chunky monkey

Yes, that's right. Our ten month old eats spaghetti already. Our joke is that if you gave Lila a steak she would figure out a way to gum it to death.

Maybe that's why her thighs look like this...

I wish that in adulthood it was just as cute to have chunky thighs.

one of my biggest fears have come true...

Ava is constantly surprising us. She keeps us on our toes.

For instance, a couple of days ago as we were shopping in Macys, a lady walked by rather quickly with her arms folded over her chest. As she walked by, Ava yelled after her, "Wow, you are a mad girl!" She turned and laughed, and we tried to explain to her she wasn't mad and then we quickly put our hands over her mouth so she could not speak again.

No big deal, right? Kids say the darnedest things...

Then, there are times that kids Do the darnedest things...

I was sleeping in yesterday morning because I took a friend of ours to the airport at 4 in the morning. Lila was down for her morning nap, and Jason decided to take a shower. He left Ava playing in her room.

When he went in to check on her after his shower, this is what he found in her room.


Yes, insert gasps of the impending doom that was about to rain down on all of our heads.

She cut it. Just snipped it away.

When Jason asked her why, she told him that she just wanted to be beautiful.

Bless her...

Hello, Mullet!

I freaked out. Thank goodness Jason was there to be the voice of reason and deal with Ava. For those of you who know me, you know that I love long hair on little girls. I just think they look so precious with it.

So off to the hair dresser we went. I told our hair dresser, Farrah, that if possible could we NOT do the whole weird looking bowl cut. So she cut Ava's hair up to the longest layer that Ava cut. Then, she tried her best to blend her hair on the side to not look too bad. The plan is that we will just keeping putting clips and bows on the side until it grows out. It is not too noticeable pulled back, and we are just going to stuff prenatal vitamins down her throat for her hair to grow quickly. Just kidding (I think)...

Ava now..

She's still one of the prettiest little girls I have ever seen:)

a first and hopefully a last

I had a AWESOME surprise for me when I went into Lila's room this morning.

I heard her wake up about 10 minutes before I went in to get her. I was busy trying to get Emma out the door and to school on time. Plus, Lila was giggling and playing in her room. I mean, why bother a happy, playing baby, right?

So when I went into her room, she was standing in her crib smiling at me. I had to do a double take at her. I wasn't sure she was my child. At the moment she was a completely different color than what I had left her when I put her to bed last night.

She was covered in head to toe poop. Let that take a minute to sick in.

I stood in the doorway for a minute caught between the thought of should I grab my camera. The blogger and scrapbooker in me said yes. The mother in me said no she needed to get in the bath ASAP.

I guess Lila is trying to show us that if we think we have it all figured out because she is our 3rd, then we are wrong. Because, out of 3 kids this is our first "she woke up covered in poop" experience.

lila goes to school

When we were notified that a day opened up for Lila at Ava's school, we jumped on it. Lila goes to school one day a week. Not so that I can have a "mother's day out", but rather so I can have a "mother's day cleaning house".

So happy and trusting before we left...

The jig is up. Lila has just now figured out she got duped.

Do not feel too sorry for her. We were told she only did that for about 10 minutes. She now goes into her class happy as can be.

the zoo

We have lived at the zoo this summer. We have more than paid for our zoo membership.

This time at the zoo, I noticed a real change in Lila. She was starting to notice the animals. She was cracking up at the monkeys and watching the big elephants walk. But, her favorite part of the zoo was no doubt the farm animals. We took her out of her stroller and gave her an up close and personal look at the animals.

Look at those sweet chubby legs!

Lila loved the chickens!

Emma striking her pose...


Could it be? A decent picture of all 3 of my girls?

a trip to nashville

At the last minute, we decided to head out of town on a quick trip to Nashville. We were tired and stressed and thought we needed a vacation from everyday life.

We did nothing "special". We just got a great hotel room that had a HUGE bathtub that the girls called a swimming pool, and we ate,shopped and played.

