Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving with family this year. My mom, my sister and her family, my brother, John's parents and John's grandma all came over to eat! John's sister and family have came the last two years but they were not able to make it this year. They are living in California so we missed them and wished they could have been there with us! I started feeling sick a couple of days before Thanksgiving, so John did all of the cooking, and I have to say he did an awesome job! I am still fighting some kind of cold/sinus infection and it looks like Brennan has it now and Ayla woke up a little stuffy this morning so I am praying they do not feel as bad as I do. I lost my voice for a few days and I am just now getting that back. Since I was not feeling well, I did not get many pictures on Thanksgiving day :( Oh, I forgot to add that the kids LOVED watching the Thanksgiving day parade on T.V. Ayla loved all of the singing and dancing. It was fun to watch that together! Here is Ayla and Brennan eating breakfast watching the parade!

John being the "chef"

Ayla playing with Memaw, she loves taking her into her room to play!

Grandpa and Brennan

I went shopping on Black Friday with my sister and step mom since I had been planning it for weeks. John took off from work so I could go and some how I managed to get up and go shopping from 5am to 1:30 pm. Yes, it was crazy but we had a lot of fun. I know most people do not like fighting the crowds but it was not that bad and I hardly EVER get to go shopping without the kids so I enjoyed it!!

When I got home on Friday, John had went to Home Depot and picked up some Christmas Decorations for outside. I was shocked when he bought the white reindeer for outside because normally he is not a fan of yard art....haha, but he knew the children would like it so he caved in and bought THREE reindeer for our yard. Ayla loved it and she was outside helping him most of the day! He always puts the white lights out and we put lighted wreaths on all of the windows. The only thing I need now is garland for around the door and a wreath on the front door. I tried to take some pics last night of the house, I will try to post them later today. We have not put our tree up yet because I have not been up to it. I am feeling better today so maybe we will get that out this evening!

I hope everyone had a GREAT Thanksgiving, only 25 more days until Christmas!! Oh, speaking of Christmas, Ayla was watching the Dora Christmas movie and she was so excited and she came to me and said, " Mommy, Santa is coming" and I said yes in a few weeks and then she said, "But not the Grinch", no baby not the grinch!! How funny!! I have been telling her everyday about Christmas and how it is Jesus's birthday. I don't want her to think it is ONLY about getting presents. Last year on Christmas I read the Christmas story of Jesus and we sang Happy Birthday to Jesus. I am sure this will be a long lasting Christmas Tradition!

Hello My Name Is Lesli....

and I am addicted to buying my daughter clothes!! There really should be a twelve step program for this...lol.. oh and I must add, of course I love buying clothes for my son too, but if you have a girl you know what I mean!! My children's clothes are actually an investment for me now because I sell most of them on ebay when they outgrow them and I use that money to buy them more clothes.. It works out great and I hardly ever pay full price for anything. I am always searching for the "best deal". Just about everything that I buy is on sale or I get a great deal on ebay. See what staying at home has done to me??







Anyway, my newest addiction is Matilda Jane Clothing. I really did not know about MJ until I started seeing these cute little knot dresses on several blogs that I read. I did a little research and found the MJ website and Blog and now I am IN LOVE!! What I really love about Matilda Jane is how you can mix and match different pieces even from the past lines and how COMFORTABLE it is not to mention so DANG CUTE. I actually had a trunk show a few weeks ago and I was able to buy several items as a result. Today I had Ayla try on her new Matilda Jane clothes so I thought I would share the LOVE with you!!

Okay now that I have YOU loving Matilda Jane, I have GREAT NEWS for you!! On black friday everything on the Matilda Jane website is going to be 30% off. I am soooo excited, this does not happen often, so you better start making your list NOW!!

I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving. We will spend the day at our house stuffing our faces with family!! My husband surprised me and got Friday off from work so I can go shopping with my sister. I am excited, I haven't been shopping on black Friday in over three years!! I am sure it will be crazy, but that is what makes it fun!!

What a fun weekend!!

What a fun weekend!! On Friday we had friends of ours over for dinner. It was so nice to visit and catch up. We used to get together almost every Friday for dinner but unfortunately that has not been the case for a while. On Saturday morning my sister and I went to Zumba at the gym, yes I just recently joined a gym, I am desperate to get these extra twenty pounds off. I have had the hardest time losing weight since I had Brennan and I am just miserable right now. I am trying to go to the gym at least three times a week, I would go everyday if I had someone to watch the kids. Even though they have a daycare, I can not take them with me because I can not have Ayla in there with the germ infested toys and possible sick kids...lol. Anyway... so after Zumba Amy and I went shopping, I just found a place that sells Bare Minerals make up locally and I was excited to go and check that out. I love Bare Minerals and have been using it for about six years now.




