Project 365

October 17, 2009

We had a Garage Sale today. Weeks of purging, organizing, grouping, pricing. All to get up way to early on perhaps the coldest day all year, and sell stuff. We did pretty well, but the jury's still out on whether all that work is worth it!

(And on a different note, after the Garage Sale we took the kids to see Where The Wild Things Are. They were so excited, because we LOVE the book and read it often. It was perhaps the worst movie I've seen in a long time. Just to warn ya.)

It's debatable whether or not this photo should actually be tagged as "Family Fun." But there's no Ways to Waste a Saturday tag, so Family Fun it is.

October 16, 2009

It's time. Time to grab a cup of hot chocolate, sit by the fire (some of us in tank top and shorts, yes) and get ready for being inside more, getting darker earlier, enjoying fun family evenings, the dark game, family movie nights, and the smell of smoke.

Ahhhh, fall!

They were both mesmerized by the fire, and I find it funny that they appear to be in different seasons, don't they? Even more ironic is that Ansley begged me to wear this favorite sweater dress of hers all summer, and then wears shorts and a tank top on the coldest night so far.

Ahhhhh, children!

October 15, 2009

It's funny. This same exact table with these same exact chairs have sat in our playroom for three years now, rarely used except by a doll or stuffed animal. But bring it downstairs to the kitchen? Magic. Now it's all they want to sit in, where they want to do school and eat meals and play. We brought it down because we had some friends over, so we thought it'd be a fun kids table. And because it's one of the only families we know that our kids only total four so they could all sit at it. But anyway, it's been down here ever since, because now, it's the magical table.

October 14, 2009

I wish you could've seen it. This picture doesn't do it justice. Ansley has never understood the fact that because I have curly hair, I'm not like other moms. She can't practice fancy 'do's or brush my hair or make up hairstyles to her heart's content. And I feel bad, I really do, but not as bad as I would feel if my hair were frizzy. So I usually try to explain the torture of curly hair, and then ask her to practice with Ellie, or Christian. But today, I thought okay, why not. She was SO excited, and wanted to take pictures. Sadly, there are about 25 pictures that look just like this. But she tried. And my hair....it was lovely. It's really too bad you can't see it.

October 13, 2009

I love these little lunch trays from Publix. They each have one, and I suppose it's as close as they'll get to lunchroom trays. Now all I need are cute little pints of chocolate milk. And soggy pizza. And Mystery Meat. Or maybe that was just my cafeteria. They love them, and for some reason it makes them want to eat everything on the tray. Ansley's peaches disappear first, while Christian's craisins are gone before anything else.

October 12, 2009

We have been cleaning out our attic this week, to prepare for an upcoming garage sale. The kids love to "help" us decide what should be "saled" and what shouldn't. I have gone through about twenty boxes from my childhood, and finally have purged it down to about eighteen and a half boxes. What progress! The kids are finding lots of fun things from my childhood to play with as a result. Ansley has claimed a turtle that has three baby turtles inside that my Mom and Dad gave me when I had surgery at six. I actually remember it very well. I loved that turtle! But, even though I loved that turtle, I can't remember what I named it even though Ansley keeps asking me to remember. The turtles were a little musty smelling, so we threw them in the wash, and, with the exception of a few eyes, they came out looking and smelling much better. Christian has claimed Perfection, the game where you have to get the shapes in the spaces before it "pops" up and scares us all. Sadly, though, it has made it 10+ years in a hot musty attic but could not survive five minutes with a two-year old. And he has also kept this kaliedoscope, and as he looks through it he says "Mommy, you have lots of eyes. And lots of arms."

It's fun to see my own children playing with the very items that I treasured as a child. I did treasure them, too. All twenty boxes.

October 11, 2009

Ansley got six inches cut off her hair this weekend! We intended for it to be four, but in our haste, we went to a cheap place that we will never go to again, and they did a TERRIBLE job. The first problem was she cut it completely dry, and the second problem was she cut it straight across, without sectioning it. If you are a girl and you have long hair, you know what I'm talking about. It's a huge no-no. The result was her hair looking terribly crooked in the back, and having about a two inch difference from one side to the other. So we took her to the place we usually go, and they fixed it for us. It looks really cute! But I did love her long hair. This 'do, however, is a lot easier to fix!

October 10, 2009

Granna and Papa Joe came for a visit this weekend. On Saturday, we headed up to the mountains for a picnic. Do you sense a theme? We do love picnics, especially in the mountains. Ansley insisted that she wanted to wear shorts, but we finally compromised on a skirt and tights. She was glad she did, too, because it was chilly. We were all glad to have the fire to keep warm. It was a little overcast, a bit chilly, and there was a UT game going on, so we pretty much had the whole place to ourselves. It was a fun day, exploring the mountains and hanging out together!

October 9, 2009

Meet Ansley's newest obsession: Polly Pockets. If you don't know them, they are little tiny dolls that have little tiny clothes and shoes and pieces. But they are all stored in this handy case (think Caboodle) so she can carry them to her bedroom, into our bedroom, and on the deck in the morning right after waking up to play with them. They are cute, though, and sadly since Christian is home all day with two girls, he likes playing with them, too.

October 8, 2009

You'd be hard pressed to figure out what was going on in this photo. But it made me laugh so hard, I had to take a picture of it.

Christian's pj's are glow-in-the-dark, so as soon as he got in them, they ran in the bathroom to see. But they didn't work. I said I thought they had to be in the light for a little while. I'm not sure if I totally made that up, but this was their solution - to let Christian lay under the light. Ansley even turned him, so it would be even.

And then they ran in the bathroom and ooooooohhhhed and ahhhhhhhhhed.