scary carrot face contest

don't ask why, just vote on whose carrot face is the scariest!

Claire Bear

the kids had a great time playing with claire this morning. she is such a snuggler that they always seem to end up wrapped in blankets together. i'm just thrilled that they all got along!

Week in Review

painting jack's blocks. last of the for women only study. crissy in town. beach. running 12 miles. frappachinos & frito pies @ sunny's. cleaning up many of mia's potty training messes. sunny having pre-term contractions but fine now & resting. new bikes. meet the teacher night. jack getting his first (and only???) filling and coming out smiling.

Cole Park Cuties

we went to the park tonight, and i was kind of bummed at first b/c none of our friends were meeting us there. but who knew? turns out we really needed a night out with just the 3 of us. mia is finally getting old enough where she and jack can actually play together (and like it, too!). so they held hands (so cute!) through that maze of a playground, and got super hot & sweaty. we also did something new today, where we took a long walk to the park down a pretty steep hill. i pushed mia in the stroller and jack scooted on his scooter all the way down. i was so proud! and even more proud when he trudged back up without complaining (corpus christians-holla! you know that hill is tough!). so, here they are playing and then taking a rest on the way back to the car. and now they are tuckered out and tucked into their beds. back to project runway!

Day @ the Dentist

well, it felt like a day. it was an appointment for jack that turned into an appointment for mia. we LOVE our pediatric dentist, though! he is the best. he puts these superstar sunglasses on the kids, makes everything a game & gives them prizes. good family entertainment. unfortunately, jack has a big "C" now and we have to get it filled next week. yikes! they assured me that with all the gas they give the kids, they usually don't feel pain. we'll see...in the meantime, momma is going to get to work brushing and flossing the heck out of those little munchkin teeth!

Daybreak Divas

had an amazing day today. dave watched the kids ALL DAY LONG (i love you!!!!) so i could ride in a van with 13 other moms (crissy-we missed you!) to go to a conference in austin. we had many pitstops and coffee breaks, shared lots of laughs and tears, were completely hyper and then totally exhausted, and just enjoyed our freedom while we had it. the speakers we heard were AWESOME-priscilla shirer (tony evans' daughter) and angela thomas (beautiful offering author) and i am so grateful to have gone. have much to pontificate on tomorrow but think i better get to bed tonight. the kids are going to be up in a few hours and my late night starbucks will have worn off by then. good thing i learned so much about the holy spirit. will definitely need him in my mothering tomorrow!

Bouncing on BOZO
thanks mom, for providing countless hours of violent entertainment! :) all the kids love BOZO, but i'm pretty sure he doesn't love them back.

Random Kid Pics

Deep Thoughts by me...well, sort of, okay, not really
I was reading this book my dad let me borrow (against his better judgment, i'm sure, as he knows it will come back to him a little less than perfect. thanks, dad!) and i had an "a ha" moment this morning about why it's so hard sometimes to accept God's grace, which he gives free of charge. here's a quote from Robert Farrar Capon:
"b/c we will look only at our own ugliness and not at Jesus' gracious, transforming beauty, we keep ourselves from the one thing that can save us-that has in fact saved us, even though we will not trust it."
just thought that was beautiful and wanted to share.

Vacation Detox
after a week of shoving everything in my mouth i could get my hands on (no comments, please!), i'm finding it nearly impossible to button my pants. so am on food detox as of today. good-bye ice cream and chips & dips...hello fruit, tuna and cereal. yum yum! am going to bed hungry tonight for the first time in a while. i think my butt will thank me for it later.

A Few Days in Port A
mom & dad rented a condo in port a for the fam and it was SO RELAXING! i really didn't want to leave. ever. bekah and stephen were troopers and came down for all they could-about 24 hours. it was great to see everyone. here's us on the balcony enjoying our ocean view, jack about to cannonball off of this mini-waterfall at the pool, bekah & jack at aransazu in rockport and stephen running beside our car on the ferry. we also got to play air hockey (why, yes, I was the champ. how did you know?) and go on some huge slides for grown-ups. plus mom & dad did some pretty fierce cannonballs and the kids beat up bozo the bop bag. don't think i'm ready to jump back into real life yet. guess i will start the countdown of days til school starts...29 as of today.

happy halloween! i know it's early, but these kids cracked me up today hammin' it up in jack's new leonardo costume, and i couldn't resist sharing. don't know why jack wanted to be an "engine turtle" this year, but he's loving it. and i should have guessed that mia would want to be one, too.

Spoiled Rotten
we had a great time this weekend on our houston mini-vacation. my favorite moments: drinking wine with travis after the kids were in bed, getting kicked out of the pool by a grouchy lifeguard, sweatin' to the oldies with travis & the kids, two dates with dave and taking a poo in the woods in the middle of my long run (pat & henry-have i made you proud yet?). jim & travis-thanks for the great visit! now dave and i really have to get to work de-spoiling the kids, at least for a day, until the other grandparents get here and it starts all over again. :)

Portland Pool

must apologize for the lack of blogs-we didn't get out much this week. that made today's trip to the pool a real treat. we met up with beth, josh & ben and i actually remembered to use my camera this time! so here are the boys getting ready to ride the boat slide, mia being herself, and some ladies' locker room pics. these were taken simply to entertain the kids while beth was changing clothes, but they ended up being my favorites.