I got a new camera for Christmas.  It's a Canon and waaaay better than that piece of crap Nikon I had.  I thought I would be a super- awesome- fantastic photographer with my new, fancy camera, but it turns out I suck.  Luckily the camera compensates somewhat, so I managed to get a few good shots of Christmas and New Years.

We went to the mountains this year for Christmas, which was nice, except for the fact that I barely slept the entire time, and we were there for 4 nights.  I'm the kind of person that needs complete darkness and white noise to get a solid night's sleep.  Unfortunately, there was nothing to provide the white noise, and the house creaked like a mofo with every step everyone took.  We were on the bottom floor, so I heard EVERYTHING, especially the OCD pacing of my husband every night checking every door in the joint.  It was chilly on that bottom floor, so we slept with the gas fireplace on.  It sounds romantic and soothing, but keep in mind there was a 2yo (soon to be 3) in our bed.  Also, I don't know if you've ever tried to sleep with a fire going, but the soothing flicker of the flames creates a sort of strobelight effect when your eyes are closed.  Luckily, no seizures were induced, and I did manage to overcome this by throwing a pillowcase over my face.  Suffice it to say, when we returned home, I played catch up on my sleep for days.  

The kids got a ridiculous amount of toys, so everyone was happy, except Wesley and me, who proceeded to spend the 3 days after our trip organizing everything.  The house is finally in order after months and months of disarray, so we did accomplish something.  Now I'm just trying to stay on top of it all and prevent it from happening again.  

We rung in the New Year with Wesley's family, and the kids had a blast.  I have a lot of good memories of growing up with my cousins, so I'm glad the kids are able to do the same.  They really love being with everyone, so I'm trying to take advantage of that before they hit puberty and can't stand being around any of us.  

Oh, and I'm going to publicly declare a truce with Wesley's cousin, Dana.  You see, ever since her little girl, Caylin, and Trevor were born within months of one another, we have had an ongoing gift war in which we give the other kids some horrible thing that will be messy or destroy things. It started with noisy baby toys and progressed to messy art supplies.  For Caylin's birthday, we gave her a paintball gun.  For Christmas, they gave Trevor a bb gun ala Ralphie in A Christmas Story. They also gave moon sand and markers to my girls.  It dawned on me that they will ultimately win, because Caylin already knows how to shoot real guns, and there's nothing I can really give her at this point that will cause them any annoyance.  The paintball gun was it.  They, however, have 2 more chances to create chaos with my girls.  I did let them open the moon sand at their house, so Dana could get a little taste of her own medicine, but she handled it gracefully, just shaking out the rug.  They have wood floors, which also helps prevent permanent damage.  So, I'm waving the white flag.  Dana has won.  Please stop trying to destroy my house vicariously through my children.  The poor house can't take much more.  Also, if we can get it fixed up and sold, we may be able to move closer, so the kids can play more often.  Win win. 

Here are the pics of the holidays, so I can clear my camera before my baby's 3rd birthday party this weekend (*sniff sniff).  I can't believe she's going to be 3...

***Side note- I forgot we went to the zoo with our neighbors during this time.  Nikki and her son Trey graciously allowed us to join them, and they probably regretted that later, but we had a good time.  Also, it took me FOOOOOORRRRRREVER to resize and upload these pictures, so you'd better look at each one over and over again and ooh and ahh, because I almost put my foot through the computer 3 times, and I ignored the incessant requests of a toddler, which led to her whining and screaming at me, which almost led to me putting my foot through her.

Yesterday Vic and I took Sophie to her very first movie.  I was nervous, because you really never know how Sophie will react to new experiences.  It ranges from full on bloody murder screaming to hysterical giggles and squeals.  Yesterday was somewhere in between.  The loud noises and big screen didn't scare her, like I thought they might, but they also didn't keep her attention.  Instead, she was totally fascinated by the lights that glow along the stairs.  She spent the entire movie sitting on the steps and playing with the lights.  She also insisted on going to the bathroom 4 times, because we are potty training, and she took advantage of that fact in order to have an excuse to walk around the theater and explore.  The bottom line is that it wasn't a miserable experience, like it could have been, so I will definitely take her again.  Also, we went to see Puss In Boots, which was surprisingly booooooorrrrrrrring, so I didn't mind the interruptions too much.  

