What we've been up to....

...holiday baking(thanksgiving dishes)
And decorating -Evie did those!
More baking...
and more decorating
with lots of Christmas music dancing
and finally a visit to Santa!

We're off for the beach. We hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!

Sooo,

my camera is lost and my scanner not hooked up. No pictures this time. I wanted to let everyone know our good news though.
First:
It's a girl!
Second:
She's as healthy as can be and so am I. Yep, I get to have a normal pregnancy now. We saw the new Dr (for here in Rome) and had an ultrasound with a new tech. They think it probably was a hematoma (blood clot) and that it just bled out. That made me feel better because it means nothing I did caused the problems. They think the clots form during conception and there is no cause or prevention. Just one of those things. So I wasn't doing too much or lifting too much or stretching too much or anything like that. It just happened to be really bad timing about how it all occurred.

Luckily we've got so much to look forward to in the months ahead that I know time is just going to fly. We've got the holidays, my birthday and Evie's birthday, whew! I'll post some pictures of the ultrasound as soon as I can.

We're safe, we're sound ....

And that's about all I can say. It looks like a giant left a mad game of blocks in mid play. The house is full of boxes and more boxes, rather frustrating because I can't do a whole lot to remedy the situation. Thanks to Mom we do have a functioning and rather organized kitchen though, just in time for tomorrow! I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving, I know we certainly have a tremendous amount to be thankful for.

It's on....

We've got our move scheduled. The movers will be here tues! Do let me know if you need our new address and please remember to use pencil for that address book! I'm hopeful things will be settled somewhat for thanksgiving or that it will at least look settled since there are so many closets and the garage to stash suff! Our landlord thinks I'm nuts because I kept gushing about moving into a "new" house - it was built in the 50's. I guess unless you've lived a 100+ year old house you just don't realize how amazing closets really are. I can't really stand the thought that we're leaving this house though, I'd keep it if I could even with no closet space! I'm trying very hard not to dwell on that and just think about the positives this change will bring us.

Good bye leaves

It was glorious while it lasted. I'm sure Nathan is ready for me to stop saying "this is the prettiest fall ever, don't you just think this is just the prettiest fall you can remember?"!

I had totally meant to write about how you can take a horse to water but you can't make them drink only in this case it was you can bribe a child with candy but you can't make them happy about it. Someday miss Rosie posie I will tell you all about how you were when you were 3. About your temper, your stubbornness, your love of the argument, your " I just got to squeeze (read hurt) my sister moments", your need for total attention and how you still insist that "I your baby, Mama" while demanding your snugs, your amazing dances and your astounding logic. You miss Rosie posie are someting else and I can only hope that what's coming is someting I've prepared you for.

Do you think they'll remember?

If they do I'm sure it will be vastly different than any voting they'll ever do. We had a short 5 minute drive down back roads full of fall color. We passed 3 horses. There were more people manning the poll than voting but we did have a rather optimistic empty queue to go through. Everyone in the room chatted with them while they slurped their orange tootsie roll bribes and it was over in about 5 minutes. Sadly, Evie thought I said we were going "boating" so she was understandably let down.

Halloween

My little "cowboy girl" and my "super Rosie - shooting star" had a fabulous Halloween. We went to a friends house in Birmingham and we had over 300 kids come for candy. That's no exaggeration either, we kept a tally sheet!
The girls looked fabulous but we didn't really get any good pictures. They were way to enamored of the baby we were visiting and just in awe of all the people streaming by. I think I'm going to make them put them on later this week, Mimi put way to much effort into those costumes to not have them properly documented. Thanks Mom!
They each decided what to be, Evie's was easy. A super Rosie- shooting star costume took a bit more imagination, what you can't tell in the pictures is that her skirt had fiber optics in it so it lit up!

the pumplin place (as Rose calls it)

Look, I do exist. Really, the only reason I stuck this in is because you can kinda see the bump. It was pretty windy and this was a couple weeks ago so it's not all that accurate. But I will say that I definitely look pregnant. Feeling lots of movement, mostly at night though. That's done wonders to make me more positive about the outcome, even if she is kicking the location that's causing the spotting! ( We have no for sure reason to think "she" even after 5 sonograms - we just think it!)



They were pretty excited about the face painting - usually they run screaming wen I suggest it. Evelyn wanted the "pigeon", lol! The lady doing it said "that's supposed to be a eagle"!
Fun times, even if I did feel silly paying $6 to pets goats when we have a whole herd next door.

Just a couple from IL. Not much else going on, just lots of resting!

Some more Rosie gems

We live on earth. DADDY lives on another earth.
Mama, come snugglebug me.
I love everybody. Mama, cheese, Evie, me, etc... (if you know her you were in the list, don't worry)

hiking in the battlefield

Looking out the window Sunday afternoon it seemed so pretty. Cloudy and lots of wind blowing about. Too bad when we got to the park we realized it was actually about 100 degrees and the air was thick enough to swim in. Plus the wonderful wind didn't exactly make it deep into the woods. We still had a lovely time, especially after Daddy pulled the car over on our way out to watch hay being made. Evie's been asking about this a lot lately(because you know, HORSES eat hay) - "but how do they get it round" or "how does the tractor do that". We see fields of hay everywhere but we've never actually seen a tractor in the fields. So we were able to sit long enough so she could actually see the tractor drive around and release one of the rolls. You would have thought we took her to the circus - it was that magical.



