These Little Moments...

Gracie's Nursery Rhyme party was this past Friday at preschool. The kids have been learning nursery rhymes and making related crafts for the past couple weeks. I've enjoyed hearing Gracie recite many of my favorite nursery rhymes and am impressed with how many she now knows! The children were allowed to dress up for the party as any nursery rhyme character. We went back and forth between the cat with the fiddle in Hey Diddle Diddle or Mary, from Mary had a Little Lamb. In the end, Gracie chose to dress up as Mary and let her little lamb follow her along to school. :) I signed up to be a mommy helper and had a fantastic time leading a Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star craft and providing star cookies for the class. It was so neat to finally have an inside look into Gracie's day and I enjoyed meeting many of the little friends she talks about at home. All of the children were so sweet and well behaved during the crafts, game, and snack time. I was impressed! The highlight of my...

Enjoying Halloween celebrations with my sweet owl and beautiful bumblebee. :) Happy Halloween!

Thursday evening was Parent Observation night at the dance studio. It was precious! The girls performed a short tap and ballet routine for us. Gracie was clearly distracted at first, and too busy waving at her brother to do much during the first dance! She was more focused during their 2nd dance to the Ghostbuster's theme song. The dance teachers did a great job. It was adorable and makes me SO excited for Gracie's first recital this summer! The girls also dressed in Halloween costumes. I dressed Gracie as a kitten, since her costume didn't arrive in time for class. She was too cute and played the part well. Here she is meowing and climbing our tree. :) (Yes, I bribed her, with candy corn. How I wish my daughter enjoyed having her picture taken!)

Sean and I took the kids to the pumpkin patch one last time on Tuesday evening. The first time we went, it was all about Gracie and her search for the perfect pumpkin. Since she gets irritated when I take pictures of her, I left the camera at home. :) This time, however, I did take the camera, hoping to get a couple of cute shots of her with the pumpkins, and of Ethan, since this is his first Halloween! We've been visiting this same pumpkin patch (at a local church) since Gracie's first! We were surprised to see how few pumpkins were left. The ones remaining were pitiful...it was a sad group of rejected pumpkins. I wanted to buy them all. Gracie and Ethan were still able to find a cute pumpkin to bring home. :) We are looking forward to a fun Halloween weekend!

I wrote this post months ago, Easter weekend actually. I’m not sure why I chose not to publish it then. Maybe the emotion was still a little too raw. Maybe by not publishing, the memories remained mine alone, not made public for others to read. Either way, as we approach October 28 th , the one year anniversary of his passing, I find it so important to remember all that I can. Even the good memories were painful at first, but now I'm ready to share. ________________________________________ I baked banana bread to kick off the much anticipated Easter weekend. I was laughing at Gracie, who abandoned her own slice of bread to come pick unmelted butter off of mine. Sean was commenting on her strange love for plain butter. I like butter on muffins, baked breads, pancakes… but this girl would consider it a gift to be given a tiny bowl of plain butter to eat. For this reason, there are times I don’t use butter, just to avoid the fight… but I really needed butter on my banana bread...

My Handsome Boy... You are growing, so big and so strong. You seem to change a little every day. I love watching you as you discover the world around you and accomplish new things. You turned 4 months old on October 16th, and we celebrated with you while in the mountains! What an amazing 4 months this has been for our family. Your 4 month appointment was this morning. You are now weighing in at 14 pounds, 4 ounces and have grown to a little over 25 inches long. You are healthy and happy, and we couldn't ask for anything more! You handled your shots well... you cried briefly (and broke my heart), but seemed content by the time we were back in the car. You are sleeping soundly as I type. Here's more about you at 4 months old... -You are rolling from your tummy to your back, although you don't do it as often as you did a few weeks ago. You seem much more content being on your tummy these days. When laying on your back, you now flip yourself over onto your side and you are ...

We spent the weekend in Boone, North Carolina. Our home away from home was a cozy cabin overlooking an insanely beautiful backdrop of changing leaves and mountain tops. We could literally see the definition of fall outside of each window. We didn't necessarily mean to choose the most perfect weekend for a mountain get-away, but we did choose the perfect weekend. (Our view from the back deck.) We were joined by one of the greatest couples I know, my childhood best friend and her husband. Katie and I have been friends for over 20 years. I think I only didn't know her for the first three years of my life. She and her husband met at, and then graduated from, Appalachian State University. It was wonderful having them show us around a town they fell in love with, while also falling in love with each other... ahhhh... so sweet. :) The four of us began talking about this trip back in July, during our July 4th dinner date to be exact, and Gracie has been asking when we would be...

I am sooo tired. We had such a busy, but wonderful , weekend. We were able to really enjoy seeing my grandmother while she was here, but I also had an early morning senior session on Saturday and an evening pumpkin patch session on Sunday. I had forgotten how exhausting the double session weekends can be, even though I only really shoot for a couple hours at a time! I am worn out and slightly behind on the important task of editing the hundreds of images on my computer... This blog post is my break. :) My step-sister's baby boy just turned 8 weeks old. We joined my dad and family at his church Sunday morning for a baby dedication in my nephew's honor. My dad's church is the one I grew up in. It was nice to be back with my own family for a visit. Ethan and Marshall are almost exactly 8 weeks apart. It was hard to believe how big my son looked in comparison to this little baby! This picture doesn't do a good job of showing their true size difference. ...

My grandmother arrived on Thursday afternoon. She comes for her annual "Sister's Weekend", a wonderful gathering of 5 sisters, all in one place, when they are usually sprinkled about across the country. Since Sister #1 lives in a city not so far from ours, we get a little piece of her too, and we've been looking forward to it. Hi, Granny. We've missed you. We had a nice dinner at my mom's house on Thursday evening. I know I've said it before, but I just love being surrounded by family. I want my children to also recognize the importance of family as they grow up. I hope they will realize how blessed we are with family. It's the simple things, like being dumped in the floor, that keep these two entertained and happy. ;) Her visit seemed short...we said our good-byes this evening after dinner, since she flies back to Maryland tomorrow...but it was very sweet. I'm so thankful for her and our little moments together this weekend.

We met some friends of ours and took the babies to the Dixie Classic Fair on Monday evening. The weather seemed nice enough when we arrived, comfortable in sweatshirts and jeans. We stopped to see and feed the animals first. Gracie plopped a one dollar bill on a counter holding small bags of carrots. She was excited to feed the goats. I laughed as she tossed carrot after carrot in the direction of anxious goat mouths, each one hitting the ground. They don't jump up for treats like our dog, and she wasn't interested in getting too close. :) For our own dinner, we settled on barbecue sandwiches and fries. I always look forward to fair food, even though I know it's going to be over-priced and we're most likely going to eat standing, unless we get lucky enough to grab a free table. Standing actually worked in our favor this year, because as we waited under a covered area for our food, it started to rain. I was optimistic that it would only be a brief sprinkle, not enou...