I love a tacky Christmas.  I especially love it when Christmas lights are synced to music, so I hooked our Christmas tree lights up to a machine that makes the lights dance to my Ipod.  Apparently my girls do, too, because they had a blast dancing to the lights last night.

Thanksgiving is the time in which we are supposed to reflect on what we're thankful for, but we're usually too busy cooking dinner, decorating for the next holiday, or yelling at the kids to do so.  This year, however, we stayed at my in-laws, and my mother-in-law graciously cooked the entire dinner, so Wesley and I actually had time to spend with the kids as a family.  For once, we weren't preoccupied with plans, travel, entertaining,or any of the other distractions that usually crop up, so we spent the day outside just playing around and for once, truly enjoying each others' company.  Days like this don't happen often enough, and it caused me to reflect on how thankful I really am to have each and every one of my kids and my husband in my life.  I realized that nothing else matters- school, jobs, finances, etc.- as long as we have one another.  We're also blessed to have a wonderful support network in his family and mine, so that if we do hit any bumps in the road, they're there to help us pick up the pieces.  We truly are blessed.

When downloading some pictures from my camera, I came across some apparent self portraits done by Victoria.  I felt her work should be displayed, so enjoy the fruits of my 6yo's labor. Oh, and the last pic is one Victoria took for evidence of Sophie jumping on the bed.  Such a little blackmailer in training.

What the hell happened to October?  I had all of these great things planned- Halloween menus, homemade spooky lollipops, carving pumpkins-and none of it happened.  I managed to squeeze in 1 Halloween recipe and some half-assed decorations, but I still have things I bought on clearance LAST year in the box in the garage.  I have meat that has now gone bad that was supposed to be for stuffed peppers that I was going to decorate like mini Jackolanterns.  I have pumpkin carving kits and patterns coming out of my ears.  Luckily Super Dad came home early enough to quickly gut some pumpkins and crudely carve their faces just as the trick-or-treaters started making the rounds.  Then we threw costumes on the kids, and I did Victoria's makeup while Sophie did her own (not by my choice, mind you), and we were off.

Our neighborhood is the best for trick-or-treating.  It's safe, and the neighbors give out awesome candy- not just the cheap stuff.  And a lot of them pass it out by the handful.  The kids' bags were filled after a mere 45 minutes.  Aunt Kathleen came along, so it was nice to play man-on-man instead of zone defense for once, especially since this was Sophie's first year walking (running) the entire time.  It took her about 2 houses to master the routine, but after that, she remembered to say "thank you" to everyone and learned to only ring the doorbell once.  We have 3 plastic pumpkins filled with candy, so that should last us until Christmas, when the next wave hits their stockings.

In addition to Hallloween, it's been a hectic month.  It started with Vic's birthday, then mine when we went to Carowinds, and then this past weekend in which we went home to visit family.  There hasn't been a weekend in which we didn't have something planned.  The kids got their report cards on Friday, which I think is really mean of the district, since it was the Friday before Halloween.  All I could picture was the sad sacks who made bad grades, staring out of their windows with a single tear falling, watching all of the other happy trick-or-treaters.  Luckily, I don't have to worry about that, because both kids are off to a great start.  Trevor had all A's.  Since Victoria is in Kindergarten, they do a "meets always, meets sometimes, needs to work on" type grading system.  She always met all of her objectives, and her teacher wrote a note saying how proud she is of Vic and how happy she is to have her in class.  She loves reading to her class, and she has lots of friends.  I am especially proud of her, because I wasn't really sure how she would handle school.  I thought she would have more trouble with reading, since she seems to be more math-minded, but she's doing great with both.  Sophie is also adjusting to school.  She now goes twice a week and has really bonded with her teachers.  She even lets them put her hair up, which she never lets me do.

Victoria has a birthday party this weekend, but other than that, this is the first lull we've had in a while...until Thanksgiving, and then it starts all over.  I'm happy, though, because this is my favorite time of year.  It's a happy chaos for sure.

