Early birthday excitement

We will be in Chicago this weekend, and we told Olivia today that we are taking her downtown to get her American Girl Doll (birthday present) early. She went CRAZY! She is so excited and we are too! Her excitement is contagious. I love sharing exciting moments with our kids, I love to see them so excited. This is a big family affair for us, we have talked about it for months now, gone over and over the catalogs and talked about what the store looks like. (Jill, Jamie and I stopped in last January at the new store in Watertower Place). Logan even seems excited. However, when we used to stop in the Libby Lu store at the mall he would cry in his stroller as soon as we entered. Too much girl stuff! :)

Laugh & Love

Cheetah Girl

Amazing Grace and Strength

I think it is amazing, how after a fullfilling yet tiring day of being mommy, wife, friend, housekeeper, laundery goddess, grocery shopper and boo boo kisser, we as moms can still find grace and strength in the middle of the night to comfort our children. Last night Olivia was up off and on most of the night with a fever and chills, just wanting to snuggle. On a normal night, a bath at midnight, getting up over and over for a cold drink of water and watching the clock for the next dose of Tylenol would result in a crabby and exhausted momma the next day. But thankfully God gives an abundance of grace and strength (and coffee) for nights such as these. (While I am so thankful for the extra strength I am praying for a GREAT night sleep tonight!)

Thank you God for giving me the honor of comforting my children

as you so often comfort me.

Product Review - Fat Hair "0" Calories

I recently ordered the "Fat Hair "0" Calorie" line of Samy products from HSN.com. (isn't the name too funny?) I was looking for more body in my fine/tends-to-be-limp hair. It claims to turn your hair from "ordinary to extraordinary" and it delivers!

The first time I used it Tommy complimented my hair and said he really liked it! It gives my hair LOTS of body. I think I heard that Samy uses all natural ingredients (can't find that fact now, but I know that was one of the things that sold me on it). It is a little gummy, so don't use too much hair spray, but I give it an A+!

Just to remember 9/25/09

After my quiet time in the morning, which includes coffee and God, I so look forward to the kids getting up. They do the same thing almost every morning. Some days Olivia gets up first, and some days its Logan. Lately Logan has been first. He sleepily comes out to the living room and says "Good morning Mommy" and climbs into my lap. I reply with "Good Morning babe, I love you" and he says "love you".

When Olivia comes out, she climbs onto the couch with Logan (by now I am usually making breakfast or otherwise starting our day) and they greet each other so gently and sweetly. Logan says "Good morning sis!" and Olivia quietly says "Good morning bub".

I know the business of school mornings, etc are in our future, and I just want to remember the quiet gentleness of the mornings when the kids can snuggle in the couch and slowly wake up for the day.

Is it my turn yet????

I am having to wait my turn for the computer. The kids LOVE pbskids.org and I am ready to start a sign-up sheet for computer time! :) I love that they are learning and developing computer skills, I am amazed that Logan can do the games all by himself! So the blog posts are a little sporadic and I am a little behind on emails, I think I may catch up on some reading while I wait for my turn. :)

Did you have fun, mom?

Last Sunday was our annual family trip to the apple orchard. This year we went to a new one (we haven't been as a family to this one). The kids had a ball, lots of great apples, YUMMY apple slushy, and the kids' first elephant ear!

"Did you have fun picking apples, mom?" Logan's new thing is to ask everyone if they are having fun. Followed by the report that HE had fun.

Olivia LOVES picking them right off of the tree! It was fun to taste them too, and her belly got full pretty quick!

LOVE this annual tradition. I even made some applesauce JUST like my mom used to make! yummy!

Anniversary #9 on 9/9/09

This year for our anniversary we had the wonderful opportunity to get away for the night, just the two of us. Tommy had a wine show to attend in Louisville at the Galt House hotel so I tagged along for an evening away.


The show was from 4-7, so when Tommy asked if I would be ok by myself in the hotel room for a couple hours I nearly fell over. What? alone in a room (of any kind for that matter, hotel, hospital, whatever ) for a couple hours, with a book and cable tv? Needless to say, I was happy to oblige, while he took care of business.

Then I got dressed (after locking myself out of the room in my pjs, thankfully a lady was cleaning the room next to ours, can you say embarrassing????) and went to the wine show for the last 1/2 hour. Then onto dinner at 8 at the restaurant on the 25th floor (the name escapes me now) that revolves to reveal the view of the river at sunset. Beautiful. I'm not trying to be mushy here, but I have to say, sitting across the table from the man that I love, enjoying a wonderful, quiet, romantic meal, is just so wonderful. (can you tell we don't do this often???)

The hotel fire alarm went off at 1am, so that jolted us awake, thankfully I had enough wits about me to put an outfit on (instead of just pjs) because 1am, with little make-up and messy hair is a GREAT time to have to mingle with the people we met earlier in the night at the wine show.

I have to say, it is SOOOO nice to get away with just Tommy. I love getting back to just "us". Having time together, undistracted, is a gift. One that I truly cherish.

There is no crying in baseball!!!!