STILL trying to catch up: November 2013

At this point, I must admit that it feels a little overwhelming to try to catch up over a year's worth of family events.  But, then I remember how much my kids and I love to look at old posts.  I am not a scrapbooker, so this is all I have.  I'm iced in today and thought I'd try to keep working toward catching up.

*Also, my phone camera was getting worse and worse at this point, so the picture quality is not great.  I have gotten even worse about remembering to use my nice camera too.

November brought some fun times and some more sick times, unfortunately.

Poor Mallory got her first black eye after a run-in with the coffee table:(

 But, she also got enough hair to enjoy some cute baby pigtails!

 We started working on making our new house ours.  It was all painted a "builder beige" when it was renovated and that is just not our style.
I love the choice we made for the living room.  It looks great with some of our new furniture.

 Madeline had to make an authentic recipe from the 1800s for a unit she was doing in her G.T. class.  We worked together to make Wagon Train Biscuits.  This was her first real experience with using buttermilk and she hated the smell.  They turned out pretty good, but she said they were salty.  I'm guessing that helped preserve those biscuits for a long time on the pioneers' journey:)

 My friend, Amanda, and I decided to chalk paint a piece of furniture that was really showing its age.  I love how the gray looks in our new living room.  It makes a great place for our T.V.

 Madeline had her first opportunity to perform in our town's "Lighting on the Square."  She was so excited and her dance was beautiful.  Here she is already to dance.

 Unfortunately, the skies opened and poured a ton of rain down on everyone and the girls never got to dance:(  They turned on the Christmas lights, but that was it.  Luckily her dance teacher rescheduled a performance for December at the High School Auditorium.

November also includes American Education Week.  One of the fun activities was allowing the kids to dress us as what they want to be when they grow up.  Last year, they wanted to be a contractor and a vet.  This year, they changed.  Will wanted to be an Allergy Doctor, like his Uncle Robbie.  Madeline decided to be a librarian, like Mrs. Franques at school.  That was perfect for my girl who loves to read!

 Madeline's school choir performed at the John Newton Historical Home again to help kick off the downtown Christmas festivities  It was so cold, she had to wear Nathan's pull over during the performance.  He is such a sweet daddy to freeze so she could be warm!

 Will invited over his friend Cannon for the first time.  They had a great time playing Legos and Zombies.

 We were supposed to go to Georgetown to spend Thanksgiving with my Grandparents and the rest of my family.  Unfortunately, my Grandma Taylor started having health problems and found out that she had an aggressive form of cancer that would not be likely to respond to treatment.  It was just too much to have a bunch of visitors, so we stayed home and had a nice, quiet Thanksgiving, just the 5 of us.

On Black Friday, we went to Home Depot to get some new Christmas decorations for the new house.  The kids wanted to go see Santa and the whole experience cracked me up!  Both Will and Madeline refused to sit in his lap.  It made for awkward pictures.

 Mallory sat in his lap.  But I think her picture speaks for itself!  She hated the whole experience!

It was a good month, and a sad one.  We were not sure how long my grandmother had but talked to her often and planned to go see her on our Christmas Break.  I was looking forward to my first long break since returning to teaching:)

October 2013

To start off October, Mallory decided she loved taking selfies, lol!  It was one of the only ways to get a decent picture of her at 17 months!

She also got enough hair to sport a little baby ponytail with a bow.  So cute!

We continued to be pretty busy, which led to more eating out than usual.  One night, we got dinner from a place called "Old Fashion" (seriously, that is how they spell it, lol!).  We get ice cream there fairly often in the summer but this was the first time we got food.  Will wanted a corn dog and was very pleasantly surprised when he got it out at home and saw how huge it was!

On October 8th, we celebrated Nathan's 36th birthday.  He is obsessed with all things pumpkin flavored at this time of year, so I made him a pumpkin cheese cake.  It was a big hit for the whole family!  I can't even begin to describe how blessed I am by this man everyday.  God has blessed me with an amazing husband!

As I said at the end of my September 2013 catch up post, we started a long streak of the kids being sick.  Will and Mallory both had strep at one point, just at different times.  We had to use up A LOT of sick days at this point.  We even had to call in Nathan's mom when Mallory got a bad fever virus and took over a week to recover:(

I love this picture of Madeline from October!  She was getting ready to go to her good friend, Haley's skating birthday party.  She was so glad those cute pink boots still fit.  I think she looks so old here!

