Happy Halloween! I don't know if we have anything to do tonight but Evie has a party at school this morning. She went dressed as a "princess like Allison" complete with a "beil" and flowers.

We're back. We didn't ruin the wedding and except for maybe providing some unexpected entertainment at the reception the girls were wonderful. They screeched at the rehersal and at various meal and sleep times but that was about the extent of it. I couldn't keep them off the dance floor; Meri was intent on twirling her self sick and Evie had one mad Angelina Ballerina impersonation going on and they were both on a kamakasi mission to take out the cupcake table!
Ali was a beautiful bride and I loved how Wes kept helping her fix her dress during the ceremony, so sweet. We wish them a lifetime of love, congrats you guys!
Thanks for a wonderful weekend everyone!

I thought you might like to see my grand prize. It's the first time I've ever won a grand prize and I'm not really sure what I won it for. Evie awarded it to me last night. Two stinky coolers full of plastics and dirty clothes. Maybe I won it for getting four people ready to go on a trip all by myself, for getting the dog to the vet and Evie picked up from school, for getting the snacks bought ahead of time and the clothes washed up, for cleaning the kitchen and living in a house with out heat for the past 2 weeks. Well some of those things aren't done yet but I've got to get them done before we can leave today. I just thought it was cute. She brought me into the kitchen and with this grand flourish presented me my grandprizes, opening them and revealing the wonders inside. She's just too cute!
Meri and Daddy on our trip to Cloudland Canyon last weekend. Two million stairs later we got to see some really lame waterfalls along with about 4 thousand other people. I would not recomend this park. Really, it was just straight down a flight of stairs and then straight back up then repeat the process. the second fall you couldn't even walk around you were stuck on this wooden platform. Hmmfp. At least we tried and the girls thought they were cool.

Stubborn! That's our Evie. Tonight we had some black bean soup for dinner, she hates soup. I keep making it b/c I'm lazy and it's cheap and she just keeps refusing to eat any type of it. So we played Dora at the table. The horses had fallen under a sleeping spell and to save them she had to eat ONE bite, run around the table and kiss the princess. Sounds reasonable, right? We had to force the bite into her. And I mean shove it into her type of force. Grrr, try and have fun and it bites ya in the butt. Mind you, this was after much cajoling and doling out of cookies to everybody else and pretty much everything short of standing on our heads. So we taught her to say "I'm stubborn" and that's that. I don't mind her not eating so much, I'm choosing to subscribe to the toddler weekly average of eating theory (TWAE), meaning it'll even out over the course of the week. The whole no soup thing is just so frustrating though so we keep trying to make her eat it (or at least taste it) in the hopes that she'll get used to it, eventually. So then after our lovely dinner she was supposed to be getting in the bath tub and instead she was inventing a new game. I suppose it's pretty much carpet hopscotch. We have an oriental rug with medalions and she was hopping one footed on just the "big ones". Pretty cute, she does have her redeeming her qualities so I guess we'll keep her. I described her the other day as delightfully difficult. Meaning the majority of the time I'm dicipling her I'm secretly delighted at how wonderful she is. Like the other day when she stuck the popcorn kernal up her nose.... She kept saying her nose hurt and well she had been sniffling so I thought it was just sore. You know how that goes. Well, Mom and Nathan and the girls and I were sitting aound the table in a Panera, she had finished her sandwhich and this enormous sneeze comes out. She looks up and in her little hand is this HUGE popcorn kernal and she shouts "I did it!, I did it!" over and over again. Mom and Nathan are laughing hysterically so I had to sit there and sternly lecture her on not putting things up our noses while tears were streaming down my face and I was shaking trying to keep from laughing. Yep, that's our Evie.
And then there was Meri. You know I never knew Evie was difficult until this one came along. Mom says its bcause the second one is easier but I'm not buying it. Maybe she has to be easy to get by in this house and well I guess if the worst thing her sister teaches her is how to be easy going then I guess she's good but I suppose thats just a pipe dream now that I thik forward about 15 years . She's been coming out with lots of new words and is pretty much devopmentally on track. All six of those new teeth at are still pushing their way through and she's trying so hard to hold her crayon like sister. Her running skills have arrived and are just a delight to watch. She doesn't just run she prances and skips across the floor the tops of her little toes grazing the ground like a dancer. It's kinda like how she never just walked but flounced. Don't get me wrong she definately has her moments. Like the other day at church, we were attending this little bitty service. Like wedding size service. She apparantly doesn't like the homily so I get up and stand in the back with her and while the priest is talking about stewardship she is pulling my hair, grabbing my glasses, clawing my face and trying to stick her hand down my shirt, exposing this that should be covered. I can see him frowning at me so we step out into the vestibule or whatever it's called and she then decides to start screaming at the top of her lungs so we step outside and I put her down to walk and she takes of and runs in front of car . So yes, she has her moments. Which is why I am currently having nightmares about her role as a flower girl this weekend. And I do mean that literally, I woke up twice last night in a cold sweat with visions of her and Evie ruining Ali & Wes' wedding. So say a prayer for me that Evie decides to be just delightful and that Meri doesn't have any of her moments.

