Cheer Up Weekend

Well, it's a different post than some of you guys might have expected--no baby this week. The adoption fell through the day we were supposed to bring him home. There were some, um, mistakes and bad advice so we're going to be making some choices around whether to continue and with what agency. You can read more here.

Autumn was, of course, heartbroken. But, she is much better this weekend. My mom came back to the US from the Philippines on Wednesday which was great. I called her to ask her if she'd come over Thursday even though she was probably jet lagged but Autumn was so very sad. When I got her on the phone, she said, "I'm 5 minutes from your house!" Lainey was also at Lindsay's so between family and baby Ellie, Autumn was smiling again before the end of the night.

Friday, I took lunch to her at school. We had a great visit. And, her teacher is super sweet. I talked to Mrs. B, who cried when she found out, and told her some of the words we're using with Autumn.

That afternoon, we went to Bed Bath and Beyond because Santa brought her the wrong bracelet kit. We found the right one and she saw these Flipeez hats. She saw them on some friends and has been wanting one so I told her she could use her Christmas money from Nanny for it. So here we are!

And, um, she made me try it on, too. And took a picture.

Saturday, we went to the zoo with Lainey, Pd, Lindsay, Ellie, and papa. We had a good time but I think I'm still tired from teaching aikido and a strength class and then walking the zoo for the afternoon.

It's hard. And we don't care for it much. But, we have each other. So, we keep smiling. :)

Christmas Day!

Sooooo, this is a weird feeling but I totally bought baby stuff on Amazon about 5 minutes ago. Just a stroller and car seat cover thingie but it's still really weird. For those of you who might not have heard, we have a placement date! You can read about that and some other things that have happened around the adoption in this post. And, I wrote about the first part of our Disney trip here!

Last week I did some pre-Christmas photos so I thought this week would be a good time to wrap up Christmas before we, hopefully, change gears. I probably have one more Disney post to put up over at the Pinwheel blog, though, so keep an eye out there or I'll link it here if you're not a regular reader of that blog! Anyway, isn't this the sweetest picture of Autumn and Nanny on Christmas morning?

The Kyle/Lindsay/Leah/Ryan/Lauren part of the family didn't arrive until later on Christmas Day so Autumn only really opened her stocking on Christmas morning. We had been doing the 25 Days of Kindness during advent so as part of her stocking gifts, Santa brought one last note and gift from Jerry. The note told her what a great job she did and how Jerry hopes Autumn keeps on being kind all year long. And, while he's in the North Pole, he left her a gift to remember him by--a soft doll he named "Little Jerry."

Autumn was pretty thrilled! I'm not usually all "MY KID IS SO CUTE" but I'm going to break my normal routine and just say that she's really pretty here. I think pink and green might be her colors.

When Tyler did arrive, Autumn STILL had to wait for presents until after dinner! She was very patient all day but she couldn't resist getting Tyler to scavenge a little to see what gifts might be for them.

A few minutes later, this happened. :) I told Leah that this should be part of our joint Christmas card next year.

We did attempt to get a nice photo of the three of them but it wasn't quite happening!

When we FINALLY got to dig in to the gifts, Ellie wasn't exactly as pumped as everyone else. Poor little Ellie was sick on Christmas day! No fun!

But a few days later at Autumn's princess makeover day, I got this super cute shot of her!

That's it for my Christmas pictures so I'll leave you with this one. Mischief making:

Pre-Christmas Fun!

I am a huge baby in the cold. It's currently 24 degrees with a windchill of 10 and that's like 10 degrees warmer than tomorrow is supposed to be!!! I know some of you guys live like that for several months a year but this is Memphis. The South. We aren't ready for this!! I'm typing this wearing two layers, a Hello Kitty snuggie and a blanket.

Anyway, if you've seen the Pinwheel blog, you know that we went to Disney last week and had a blast! I'm probably going to recap that on the Pinwheel blog so I thought that I'd cover some pre-Christmas fun here! Also, please continue to pray for us while we work on the adoption and make some decisions around that.

Back to December, we had our community group party in the middle of the month. Mike and Rob did this.

Ha! They didn't do it the whole time but they did play a game that was probably fun but sounded very silly. Speaking of silly, these silly monkeys were very silly.

The next photo in that series is this. I love it.

I corralled her to take a picture with me. She's like a jumping bean I'm having to restrain.

Later that week, Ellie came to visit. She wasn't feeling great but she loved it when Uncle Mike swung her like a pendulum.

On the last day of school, I got to go to the holiday party. The kids were so fun. They played a game and then made donut snowmen. Autumn used her pretzel to make arms. I love it.

We have to have Kiri in the shot. I let her bring Kiri that day. Mrs. B had heard a lot about Kiri and mentioned wanting to meet her.

MORE FUN: After the party, Aunt Penny came over for lunch and we had our Christmas together.

Penny's mom gave Autumn a sweet good luck gift, a snowflake necklace. Autumn loved it and carried it in her bag to the Nutcracker performances.

That Saturday night, my mom came over for an early Christmas celebration because she left for the Philippines on the 23rd. Autumn has been counting the days until my mom gets back.

Donnie and Liz got her a great gift--she loves her chef hat and wore them when we made gingerbread cookies this week.

We made Mike a mug at Paint a Piece and gave it to him Monday night when we did our gifts to each other. On the back, there's a picture Autumn drew. It's funny because I told her to draw big. She didn't. So, it's this teeeeeny tiny little family drawing but it's pretty cute.

We got Autumn a magic set!! I was so excited because that afternoon before we opened gifts Autumn set up a magic show. She's had a great time learning to do her tricks. I only regret not getting her a cape! I meant to but never ordered it. Oh, well. She can use her Wonder Pets cape from Halloween.

And that's pre-Christmas! Fun times. And more fun times over the rest of the break. Well, other than the flu. And the cold weather.

If there are any adoption updates, you can keep up with them at Passing Pinwheels!

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!