Week 15, Rea Rea’s 6th Birthday

Pictures from 11/12/12 to 11/18/12

Emmy played at the studio while I worked.  If you give her 2 minutes in my studio, she will have stripped down, redressed in a lace romper, put on a newborn-sized headband, and set up her own “set” for an iphone photoshoot…

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I took the girls to get their nails done for Rea’s birthday.  It always take sooooo long at the place we go to, but they treat the girls like they are so special.  We had been waiting quite some time by this point…

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Meanwhile, Daddy and Max go to the grocery store-

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When we got home, we bathed Dixie and painted her nails so she, too, would be ready for the birthday party.

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When we were deciding what type of party Reagan wanted for her sixth birthday, she was determined to share her party with our dog Dixie.  Although she and Emmy had had joint parties in the past, she gave Emmy the boot and wanted to share the day with Dix.  So, I just went with it…  First, came the invitation design-

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Here she is the morning of her party making bone-shaped cookies at Gran’s house.

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She really wanted to have their party at the local animal shelter, but I assured her that they do not host birthday parties there.  We ended up choosing the Pavilion at Cove Lake State Park.  We needed a place where we could set up Dixie’s cage and bring her.  We did make sure to stop and do our weekly visit at the animal shelter that day on our way to the party!  Reagan and Emmy take their “jobs” at the animal shelter quite seriously and get very upset if we miss.

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Party time!  I got some snaps with my “good camera” when we first arrived.  It was surprisingly dark in there.  As a photographer, I was disappointed of course,but made the most of it.  Thankfully, my brother helped get some shots throughout the party for me with his camera.  Reagan looked so cute in her birthday outfit that was custom-made by one of my good friends.  We love “Pokedaisies”!

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Reagan used stamps and tape to decorate the “doggy bags”.  We found lots of neat dog-themed treats online to stick in them.

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I’m not who “photo bombed” this picture more- Hailie or Papaw!

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Thank you Max for almost ruining yet another family photo with your uncooperation!  We still love you, though.

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Dixie’s Birthday Cookie

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The party wore these two out!  Reagan was lucky enough to get to play with all her new toys all by herself when she got home!

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The birthday girls, post-party-

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A post-party birthday oovoo with Aunt Kay Kay!

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When we got home, Reagan first wanted to try on her outfits that she got from Aunt Angela and Uncle Jared.  She loved them.

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We are definitely blessed with lots of wonderful friends and family members that care a great deal about our children.  My kids surely do not know how much they are loved by SO many people.

Here is Puddin’ my studio bunny.  He was the Easter Bunny, but turns out his favorite holiday is actually Christmas.  From the moment I set out these decorations in my studio, he can’t stay away from the trees and presents.

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Leave it to me to wait to the night before to have my mom make Reagan an Indian costume for her American Heritage dress up day at school.

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It turned out quite nice!  She said that someone pulled her out of class that day to take a picture for the yearbook.  IMG_8321

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Rea’s art from the day- “My Mittens & the Winter Wind”

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Emmy and I made a Target run while Rea was in class.  The $1.00 section was FULL of Hello Kitty stuff.  UH OH!IMG_8326

Emmy at The Little Gym-

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It was a gorgeous afternoon, and the girls loved playing outside after class.

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A shot from our visit to the “A Walk through Bethlehem”event in Lake City.  It was a live portrayal of what Bethlehem must have been like at the time Jesus was born.  It was quite informative and shared the story of Jesus, too!  The girls enjoyed it.

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Getting geared up for Christmas at Gran’s house!  This is her “kids’ tree”.  It has ornaments that my brother and I made as children.  IMG_8369

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It’s fun to find your children asleep like this!

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Here’s some videos from the week.  Please turn off music on right sidebar of blog before playing.


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Week 13, Halloween

 These pictures are from 10/29/12 to 11/4/12.

Books from the week-

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Max found an old passy in the playroom.  He obviously forgot how to take it. haha

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I always get asked what Max and Emmy do while I home school Reagan.  The answer is always different, but mostly, they play and do random things like this-

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I’m lucky to have a close friend that is teaching Kindergarten this year so I can sometimes use her ideas from class.  The spider “at” word family being one of them!

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Here, Emmy is matching uppercase letters to lowercase letters.  She enjoys pocket chart activities.

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Making fruit “Smoovies” (smoothies).

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This day, Reagan wanted to write about “robots”.  She used a word book to help her spell.  She would look up a word in the dictionary any day before having to sound it out.  For her to be so bright, she really doesn’t like stretching out words to hear the sounds.

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Their daddy always helps them with their pumpkin carving projects.  It takes him HOURS to do the pictures they pick out.

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Emmy drew this picture all by herself.  She said that it was her, Reagan, and her cousins Jackson, Nathan, and Addy.  When I asked her where Max was at, she said that “Max was too wild to be in the picture!”

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Wild Man Max’s picture-

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Halloween!  We made our normal stops to close family and friends’ houses and then joined up with some good friends to trick or treat around their neighborhood.  It was pretty cold, but the kids had such a wonderful time.  The girls picked their costumes.  Rea picked a hippie, and Emmy picked a Hello Kitty dress (no surprise).  Reagan didn’t know what a hippie was, but she loves bold colors and loud prints so it was the perfect fit.  I picked Max’s costume- a monster! lol  How perfect for a 2 year old in the “terrible twos”!  He liked it.

