One more pair of shoes

So this pair turned out even cuter I think! Love them!!!

A little Sewing

So I really enjoy doing new things. This is one of my new crafts. I bought this pattern from a girl who has a great crafting blog. So I am planning on making Caitlin many pairs of shoes. No, she doesn't need them, but she rubs her little feet together so much that she can't keep socks on, then her little tootsies get too cold. So these shoes can tighten enough to keep them warm! And they are adorable!

Fall

This weekend we decided we were going to start doing more hiking. :)  Over here in flat West TN, there are no real hills even to hike.  But we found a little state park about 45 minutes away.  Yesterday, we drove out there after church to hike.  We stopped a little ways into the hike and had a picnic lunch.  Then on we went.  Caitlin was in a carrier on Jeff's stomach, and Haley Grace was the trail blazer.  I think that was a term from my husbands childhood.

So we walked an hour in, and came upon a natural spring.  It was kinda neat - there was a well built around it, and you could see bubbles coming up from the sand.  All around was beautiful bright green bamboo! 
 As we were headed back, Haley Grace and I were in the front - Jeff says "hey look!" - we turn back, and there right beside the little path was a snake!  It was big, but didn't look harmful.  Why didn't we see it?  From one of our last little adventures, I learned to watch my foot path, as I stepped on a big bad snake with out noticing.  So now I watch my feet, but this was just out of my sight path.  Haley wanted to mess with it to watch it move, oh the little lessons. 

We also talked about erosion.   There were these huge eroded paths that made Haley ask why it was that way.  So she learned about erosion.

As we were headed back, Haley was clearly getting pretty tired.  But being the trail blazer was what she needed to keep her going.  No complaining or whining!  Big difference from the last time we tried this!  

A Dream Come True!

Above: Table for 6-8 good size for just normal table
Below: Extends with 2 leafs, to fit up to 12 people!!!

So for years I have dreamed about what our life would be like when our kids were older. Friday night pizza night is one of those dreams, but to go with that, I dream of having lots of kids fill my house at any given time, and hope that our children feel comfortable to welcome their friends over for dinner whenever. Well, if we have 3 or 4 kids, and they each had a friend or two, and Jeff and I - that would be a LOT of people eating dinner at once. ... This week, my love made a dream come true for me! We bought a table for our dining room - it seats TWELVE people!!! YAY for Pottery Barn Outlet sales!!!! We got the deal of deals - I'd been eyeing a table that I loved, but being as it was $1700 just for the table I quickly forgot about it. But then it showed up at the outlet for $850!! Cha-Ching! oh but wait - I had a gift card for $100! Oh and ... it was on sale for another 25% off!!!! WOO HOO!!! We only paid $596 for a $1700 table!! Now, tell me that is not an amazing deal!? :) But now, we need chairs - so those will wait til I can find them for a good deal too!! Dinner anyone?

Truth

So far, I have not done a lot of just blogging.  I tend to use this as more of a share my pictures page.  But this weekend I went on a women's retreat with my church.  While I had an incredible time and the topic was just perfect for me (Life in the Midst of a Mess) - even more amazing was how God used a girl that I roomed with.  She has older kids, so I kept seeking her advice on discipline as well as many issues we are having.  Now, I don't know this girl well, I've seen her at church and we have been aquaintances.  But this girl was just a gift from God.  I don't know many people who will just tell you totally honestly something, while being bold and loving at the same time.  But she was!  She kept pointing out that I am not focusing on a relationship with the discipline.  I tend to harp all over the discipline issues, but when it comes to a relationship with my daughter I run.  I use excuses such as "all she ever does is whine and complain, the last thing I want to do is spend MORE time with her." Oh how wrong I am.  How can I expect her to love, respect and obey me when there is a longing for a deeper relationship with me?  Also tiing in what the speaker was saying at a point, - God initiates the relationship with us.  Hello!!  I am the adult!  It's my responsibility to initiate a relationship with my child.  God loves me even though I fight and complain about everything to him.  Could this be that my child is a perfect picture of how I am toward God?  And oh am I so thankful that God responds differently to me!!  My prayer for now is that I learn to 1) respond!  not react! 2) love totally unconditionally and 3) that I seek every opportunity to build a deeper and long lasting relationship with my wonderful child.

Plug for Cloth Diapers

So this weekend with cousins here and busy life, getting ready for the party and all, I got a little lazy and just did disposable diapers more with Caitlin. The whole weekend, her little bum was a bit red and looked like she was about to get a good diaper rash. Yesterday we went back to cloth diapers, and viola - her bum is all cleared up! Hooray for cloth diapers. I am actually really enjoying them. Right now they are leaking a little around the legs, so I am trying to figure out if it's user error (not putting the insets in right) or just not putting them tight enough or even too tight. But I am liking them.

