Another Girlish Obsession

I made the mistake of giving in when Ayla was begging for "little girl lip-stuff" at the store today. She has spent a large portion of the day putting it on her lips & tongue (it tastes good you know.) Oh Ina, a girl after your own heart!

If You Give A Mom A Cold Afternoon

If you give a mom a cold afternoon, she's gonna want a cup of decaf to get through it.

If you give her a cup of decaf, she's gonna need some cookies to go with it.

If you give her some cookies to go with it, she's gonna need to work it off at the Y.

If she works it off at the Y, she's gonna notice how cold it is outside.

If she notices how cold it is outside, she's gonna need some decaf to warm up.

And so the cycle begins.

Thankful

Our Thanksgiving company just started their long drive home. After they left we worked on the "things we're thankful for" book that Micah needs to complete & return to school on Monday. Micah is thankful for turkey. Ayla shouted (from the toilet) that she's thankful for bacon. I'm thankful that we have tons of leftovers, that the kids are now napping & that I can go take a nap myself. Poor Craig is at work, so I'll have to ask him later what he's thankful for. We are all thankful that Matt, Amy, Ethan, Dillon & Zachary were able to spend the holiday with us. Hope everyone else enjoyed theirs & we'd love to hear what you're thankful for.

I'm Slipping

Last night Craig told me he was worried about me. When I asked why he said it was because we were hosting Thanksgiving & usually by this time I have half the meal prepared & ready to be cooked on the big day. This year I have nothing done other than the grocery shopping. I can make the pies, cranberry sauce & stuffing tomorrow can't I? For some reason I've been in a fog all fall. It never really seemed like fall to me & I'm just kinda frozen in place waiting for it to happen. At this rate winter is going to hit me pretty hard. Oh & Ayla has been driving me nuts lately. She's permanently glued to my side. Her "reason" for this is that she's scared of the old maid from our card game. Sound familiar Uncle Seth?

FYI

Micah will not answer you if you call him by his name. I found that out moments ago when I asked him if he'd like to play Old Maid. He was on his knees staring at me & refusing to answer. Finally he said, "I'm not Micah anymore, I'm a squirrel & my name is Sara." Just thought you might like to know.

School Lunches

Why do the majority of parents let their kids eat the school lunch no questions asked? Ayla & I went to Micah's school this morning for a "Books & Breakfast" event. We were served little cups of juice & super-processed cinnamon rolls. About an hour after we left it was snack time. They usually have cheez-it type crackers or some other kind of carb & milk. They can have chocolate or regular milk. Guess what most kids (mine included) choose? As we were walking out the door I noticed that only one other kid had brought lunch from home today.

This is what everyone else was served at lunch-time;

French Toast

Strawberry Topping

Low Fat Pork Sausage

Hash Brown Patty

Oranges and Kiwi

Milk Choice

Again a milk choice. Like given a choice most kids will choose regular over chocolate. At the charter school Micah & Ayla's cousins go to they have a policy that no candy is allowed. Joanne brought snacks for their Halloween party & guess what they were? Baby carrots, dip & juice. I was at Micah's school on Halloween & my job for the morning was to help the kids frost & decorate sugar cookies for their morning snack! I was talking to my friend Amy yesterday & she said that at her son's school fruit snacks are a standard morning snack. What are the ingredients in those, Shannon? I'm guessing it's something like food coloring, sugar, high fructose corn syrup & oh yeah 2% juice. It's really not that hard to feed kids healthy food. You just have to think about it a little bit. OK, I'm done with my rant for the day.

Fatty Just Woke Up

I started looking through old photos today. Here's a funny one from Todd.

Black Eye

Another Todd photo. I think this one was taken about 3 years ago.

Blue's Clues

This morning Ayla had the fridge open & was insisting on having Blue's Clues for breakfast. What? What could she possibly mean by that? I peeked my head in to see her pointing at last night's couscous! This kid cracks me up.

I Might Take Too Many Photos Of My Kids

The kids were playing pirates. They seemed to be in their own world. Then I made the mistake of walking by them with my camera bag in my hand. They were suddenly before me posing & perfoming like trained monkeys. Maybe I should start to find other things to photograph.

Where's Micah?

Check Out These Lyrics

Yesterday morning all four of us were in our bedroom getting ready for mtg. Actually Ayla was ready & was just staring at herself in the mirror & singing a song that went something like this.

Ayla is so pretty today.

Mommy is so pretty today.

My Daddy is not, cuz he has little bit of hair.

We're So Lucky

The kids have so many friends in the area.

Here's the group we went trick-or-treating with.