I am in LOVE with this shot Of Meri Rose. Look at those lashes, and her coloring. Sigh.... she is such a little beauty. It is so interesting to us to watch the her unfold, in comparison to Evie. How can they look so different and yet both be so beautiful in such diffeent ways(and have come from us?)? Ahh, nothing like Mommy goggles though is there? It stopped pouring long enough yesterday to go outside and play some, well I use play loosley b/c I made them dress alike so I could get some pictures of our trees. I am a little angry with ol' mother nature, the amount of green leaves knocked off by these winds is unbelivable! My poor trees are getting nekked, so I wanted to capture the color while I could since it's supposed to keep on storming all this week. I was cracking up, Evie tried the old throw the leaves up thing (we were out playing in them before the rains) but... she didn't get the whole wet aspect to the leaves. So instead of playing with the fun leaves she kept getting a headful of nasty stuff, hmmm sounds kinda mean now. She only did it once or twice before she caught on though, it's not like I let her just keep doing it. They both loved the mud, or as Evie likes to call it " stinky goo" compliments of Dora of course.
Evie has an evaluation with the school tomorrow, so hopefully that will go well. And Nathan was on the phone with Wes last night, he said "we'll see you next week" And I thought (duh!) Omg! Weston and Allison are getting married next week. I don't know how it managed to sneek up on me so fast, I've only known about it for a year but still, it just seemed like it would never come, but now it's here and promises to be a wonderful time. I hope I can get some pictures but I'm thinking not since I'll be chasing 2 little flower girls around!
Oooh and guess what Evie did yesterday? I was amazed! She covered her eyes, counted to five and said "I find you". I had no idea she knew how to play hide and seek. I guess she's learning something at school after all!

We had some company the other weekend and made a little fire to cook some smores. Do you know anybody that doesn't like smores? Or doesn't like roasted marshmallows? Well, you do now, Evie doesn't and with all the passion a three year old can have I might add. She thought we were nuts! We were ruining the marshamllows by putting them in that fire and ruining the chocolate by putting the marshmallow on it. It was pretty funny. She did have a really good time helping to build the fire but didn't like it so much once it got going. We also went to the Battlefield that same weekend, where the other pictures are from. The girls liked climbing on stuff but thats about all that interested them. They didn't so much get the historical implications and all that. hmmm, wonder why?
It has been raining and raining and raining here! The yard is practically flooded and we have been stuck inside! I really need to get the girls some rain jackets and boots so we could at least go splash in the puddles. As it is we are getting a little stir crazy.....

We got to go visit Uncle Josh (or "my dosh" in Evie speak) this weekend. We had sooo much fun getting to play outside with him, even if he was feeling a little sick. Evie showed off her bat skills but we had to inform Uncle Josh that there is only one true sport in the Dyer household. Of course we didn't bring a soccer ball but she kicked her little foam princess ball around and we were all impressed at her accuracy with it. Or as Nathan says she "has a good foot" or something like that
Awwww! She is such a love bug! She loves to snuggle, actually I'm getting kissed as I try and type this.
This is about all she wants to do now, get into everything. She was paticularly fond of carrying the wickets around and pulling the stakes out of the tomato plants. She tried to use the mallet but it's a little hard when it's taller than you are!
Look at that concentration! They had to too, Uncle Josh's pitching was not exactly the best! She actually has not too bad form for a 3 year old, she sticks that bottom out and twists her little foot. Her Auntie should be proud!
Evie doing some attacking, usually it's the other way around!