Our small town finally is getting some new restaurants.  One was a frozen yogurt place called, The El Dorado Creamery."  It's a lot like Orange Leaf or Froyo.  We were so excited because we loved going to Froyo when we stayed with my parents in Spokane last summer.  Here are Madeline and Will on their first visit:

More of Mallory loving the selfie.  Madeline and I decided to get in on the action too!

After a tough week at work, we went out to eat, yet again.  My kids love Chinese food and I had to laugh when I saw my fortune!  I had some students with very tough behavioral needs that year and each day was pretty tough!  I did need some rest!

Will got very excited about crazy sock/wear red day during Red Ribbon Week.

Another sick day home with Mallory:(  Nana surprised her and sent a Pottery Barn chair just for her:)

Madeline went on her first out of town G.T. field trip without one of us.  They visited some neat historical places in Arkansas and even spent the night in an old school house.  I was so thankful my friend, Teresa, watched out for Madeline for us.  She had such a good time.

We had a good time planning for Halloween again.  Will was Iron Man.

Mallory was a cute pig.

Madeline wanted to be a pirate.  It was actually very hard to find an appropriate pirate costume for a 9 year old!  Many of them were really risque.

I unearthed my cookie decorating supplies to make some cute mummy cupcakes for Halloween snacks.

I love this group picture of the kids!  Madeline was running fever off an on for that whole day, but recovered enough to go trick or treating, luckily!

We love our new neighborhood!  Halloween was so much fun.  There was a constant stream of trick or treaters at our house and, even though we bought 8 huge bags of candy, we ran out!  It was a school night, so that was probably a good thing.   It's so nice to live in a neighborhood with such a fun family atmosphere!

September 2013

This was a busy and kind of crazy month!  We started it by coming home from work/school one day and find out we had no water or sewer service.  It turned out that there was a mix up with our bills while transferring everything to the new house.  But, the water company said they had no workmen who could turn it back on until the next day, ugh.  Five people with no water or toilets was not going to work, so we booked a room at our local Country Inn and Suites.  The kids were excited:)  Will had the best time.  We all got a pretty good night of sleep and it was fun to start our day with a continental breakfast:)

Of course, we looked like we had packed up for a week stay, lol!  Our stuffed animals just had to come too!

One of the reasons September got a little crazy was that this was the month the kids' activities started up.  Will had tried t ball and soccer but did not really enjoy them all that much.  We decided to try TaeKwondo and he was very excited to start.  It has been a good experience for him so far!

Another part of our craziness this month was that I had planned a belated birthday party for Will along with Madeline's actual birthday month/party as well.
Will had a football themed party at Larry's Pizza.  He invited his new friends from his new class.  This cake was from Walmart and I was so impressed with how well it turned out!

My iPhone camera leaves a little something to be desired.  But at least these moments are captured even though I forgot to bring my nice camera.

Will has made some really  nice friends in this group and it was nice to get to know them better.  Mallory and Madeline had fun joining in too.

The birthday boy blowing out his candles!

Madeline's birthday fell on a Sunday but we decided to have her party that Saturday instead.  She went to pick out her own cake at Brookshire's and found just what she wanted.  When I picked it up the day of her party, I thought it was the wrong one because it said "MackLine" instead of Madeline.  I couldn't figure out how they made this mistake.  So, I decided it would have to do and took it to the party.

Later, I looked at the ticket attached to the box and saw that handwriting does in fact make a difference.  She had written Madeline but I see why the decorator messed it up, lol!

Madeline wanted to have a Spa party at a local place and invited a few friends.  They were all so excited to get pampered!

They got a chocolate facial, paraffin on their hands, and manicures.  It was the perfect way to celebrate turning 9:)

Sunday was her actual birthday.  I caught this picture on the way to church.  I can't believe she is already 9!  Time has flown by.  She is such a caring, intelligent, and feisty young lady!  I love to watch her care for and mentor her younger brother and sister.  She works hard at almost everything she does and makes me so proud!  I've now been a mother for 9 years and it has been a joy!  I can't believe in 9 more years she will be 18!!!!!