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Rea’s art from Thursday Connection- “A Snowman Looking Up”.  This was one of my favorite pieces from the fall semester.

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We had to stop by Norris for one of my sessions and we checked out the dam before heading home.  It was especially neat since we were working on the “AM” word family that week.

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Supper at The Cracker Barrell was a nice treat, too.  Gran got the night off!

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Reagan enjoyed these teeth she got on halloween.  Yuck.  haha

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Thumb’s up!

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The girls had a “Pre Birthday Party” at Gran’s with Aunt Kay Kay before she had to leave town.  We had Mamaw Peggy’s classic white birthday cake and the girls got to open their gifts from Kay early.  They were SOOOO happy to finally get their Dream Lites.  Max got one, too.  They were a big hit.

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And here’s a couple laughing videos from the week.  (Make sure you turn off blog music on right sidebar before playing video.)

A video of Emmy in her class at The Little Gym-

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Fallin’ into fall…

We have certainly kick started this month!  I’m totally worn out from last week and am wondering where my energy to survive this October will come from!?!

Max has started smiling and making faces for the camera!

The kids got to visit the barn with Daddy and Uncle Rick to see twin calves.

Max went with daddy while the girls were with me in Knoxville to look for deer.

My family got my Aunt Kay moved out of her house.  It was a pretty sad goodbye.  Here’s the girls at her pond where they always enjoyed helping feed the fish.

Reagan working on something in mommy’s office.

Max sleeping with a ball air pump.

Emmy painting her nails-

These pictures do not show the red polish she spilled everywhere!!!!  Ugh.  That was fun to clean up.

At the end of a long week, Max pulled his arm out of socket again.  (2nd time)  I was not in the room so I am not completely sure what happened.  I guessed that he was trying to pull the door to the stove open when it happened. I knew almost immediately what had happened because he wouldn’t use his arm.

We were so blessed to be able to find someone locally that could pop it back into place and save us a trip to the ER (and the huge bill that would come along with it).  She also trained us on how to pop it back in next time.  I can’t say I’m looking forward to that moment.  Here he is as we were leaving to go have it popped back in.  It is the arm that is straight down.  He will not move the arm when it is “out”.

After getting his arm fixed, he enjoyed a marshmallow at the bonfire of the family’s house who helped us out.

My mom fixed a birthday dinner for my cousin Roston who will be turning 16 this coming weekend!!

It feels weird that he is turning 16.  I remember being at the hospital waiting for him to be born.  He is a wonderful young man, and I’m proud to call him my cousin.  My mom made my mamaw’s special birthday cake for him.  Mamaw used to make this cake for everyone’s birthday.  Since she passed away almost six years ago, my mom has carried on the tradition.  I know if Mamaw was still here, she sure would have made one for Roston.  He was very special to her, as were all of her grandchildren.

Sunday afternoon naptime-

Here’s Max doing “This Little Piggy” with my toes.  I thought it was sweet.

(turn blog music off)

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Max’s 2 Year Portraits

Here’s a few of my favorites of Max’s 2 year mini session with mommy (July 2012)!  Poor guy can’t even get a regular session on the books these days! hehe  I loved this little outfit and wanted it for his pictures.  He hasn’t worn it anywhere else because it is white linen and he is a two year old boy.  (the two just don’t mix!)

He is mommy’s baby and he knows it.  He’s living it up in his terrible twos.  When he’s sweet, he is soooo sweet…..and when he’s bad, well, he’s pretty darn bad.

I will always treasure these because of his little curls.  My baby boy’s curls and sweet, sweet smile.  Love him.

At two, he loves to carry random objects for varying lengths of time (sometimes days).  Some of these items include- kitchen utensils, vacuum attachments, balls, large inflatable microphones, a notebook with crayon, etc.  Out of all of these, though, his main security object is my hair! He has always loved my hair and likes to hold onto it.  Even at night while he is sleeping, he will reach for my hair.  He also likes getting a bed time “ba ba” (bottle).  He usually gets one during church, too, to help keep him quiet.  He has not been using a passy for a couple weeks now, and I think it has been a tough adjustment for him.  He has seemed less settled, harder to calm, and more restless to me.

He calls me “Monee” (m-on-ee).  He can say “Daaaaaaa”  (day), “Mimee” (mim-eee), and “Rea Rea”!  He is talking a lot and saying lots of phrases like “thank you”, “where’d it go?”, “there it is”, and “what we gonna do?”.

He is working towards potty training.  For about six months now, he had been going ‘pee pee’ in the potty about twice a day.  Now that he is communicating better, I think it will be time to really focus more on training before long.

He loves being active- running, riding, climbing, throwing, kicking, etc.  He enjoys painting, knocking down towers, looking at books with mommy, playing in sand, and harassing his sisters.  Some of his favorite movies are “Barney Egg”, “Rapunzel”, and “Clue Clue’s”.

He likes to eat hot dog weiners (his favorite), jello, strawberries with sugar, watermelon, Gran’s mashed potatoes, mac ‘n cheese, spaghetti, and tacos.

Ironically, he’s into hitting/pinching/biting but also gives really sweet kisses with big, pooched out lips.

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