Biking is just another of those things that proves you're not going to get this child to do anything before she's good and ready. She's just decided that she wants to ride her bike and go really fast and she finally figured out how to use her brakes. So of course this means that she wants to ride really fast down the driveway and then slam on her brakes about two feet away from the garage. We'll have to work on training wheels next.
Oh, and she wants to ride her bike ALL THE TIME right now even when it's freezing. Which is exactly what Meredith is saying. Can you tell? That's amusing to me considering the child would stay in a swimsuit 24/7 even in our basement that's not heated very well.
She'll always smile for candy though! At least what she considers a smile.

Eureka!

After a looong break from school we attempted to start up again after Christmas. Yes, I said attempted. Evie had started this thing where she was acting like she didn't know how to do anything and thinking it was funny. Very, very aggravating and of course it resulted in many battles. So I ordered a new phonics set and got two of everything so Rosie could do work too. We sat down today to try it and I didn't have a smidge of trouble. I guess having your little sister show you up is quite the motivation. It was very nice to have fun this morning instead of battling with her!
And yes, it really is that bright in there. We need curtains up so bad! The problem is that our windows are twelve feet long - that's a lot of curtain!

Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act

This is the law that they've come up with in response to the contaminated toys that were being sold. Remember Barbie and Dora being full of lead and other scary stuff? Honestly, I think this law is scarier so I'm passing along this site where you can read on your own about it and contact the people that control this stuff.

http://sites.google.com/site/handmadetoyalliance/

The law itself is so gooblygarbled that no one seems to be able to exactly agree on the outcome (and it's actually been sent back for modifications) but the the gistfrom what I've read is that everything(yes, please make sure your 10 year old is not chewing on their bike) sold for children under 12 will have to be tested. That sounds wonderful in theory, right? But basically what it comes down to is that only a company like hasboro or walmart will be able to afford the testing and sales of childrens products and that only new products will be legal.
So say goodbye to handcrafted toys or European imports. Say good bye to etsy, ebay, craft fairs and thrift stores and consignment sales and say hello to only being able to purchase from the companies that actually brought us the toys with the lead in the first place. Oh the irony.

Christmas - the condensed version.

Just some random snaps from Christmas. I think we spent most of our time on the beach - we had wonderful weather. We were very blessed this year to spend the whole week in Charleston with my family(including ALL the dogs), Nate's family and Allison's family too. We decorated a beautiful tree and yummy cookies, spent a foggy day sightseeing in downtown, taught Mom and Josh about oyster roasts, took bike rides to the river, played with some awesome marshmallow guns, ran in the ocean and just hung out and ate a lot! We also made a quick unplanned detour to Charlotte on the way home to spend some more time with Aunt Ali and Uncle Wes. It was wonderful to have Nathan off for two whole weeks, it's going to be awful for him to head back to work on Monday!

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!