Behind...

on posting to the blog yet again! A quick recap: we had Thanksgiving with our families, shopped a little on black Friday, and put up the Christmas tree.
We have SO much to be thankful for. Will try to post more details soon!

YouTube Video

Thought this was a pretty powerful video.....

Poop!

It is apparent now that I've trained Emily very well when it comes to taking photos and scrapbooking.

Last week, Emily's class went on an overnight trip to the Natural Science Center. The kids were allowed to bring a camera along if they wanted to...well, of course Emily took hers. Before she left, I reminded her to just have a good time, and take as many pictures as she wanted...of anything and everything around her.

When I uploaded the pictures for developing, I had quite a surprise! There on the screen before me was...poop!! lol Not sure what kind of animal left it on the trail, but there it was...a big pile of poop! Emily said the leader did try digging through the poop to figure out what animal it was from, but they just weren't sure. Oh yes, and we have a picture of the leader digging through the poop too!! :-)

Emily is going to make a small paper bag scrapbook with her photos, and take it to school to show the science teacher. I hope the teacher is as proud of the poop picture as I am. LOL

I was going to add the picture to my blog, but decided against it at the last minute. Hope I don't disappoint anyone!! LOL

Quilts

Emily finished her FIRST quilt several weeks ago!! She sewed 100% of the quilt top by herself -- the first thing she has ever sewn. I gave her instructions on how to operate the machine, but once she learned the basics, she took off. I'm not a quilter, so I didn't help at all with this project (just drove her to the quilt store every now and then). Emily was SO excited to take her quilt top to the store to have it quilted. She chose a bright green fabric for the backing, and then chose a daisy pattern for the quilting (& green thread of course). One of the sweetest things about the quilt is that is was quilted by her grandpa (my dad). Yep, he's the official quilter at the store. Both Emily and grandpa did an awesome job on the quilt!!
Emily will be working on another quilt soon. She already picked out the fabric!

Painted Horse

One of the local florist shops has this horse statue outside that they paint throughout the year. I've seen the horse painted as a soccer player, decked out for the holidays, covered in flowers, wearing a pink breast cancer ribbon...you name it, and the horse has probably been painted that way. I just realized this past weekend that we've been ignoring this little piece of our town. Claire has ALWAYS remarked about how the horse was painted though - since she was old enough to talk, she would notice this horse when we drove by. Last month, the horse was painted in pretty pink/green/white stripes and really stood out. I thought then that I should stop and take a picture, but as usual, never really took the time to do just that....so, when I noticed the painting had changed again, I decided to document the ever-changing scene. This is what the horse looks like now....pretty hearts on a black background. I just wish I had taken pictures of all the previous paintings. I wonder what's next.....

FFFF #55 Candy

The photo challenge this week is candy. Candy is something we have a lot of right now, so I sat Ally and Claire down for pics with their stash. Believe it or not, this is 3 gallons of candy! (Thank goodness we didn't get candy from ALL of the people at work and church!!) Emily has already sorted through hers and disposed of everything that wasn't a pack of skittles (she still ended up with a gallon bag full)....she just wasn't home when I snapped the pics.

I don't know if it's because the girls haven't felt well this past week, but they're really not eating much of their Halloween candy (yay!). :-) I have helped them as much as I could by eating all of the Mary Janes they had though!! LOL

More candy photos can be seen here

Doctor, Doctor

Being *sick* of ourselves, Dh and I went to the doctor this morning. :-D
We both got prescriptions that will (hopefully) put us on the mend. The girls seem to be a little better this afternoon, so I'm hoping they won't need to see the doctor again. We had to wait about 30 minutes for our meds, so we did a little shopping. When I got home and took everything out of the bag, it cracked me up (doesn't take much for me does it?). This is what we bought...ah, starting to feel better already!! LOL

