Christmas Crafts and Chores!

Oh, man, I have to confess I have hardly taken any photos. We've been really working hard getting the house cleaned up and ready for the holidays. Autumn's been a bigger help than one would think a four year old might be. The first thing we put up was her pink Christmas tree. :) I promise I didn't buy this...it used to be her Aunt Lauren's!


Getting things ready for Christmas has involved things like cleaning out the pantry. Totally random but it's something that got out of control while I was sick and I need everything in its place as we get ready for Christmas dinner with my family and then our New Year's Brunch. Autumn spends entirely too much time asking me when Christmas is going to be here so I decided we'd make a little Advent craft. We've never really done the advent calendar but it seems like a good time to start. We did it really simply with strips of construction paper, crayons, and stickers and then we made a chain with the strips.


Please don't laugh at my drawing! We didn't have any red paper so we decided to decorate the white paper. We used this sticker book that had all kinds of stickers in it. I was pretty tickled by some of Autumn's decorating choices. My favorite is where she wrote the word Jesus and then used black cat stickers! Also, right below, note the Christmas watermelon.


I'm attempting to work on a project for a friend, I'll eventually post it on the other blog after it is done. I'm not so sure it's going the way I wanted but we shall see. Anyway, I went to take some photos. Autumn was going to be in one but she was less than cooperative.


She did the same face today when I tried to take her picture while we did the Christmas craft.


I don't feel too bad because she did this with Elizabeth, too, haha. We got our gorgeous cd of photos this week. Here's one funny one.


Our daughter is a lion.

I do have to include one pretty one!


So cute!

Thanksgiving Weekend!

Well, we are officially wrapping up Thanksgiving and getting ready for Christmas! Can you believe it's that time already? I have to confess that I was feeling rather bah humbug about the whole thing but seeing Autumn get soooo excited about the Christmas trees...well, that helped. :) It was funny, when we got in from Birmingham on Thanksgiving night, Autumn went into Mike's parents' foyer for the first time since their tree was delivered. She looked wayyyyyy up (it's a huge tree) and said, "this is the best."

Anyway, we left for Birmingham on Thursday morning and made it to Aunt Mary's. We had a really good time seeing all the Italians for the first time since May. It was, of course, a little hard to go down without Garrett but not as painful as it could have been. Autumn helped, as she always does. She was soooo excited about seeing Tyler because "he's my best friend and I love him." Here they are playing in the bushes. Someone tried to scare them out of the bushes by saying there were snakes but that just made them have a good time running in and out of them screaming.


We got a pretty good family photo. Autumn was the ornery one in this one, haha. She had her hand over her face in all of them and I never noticed! Tyler had his tongue out in all of these but this one. They are so silly.


How sweet is this?


Two little turkeys, gobble gobble gobbling.


Friday we did Thanksgiving with Nanny and Boppa and it was delicious. We also celebrated Lainey's birthday. I've been looking forward to this for forever because, for one, Lindsay and I went in together on a cool gift like, three months ago. And for another, I got Lainey this.


Ha! The story is that, long ago when Mike was a roly poly baby, Lainey's first Mother's Day rolled around. P'd gave her a hot dogger. And a poem on a paper bag (Mike wrote me a poem on a paper bag our first Mother's Day as an homage to his dad). So when I saw the hot dog toaster at Penny's garage sale, I immediately asked her how much it was. :) She just gave it to me. Seriously, I laughed so hard when Lainey opened it. And then we gave her the real gift. At the end, Lindsay got in on the joke gifting with this knee and elbow pad set. :) For those of you not in the know, Lainey has taken some epic spills so they are getting her ready for the winter ice!


Here's Hudson. Oh, excuse me. Baby Huzzon. I was calling him Hudson on the way home in the car and Autumn informed me that his name is NOT Hudson. His name is "Baby Huzzon." Anyway, Baby Huzzon was being cute and not wanting to eat his squash (smart kid). I tried to get a photo but it didn't really work out. I got this one of him looking ridiculously like his dad, though.


And, to wrap up Thanksgiving, this is what Tyler and Autumn did all weekend:


They were darn cute, giggling and laughing like crazy monkeys. Autumn stayed over there most of the weekend and Mike and I came over every night for dinner. Every time she saw us, her eyes would fill with tears and she would say, "I don't want to go home, I want to stay with Lainey and P'd and Tyyyyyylerrrr!" She's lucky I have good self esteem!

Oh! Have some vintage Autumn from November 2007, sporting a mohawk and chubbeh chubbeh cheeks of cute!

The answer to world peace? Owls.

Sigh. Don't you feel better now? Seriously, Autumn and I watched this together twice and I've watched it **mumblemumblecough** times on my own.

P'd has been out and about doing worky things and when he came to see Autumn a week ago, he brought her a present.


