My Little Singer

I love the fact that both of my girls love to sing. Music has been such a big part of their short lives. We listen to music and sing ALL the time. While Allison will sing for you anytime you ask her to, Lauren does not sing for an "audience" as readily as Allison does. Lauren does love to sing and knows so many songs. She amazes me with the words she knows to so many songs. I hope they continue to enjoy singing for years to come!

Here are a couple of videos I got of Allison tonight. The first one is kind of loud, but in the other two she is singing softer.

In this first video she is singing a song she learned from Mrs. Regina, her Sunday school teacher. It is my favorite song to hear her sing.

This next video is Deck the Halls.

This last video is Children Go Where I Send You. She didn't finish the song, but the part she started was very cute!

November Catch Up

Two weeks ago today we celebrated Bill's great Aunt Flo's 94th birthday with a surprise party. All I can say is that if I live to be her age, I hope I am in as good of health as she is. She is remarkable! It was a combined birthday and Thanksgiving celebration with Bill's side of the family. It was a beautiful fall day and the kids had lots of fun playing outside. We took the girls' bikes and the other kids had their outside toys also. It was a wonderful day with family.

Lauren on Ethan's motorcycle.

Allison on the motorcycle

Ethan, Parker, Allison and Lauren enjoying the fall day

Allison and Lauren jumping off the rock

Aunt Flo getting ready to cut her cake

Lauren, Aunt Flo, and Allison

Bill's cousins Dee and Rhonda holding Lauren and Allison

Jen, Dave, Aunt Flo, Bill and Cindy


We enjoyed the past few days with my family for Thanksgiving. Uncle Bob and Uncle Ben came up to celebrate the holiday with us. Mom cooked her traditional Thanksgiving feast and I must say her turkey was exceptionally good this year. We had lots of yummy desserts. Brother Bill brought his infamous chocolate cake. (Why does his taste better than mine?!) I made the chocolate and butterscotch pies, and Mom made a cheesecake. Tonight I was having withdrawals from the tasty treats! Lauren's favorite dessert was the chocolate pie. Allison didn't have a favorite. She had to try them all.

We shopped a little bit on Friday and then headed back to Knoxville today. We got home in time to get our Christmas tree up so the girls could help decorate it. (Or as Lauren keeps saying, "Decoration our tree".) It's great to spend time at Mom and Dad's, but it is always wonderful to get back home.

I didn't take very many pictures of the weekend. Here a couple I did manage to get.

Allison

Lauren

Allison trying on Uncle Bill's size 13(?) boots

Allison striking a pose in the boots.

The girls with their Uncle Bill. They sure do love their Uncle. He does not get a minute to himself when they are awake!

Bill and I are blessed with wonderful families and we are so thankful for them. We are now looking forward to the Christmas season! The girls watched a Christmas movie on the way back to Knoxville today and we have been singing Christmas songs all day! I love Christmas through the eyes of my children!

Dress-up

Lauren and Allison's idea of playing dress up involves finding clothes from each others wardrobe and putting them on. About a month ago I went in to Lauren's room one day while she was in quiet time and she had on her bathing suit. From that day on, it has been one of her favorite things to play. She calls it swimming. She gets on her bathing suit and uses her bean bag as the pool. She has even taught the game to Allison. They put on every bathing suit they own and go swimming in their "pools". I had to set the rule in place stating they had to ask me before they played swimming. It would be time for dinner and both girls would be undressed trying to get their bathing suits on. Or it would be time to go somewhere and they would come out with their bathing suits on.
From the bathing suits, they moved to playing "summer". This is where they wear each others shorts and short sleeved shirts. Poor Lauren comes down the hall wearing a size 2T shorts that are noticeably too tight (and look very uncomfortable) and a t-shirt that is equally too small. Behind her comes Allison wearing Lauren's shorts that are about to fall off her at any moment and a shirt that looks more like a dress. Then they try on every pair of shoes they can get their feet in. They can entertain themselves for hours playing with their clothes. The only downside has been that I have had more laundry to do because many of the clothes they would play in ended up in the laundry basket!
Here are a few shots of them in their "summer clothes" playing with their babies.

Lauren and Allison playing "summer"

Wow these girls look so much alike!

Sisterly love

Today Lauren was playing "summer" and had to wear her own clothes because she could not get to Allison's clothes because she was sleeping. Notice the stylish shoes and socks with her shorts. Also she asked me to braid her hair this morning. I had one small braid off to the side. After school she brought me more ponytail holders and asked me to put another braid on the other side. We ended up with 3 braids! In this picture she has those big sad eyes because I would not put her gloves on her. She came out of her quiet time about 4 times before this time and I told her I would not help her put anything else on.
Those are some really sad eyes. :(

This last picture I took tonight when I checked in on Allison before going to bed. I thought it was so cute how she was using Minnie for a pillow!

