Bows for everyone!

I can't stand how cute these two are. They were playing in Macey's room when she decided everyone needed a bow! Actually, how did Jimmy get away without a bow??

Setting all of her babies/animals with Bailey for the picture

Making sure they are all just right...

Deciding they all needed to move...

Smile! Sweet Bailey was such a good sport.

Pumpkin Carving

Tonight we decided to "carve" a couple of pumpkins. Mom had "Mr. Potato Head " parts for pumpkins that she used with Colby and Christian. I really thought Macey would love putting in the eyes and arms and mouth... but she lost interest pretty quickly. So Jimmy carved our pumpkins while Macey and I laughed and played. I laughed at her primarily, but occasionally had to laugh at how serious Jimmy was about getting the pumpkin parts just right.

This night was much much more fun than I had imagined. I hope Jimmy would agree, even though he got stuck with the "work." ;) We have the funniest little girl in the world. I'm so in love with our little family.

Jimmy : "We use this screwdriver to make the hole so we can put in the ear."

Macey, "Macey's turn."

Yes, she's wearing her pumpkin shirt for the 20th day in a row. So?

Of course Sam had to get in the middle of the action...

Smile with Mommy!

"Heavy!"

Pondering if the ears are too high... or too low? This must be perfect!!

Smile with Dada!

Baby Brigade Sprinkle

Thursday evening, the Baby Brigade mommies hosted a Sprinkle for the four of us that are pregnant. It was such a fun night, I hope I can recap it well in this post. We met at Shari's house and ate delicious dips, cheesecake, shrimp, brownies, sausage balls... everything was so good! Then we sat around, laughed and talked for a couple of hours. It was so nice to just sit and talk with all of these girls without chasing our little ones around.

Kelly was so sweet to take all of these pictures. I'm so thankful!!

Julie works full time so we don't get to see her as often as we would like, so it was nice to catch up with her!

 Before opening gifts, we all took the pencil test again. I'm not usually on board with things like this, but the pencil test hasn't been wrong yet! (That I know of.) It's a test that tells how many kids you will have and their gender. I know I know, it sounds like MASH from the old days when you were ten years old. But it was right for all 12 of our first babies and for those of us that are pregnant again with our second. What are the chances?! So, how many kids will Jimmy and I have? According to the pencil... FOUR! I know we joke about having lots of kids to fill up our van, but I guess my mind has never gotten past three, since I'm one of three. According to the pencil, our first two will be girls (correct) and then a boy and our baby will be another girl. I love big families but I wonder about the stress of managing such a large family. And I want to have enough time to make each child feel special and loved. Can I do that with four little Jimmy and Laurie's running around? I realize God is in control and maybe our family will just be four or five. Whatever happens, I know it will be perfect.

The hostesses made us each a diaper cake with a wonderful gift card to Babies R Us. I have the cake in Macey's room (since it will be Baby Sisters nursery) and Macey calls the diapers "big tissues." Maybe I should teach her "for your booty" to add to her sentence? Allison made Beth and I little tutus for our baby girls. Isn't it adorable and so tiny?! I can't wait to take newborn pictures in it! Each of us pregnant girls got the others a little something too. Baby sister now has Minnie Mouse trumpette socks (from Kasey), Monthly Onesie Stickers and a bunny book (from Beth) and a huge mommy clip and Big Sister book for Macey (from Nancy). I'm so excited to see Baby Sisters little feet in her new socks. And it will be fun to chart her monthly growth with the Onesie stickers! I've already read the Big Sister book to Macey and she loved it. Karen Katz is such a great author. I have no idea how I managed keeping up with everything without a huge mommy clip when Macey was a little baby! I'm going to need several to keep up with everything for two babies!  

I was excited to make tie onesies for the baby boys and ruffle bloomers for baby Kinley. The ties were much easier than I expected, I hope they look as cute on the babies! And I love ruffles on little baby girls bums. I need to make several pair for Baby Sister before she gets here! I also did a couple of burp clothes for each new baby. You can never have enough spit catchers!

Nancy, Kasey, Shari, Beth and Me

In order of due dates

I love the diaper cakes!!

Colby Vists

This week, Christmas came early for Macey. Colby was in town for her fall break and decided to stay with us for two days! Macey was elated to have Coco for so long, all to herself! Since Macey naps for an hour and a half each day, I had a couple of activities planned for Colby and I to do during nap time. (The second day I realized that even a 10 minute nap would do wonders for me! So I laid on the couch for a few minutes... oh how I will miss naps in a few short months.)

We met Colby and Papa at Grandma and Grandpa's house on Tuesday morning for breakfast. Grandma always makes a huge breakfast of eggs, grits, biscuits, gravy, bacon and sausage... It's so delicious! I wish we could have gotten a better picture of Macey with Grandma, next time... here we were singing the Itsy Bitsy Spider. ("It Bit Pider")

Colby came Wednesday morning and stayed only until Thursday afternoon. We played at home in the morning then went to Chic Fil A for lunch. Colby was a hit in the play area with all of the kids!

We put Macey down for a nap and made Pumpkin Rice Krispy Treats. They were easy and fun to make, a perfect nap time activity!

 We "hid" candy pumpkins in the middle of the treats. So good!

When Macey woke up, we played outside on our new swing set!Then made our way up to the driveway for some sidewalk chalk art.

I'm pretty sure Macey was asking Colby if she could stay with us and be her big sister.