This summer, we found out Wicked the musical was coming to Little Rock.  Madeline has really been wanting to see it, so that is what we gave her for her birthday.  Here we are before leaving for the show.

We took a little selfie just before things got started.  She loved every minute of it and so did Nathan and I!  It was such a good show that we bought the soundtrack and now know every song by heart, lol!

Just when we felt like we were getting the hang of being a 2 parent working family, I got a call that Mallory was throwing up at daycare.  This ended up starting a long streak of the kids getting sick one, after another for a while:(  Go figure that, while I was staying at home, the kids almost never got sick.  As always, God brought us through it and for that we are thankful!

August 2013

August was a month of transitioning into our new normal.  We closed on our house August 3rd and moved in on August 4th.  We were blessed to have my mom come to help and Robbie and Connie came down to help too.  Because we were moving into a split level home, we also needed to hire a moving crew for our heavier furniture.  It was a great decision and the move went really smoothly!  The kids stayed with our friends, the Johnston's and had a lot of fun too.

My mom stayed for a week, so I got busy finishing up my Kindergarten classroom.  All of the teachers at Yocum have a theme.  I picked a garden theme but it was mostly a color scheme:)  I love the bright and cheery look of things!

I officially became a working mom again on August 7th.  Nathan and I both had to do a lot of Professional Development before the first day of school.  That's always hard when we have 2 school aged kids who need child care.  Luckily my mom kept them the first week (while Mallory was still easing into daycare).  That weekend, we took her back to Little Rock to fly home and took Madeline and Will to Conway so they could stay with their Granny for the next week of Professional Development for us.  

We love to hit Chick-fil-a when we get a chance since we don't have one in El Dorado.  This was Mallory's first try of their ice cream and she loved it!

The day we headed back to El Dorado, I decided to do some teacher supply shopping in Little Rock with Connie, so we met up with her Robbie, John, Lindsey, and Lucy at P.F. Chang's for dinner.  The girls had fun playing together at the table and loved their Chinese food!

We worked hard that next week to get ready for our students between meetings.  Mallory got adjusted to going to daycare full time as well.  She did so well with it:)

The weekend before school started, Nathan and Mallory went back to Conway to pick up the big kids.  I took advantage of the time on my own to get the kids' rooms settled.  We had done some shopping with Nathan's mom the week before and she got both big kids some really cute bedding and decor.  Nathan had worked hard to paint Will's bunk beds turquoise for Madeline's new room  Here is the finished product:)  She loves having a "bigger girl" bedroom now!

 We picked out a queen sized bed for Will's room, as it will double as our guest room when my parents come to visit.  I really like his new color scheme too.  He still needs a new chest of drawers and some wall art, but it was a good start.  I so wanted them to both be settled in their new rooms before school started and I accomplished it in the nick of time!

On August 19th, Madeline had her first day of 3rd grade!  She was excited to start a new year.  This will be the first time she will trade classes for different subjects between 2 teachers.

 Will was ready for his new Kindergarten year.  He was supposed to have Mrs. Ponder again but, sadly, she was having some health problems.  So, he was meeting a new teacher, Mrs. Preston.  He was excited to meet new friends and was especially proud of his new Batman backpack and lunch box!

A friend of mine who teaches at Will's school caught this picture of him and Brylee in the classroom.  It was hard on me not to walk the kids in for the first time.  I had always done it:(  But, I was thankful Nathan was able to, and for a friend who shared this moment with me to make me feel better.

As we settled into our new routine, I realized how much I missed catching pictures of the kids throughout the day, so I started taking pictures in the morning before I left.  

Here's a sweet selfie of Mallory and I:

 This is one of my favorites of the three of them:)

Madeline was so ready for dance to start back in September, so she did some practicing on her gymnastics mat.

 Mallory decided to try too!

 It was a month I had dreaded, but we made it through!  Nathan's job stayed as busy as ever and mine was tough due to some of the unique behavioral needs of some of my students.  I honestly had some regrets about some of our decisions, but I knew God could carry me through anything and He did.  It was hard then, but it is easier now to see the good that was happening in our lives too.