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

I'll begin this post by saying I am not a person who starts celebrating Christmas before Thanksgiving. I like to enjoy each holiday as it comes without blending the celebrations together. My brother and I would always start listening to Christmas music in the car on our way back to Knoxville after spending Thanksgiving with our parents. We never have put up a Christmas tree before Thanksgiving was over.
But tonight I broke that tradition somewhat because Santa Claus was to arrive in Knoxville at West Town Mall this evening at 6:00. The girls and I and their grandma headed off to the mall at 4:30 in order to eat dinner and get ready to welcome Santa. Our good friends the Watsons called and said they were coming also. We hooked up with them in the food court for dinner and had such a good time visiting that we almost missed the big arrival.
The festive event took place at the entrace to West Town there by where Ruby Tuesday used to be. Kids and parents were lined up outside of that entrance as well as just inside the entrance. We stayed inside because it was dark outside and we thought we could see Santa better inside where it was light! There was a big parade of all kinds of different mascots from different businesses, many of which I had never seen. A few familiar ones were the Ice Bears bear, the Shoney's bear, and the Chick-fil-a cow. Lauren was interested in giving high-fives to a lot of the characters, but Allison kept her distance holding on tightly to my leg.
As part of the festivities we enjoyed cookies and milk, well the girls didn't actually get to drink their milk because the gentleman handing out the milk asked them, "Do you want white milk or chocolate milk?" Well, duhhh.....which would you pick? My sweet little girls did not even know there was such a thing as chocolate milk!!! I know, I know we have sheltered them quite a bit. But why not enjoy as much healthy eating (or drinking) as possible when they are young. Soon enough we won't be able to control their choices as easily. Fortunately they were satisfied with their cookies and I told them we would have the milk tomorrow. Maybe they will forget about it by then. :)
Here are a few pictures from our fun evening. Happy early Christmas to you and yours.

A very cool balloon Santa at the entrance where Santa was to arrive.

Allison, Josiah, Lauren and Mackenzie waiting for Santa

Lauren and the Panda

And here comes Santa

The jolly old man

Allison & Lauren with one of Santa's elves

Allison, the Elf and Lauren

Fall Leaf Frolicking

This is the lone tree on our property in the back yard. We planted two dogwood trees in honor of our girls' births, but both of those died. My brown (or black) thumb and I had nothing to do with the death of those trees!

We certainly did enjoy the beautiful color on our tree this fall. But once the leaves fell, the girls had fun playing in the small amount of leaves we were able to pile up for them to run and jump in.

Lauren & Allison

Lauren

Allison

Lauren & Allison

Allison

Lauren

Falling leaves


Wonder what Allison is thinking?

Lauren

Trunk-or-Treating at church 10-28-09

Last night we went to our second Trunk-or-Treat at church. We didn't make it to the Fall Festival before church because Bill and I were just getting over a stomach virus. I didn't tell Lauren about the festival, just the trunk-or-treat part. She was happy enough to go to Bible class and then get to trunk-or-treat. Lauren wanted to be Snow White this year and Allison is Minnie Mouse, although if you ask her who she is, she always says Mickie Mouse first! We had all had a fun time!

Lauren and Mackenzie

Allison, Lauren & Mackenzie

Josiah, Allison, Mackenzie & Lauren

Ms. Cindy giving candy to Allison & Lauren

Great picture of our friend Ms. Cindy & Lauren

Allison getting a treat out of Ms. Wendy's spider

Love Allison's face as she gets a treat from Ms. Peggy

Sweet smile from Lauren

Such serious faces from Allison, Mackenzie & Lauren

Allison getting her favorite lollipops from Ms. Holly

Lauren getting her lollipop from Ms. Holly

We got so much candy from church that we don't even need to trick-or-treat on Saturday!! But I guess we will anyway!:)

Race for the Cure October 24, 2009

Five years ago my Mom, Dad, brother, Bill and I participated in the Race for the Cure. Mom had just been diagnosed with breast cancer in August of 2004. I remember she called me after her doctor's appointment that day in August while I was at lunch. It was during our inservice days before school began and I can remember not being able to talk to her on the phone after she said the words, she had cancer. During the next couple of months, she had her surgery, went through chemo treatments and radiation treatments. During that same time frame I got pregnant, but had a miscarriage 11 weeks into the pregnancy.

What a difference five years makes! Mom has been cancer-free for five years now and doing well!! And Bill and I have two beautiful daughters that bless not only our lives every day but the lives of our families! God is good!

It was a chilly day for the race, but we had a great time participating in this wonderful event. Last time we walked the 5K course, but today we opted for the 1 mile walk because we didn't know how long the girls would make it. They both did great, with the help of the stroller and being carried by Pawpaw.

I am in awe at the number of women, both young and old wearing those pink shirts in the race. As you walk in the crowd of people it's a sobering thought reading the names of the people the race participants put on their shirts honoring the survivors they know or remembering those who lost their lives to breast cancer. I am so thankful that my Mom is one of the survivors and that my daughters (and family) and I were able to celebrate that today during the race.

The crowd lined up for the beginning of the race. Brother Bill is somewhere in there.

Lauren, Mom and Allison sporting their race numbers.

The girls trying to stay warm before the 1 mile walk started.

Ronald MacDonald had the honor of starting the 1 mile run. My girls don't even know who he is. Although they have never eaten at MacDonald's, they have had the soft serve ice cream cones from there. On our way home from the race I said something to the girls about seeing Ronald MacDonald at the beginning of the race and Lauren called him Mr. MacDonald and Allison called him Old MacDonald. Too cute!

Allison, Lauren and Mr. MacDonald

Dad, Allison, Mom, Lauren and I during the walk.

Bill, Lauren and I during the walk.

Allison snuggling with Pawpaw trying to keep warm.