Haley's 5th Birthday Party!

Haley really wanted to do a fairy party this year. So this is it. We had chocolate cake with homemade strawberry ice cream. And had all the girls make fairy wings and fairy wands. At one point there were 15 girls in our house!!!! Poor Jeff was way out numbered! Needless to say he needed some good man time!

All our little fairies, but one.

Our friends Hannah and Kate, mom Lauren, and baby brother Sam!

Casey and Haley

Mattie Van and Ellie

Carlie and Lily

Jeff and our little fairy - Caitlin

Cousin Ellery and Aunt Caroline

Haley blowing out her candles!

Kate and Haley

Casey

Happy Birthday Haley Grace!

Cousins Carlie and Mattie Van

Day 2 Continued

After playing in outside in the water, we came in and got dressed, ate lunch, then started playing. Katie brought over all their ballet things for the girls to dress up in. Here are our sweet girls possing for some fun shots. Baby Caitlin even got dressed as a fairy.

Our neighbor Lily and Haley

Cousins! - Haley, Mattie, Carlie

Being goofy!

They all love Caitlin!

Our little baby ballerina!!

Sisters!

Birthday Weekend - Day 2

I have many memories of us staying with my cousin Kilby. There were three of us girls, and even though I remember fighting, I remember really enjoying going to visit them. One the that we did was all sleep together. Of course, girls do this kind of thing, right? Well, Haley Grace is not used to sleeping with others yet. At my sisters, she does ok, but she isn't in the bed with the girls. At our house, HG just has one bed in her room, an there is a queen bed in the baby room. So we attempted having them all sleep in one bed. ... needless to say that night HG kept the girls awake, and had to return to her own bed. So sad - I was hoping they would just stay up for a little while talking, then just fall asleep. Maybe next time.

The next day, we had our neighbor down the street come up and play - we got out our new slip-n-slide and the girls had so much fun on it! Katie (neighbor) even put dish soap on it, and the girls LOVED it!

Haley

Mattie Van

Carlie

Lily - our neighbor

Girls/ Cousins!!

For Haley's birthday, we had my nieces come stay with us for 4 days! So this weekend, I was a mother of 4 girls!!! YIKES! It was all kinds of drama. But it was lots of fun.

The first day they were here my sister in law Caroline came over to hang out -bringing her daughter, making it FIVE girls! :) My sister had made all 5 girls matching dresses, so we decided to attempt a girl cousin picture. ... here is how they turned out!

Our Big Backyard

Jeff's work helped sponsor this play area called "Our Big Backyard".

So, for opening day, we got to go for free!! I love free stuff. It's basically all kinds of outdoors stuff. They had a giant bird house that the kids ran through and played in, more like a tree house. But it had lots of things about birds to learn inside it.

This was the tree section. The wood was used for all kinds of things for the kids to play on.

Here is the flower area - get it - flower "beds"! :) they had couches and chairs made of green vines too.

This is the giant spider web - there was a massive spider hanging from the tree right above the web!

Here is a play house - filled with music instruments

Haley standing on a rolly polly

I think this was the coolest thing - they had a real rain section. Every 30 minutes, it started to thunder. 3 min later, it got "cloudy" (aka misting), then 3 minutes later it poured rain from on top of the roof! They provided lots of umbrellas for the kids to dance and play in the rain!

8 Weeks Old!

Well, Caitlin is now 8 weeks old!!! WOW! I can't believe it's been 8 weeks already! She is growing so much - she's 11 lbs now! (as you can tell her little cheeks and chin are quite chubby!) She' just started smiling at us - I actually heard her laugh the other day. :) She has become quite the amazing sleeper! She's been sleeping for 10/11 hours at night - eating at 10, and going right back to sleep - sleeping til 8/9 in the morning. I still keep thinking I should wake her up cause newborns shouldn't sleep that much, right? She continues to be fairly happy most of the time, only when she needs to poop does she get fussy. So we go to the potty and she poops, the day gets much better.

On another note - Haley Grace should be starting homeschooling Sept 1. She's really going to K! I can't believe she's ready for K already!?!? She turns 5 in just 2 weeks! Oh she's growing up fast!

Swimming

We finally got to go swimming this summer with some friends! I didn't realize that having a newborn meant you couldn't really go swimming. Caitlin can't be outside in the heat for too long, and she can't really sit out by the pool that easily while we play. But, our friend's parents have a pool, so it made having a baby there much easier, and it was shady.

Our neighbor, Katie, dipping Caitlin in - a NOT very happy baby!

Trying out the pool, she didn't want to go in.

One of Caitlin's more serious faces! She makes this face all the time!

Haley playing by the pool.

Our neighbor, Lily. She's a GREAT swimmer!