Rosie learning ow to read a trail sign. Good thing because there were several times on the way back that we'd hit a fork and I realized that I had no idea which way to go.
HORSE tracks! They were continuous because the park trails are used quite a bit - we even met a pair that she got to pet.
She was telling us she was cold. Ummm, okay kid. I think her internal temperature monitor must be off.
Looking one of the many markers. Rosie didn't last long walking. She cut her foot earlier in the day and she was sleepy. We were amazed she actually fell asleep in the wrap.

warning: changes ahead

Not only did she get her hair lopped off, she also got bangs. Yes, it's as short as it looks. Her choice and she LOVES it. But she wore a fancy pink dress and her hiking boots to the store yesterday so we're not going to assume that her fashion sense is decent or anything just yet.
In other slightly more important news, we started school yesterday. If I'm honest I'll say that it didn't exactly go as well as I had hoped. I think the main problem(aside from it just being the "start") is that I bought the materials toward the beginning of the summer and I think she's just beyond them now. So I did things a little different today and about a half hour ago she came and gave me a big hug and said "I love my school". I'm sure it will take months, if not the whole year before we finally get this whole thing figured out.

bubble painting

Bubbles+paint = two happy little girls and one messy deck

a little bit of random

This is just too fantastical not to share. There just happened to be an article in some travel magazine Nathan subscribed to. We never have enough frequent flyer miles for actual plane trips, just lots of weird magazines.
The city of Dubai as explained by wikipedia
BBC Link that explains it a bit more

If you don't feel like reading, here is the breakdown. It's on the coast of the Persian gulf. Basically 30 years ago there was barely anything there and now it's a major city. Somebody said they're attempting to build 100 years worth of city in 10. One site said they currently had something like 20 % of the world's cranes! It's not just a city though. It's like this wild theme park, like all the architects were told they could build their most fanciful ideas. There are palm tree shaped islands that can be seen from space and a building where every floor rotates and the worlds tallest hotel located on it's own artificial island. It's just mind boggling. Like something out of a science fiction book.
Do yourself a favor and google it, you'll see some of the most astonishing architecture! Or you can pick up a copy or Travel and Leisure and read the article but the pictures I found online were much better.

Evie and Rose have some news to share

They mean of course that they're going to be big sisters. Around about the beginning of April, should everything go well. We had meant to wait and share in person but it seems like a lot of our people need a lift today. So don't mention it to Julia unless you're certain she knows, okay? And no, we were not trying for a boy for Nathan, okay? He likes his girls just fine. And yes, we are super, super excited. Rosie said she "loves her little warm baby" and Evie promptly named it yellow. I feel pretty good, as usual for me and my pregnancies. Just tired and a little bit of that after thanksgiving stuffed nausea feeling.

Sunday at the park

So, at the risk of jinxing us, the weather has been beautiful. I'm going to go ahead and say it and not be all superstistious , almost like fall is on it's way. Last year at this time we were well into the drought and facing 100+ temperatures. For the past 5 or 6 days we've had cool pleasant mornings and hot but not deadly afternoons. It's been soo lovely and I do hope it stays. It's not too much to ask for actual fall weather in September, is it?
So sunday afternoon after I got back from Birmingham we haeaded to the park. It's a very small park that they built on an old orchard. The girls had way more dun climbing trees and counting apples than they did playing. We did convince them to get on the seesaw with us, I was a little concerned about the weight limit but it was one of those old solid metal ones so we were just fine.

new house

We've got a contract on a house in Waleska, Ga. That's just north of Canton for you folks familiar with Atlanta. We'll close in late September.

Here's a link to some pictures.
click here

shoogah fiend

I've been pretty lax with Rosie's candy obsession because we eat really well otherwise. That might have to change. The other day after being in the car for the entire day looking at houses we took the girls to the toy store for a treat. They had been sooo good we thought they deserved something. Rosie latched onto a Pegasus pretty quickly and try as I might I couldn't swap it out for anything - not even special things like barbies or my little ponies that I usually won't buy. The pegasus was pretty pricey so I was willing to make a deal. She wasn't having it. I gave in to keep the peace, after all she had just put up with an entire day of my neurotic house/area hunting. Fast forward to the candy isle where Mom and I were picking up our treats. Rosie spotted the lik a maid and in about .5 seconds picked it up and handed me the pegasus saying she'd rather have the candy. Good bye coveted, expensive, sparkly toy, hello shoogah! I can't tell you how disturbed that made me, enough to consider banning white sugar completely. At least after I had my chocolate.

smile!

There, now isn't that a lovely way to start the week?
How many teeth do they lose anyway?