First Nutcracker!!

Autumn was in the Nutcracker for 5 whole minutes today! Hahaha. It really was great. It was her first year and she's still getting used to the stage so she only had one part. Most of the other girls her age and a little older have 2 or 3 parts. It's possible that Autumn might do that next year but we'll see! Today, though, she was an angel.

The day started out pretty well. She got a good rest in after church and we got ready smoothly and were even early! I put her in makeup but some of the other kids weren't wearing any at all. I figure it's better to do it so any photos she's in will look good. Here's Autumn before we left:

Once we got there and Autumn was in costume, she got nervous and worried about the audience. There was a lot of chaos backstage so she kind of went into emergency mode. I put her in a chair near where the backstage parents were sitting so she was out of most of the buzzing around and that helped a little. But not much.

From what I could see, I think she did as well as anyone else and was at least circling when she was supposed to circle! Afterward, you'd think Autumn would chill out but no. She was all, "you said there wouldn't be a whole lot of people but there were and I don't want to bow."

She did it though! And it was pretty fun because she was the only kid still in an angel costume during the bow so she stood out. Well. Good for mom's grin but maybe not so good for the aesthetic of the line! Autumn was originally schedule to perform yesterday with some other angel-only kids but we had made plans already so her teacher was kind enough to move the date. And next week there will be other kids who are first timers, too!

After the performance, I offered a drink from sonic and Autumn asked if she could have a hot dog from there for dinner. I called Mike and we decided we could do that for her. :) Happiness ensued.

We're still doing 25 Days of Kindness! Check it out on Passing Pinwheels and let me know if you're interested in participating in this week's big project.

December Adventures

This is what we've been up to:


Ha! It's Elf on the Shelf time. If you don't usually read Passing Pinwheels, this is a great time to glance through. We're in week 2 of our 25 Days of Kindness Project. We also have some adoption news! Nothing really concrete yet but we're tentatively moving forward with a birth mom due later this month.

In slightly less momentous news, Autumn got her first haircut in a non-family salon. AND YES MY MOM KNOWS. She was out of town so we had to take alternate measures. :) Autumn was not a fan of the camera.


Last Thursday was the book fair! We didn't get to go last time so this was pretty fun! It was also open house and we got to see her class, go on a school scavenger hunt, and see a bunch of her friends. That day at school, they had book character day. Autumn chose Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons. We were going to do Pete the Cat Rocking in My School Shoes BUT we couldn't find her ukelele. I decided to take an old stained dress shirt and I put the bright buttons on there. Pipe cleaner shaped into a corkscrew served as the button popping off. She had the blue leggings, shirt and ears aaaaaand voila! Pete the Cat!


We didn't have blue ears BUT we did make some droppy whiskers.


Anyway, we had the snow day that wasn't on Friday. A few people got ice but we didn't except on the trees. Autumn got to watch PBS kids and eat Golden Grahams. She said that Kiri was sick and kept her up alllll night coughing. I think Kiri is feeling better because Autumn took her to see Santa. That's for next week!


So, she made Kiri a healthy breakfast and some warm apple juice. And then Kiri slept on a pillow under a blanket all morning. So sweet.


I hope everyone has had a great weekend!! If you have any 25 Days of Kindness suggestions, let me know!

Thanksgiving Wrap Up!

Hey, guys! I'm running a giveaway at Passing Pinwheels! Stop in and enter to win a Kiwi Crate single or limited edition holiday crate! 

And now...Thanksgiving! I hope everyone had a great one.

Molly's Thanksgiving thanks is her yellow catnip ducky!!

This Thanksgiving we went to Birmingham to visit with P'd's family! We had a great time catching up with everyone--and I do mean everyone. Thanksgiving with the extended Colley Family is quite the event. Afterward, we did our annual family photo. Autumn and Tyler look downright Dickensian.

They were really depressed about leaving each other. They played and read and romped so much that I never got any good shots of the two of them having fun together. I did get shots of them both looking way, way sad about leaving. Sad...

Sadder...

Saddest...

This one wasn't sad, though! She got CAKE. But only chocolate. Lauren tried giving her something NOT CHOCOLATE and Ellie spit it out.

Sad kids...but they will see each other again soon! It seems like Christmas is so, so close. I think I'll close out the Halloween/Thanksgiving season with a few photos from October and November. First, the pumpkin of giantness! It is at the nursery by the Farmer's Market. We got our pumpkins there and they had two of these big dudes!