Emma on the carousel at the mall.

Before we left home, we visited a great farmer's market and had a snow cone in a cup in the park.



Just simple fun with my favorite people!

a halloween craft

I have so much to blog about, but true to my nature I'm just going to skip ahead and get to the present. Because posting a Halloween craft after Halloween would be a little silly.

I was trying to decide what I wanted the girls to use this year to collect all their candy loot in. When I went to Jo-Ann's I saw these cute black caldrons. I decided that these were the perfect size and price to do something with.

I just used my handy dandy cricut to cut some orange vinyl out with their name, a jack-o-lantern and polka dots. Then, I just added some festive Halloween ribbon to the handles. Easy peasy!

I filled one with candy and personalized one for Emma's teacher to put on her desk.

a ceremony

How is it possible that so much time can pass since my last post?

We have been BUSY with a capital "B"!

I've been busy doing the room mom bit, we took a spontaneous trip to Nashville, the baby is now going to preschool one day a week and we got hit with the stomach virus. Oh, and I can't forget the whole church planting thing.

Before we embarked on our spontaneous weekend get-away to Nashville, we had a ceremony to attend. It was the "Terrific Kid" program awards ceremony at Richland. We are so proud of Emma for being the person picked out of her class as the terrific kid for the first 6 weeks of school.

Going to get her certificate...

All the kids put on their t-shirts when they sat down. Emma was so sweet during the ceremony. She clapped for all of her classmates when their name was called.


All the terrific kids from all grades...

Lila was bored. She decided that chewing on her shoes was way more entertaining!


Mommy with her terrific kid


My other special, sweet girl, Ava


Emma and her principal, Mrs. McNary. We love her! She is so down-to-earth and is constantly out of her office in the halls talking with all the parents. We are so blessed to be at Richland Elementary!

a terrific kid

I am so proud of Emma!

In the last post, Jason was bragging about Emma (we are shameless, I know). So then what do we find in her folder today?

Emma has been selected as the Terrific KId from her class. Every 6 weeks, one child is selected from each class that has shown positive character traits. Emma is the first one of the year from her class!

The school is going to have a celebration program for those kids this Friday. We are so proud of our big girl!

Emma Moments...

this is jason (kelly's hubs) writing on the blog today


there is an old saying "sometimes you miss the forest for the trees".

i think parenting is like this sometimes.

because you are near to them everyday,

because you see all the "little" things they do that frankly, drive you crazy,

and because they are "your kids" you want and expect the best for them and are disappointed for them when they fall short.

yesterday, i saw "the forest" in my emma grace.

at richland, parents can eat lunch with their kids, so i decided i would take a few minutes and surprise her and eat PB&J and chocolate pudding with my sweet girl. richland is a VERY diverse school, so emma is getting the opportunity to make friends with lots of kids that don't look like her, they don't go to the same kind of church that emma does, they don't even eat the same kid of food she eats at lunch, and most of then know 2 languages.

at her table yesterday there was, victor, jamal, nora, bavla, emily, cornelius and ammal.

you get the picture.

here is what amazed me, here is what my emma grace taught me, here is what i didn't know about her...

emma grace is colorblind

no, she can see red, yellow, purple, and blue, but when it comes to her classmates, she is perfectly colorblind.

she didn't care that one of her classmates was eating some curried eggs for lunch, she didn't care that another one looked as though they had not bathed in 2 days and wore the same clothes everyday to school, she didn't even notice that there was a new muslim girl in her class that can't speak a word of english, she just saw a new friend who wore a pretty headdress.

amazing

and at the same time, super convicting.

emma, in 45 minutes, reminded me how we should all see and treat each other. she reminded me how Christ see us, and how it will be in eternity, and how Jesus must long for us to embrace each other, and each other's "differences" here on earth.

i am pleading for emma to stay this way as she grows up, i pleading for myself to model this for my family.

don't miss the forest for the trees in your kids...

"They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor.”
--Isaiah 61:3 (NIV)