The last activity of the day was painting toes! Macey LOVES "finger nail polish" on her toes. It's absolutely adorable to watch how excited she gets holding the polish. Such a little princess!

 

After dinner of homemade pizza (I kind of thought that would be more fun to do than it really was... I think we were all a little tired from the busy day) we ate (more) pumpkin rice krispy treats. And Macey had a few bites of the baby pumpkin Colby made her. :) I'm still opposed to giving Macey much (read "any") sugar. I just feel like she will get plenty when she gets old enough to ask for it and know how great it is. I'm addicted to sweets and chocolate so I know it's in her to love sweets too. I know, deprive the first child and by the third (or fourth?) child he/she will be eating sugar before baby food... but for now, sugar is very limited. 

Wednesday night, after Macey went to bed, we played four games of UNO with Jimmy and Colby won every game. Every game! We didn't have time to play again so I could beat her, but I'm going to be practicing until I see her again so I can win. I'm still impressed that she won every game. 

Breakfast of donuts in the big chair with Colby. We broke all of the rules! ;)

Thursday morning I had bible study so Colby decided to sit with me instead of going to a class with kids around her age. I know she was bored but I hated to miss the bible study since it's only a five week study. And it was only an hour and a half but at 9 years old, I know it felt like a lifetime. So after BS, we went to McDonald's for lunch. Our experience at McDonald's was such a dramatic difference compared to Chic Fil A the day before. I don't see myself going back there anytime soon. But Colby and Macey had a great time on the playground and they were the only two on it for most of our visit. During nap time, Colby and I made ghosts to hang outside and Colby made a bat! I also had to lay down for a few minutes since I had the Baby Brigade Sprinkle that evening. It felt so good to close my eyes for a few minutes. I forgot how tiring it is to make a baby and not nap! When Macey woke up, we played at home until Mom came to pick up Colby. We all went to dinner before they had to head back South. 

They sat together and ate cheeseburgers. My baby is such a big girl!

 We had such a fun two days and I hope that Colby did too! I'm hoping she will come with Jenny next summer to stay a week and help out with Macey and Baby Sister. I get overwhelmed thinking about how different our days are going to be in a few months...

One thing at a time

 

Although I find it frustrating, I'm learning to accept where I am in life right now. It's one thing at a time. I don't have the time or energy to do everything that I want to do in just one day, or even one week. So, for the past few weeks, I've been sewing. I got a sewing machine last November, for my 30th birthday. I started with a few simple aprons and moved on to making an outfit for Macey. The outfit wasn't as cute as I had in my mind so I got frustrated and put my sewing machine up for a few months while I focused on other things.

My motivation for dusting it off and trying again started a month or so ago when Jimmy was asking about Macey's Auburn Tigers outfit. Apparently all of the other kids at the playground that Saturday morning had their game day gear on and Macey was hoping to have something to wear. ;) I quickly made a little AU shirt before they left for the park the next week but the t-shirt I bought was a little small. So, next came her Auburn dress.

Thankfully just about anything looks adorable on this little pumpkin! I absolutely love her huge smile in this picture and think that she is starting to look like me! But, back to sewing... I like things that fall just above her knee so I cut off a few inches of the skirt so it wasn't too long. I may have cut a little too much... but I plan on adding bloomers that have a tigers tail on them. Hopefully by next Saturday!

I saw a skirt like the ones below on a little girl at playgroup and decided it couldn't be too difficult... I misjudged Macey's size on my first attempt so the Owl skirt has been put up until Spring. But I love her Halloween skirt! I plan on adding a BOO shirt to go with it this week.

And Friday night, before we went to Burt's Pumpkin Patch, I made this little pumpkin shirt for my little pumpkin. I was pretty pleased with how cute it turned out!

Burt's Pumpkin Patch

Today was a perfect fall day and we had such a fun time with the Bignons. We met at Burt’s Pumpkin Patch then went to their house for lunch, naps and crafts. I’ll do a separate post about the rest of the day because I have so many pictures from Burt’s. 

I was pretty excited about going to this pumpkin patch and had in my mind that we would get great pictures of Macey with the pumpkins and her buddy Nicholas. I stayed up late to make her a pumpkin shirt and bow the night before so she would look adorable in these perfect pictures I had in mind. Unfortunately, Macey had a rough night Friday night and she was not as happy as I had imagined her being at the pumpkin patch. 

I hate that we didn't get a picture of all of us this morning. But at least we got one of the dads with the babies! (Or do we have to start calling them kids? I just don't think I'm ready!)

 Macey now takes Duck and Tiger everywhere we go. Everywhere. (Yes, I allow it. What can I say? I'm weak.)

I love Nicholas's face in this picture! He was trying to get Duck when Macey ran over and snatched both of her animals out of the wheelbarrow. It wasn't a day to work on sharing and thankfully Nicholas didn't get upset.

We didn’t get the perfect pictures that I had in mind, but overall I think Macey and Nicholas had a good time and we got some fun pumpkins! We got a couple of different squash, two white pumpkins, two orange pumpkins, some baby pumpkins and, well, Jimmy couldn’t resist the huge pumpkins! 

He is so proud of this huge pumpkin! Such a kid at heart!

These pumpkins were HUGE!

He loves this little girl so much. It's obviously mutual.

My happy Pumpkin Pickers!

My little pumpkin.

So these next three pictures were the last three we took before we left. Macey was hungry, tired and her teeth/gums were really hurting... and her nose needed picking...

Smile pretty!

"hands out of your nose!"

And she's done.