She was very happy. :) The first thing she did the next morning was hop into her tent. When I came to get her for breakfast, she popped out and goes, "I'm not a caterpillar anymore!" As a side note, I think we're going to do one of these.

Someone else has been enjoying P'd's gift. I didn't realize she was in there and heard her rustling around, getting ready to watch the sanitation workers, which I assume she does every Thursday? Kitty routines.


So, Autumn is a hoarder. I think a lot of kids her age have a tendency to do that and it totally cracks me up. She'll stash things in her backpacks or bags--I had to limit her to one bag at a time because we'd get into this deal where she'd "lose" something when it's just in one of the bags she's stashed around the house. Or in the pile she's made in her closet. Or possibly in the pile she's made on her bed in the dark during nap time.


Or maybe under her pillow?


Ha. Here she is "being comfy" with her blankets and pillows. I think I've told the story here before but in case I didn't, here goes: not long after we first moved here, I was looking for Autumn. I heard her, all muffled, say, "I'm in my room being comfy!" I went in and found her sitting in her basket of stuffed animals.


Oh, this was kind of fun. Right before I got these pictures of her, this little guy was hanging out on the tree right outside the window. We watched him go to town on the seeds or whatever it is that's on that tree.


Cute stuff!

Well, I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving if I don't get to post anything here before we doing some turkey devouring! Be safe and take care!

Doing some catch-up...

Due to coughing like there's no tomorrow, I have done absolutely nothing blog-worthy this week. Which means I have taken zero photos, except for some I took at Cheri's shop The English Garden to make her some postcards which will probably show up over on my other blog sometime soon! So I think I'll take this week to catch up on a couple of things we did before Halloween!

First up, Aunt Penny's house! Autumn goes over there to visit Aunt Penny, of course, but she also gets some fun play time with the dogs. Mostly Conan because Ace is kind of shy. I need to get video of this but Conan will bring her a toy and Autumn will say, "leave it! Sit!" And then Conan will do it.


And then she tosses it, he leaps in the air, and she giggles maniacally.


Fun times.


Also in October, Autumn finished up her first sticker sheet (I talk about her sticker sheet in detail here) and her last item in the treasure box was a trip to TCBY. She had been wanting a cone since she saw Pinkalicious eating one in her book.


She actually did a great job although it got a little messy. What's not showing up in the photo is how much is in her hair. Mike is continually amazed and baffled at how much food gets distributed in her hair...I used to have her eat in a hat, I should start it up again, hahaha.


And it took a seriously long time so the ice cream melted and this happened.


There was much sadness.


But I think she had a good time trying out her cone! That being said, the next time we went to TCBY (after her flu shot, I should write about that when I am less gross), she got a cup.

And, since I can't end on a sad, spilled ice cream note, have this picture. :) It's all grainy because I took it with my phone. Molly was staring intently out the window the other night. I turned on the light and saw this big, grey cat that I think lives at the corner house. Autumn ended up taking Molly's place and she and the cat stared at each other a while. Autumn said, "what's up kitty cat? My name is Autumn."

Halloween! Continued!

I wanted to be creative with this one but I have a raging sinus infection which appears to be stifling the creative juices. They are apparently all stuck in the front part of my face. T_T

Fortunately! I don't have to be creative because I have cute. Like Autumn her second Halloween at Aunt Penny's house which is one of our yearly traditions. As you might already know, Autumn can be a little shy. Ha! So I've always just taken her to friends' houses and close neighbors we know for trick or treating. We've been to Penny's house or her work every year.


Whenever we go to her work, Penny makes sure her coworkers have candy for Autumn. How sweet is that? Of course, it mildly terrifies Autumn but after she warms up a bit she usually gets up the courage to toodle up, hold out her bucket, and whisper "trick or treat." She reserves all her snuggles and enthusiasm for Aunt Penny.


We got to have a short coffee break with Penny. This is a picture of contentment. Aunt Penny, a pretty costume, chocolate milk, a light up ghost...does life get any better at 4 years old?


After we left Baptist, we headed to our next yearly destination. We always stop in to see Stephan and his mom on Halloween. I love Stephan's mom and I'm so glad I've gotten to know her since we moved our office to her spare room. Seriously, she tells stories about a life and time that's like a book to me. I didn't get any good photos of them this year because Autumn absolutely did not stop moving the whole time. Stephan let Autumn hold Zoe's leash and walk her around the kitchen. Which she did over and over again. And when she wasn't walking Zoe around, Autumn was climbing under the table and around things following Annabelle!


On the way home, we stopped and picked up a bouquet. Penny got me a bouquet a month card and I wanted to wait until the end of the month to get it since Mike had given me anniversary flowers (yay, Mike!). I asked Autumn to pose in front of the display but she wasn't having any of that after all the socializing I had her do.


