christmas bubbles

so there's lots of fun things i should post about christmas, and i probably will, after i get home from arizona, but in the meantime, this is my favorite video from christmas morning, afton dancing with packing bubbles. i hope it makes you smile too :)
ps, sorry it's sideways, i'll fix it when i get home and can edit :)

the girls in the last week or two

rayna being silly (she also likes to pop the bink out and watch it fly, generally with a giggle)

afton posing by the christmas tree, angelic :)rayna and the infamous peanut butter sandwich (and her new favorite hat, mine, actually)
afton loves playing dominoes while rayna's napping, she called this one "planets"
i thought the title was marvelous, though i did help her make the circles

another patented rayna-cheesy grin

and last, but certainly not least, afton's playing violin on her arm :) & i LOVE it

a few odds and ends

the christmas tree in all it's splendour, or at least with most of the ornaments still on for a few minutes at least, well til the girls come back in the room :)...

and why i don't ever get my nails done (part 1--after wednesday night yw where i had them done "professionally"):

(ps, that's a snowman and a christmas tree, respectively)

and 24 hours later, seriously folks, that's how long these didn't last (part 2):

the news you've all been waiting for!

updated the pics, these are the better/bigger ones, hopefully everyone can see better now :)

feet

face

profile

(top view, head to feet) any questions?

lol with afton

1) last week after church:

i like red hair. when i get bigger, i gonna pull out all my hair and put on red hair instead. then when i bigger and bigger, i gonna have blue hair.

2) while playing on her car:

(honk) that car made a bad choice (honk) ---and i seriously DON'T know where that one came from

3) after finishing dinner and ice cream for dessert:

i need more ice cream (mom: no, that's enough for today) but mom, i need some energy, i need ice cream so i can have energy.

(that was funnier in person than it seems to be when i wrote it, but oh well, still makes me smile, that's my girl after all :)

too much what???

this is my hand. on my first finger i have a blister, can you see it? yeah... i'm still not sure whether this is funny, sad, or some weird combination... but it's from crocheting. i've been making little baby blankets, and things, nothing too important or that has to be finished immediately, but i was in the mood, so i've been crocheting every spare minute, and by the end of saturday, i couldn't really bend my thumb anymore, and i had this little blister. what a weird-o!!!

christmas is coming

a peek into our christmas preparations:

we set up the nativity first, hopefully as an emphasis, the girls LOVE it, so i consider that a good sign

and paul was playing with the camera as afton played with the nutcracker

it appears i haven't taken a picture of the tree yet... but i will :)

it's been a while since i've done pictures

or much of anything else. here's a few of my favorites from the last month. i think they're pretty self-explainatory, especially rayna's (it's obvious her name means 'queen,' huh?)

peanut butter queen

happy queen

goofy queen :)

and last but not least, sleeping beauty :)

(i'm feeling a bit guilty, but i haven't got many pics of afton this month)

afton's learning

me paraphrasing a conversation with paul:

a- i know where apple juice comes from. it comes from apples, and grape juice comes from grapes.

p- that's right. do you know where orange juice comes from?

a- oranges.

p- good job. do you know what milk comes from?

a- no.

p- milk comes from cows.

a- milk comes from cows, and eggs come from chickens. and roosters, and chickens. where do pancakes come from?

p- what do you think? where do pancakes come from?

a- i know, pancakes come from mama. and where does syrup come from?

p- what do you think, where does syrup come from?

a- bees?

and so on... :)

ta-da!

