Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Just the girls

I had a bunch of errands to run today and David wanted to stay home...so I invited Abigail for a "girl time" afternoon.  We did mundane things like an oil change in the van and picking up milk at the store...but we also managed to squeeze in some fun stuff!
Fortunately for us, I needed a few things from Joann Fabrics.  We not only got the stuff on my list, but we also stopped to "ooh" and "ahh" over every sparkly fabric they had and come up with ideas for how we would use every other pretty fabric we saw.
I surprised Abigail with a stop at the American Girl store for some window shopping.  Thankfully, Abigail totally gets the idea of window shopping and so both of us have tons of fun just looking (and getting ideas for sewing projects, too!).  It just so happened that, while we were there, they were offering a free craft to advertise for the newest AG doll, so Abigail got to make her own paper bonnet like Caroline's.
After our last couple of errands, we got a special treat of dinner at Bobby G's (they have the best Chicago-style food we've found outside of Chicago).  We ate ours at the restaurant and then brought some home to the guys for their dinner.
It was wonderful to spend some one-on-one time together.  Like Abigail said a couple of times today, "I'm so glad we could have special girl time.  I mean, we love Daddy and David, and we like to be with them, but sometimes it's nice to be just girls." :)

Friday, November 09, 2012

Frosty fall mornings

As is typical at this time of year, our near-the-mountains climate has been giving us warm, sunny days and cold, frosty mornings.  Yesterday and today we woke up to 32 degrees and a hard frost.
The cooler temperatures combined with some rainy weather earlier this week made for a couple of tuck-in-your-nose-and-tail kind of days for all of us!
Our boy thoroughly enjoys decking out in camouflage and racing around the yard evading capture by enemies.  He is convinced that I really do have trouble seeing him when he's "sneaking" around in his camo...so he makes loud tweeting noises from behind the trees so that I know he's out there somewhere.  (I have not pointed out to him that the fluorescent green and orange gun aimed at me tends to give away his position!)  He likes to have an audience...even if it's just Mom looking out from the deck. :)
The changing of the seasons seems to trigger particularly monster-y behavior in the cats...we came home from church on Wednesday night to this view of a mildly shamefaced Mindy sitting in the tangled midst of two of my knitting projects!
Today I let the kids come to school in their pajamas (a special treat).  Here they are during science class, racing to see who could answer the geology questions first.
Another week down -- 42% of our school year complete -- and life races on!

Monday, November 05, 2012

Babies don't keep...

Sometimes we go through a spell when it seems like the kids are growing up measurably every single day.  My little girl is such a young lady in her lovely dress (a hand-me-down from my younger cousin -- Abigail was very happy to be wearing Alicia's dress!).
Not too fast, my babies...let me savor every day...

Abigail's offertory

Yesterday Abigail and her piano teacher played a duet in church.  Look at that left hand go! :)

Battling the basement

I am on a seemingly never-ending quest to conquer the basement...and keep it that way!  It seems like every time I spend several days getting it all organized, the basement-sprites spend the next year turning it back into chaos again.  This time I am determined to conquer it once and for all.  To help with that, Bruce was willing to building some shelves for me (and for only half of the cost of ready-made shelves).  He built me these this past weekend and I am so excited!

Mindy was the self-appointed supervisor, keeper of the screws, and inspector throughout the entire project.  Notice that she shows up in every picture!
Clutter be gone!!! (...please!)