Nene's Birthday

We HAD to have a party for Nene's Birthday. It was so much fun and the food was great (thanks Doug). We wore party hats and had balloons and...well...no cake because Nene likes turtle brownies so we made those instead. Marlie refused the hat and Matt insisted that the card he gave her was HIS because he had his name on it (I had him sign it the day before). And he wouldn't let it go. That was HIS card with HIS name! Maybe Nene will get to have her card next year!

Changing Minds Foundation

I was touched last week by something I'd like to share.

I was very lucky to be invited by a friend to a movie premiere about a new treatment for children with Down Syndrome. The documentary was fantastic and it's making its way around the world. Even better, one of my friends was able to come with me and she has a little man who does not have Down Syndrome but may in some way be able to benefit from this new treatment.

I have 3 friends now with children that need extra care. All are wonderful and I admire them as parents. Life with small children and balancing work is challenging but these parents do it and with a smile on their face. You all have touched my life though you may not know and are always in my prayers.

I'd like to ask you to take a minute and visit the website and watch the trailer....http://www.changingmindsfoundation.com/. If you haven't made your charitable contribution this year this is a great cause to support. They are now using this treatment to treat children with Autism and people with Alzheimers. All because of one Mother's fight to make life better for her son!

Pumpkin Patch Take II....As Promised

If you haven't read the blog post before this one you should.

Found the outfit. Was as cute as I remembered but too small. Too cute to pass up so I put it on Marlie with her kicking and screaming. For some reason she DID NOT find it as cute as I did. Maybe she was scared of the spider on the front? She definitely did not like the trim at the bottom. Oh well......I continued anyway.

Pumpkin patch was closed and fenced off. But we broke in. Managed to get a few really good pictures before an old lady came out and yelled at us for being there ( I should note this is church property we broke in to. Surely God would think this moment was important and forgive us. I'll have to check in with him later). Anyway, the lady was probably wondering why we waited until the last minute to do this, but I didn't have time to tell her about the diseased pumpkin fiasco. Then when she saw Marlie's outfit she kinda soften up a bit. Now that we found the outfit we'll be wearing it all weekend! Enjoy!

It's Pumpkin Time!

After the kids were in bed a few weeks ago I put up our Fall decorations. That next morning Matt came downstairs and yelled "it's pumpkin time"! So last weekend we drove all the way downtown to the pumpkin patch we've gone to for the last few years only to find that there were hardly any pumpkins left and the ones they had looked like they had some sort of pumpkin disease. Even the kids noticed. No kidding these were the first pics we took. Their faces say "Mom really...you drove us all the way here for this?" Good thing they can't really express their thoughts yet. My Mom of the Year award would have been revoked for sure.

Pics from the pumpkin patch are my FAVORITE of the entire year. So we managed a few pictures but none turned out great since the pumpkins looked sick. Look at the one below with Matt and the diseased pumpkin....

At some point this is just comical. But we managed to have fun and at least we walked away with a few little pumpkins that still looked disease free. We attempted a few family pics and the kids thought it was funny to put the pumpkins on our heads which I thought was fabulous.


Nene came with us and these pics turned out the best of course because I took them. Nene was a little scared of these pumpkins too!

We also hit 3 Fall Festivals! Yes I said 3! And poor Marlie was sick as a dog all week! We thought she was getting better and this past Saturday we went to our neighborhood Fall Festival. One minute she was dancing with all the little girls near the DJ and the next she's throwing up in the bushes. I thought those stories would come when she was in college, not at 16 months. But Matt had a blast and I love to see him smile like this. I'm afraid some sweet girl will get scammed by this smile one day. So with Marlie sick we never made it to another pumpkin patch. But as I'm writing this I just realized that I have the cutest outfit that was passed down from our cousins that I completely forgot about. If it fits her we're just going to have to put it on and make another trip back to the patch. Doug will kill me for sure. I can't believe I just remembered that. I should be fired as a Mom. You'll see why on the next blog when you see her in it.