I'm old, and I'm even older on Monday.  In the annual tradition of pretending I don't have a birthday and going on a fun family adventure instead, we went to Carowinds today.  In typical fashion, the kids were much better behaved on the trip than they are in real life, thankfully.  Everyone is finally old enough to enjoy a themepark, and Trevor and Victoria can even ride some rides on their own now.  This was especially helpful at the end of the day when Wesley and I were about to drop.  Somehow I'm awake to tell the tale, but not for much longer, so I'll just quit with the typing and post the pics. 

Last night Victoria had her first date...with her father, of course.  They had a father/daughter dance at the school, so like the dutiful daddy he is, Wesley dressed to the nines and took out his princess.  I did her hair and makeup, which I thought came out beautiful.  Of course, I didn't have to do much, because this child is ridiculously gorgeous to begin with.  Yes, I'm gushing, but she's my kid, so I get to brag.  Anyway, apparently when they got to the dance, she pretty much refused to dance with Dad, since her friends were there.  He took it in stride, especially since he's not one to cut loose on the dance floor anyway.  Click on the links to see that she definitely gets her rhythm from him.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIVUOByjeuI

www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdVNl0SAbiA

Pumpkin pie, costumes, chili, and birthdays...It must be October.  Finally, after a blazing hot, miserable summer, my favorite season is here.  The holidays are right around the corner, and everything kicks off with the princess's birthday.  She turned 6 this year, so this was her first real deal party with friends.  We had a really good turn out, and thankfully Trev had Caylin to play with, so he didn't have to entertain Sophie this time.  Good for him, bad for Wesley, who spent the entire party chasing her around and trying to keep up.  Sophie has entered a difficult stage, to say the least.  I'd term it more a "devil child demon seed" phase.  I hope she comes out of it soon, or one of us is not going to make it out alive...and I think it may be me.  Anyway, we went to Monkey Joe's, which is a bounce house, so I didn't get very many pictures, and the ones I did get suck. I've been really lazy about taking pictures lately, so I've enlisted an actual professional photographer to take some in November.  See her work here.  I love her view and can't wait to see what she does with my little monsters.  Sidenote...Do you think it's possible to lose 100 pounds in a month?  Sounds feasible, right?  

 I love this picture, because their expressions sum up their day together.

Luckily my sister took better pictures than I did, so here are the ones I stole  from her.

This weekend we went to to Jellystone Park, which is a resort campground in NC.  Since I'm not an outdoorsy girl (shocker, I know), we roughed it in a 1 bedroom 1 bath cabin with a 13 in. tv.  Luckily there was so much to do, the tv was mainly used only to watch our respective football games.  Trevor's favorite part of the trip was the 500 ft waterslide, and Victoria enjoyed the dance party with Yogi and BooBoo.  She tore it up on the dance floor, despite the fact that the playlist was one you'd hear at a bad wedding reception.  The trip was so wonderfully relaxing until Saturday evening, when my clumsiness finally caught up with me.  The entire time, we had to walk up 3 flights of rickety steps to get up to an down from the cabin.  I navigated them successfully, carefully walking step by step and concentrating, especially with the baby.  I managed to carry her up and down them a few times, trying desperately not to repeat the broken leg incident from earlier this summer.  Well, after walking down with her one last time, we started walking to the playground, and I stepped into an ever so slight divot in the grass. Then came the familiar snap of ligaments, and I crumbled into a heap on the ground.  I lay there like a beached whale as child after child came up asking if I was ok.  Then Wesley came and said he was going to get the car.  I knew I had a few minutes before the pain and swelling really set in, so I got up and hobbled up the rickety steps to the cabin because I didn't want to be a spectacle any longer than I had to.  My ankle immediately swelled and throbbed, so Wesley went out to get an ace bandage.  With that, I was able to limp over to the dance with Victoria and watch her show off her moves.  Despite my injury, I think the trip was a success.  The kids are already asking to go back.

My favorite picture of the kids.  I totally captured their personalities- Whiny, Pissy, and Compliant.

The stairs in which I thought I would meet certain death.  I climbed these with a bum ankle.

Watermelon eating contest.  Vic was robbed.  Her watermelon came off her plate, and she couldn't reach it.  I actually think she would have won.

Mooing contest.  I was proud of Trevor for doing this, since he hates being the center of attention.

Potato sack throwing contest.  It's amazing what he's willing to do when his kids are begging him to.  Also, I captured his personality as well.