This lady drove up and was talking to Autumn in this high pitched voice about how cute Autumn is. I caught this reaction. Hilarious. Fortunately, she hid her face in the flowers next so the lady caught that Autumn is kind of shy. Antisocial. Whichever. Ha!


After a needed nap and recharge, we headed over to Ridgeway. They do a really great fall festival every year. I also love getting to see all the people we know there because, seriously, the Ridgeway folks are some of the nicest, best people I've met. I know many of them have been praying for us, sending us notes and, most importantly, supporting Mike's parents in the last 5 months and this was the first time I got to see most of them since we lost Garrett. After eating and visiting (you can be sure to find all of our friends and Mike's parents friends in the food and hospitality area! It's their thing!), we headed to the games. Autumn loooooves this plinko game.


Ok, how adorable is this? The photo was kinda blah because I'm still terrible with taking photos in the dark so I processed it with a 70's style coloration. For some reason, this picture just seemed to be asking for it.


Here she is with Nanny and Boppa after they gave her a couple flashlights and made her NIGHT. Seriously, the kid loves flashlights. She has one in every room. And her closet. For when she needs "a quiet place."


And that was our cheerful, social halloween! After we got home, Mike handed out candy while Autumn and I visited the neighbors and then a very, very tired Princess Presto went to sleep and dream of dogs and dances and lights and candy!

CAPES! SUPER POWERS! MONKEYS! It Must Be Halloween!

I LOVE HALLOWEEN. I am so excited about tomorrow. Candy? Costumes? Parties? Friends? What's not to love?? Remember Autumn's first halloween?


Dawwwwww! I was a little worried that I'd be sad at Halloween because I had already planned Garrett's costume (I don't know if I would realllly have done it) but, really, I've had such a good time with Autumn this year that it's only been a little bittersweet. The counselor tells me this is good.

SPEAKING of things I thought would be sad...we had our family pictures last week with Elizabeth Wiggs. I will post more when we order our photos but check out her blog post: YOU WANT TO CLICK HERE. They are so wonderful I cried. And three other people emailed me to tell me they cried, too. That's how great these are.

Back to Halloween, though, last week I posted a picture of Autumn I loved. Well, I'm still practicing my photography but I am also learning some new photoshop techniques. I played with this one some. Original here.


We went to Funnybones at Mullins United Methodist and had a really good time. Mullins has this little graveyard. I know this might be weird, but Mike and I have always found graveyards interesting. Even when we go to Garrett's grave, we end up looking around at dates and gravestones, many of which are works of art. This one's no different. Autumn and Ella went through the graveyard to get to each other when they ended up on opposite sides and I thought that the contrast between the girls and the graves was fantastic. (If you read my other blog, you've seen this).


I aged the photo and added the color back in using some actions to get the Halloween-y effect. I did the same thing to this one. I wish I'd had a wider lens to catch more of the graves on the left of the photo.


Anyway, that's it for photoshopping! From here on out, it's just me and my camera. :) One thing that made the event more fun was that Rob, Elyse, and Micah from our community group came with us and then joined us for tacos afterward!


Autumn and Micah didn't have many of the same interests because he's less weirded out by people than Autumn can be, haha. Autumn wasn't really sure what she thought about all the hubbub and I was going to take her to the benches to take a break and get used to everything when she ran into one of her favorite people in the whole world: Ella.


So sweet. By the way, here's all of Autumn's costume. She's Princess Presto! This is the only photo that really came out well because I picked a bad spot with patchy sunshine. The costume is kind of cobbled together but Autumn seems to love it. She wore it at the festival and to both of her days at school! Usually she wears a different costume every event the week before Halloween.


Who is Princess Presto? She is a Super Reader with the Power to Spell!


To make the costime, I took a princess dress she already had that was falling apart. I repaired all the torn seams and then I added that flounce thing. I used green ribbon to trim the edge and to make the belt. I used fabric paint for the purple her wand, belt, and crown. I also made the cape a tearaway cape! Have you seen the Incredibles? NO CAPES! I knew she'd be playing on inflatables and, well, playing so I didn't want her to have the cape tied around her neck. Plus I hate stuff around my neck so I assume no one else likes it. The cape attaches with velcro to her shoulders. She wants to use the cape all the time, though, so I'm going to make a velcro held tie so she can wear it just whenever. Fun! Oh! And of course we had Princess Hair™.


Back to the festival...Miss Roxie came, too! She wasn't super pumped about it. She did eat some sour straws and that was some funny stuff!


Three luau ladies and a Princess Presto! And she IS Princess Presto. Another one of Autumn's friends came up to her in a similar dress, almost the same really, just not doctored up, and said, "we have the same dress!" Autumn goes, "No. We don't. I. Am. Princess. Presto.


Here we are!


And, of course, I had to include this because I thought Autumn's face is hilarious.


That is some seriously emphatic smiling!

Happy Halloween! I'm sure there will be more Halloween Happiness next week!