

I went to do a load of laundry Monday morning and discovered that our washer and dryer were not working. We have a stackable washer and dryer and none of the buttons I pushed on them would turn on. There was a time when I would have been annoyed that we would have to spend money on getting them fixed instead of spending the money on something fun, but now I am just so grateful that the washer and dryer quit working when we have money to get them fixed! A guy came to look at the washer and dryer on Wednesday and he said a new control panel needed to be ordered, so we are waiting to hear back from him. I have been putting off doing laundry this week, so here I am today at my parents' house doing laundry. I could be here until midnight! The kids, except Noah, are here with me. Matt is home waiting for the cable guy to show up to install our internet. SO EXCITING!

Zach, Kate, Noah, and I went to playgroup on Tuesday. I took this cute picture of Kate happily pretending to feed Victoria's cat.

Tuesday evening, I took Zoe and Emily to Friendly's for dinner after Activity Days. It was fun being out with them and we enjoyed our delicious food. Zoe and Emily managed to stuff dessert in after their dinner.

I teased them that they looked like lovebirds sharing a drink together.

Wednesday evening, I went Christmas shopping with my mom. We also ate dinner at The Weathervane, which was fun! We spent some time figuring out if our server was a male or a female. Our server looked like a man, but talked in a high voice, wore earrings, and we thought our server's name was Allison. We decided Allison was a man and when we looked at the receipt, we saw that his name was Ellison.

Matt bought a new pair of clippers, so Noah got a buzz cut while I was out shopping. Matt has been wanting to buzz cut the boys's hair for awhile now, so Matt was delighted to cut Noah's hair. I took a picture of Noah's buzz cut and Kate's cute pigtails Thursday morning before we left for the Children's Museum.

It has taken me awhile to get used to Noah's hair. He looks too grown up now!

Kate made friends with a bearded dragon at the museum.

Usually the reptiles are sleeping or hiding, so it was fun to see the bearded dragon interacting with the kids.




I used to be able to get rid of red eyes on my pictures here very easily and quickly, but now that my parents have a new Windows program, I don't know how to edit the pictures quickly and I never have time to figure it out.

Here is a picture of Zach steering "Don's boat".


They have a new exhibit about the inside of toys that is really neat! I thought of you, Steve when I saw this toy.

The exhibit was more hands on than I expected. It was a lot of fun for the kids to push buttons and turn cranks to make the toys work. I'd like to bring the older girls to the exhibit because I think they will enjoy the inside of the toys more than the younger kids did.


Noah could have played with the tennis balls and this ramp the entire time! Every time I go to this museum, I think about bringing each child separately so they can stay at the activity they like for however long they want to. I hate making a child leave an activity they are really enjoying because another sibling is ready to move on. Matt took Zach by himself one time and they had a lot of fun!

This was a week for picking sick kids up at school. Zoe came home early on Wednesday with a stomach ache. I got a call on Thursday afternoon at 2:35 (when school gets out) that Emily was feeling too sick to ride home on the bus, so I went to pick her up. It's one thing to just get yourself ready quick to pick up a sick child from school, but getting yourself plus 3 kids into the car quickly is not fun! Emily was home for about an hour when she threw up (yay for throwing up in the bucket!).

I noticed this a little while later.

While I was in the kids' room relaxing and reading while Noah played, Eleanor taped all of the class pictures to the ceiling so we could see them better at dinnertime.

Zach got a buzz cut Thursday evening.


This is too cute!

Zach put his kitty in the corner for being naughty.

Matt and I went out to Bugaboo Creek last night and then we did some shopping. It is fun getting Christmas shopping done early! We got off to a late start since we were both waiting at different locations for each other, but when we finally met up, we had a fun evening.

The kids had fun watching the new Tinker Bell movie in the afternoon and then they watched a new Scooby Doo movie in the evening. My mom said the kids were extra good for her. I think having a movie that they hadn't seen before helped.

So, the next time you hear from me, it should be from home! Matt and I are looking forward to watching "The Office" on the computer this evening! Our computer is going to be complete again. :-)

Organizing Heaven

I have been dreaming of buying tons of organizers to do more organizing around the house, especially in the kids' room. My dream is coming true. :-)

We went from a basket full of our hats and mittens to these organizers. We each have our own box to keep our hats and mittens in. It is so much easier than searching through the basket!

Here are some new organizers in the kids' room. The drawers on the left are new. There are 6 drawers in all.

When I received money for my birthday, I mostly wanted to buy organizers!

Zach wanted me to take a picture of him.
I love organizing!

FHE Idea: I went through the 2009 Primary Presentation outline today and made up questions for our family to answer. The kids took turns picking a question, which I had taped on the wall, and then they answered the question they picked. The older kids helped the younger kids. It was a great way to review what they have been learning in Primary this year. Some of the questions were, "What is the name of our prophet?", "How can we remember the Savior as we partake of the Sacrament?", "What do we do with our arms, legs, head, eyes, ears during a prayer?", "Tell us 3 things we can do on the Sabbath day to keep it holy", "Say one nice thing about each family member". There were also a few fill in the blanks and true or false questions. FYI: Our kids were wild during this lesson, but there is hope that your kids will sit reverently and pay attention. :-)

Primary Presentation 2009

Zoe, Emily, Eleanor, and Zach participated in the Children's Sacrament Meeting Presentation today at church. Eleanor refused to say her first line, which said she loved to cuddle with me, but she willingly sang "The Family is Ordained of God" with Zoe and Emily. It was sweet to hear our girls singing together...even with the dirty looks going on between them when one of them would make a mistake. All of the children did a great job with their speaking parts and singing the songs. Even Kate and her nursery class got to join the children in singing the last song, "Families Can Be Together Forever". So sweet! We have a great group of Primary children!

Out with the old, In with the new

Matt and I are having fun spending money. :-) Even paying bills and debts is fun...at least I think so. I have had these sneakers for at least 14 years. I loved these sneakers, but they just recently started falling apart. Very sad.

They have been replaced with these...

I went with an expensive pair in hopes of them lasting just as long as my old pair. They better!

These are Matt's old overalls.

It was nice to see Matt in his new overalls when I got home Friday from Augusta. Here are 3 different poses...




There's no old or new to this next picture, but Matt wanted me to post a picture of the pumpkin pie that I made for him on Thursday.

The kids have been trying to get their teeth into some of it, but with no luck.

Face to Face

My mom and I went to Augusta on Friday to meet Grandma Dawn and her husband. They arrived from Colorado on Thursday. I never thought I would meet Dawn in person, but it happened! We met at the Ground Round and had a great lunch together.

It was fun to talk more in detail about things that we have written about on our blogs and to learn more about each other and our families. I'm glad it worked out that we could get together while Dawn is here in Maine! I had a great time, Dawn and Dwight!

My mom and I started our Christmas shopping on Friday. It is so much fun to have money to spend for Christmas!

A special thanks to Matt for taking the day off from work to watch the kids. Matt and I were able to go out in the evening, which was the icing on the cake. What a great day!

IT FINALLY CAME!

The big check...the one we've been telling everyone about...it's here! For real!