Baseball game was great again this weekend. Parents were grumpy because it was 8:00am and pretty cold. Kids did great though. We were SO proud that Matt stayed on his feet during the game. No rolling all the way to first base. He was pretty proud of himself too! One step at a time!

Marlie's First Haircut

So I finally broke down and decided to get Marlie's hair cut. It was almost long enough to tuck behind her ears, but most of the time it was in her face so I figured I didn't have a choice. Plus I get in trouble every morning with her teacher at school because I never have time to fix it. You should see us all getting ready in the morning to make sure Matt is to school before the bell at 8:00am. It's pretty comical and I end up doing what I hate most women do which is put on makeup in the car! Anyway.....now Marlie looks about 1 year older and of course I cried because my "baby" is not really a baby anymore. Matt has always been good getting his hair cut but probably because we've been going since he was about 6 months old so it's old news. We figured Marlie would cry hysterically and go a few rounds with the hairdresser but she did okay. There were tears of course but most were mine!

And of course we were up EARLY in the morning for our 8:00am TBall game. Why at 8:00? I mean really.....the grass is still wet everyone is grumpy....who likes playing baseball at 8:00am? Oh well I should get used to this. It's only the beginning. The game was great again. I really thought that Doug and I would get the most joy out of this but honestly, Matt is loving it! And each week he gets a little better. Uncle Jay was at the game this week! After the game we went out for breakfast and we each had our "No the best part of the game was" thought. Uncle Jay said it was when Marlie cheered really loud for her brother. Doug thought it was when Matt was in the field and I yelled to him to get in the "baseball ready" position and he did it and yelled real loud like a linebacker would after sacking the quarterback. I thought the best part of the game was at the end when Matt realized our team wasn't organized and no one brought drinks or snacks for the kids so I looked back and saw Matt digging in the other teams ice chest. He already had a snack is in hand from the other team's coach too. My Mom thought the best part was when Matt was making snow angels in the dirt at home plate at the end of the game. I could go on and on.

Matt's First Baseball Game

The day we've been gearing up for for months finally arrived! Matt's first TBall game was this Saturday and it was a success. Of course you must realize that "success" means no major meltdowns or injuries. The fact that Matt ran around the entire field when he was on defense and played in the dirt at times is part of what I call "success". One step at a time right? We're only 3.

He was so excited putting on his uniform and finally being able to put on the "black eye" or what most people call "eye black". The game went much more smoothly than we expected thanks to help from all the parents. Matt didn't hit as well as he usually does but did pretty good. He had 2 hits, threw 2 runners out on first (okay I'm exaggerating a bit here...basically he got the ball to first which is like me climbing Mt. Everest) and got 3 tackles too...oh wait this is baseball...well at this stage they all fight to get the ball in the infield so it's tackle baseball. Of course I have more pictures in the slideshow but these are a few of my favorites.

Marlie had a great time at the game too. She was the third base coach. She loved standing on the base so maybe in a few years she'll have to play TBall too. Doug is convinced she'll be the athlete of the two.

We also had a nice dinner at our house on Friday night and celebrated Uncle Jay's birthday. It is always nice to have family around to celebrate these great moments in life!

God Is In You

One of the neatest things happened the other morning and it has made this such a wonderful week because I replay it over and over in my head.

We were getting ready for school on Thursday morning and Matt had sat down to eat his breakfast. I was running around like a mad woman as always trying to get myself at least half way presentable for work and get the kids ready including packing lunch, snacks, extra clothes just in case, etc., when I saw Matt put his hand on his chest and said in the nicest tone of voice, "Mom did you know God is in you?" I stopped everything I was doing and knelt next to him and he continued, "And God helps you pray if you don't know how." I had all to do to keep from crying but held back because Matt doesn't quite understand "tears of joy". I learned something from my 3 year old that day and have kept that little moment close to my heart since then. Allelulia! Amen!