Also, Autumn got a beta fish. We gave the fish to Penny and the tank to Christy because it was just getting too much to handle with all the cleaning plus we needed her night stand for a reading lamp. The fish is a boy but she insists it's a girl named rainbow, haha.

And that's the fall season! Coming up next is the Christmas season. Craziness! Check out our advent project. We're doing 25 Days of Kindness this month and we started today! Each week, we'll have a project that others can participate in if they like. This week we are collecting new and gently used Shelby County Schools uniforms--collared shirts and black/navy/khaki pants/skirts. Layering shirts and leggings might be good, too, since it's winter. Click here for more information!

Fall Mobile Moments!

OH MY GOSH IT IS SO COLD. Seriously it's in the TWENTIES. I don't think that the earth got the memo that Memphis isn't supposed to be this cold pre-Thanksgiving. Fortunately, Autumn and Kiri are prepared:


We have also had a TON of soup to combat the chill. I tried something new--I made homemade ramen! I know it's terrible but I looooove the 25 cents a package ramen so when I saw real ramen noodles at the store, I thought I'd give it a try. It was super easy to make and way delicious. Plus, Autumn was excited to get to use her training chopsticks. Eventually, her hands got tired and we made her take a fork but she gave it a solid try.


In preparation for the book fair, the school had a book cover contest. Autumn ended up doing a different book but she started about trying to draw a cover for her Fancy Nancy book treasury. It didn't go well and there was a LOT of grumbling and muttering. When she showed me her first attempt, I said, "Look, it's great! Wasn't that fun?"


Then she turned her paper around. APPARENTLY it was so NOT FUN that she wrote NOT FUN on the back of her paper! I laughed hysterically and made her take a picture with both sides. She didn't quite get that what made it funny was the timing (I said "wasn't that fun" and she turned her paper around at that moment) and started writing "not fun" on everything and laughing like a hyena.


Anyway, in slightly normal news, we went to the Shanghai Ballet at GPAC! My mom took us which was really nice of her. The ballet was lovely but also baffling. Here's how I described it to Autumn: "The girl is dressed like a boy at a school for some reason. She falls in love with a boy but he doesn't know she's a girl. There's a bully who is mean. The boy finds out that she's a girl and they fall in love. Then, the girl has to marry someone rich. Turns out it's the mean bully. She doesn't want to. Her dad will make her. She meets the boy. The mean bully has him killed. And then...she...goes to the grave and dies...either in a snowstorm or from sad? And then...they, well, come back to life as butterflies. The end." Autumn assures me that she died in a snowstorm so I guess she knew what was happening and didn't need my help!


On the other end of the spectrum, we did this:



Fun!! I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving! If you want to see what we'll be doing this December, visit passing pinwheels! There's also a free advent calendar printable if you're interested. We're still looking for ideas for the 25 Days of Kindness so definitely chime in if you have any suggestions!

Family photos!

I went to bed Monday and thought, "omg! I forgot the family blog post!" I've been sick all week. This is the first day that I haven't been completely attached to cough drops and a box of tissues. Seriously, went through FIVE boxes of tissues. Anyway, I'm cheating a bit. I'm going to link you to the Pinwheel blog because I have our latest family photos by Elizabeth Wiggs!! Too fun!

A Very Happy Halloween

I hope everyone had a super fun Halloween! We did. Check out our pumpkins...I love it! Our friend Matt hadn't carved a pumpkin before so we invited him over to help us with ours. I gotta say, he way outdid anything I've ever done before.


I posted some about halloween on the pinwheel blog, first about Autumn's costume and then about our Not a Party but here are some fun pictures from Funny Bones at Mullins! We met Micah and Liana there and they had a really good time although Autumn got a littttle too happy at one point. I love Micah's face here.


We also found Josh and Aurora! I have another photo of Autumn acting completely insane while Josh is smiling but I thought this was so cute. I love Josh's magician rings.


I was pretty surprised that Autumn decided to get her face painted. She usually doesn't like people looking at her that hard but once in a while, the desire to be a butterfly overwhelms the whole DON'T LOOK AT ME thing!


After playing and then running around in the small graveyard at Mullins (Literally. They ran in circles.), Autumn ran out of gas. I revived her with a visit to get cocoa at Starbucks but...


It was a temporary revival!


On Halloween night, she struck a super Wonderpet pose!


And gave out candy! We only let her do two groups because she was seriously generous. You'd think her tiny fist could only hold a couple pieces of candy but NO.


While Autumn took care of the kids, Mike played with a flying strawberry!


I'm not sure why Jeffrey, Aurora and Aleena didn't make it into this photo but I love these happy faces!