Sick and Tired

I'm sick and tired of being....well, sick and tired! :-O It started last Monday when Claire started feeling yucky. She had a sore throat, but no fever so she had to go to school on Tuesday (besides, that was their 50's day program, and we didn't want her to miss that). She went to school on Wednesday also, but I picked her up early for trunk or treat. She soon had a fever though and really didn't enjoy the evening. Then, she missed 2 days of school and I took her to the doctor for meds. (She still isn't feeling great though and her cough remains.)
On Saturday, *I* start feeling yucky and have a sore throat. (Of course! I was the one taking care of Claire and closest to all her germs!) Next thing I know, Randy says he has a sore throat...then Emily. Thought we were doing ok since we still had ONE holdout in the family who wasn't sick...until this morning. Allyson woke up with a sore throat and cough...no fever as of yet though. :-( We're headed to the doctor again this morning, hoping to get meds for "something"! I can tell that (for me) what started out as a sore throat has already turned into a sinus infection. As much as I hate going to the doctor, I know I need to get it treated (the last time I let it go more than a few days, I ended up with severe bronchitis). Jeez, we REALLY need a doctor in the family!!!!

Why...?

Why is it that smoke detectors always tell you their batteries are low in the middle of the night? OK, so we should have changed them out back in the spring, but we just got busy and forgot (like a lot of people I think).
I just don't understand why that annoying little "chirping" sound couldn't go off in the middle of the day when I'm wide awake. When I could go buy a battery and get it installed before bedtime. Instead, it happens around 2 a.m. when we're in a deep sleep. We both hear the chirp, and Randy immediately says "OH NO" with a groan. Soooo, we get up and walk around downstairs waiting for another beep so we can figure out which detector it is. It beeps again, but nope it wasn't the detector in the hallway. We wait for another beep...and follow it to one in the living room....of course, if just happens to be one that's up really high. Randy grabs his house shoes and trudges out to the detached garage for a ladder and brings it into the house (running into walls with the ladder because it's so big, not to mention the fact that he's half asleep and he still has vision problems. Not truly wanting to, I do the right thing and offer to climb up to grab the offensive detector. Randy thinks he can do it though, so up he goes...still half asleep and on wobbly legs. He had to climb to the very top of the ladder (really glad *I* didn't have to climb up now), and turns the beeping plastic thing. It's a little hard to budge, so being the ever so impatient person he is, dh practically rips the thing off the wall. Once he finally got the wires disconnected, he took the beeping carcass and plunked it out into the garage and went back to bed.
Guess I'm going shopping for lots of batteries today.

A Little Girl and An Old Bridge

Every week when I take the girls to piano lessons, I see this wonderful, old bridge. I keep telling the girls that we need to do a photo shoot on the bridge, but we always forget to go back there. Yesterday, I just happened to have the camera in the van, so I grabbed Allyson and we took a few photos while we waited for Emily to finish practice. These are a few of my favorite shots. A real photographer could get some great photos here. I wish I could have taken more photos, but as luck would have it, my camera card was full....hey, is my last name "Murphy"?

More on Halloween

On Halloween, I checked Ally and Claire out of school a little early so we could get them dressed in their costumes - then we rushed over to pick up Emily from middle school. Emily quickly put her costume on in the car as we drove over to daddy's office for trick-or-treating. Yes, we trick-or-treat from offices, instead of houses. This is a big thing at the office...there were kids everywhere! The girls took only one piece of candy from each area, but they still ended up with a big Wal-Mart bag full of candy (see, no need to go to houses now!).
We left the office and went to church for trunk-or-treat. Each year, we try to come up with a different theme to decorate our van. We won first place last year with a Chinese theme. This year, we did a Noah's Ark theme...complete with dh dressing up as Noah (ok, I think he looked a little like an aging Billy Ray Cyrus! ick..LOL). I painted a display board backdrop, and dh designed a rainbow using swim noodles. We added in a few pairs of animals and some Christmas lights to finish it off. We didn't win first place this year, but we still won a free night at the Marriott and dinner at Dixie Cafe. OK, we'll settle for that I guess. lol

Being the ever-so-rushed and frazzled mom that I am, I completely forgot to get a good picture of the girls in their costumes....so I quickly snapped this one of the girls on our way out of dad's office. Emily really didn't want to dress up (she thinks she's too OLD!), but we told her she couldn't walk around and ask for candy...so she went as a female Sherlock Holmes. Allyson was thrilled to be a dead bride, and Claire was a cute pink poodle. We found the little poodle mask and then I glued pom poms to a sweatsuit...I still need to get a pic of the little poodle booty with the tail! lol Claire won the costume contest at church, but that was about the only thing she enjoyed during the evening. She ended up having a fever and sat in the van...poor baby. :-(