Faces of Autumn

Hello, friends. I'm so thankful today to be able to do this blog post...especially with so many parents hurt and lost this weekend. I wrote some on the other blog. Today I am thankful for the little one I have here, the one waiting on me in Heaven, the faith that gives me courage to go on knowing that, and all of the support that you all have given us in our own sadness. I pray that the parents dealing with so much heartache and shock have a support system like you.

I was at Autumn's school taking pictures of pajama day Friday morning. The kids were so adorable and sweet and extra scruffy. Autumn was no exception. She wore her robe, Belle pajamas, and leggings to class. So comfy.


I had them do a class photo and they were all so squeezable. Autumn decided to be a ham.


In all the photos.


I shouldn't be surprised because this was her pre-breakfast posing.


It's nice to see the perky pictures, though, because Wednesday she didn't feel great. Sad, sad eyes. :(


I'm sure I've told you about her boxes. Seriously. Autumn is so a cat. She has these boxes and they have been rockets and boats and cars. This week she had a sled she pulled her dolls in. Last night it was Santa's sleigh and the dolls were the reindeer. She was all "hohoho-ing" everywhere.


Here's another box incarnation. It was a castle on Wednesday.


Oh, hey, look, here's Autumn with ALL THE CATS. That's actually not even all the cats that live at Mike's parents house, if you can believe it.


Speaking of cats, Molly is on high alert. Autumn requisitioned one of the boxes that gifts were delivered in. She decorated one and wrote "Mole Molly Box" on it. So Autumn has been trying to catch Molly to put her in the box. She finally decided just to leave it and put a soft blanket Molly likes in it. I'm sure it will work better.


And that's it for this week. I hope our little monkey will bring a smile to your face.

The elusive sunny day

I hope this post finds everyone safe. I've gotten a few texts and emails asking how we are and we are fine. We haven't been directly affected by any flooding so far although some of the streets in and out of Germantown are flooded off and on. Ryan and Leah are also okay in Birmingham, thank goodness. Lauren is fine but Tuscaloosa is in pretty rough shape. Mike's parents had their neighborhood garage sale this weekend and are taking the leftover clothing and household items to Tuscaloosa for the people who have lost everything. Brad sent this photo to Mike and it's crazy. The tornado passed right by the condo. Fortunately, Lauren wasn't there or driving there during all of this. The buildings that are standing in the center of the photo are the condos. There used to be businesses and houses where there is now only debris.


Sigh. So much destruction and more to come with these floods.

On a slightly happier note, we took advantage of some nice weather last week and went to the Botanic Gardens again. Autumn and I went with Penny but only really saw the My Big Backyard area. When we went with Mike, we saw most of the Gardens before going to the playground. Mike's favorite area was the Oak Grove.


Happy girl on the bridge.


I think this goose was on a nest? I don't know but it didn't move even when we passed close by. Autumn chose to believe the goose was sitting on eggs. :)


Next time I want to bring food for the fish. They were craaaazy.


We tried to get a picture of Autumn's head next to this flower but it didn't really work out well. Seriously, the flower was huge.


I call this Contemplation on a Boat on Dry Land. Hahaha. Do you like her blue nails? My mom did them. :P She also has flowers on her toenails...they had fun that week with the nail decorating kit I got them for Christmas.


This is Mike ready to go home. :) There weren't any oaks around so he was all done. Aren't those worms on the hill behind him kind of freaky?


We had a good time together. I was surprised that Mike was all for this trip on his Good Friday off but he said he figured it was his last chance for a pleasant outdoor family trip before it got too hot. He's so funny. We are complete seasonal opposites. If it is 75 degrees or above, I am happy. If it is 74 degrees or below, he is happy. Autumn's like Mike so he's been joking that he wants to have me hypnotized to believe I like cold weather. Maybe our new little guy will be like me and then it can be two against two. :D Although maybe it would be two against three since Molly likes colder weather, too. What in the world am I going to do if I'm the lone tropical type in this family of hot people??

Helpful Baby is Helpful...usually

So, Autumn is a pretty awesome kid. One reason she's awesome is that she, at least at this stage, kind of likes to clean. She even sings the silly song I made up about cleaning up when she does clean which just makes it that much better. My mom, of course, can't help but declare, "she didn't get that from you," whenever Autumn goes into OCDIMUSTCLEANOCD mode. THANKS MOM. lol. I even have photographic proof:


Seriously, she does stuff like wash the sides of the tub when she's bathing. She also likes to scrub her tray clean when she's done eating. Autumn even likes to help me fold and put away laundry which I let her do even if it means stuff goes in the drawers in a less than, um, flat manner.


Well. Today Miss Autumn had a non-cleaning moment. She likes to stand in the dining area of our house and stare out the window. I'm not really sure what she looks at but sometimes she stands there for a while. It's a little weird. But, hey, whatever, right? So, today when she stood in the window, I didn't think anything of it until I went over there. Yep. She had found a couple of crayons under the table and was coloring the window sill.


So as punishment she got to clean up the mess. Yes. I am that mom. At first I think she thought it was fun (singing, deeean up! deeean up! lalalalala!) but then she got pretty pitiful. I'm actually kind of hoping it didn't turn her off of her cleanliness. I have to confess that I did help her out in the end. :) Who could resist this sadness??


And, since we can't end a post with a sad monkey, here's Autumn with her first pigtails! I CAN'T STAND HOW AWESOME THIS IS. Mike and I were total dorks that morning, trying to get pics with our blackberrys so we could make them our backgrounds. lol!

An exciting morning so far...

So yeah, fun morning today. When I woke up and went to get Autumn for her diaper change I went in and found her like this (you can see more pics of her after clicking on this one):

Quasimodo Effect

How did this happen, you ask? Well I had told her the night before to stop throwing her food on the floor and she just wouldn't listen. So I had to smack some...

No no. Apparently she got bitten by a mosquito right on her eyelid while we were outside in the yard late yesterday afternoon. But the doctor is pretty sure she's going to be just fine after a little benadryl and some hydrocortizone cream. Thankfully it hasn't been hurting her or anything as she's been acting perfectly normal all day so far.

But man, it was just about the most pitiful thing I've seen in quite some time. Poor little quasimodo...