symphony

last night paul and i went to the symphony. it was a wonderful evening, (btw, paul's christmas gift {to himself} was season tickets to the symphony, we're going four more times too :). it was an amazing concert of rachmaninoff rhapsody on a theme of paganini and bruckner's 9th symphony. the pianist for rhapsody was AMAZING!!! and it was thoroughly enjoyable. i'm not as familiar with bruckner, but i really thought it was well done. i loved how the music was done though i only liked the music, if that makes sense. it was very moving. the conductor specialized in bruckner when he lived in europe, and he'd studied at the cathedral where bruckner did a lot of his composing, so he really knew how it originally sounded. they modified the symphony hall by raising the ceiling and opening some damper curtains so the sound was more of a cathedral echo, it was really impressive. if anyone's interested, there's some really interesting blends of flute and clarinet mixing in with strings for a really cool effect.

halloween 2009

finally :) here we are (or maybe i should say were)

daddy's little einstein:
mama's little monkey:

and me (yes, i thought i was hilarious, no one else really laughed--but i did get a few double-takes):

Happy (late) Halloween!

pumpkin patch

saturday we went to a pumpkin patch with some friends. we drove a long time to get there, but it was a great time, not too crowded, and geared towards toddlers, so it was perfect for the kids, they loved it.

some highlights:

barrel-train riding (i think they went four or five times, though paul only joined them this once :)

feeding the catfish (a particular favorite of rayna's, though the other kids loved it too, rayna liked actually watching the fish, not just throwing the food)

family hay-ride

pumpkin wandering (rayna ran from pumpkin to pumpkin, trying to hug them all, but she didn't try to pick any up, afton and paul easily picked favorites)

and posing, of course :)

it was tons of fun, and really cute too! hopefully next year we can find somewhere a little closer to home, but if not, it was worth the drive!

afton's turn with the camera, coincidentally also 16 oct

afton had a blast taking tons of pictures with mama's camera last week. here're a few of our favorites:

the pumpkin was a favorite subject: as was rayna herself:

we were making zucchini muffins

with chocolate chips (these were rayna's snitches--yum!)

and lastly, one of afton's self-portraits:

zoo trip--16 oct

we took a quick trip to the zoo again last friday. it was fun! we went with a couple of mom's friends and their boys, even though we go often, we still have a great time! some of our favorites this time were:

this gorgous cheetah:

the tunnel (in the underground zone):

which was a particular favorite of rayna's lunch, pb&j for rayna: the donkeys:

our friends, afton liked giving armando a ride:

the ducks, and mama likes the curly-heads:

the rainbow--with my lucky charm:

and as a rainbow-head (true color, i didn't alter it in any way):

and of course, afton liked the spiders... we always have to visit the bug-house... girly-girl? i think not! (happy halloween!)

camping

we went camping last friday-saturday. it was tons of fun, i only wish we could have stayed another day! we were really worried it would be too cold and wet, (it rained all day thursday and stopped friday morning, and the highs were suppopsed to be in the low 60s, which is pretty cold if you live in texas), but it was really nice, it got chilly at night, but i don't think anyone was too cold. i forgot my camera again, which you may think means there'll be less pictures, but thanks to our wonderful friends, there's still more than enough :)

setting up campi'm not cold, i'm just a little red snowmanproud chefnote the double dutch ovens, it's great when dinner and dessert can be cooking at the same time, then you don't have to wait as long!

and perhaps even better, the cherry cobbler doesn't taste like left over beef stew :)afton loved her glowstick!morning time, perfect for hot cocoa!and friends!and a nice warm fire!afton helped break camp. her job was to remove all the little worms from the tarp under the tent, then she "helped" shake off the tarp and fold it :)down at the fishing pier (we were at lake texoma, by the way, on the border between tx and ok)there were a LOT of staris down to the pier, but afton did great! she also loved climbing over to the side to throw rocks in the water. and finally, we stopped at the playground before we left back for home. there was just a slide and some swings, but the kids LOVED, LOVED, LOVED the slide!
i think between them, afton and rayna went down a million times :)but the daddies loved it too :) it's hard to find the metal old-school ones like this anywhere else i think rayna was the only kid that tried the swings (without sitting on a parent's lap at least), but she was happy there too.

afton is always happiest in the dirt and sand (and throwing it on joshua's head)