There's Aleena! We really did have a great mix of old and new friends this Halloween. So fun and I can't wait until next year.

Autumn IS Ming-Ming the Wonder Pet!

I'm cheating a little tonight!! Head over to Passing Pinwheels this week to see Autumn's costume for Halloween and a tutorial on how I made the wings. Click!!

Bats at the Beach and other stories...

Guess where we went for fall break! We had a great few days at the beach. It was weird because usually when we go to Mike's parents' condo, we're there with, well, everyone. But this time it was just the three of us. We enjoyed ourselves. We didn't get bored or anything which was nice.


We brought some board games, books, and art supplies. And, um, the player we use to watch Netflix on our tv, ha! We did a LOT of swimming in the pool. I did Autumn's swim team practice stuff with her and it was really hard! I can't believe she does that for 45 minutes. We also, of course, did a beach walk almost every day.


And, when it wasn't raining or super windy so that the sand hurt when it hit us, the water was great. I'm not usually a big "let's get in the water!" person but even I waded in. Autumn swam, pranced, danced, and fought with the waves. She and Mike were pretty cute out at the edge of the shallow water looking for this yellow and orange fish that they see every trip.


We even had some entertainment one afternoon. Mike spotted this girl on the beach doing meditative yoga or praying or something. The birds scattered a bit by the time I got my camera but the birds had been in a half circle around her so it was like some kind of strange ocean service or class.


Seriously, she went through an entire series of poses over about an hour, holding each pose for at least 10 minutes! The birds just chilled out and watched!


There was another interesting visitor. At first, I thought this was a pile of butterflies. I've never seen a bat at the beach but here was this little dude! Autumn decided she is a girl and named her Sleepy because she slept all afternoon on the ceiling of the balcony. Funny enough, when I was looking at the online library for books on bats to read to Autumn, I found a fiction book called Bats at the Beach. It was such a cute book! And strangely appropriate. We read it together almost every night.


We also went to a park about 10 minutes away. I made a list of a few free places we could go but this is the only thing we ended up doing. I'm so glad we did because it was really great! The whole thing was made of reclaimed materials like tires and buckets. We all played on the structures.


The balance thing Mike was on above was tough to cross! Way tougher than it should have been. Autumn had a good time with just about everything but I had to drag her away from the drum buckets.


This could be the least flattering photo I have ever posted of myself. Or in the top 10.


The entire time we were there, the sky was amazing. How beautiful is this? I haven't edited any of these at all, either.


From one of our sunset walks. Amazing.


Can you tell Autumn loved being at the beach? :)

A Kiwi Tale: Introducing Kiri Kiwi

Once upon a time, there was a happy and imaginative little girl who loved the kiwi from her Kiwi Crate boxes very, very much.


So, not long after school started, the little girl wrote a letter. She wrote the letter to the kiwi!


At the bottom, she drew her very best family picture. The little girl drew her kitty cat Molly, but far away because Molly doesn't like people. She also drew her papa and her mama, but she mixed up the names so her mama was a little too tiny but it's okay. The little girl also added the one she wanted to join her family: Kiwi.

"From Autumn. Will you come over to haos we will have a pladat to gever. We will have a grat tie plaey to gedr. You will haf to come tomorow aftr soole."

She did her best to write a good, polite note. The little girl wrote it all by herself, hoping that Kiwi would see how hard she worked. She really wanted Kiwi to come for a play date. And, maybe, if Kiwi liked it at her house, they could play together for longer than one day!


The little girl gave her letter to her mama to mail to Kiwi. Her mama warned her that Kiwi might not be able to come or that her letter might take a very long time to get to New Zealand where kiwis are from. They even looked for New Zealand on the globe! And it was very, very far away. But every day, she kept hoping and hoping and one day...


The little girl's mama sent her on a scavenger hunt to find a surprise that came in the mail. When the little girl saw the holes in the box...she started to get so excited. There was a note. Kiwi (which must be a last name because she now knows he is really named Steve) sent his friend Kiri! Kiri came all the way to stay with the little girl!


And, ever since then, they have had so many wonderful adventures. They played hide and seek with the little girl's grandfather.


Kiri and the little girl basked in the sun, reading books on the balcony at the beach.


They practiced their sentences and spelling together.


And Kiri even gets to ride in the baby carrier on trips around the house sometimes!


The little girl is so happy to have Kiri. To make sure she really, really never wants to leave, the little girl made Kiri and super comfy bed in a hat with very soft clothes.

Kiri is a fun friend to have. °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°