Today was the BEST! I had a "Girls Day Out" with my sister and two other friends. We met for lunch and then went to see the movie "New Moon". It was sooooo awesome!! It was so much better than Twilight and it really stuck to the book which I like. The whole time I was sitting in the theater I kept thinking that I didn't want it to end because it was so good! I can't believe I have to wait until next JUNE to see the third movie, "Eclipse". Yes, I am a twilight junkie. I read all four books in less than two weeks! I never thought that I would like a book about vampires, but it is not what you think at all. I strongly urge you to read the series, I promise you, you will be addicted!! The author of this series, Stephanie Meyer, was on Oprah last week. I watched it and was amazed about what she had to say about Twilight. Stephanie was a 35 year old stay at home mom of three children when one night she had a dream about Edward and Bella (the main characters) she didn't know what it meant, but she kept a notebook by her bed and every night when she would have dreams, she would write them down so she wouldn't forget. She eventually starting writing about it not knowing where it all would go . She never intended to be a writer, she was never in to vampires, didn't know anything about them. She didn't even tell her Husband what she was doing because she knew he would give her a hard time if he knew she was writing about vampires. After she finished the first book "Twilight" she let her sister read it and her sister urged her to try and find a publisher. She had over thirteen publishers turn her down and only one decided to invest their time in her book. WOW, can you imagine how happy he or she is?? Oh, and I bet her husband is not giving her a hard time at all!! Click here to read the story behind the Twilight series and if you do , let me know what ya think!!

And just for fun, John was cleaning our storage building today and had all of these shelves out, the kids thought it was a jungle gym and had a blast climbing all over them and of course I took a few pictures!!








Oh, and I am still staying very busy making bows. I have a few regular customers now that just bring their children's clothing over and I make bows to match everything! It has been a huge help with Christmas coming up! I hope everyone had a great weekend, now go and read Twilight!!

TODAY..............

Ayla got her hair caught in Brennan's battery operated train....TWICE! You can imagine the fun it was getting it unwrapped (pulling) from the wheels and the crying that went along with it.





TODAY.....


Ayla and Brennan both decided to crunch their cheez-its into microscopic pieces and spread them throughout the entire living room in which I had to vacum for the second maybe third time.







TODAY.....


Ayla and Brennan decided to spit their juice out all over each other and let it roll down their clothes and on the furniture!! It was red and they were so sticky so they had to have a bath...AGAIN!







TODAY.....


Ayla decided to play in the sink when she was supposed to be washing her hands. She thought flooding the bathroom was much more fun.





TODAY.....


Ayla decided to bring her potty into the kitchen so she could use it as a step stool and she had just went to the potty so she left a trail of urine from the bathroom into the kitchen.





TODAY.....


After they were in trouble for playing with their juice instead of drinking it and after they had ALREADY had a bath, they decided to play with their juice AGAIN, this time it was in the great room all over the hardwood floors so I had to mop and the kids went to BED.





TODAY.....


is another day and I am hoping it goes a little better than yesterday, but if you have a Valium, I will take one.....or TWO...hehe




They are sooo lucky they are so dang cute!!!!!

Ayla's Eye appointment

Ayla had her six month eye exam done last week. I was really dreading it because she always throws a fit and does not cooperate for the doctor. To make sure that the arthritis has not affected her eyes, they have to do a slit eye exam. This consists of putting your chin onto a huge microscope while the doctor shines light in your eyes to check. We have always had to force Ayla to do this and it usually takes a couple of us to hold her down. I am so proud to say that Ayla went through her whole eye exam yesterday without one complaint. She was a pro, she sat there and let the doctor look at her eyes and she was just a doll. I guess this means she is growing up hu? It is bittersweet but it does relieve ALOT of stress on everyone involved. They also did not have to dilate her eyes this time so that was a huge help as well.





The doctor was pleased with her exam. Her arthritis is not affecting her eyes and her glasses seem to be working for her as well. Her eyes do not cross at all with her glasses on. She does well without her glasses, she has no trouble seeing but when she gets tired, her right eye will get lazy and start to cross a little. We are hoping that this will heal itself (with the help of her glasses) in time.





Of course we are extremely grateful that Ayla's eyes are not affected by her arthritis. I know that there are many children who are affected by it and it breaks my heart. As if being in pain from inflamed joints in not enough, when your eyes are inflamed by the arthritis (which is called "iritis") then there is a possibility of losing your vision, having cataracts and glaucoma. It is a very serious condition and one that children should not have to worry about. The treatment is grueling consisting of HOURLY eye drops and even monthly IV infusions. So although I am grateful that Ayla is not affected by this, I am still so sad for all of our JRA friends out there that ARE. Please know if you are reading this, that you ARE in our prayers!!




The appointment ended up being a couple of hours long. We spent alot of time waiting and before too long Ayla had befriended a lady in the waiting room. She kept going over to her and talking to her. The lady had heard Ayla sing Amazing Grace while we were waiting and she asked Ayla if she would sing it again for her. Of course Ayla obliged and she belted out Amazing Grace so loud that EVERYONE heard. Everyone started clapping for her and of course she loved the attention. After Ayla was done singing, her new friend told her that Ayla singing Amazing Grace was the best thing that had happened to her all day. I thought that was so sweet. So before we left the office Ayla had sang Amazing Grace a total of three times. The nurses in the office also asked her to sing it for them.




So after a long day at the Dr's office, this is what I found shortly after we got home!!



Who knew singing could be SO tiring, why does daddy always get the EASY part???