I just love it that my girls can dance to music that isn't there. Sure beats having to sing the Sleeping Beauty theme song for billionth time. Anybody recognize these dance costumes? Mimi saves everything! What's really funny is she has a pagent dress from when I was oh 13 or 14 and Evie seems to think that I should be able to fit into it. Now that would be some funny pictures!

Do you ever just know it's going to be one of those days? Meri up before dawn screaming, Evie rolling out of bed with "movie" on her lips and outside is nasty rainy weather! We have our share of them that's for sure.
Last night Nathan had to get measured for a tux so we took the opportunity to pop into the Disney store. You would have thought we were at the theme park itself! All these frenzied kids running around boggle eyed while harried parent frantically shoved things back on the shelves. It was fun! We told Evie she could pick out one toy and we walked out of there with a rather cheap little stuffed bambi. I was shocked, what no princess? But then I got to thinking about it and you know what? She has about a gazillion princesses but not a single bambi related item. I guess she's pretty smart, huh! She definately has a better memory than I giver her credit for.

Who needs Halloween?

It's that time of year again. Yep, it's time to prove your worth as parent by showing just how creative you are or just how much money you can spend. All in order to dress your child up for one night so they can get candy that you normally wouldn't touch and from strangers at that! Halloween definately brings out the weird in people. I'm wracking my brains this year for something the girls can wear that will match but still have Meri be cute. Everything I come up with poor Meri is the sidekick! A princess and a dragon, a mermaid and an octopus, a cowgirl and a horse well you get the idea. It doesn't help matters that Evie has to wear hers to school or that we'll actually miss trick or treating being in Charlotte for a wedding so I can't really justify spending money when they won't really be wearing it for the actual purpose. Any ideas anyone? Anyway it just occured to me the other day, we don't need halloween around here. Not a day goes by that doesn't involve dressing up, I'm wondering if it would even be special to Evie? I let her go out in her princess crowns, dressesand assorted get up all the time, the only thing I say no about in regards to dress up clothes is that she has to have her normal shoes on when we go out. We do get some strange looks so maybe that would be a good thing to Halloween, she might look normal for once! Meris not quite as bad yet since she can't dress herself but she's starting to get the idea!

Those of Meri are from yesterday, you can see she still looks a little sick but we had so much fun while big sister was at Mimi's! Don't you just love the drawing of me? I guess Evie sees me as a big blob with wild hair, flops and lipstick! I drew parts of them, she really can't make a triangle yet or the hands and feet but still, she's good isn't she? They both love to draw, Evie likes anything crafty and it looks like Meri is going to follow suit. Which is good for me, what on earth would I do if they tok after their Daddy and wanted to know how things worked?Although I do have to add that he is actually a better artist than me, it's just not something he really does anything with.

A day in the life of Jaq. Isn't he a cutie? It's really like not having a dog, unless Evie is playing with himor he's on my lap, he's just off sleeping somewhere. He doesn't bark or whine, just wants some loving and cookie now and then. Poor thing, how could somebody have kicked him out? And really he just wags his tail and stays put while she does all this to him, he doesn't even have a suffering look on his face. That one down in the bottom corner, in the bowler? Yeah... that's my black cashmer sweater draped over him and later the same day he got treated to some of my fancy face powder. He just better not touch my stick (Evie speak for lipgloss)!
We've had a sick baby girl. Meri, still on antibiotics for her sinus infection, caught Evie's pink eye/croupy thing. That pretty much killed our weekend but we had a good time just hanging out alhough I was very sad to miss my shower in Birmingham. She's sooo much better now, thank goodness! Now if they would just stay well!
I have to admit I never really thought anybody would read this so I'm a little weirded out writing it, before it was like just writing to myself, just reacting to my pictures and what was going on. So combine that with the fact that its almost 2:00 am and well, I don't really have anything to say! Please excuse the horrible montage job of Jaq's pictures, I was being super lazy and didn't want to load all those up, plus I was trying a new scrapbook technique and I didn't really know what I was doing.