November's Favorite Things

1. getting butterflies seeing my husband on tv

2. lounging around with these two

3. texts from narls

4. pole over

5. everyone should have lush lashes according to em, even a vintage cabbage patch doll

6. and a drawing of a kitty

 

7. homemade moonshine from a thoughtful friend

8. family portraits - and his mama is a leopard dress, by narls

 



9. paris bunco with great girlfriends

 



10. woody & Jessie getting tossed down into hilariously inappropriate positions

11. best friends

12. em's version of me

13. school pictures from last year to this year

14. my mother-in-law's insistence that we get together to do shoeboxes.

And what an awesome thing it was.

So Very Thankful This Thanksgiving

So much to be thankful for this year. We hosted our first thanksgiving with our closest friends in our warm house with delicious food. We're happy and we're healthy and life is good.

 

Happy Thanksgiving.

Bookworms

I cannot even describe to you how much of my childhood was spent reading. I devoured books. My favorites, hands down, were anything by VC Andrews, the whole entire Sweet Valley High series, and every single book ever written by Christopher Pike. Oh, Christopher. I could devote an entire blog post just to how his books shaped my teenage years.

 

But instead I'm going to talk about my son's love of reading. At the tender age of six, he's discovered the joy of chapter books (short stories are so last year). There is something wonderful about a story that continues for multiple chapters, where characters develop and you wonder about them after you close the book, and how their story becomes your story. He has discovered this and he loves it as much as I do.

 

His favorite author is Johnathan Rand, author of American Chillers, and Michigan Chillers, and Freddy Fernortner Fearless First Grader. He's a very Christopher Pike type author. Well, maybe more RL Stine if I'm being completely honest, since we all know Christopher was much more hardcore than RL.

 

So when we found out he was doing a book signing, we were totally there, and we all enjoyed the event very much. The author was engaging and entertaining and gave each fan his complete attention. When it was our turn to have our book signed, Narls got star struck. He had wrote down a whole list of questions for Johnathan the night before, but couldn't get a single one out (which is so unlike him, trust me when I say this kid's a talker).  

 

He left with stars in his eyes. I'm still hearing about how cool Johnathan Rand is and maybe he'll be an author when he grows up and when can we get our next Michigan Chiller book. 

 

 

Which warms this bookworm's heart.

Enchanted Princess Ball

I don't know if you know this about my daughter, but Emerson adores princesses. I'd even go so far as to say that she fancies herself a princess. Her favorite is currently Rapunzel (side note, Em, who has the slowest growing hair ever, must ask me daily if her hair is as long as Rapunzel's yet. Oh, the struggle.)

 

So when my dear friend Bonnie, a mother to another princess loving little girl, told me about the Enchanted Princess Ball, I knew it was something that would make Emerson's whole life. If this sounds dramatic to you, then you clearly haven't met Em yet.

And an Enchanted Princess Ball it was. First, we got a letter in the mail signed by Fairy Godmother cordially inviting the "little princess" to a royal gala. Wearing one's fanciest dress was fabulously encouraged. Then when we walked in, there was face painting and nail polishing and story reading all done by princesses.

Each Disney princess put on a short skit specific to her story (with meetings & autographs afterward). There was also dancing and singing and learning the royal wave and a tea party with cookies and a bubbling brook with real fish and a majestic wishing well with an endless supply of gold coins.

It got really real when Flynn Rider (Rapunzel's true love) appeared.

We had an absolutely wonderful time.

Halloween, In All It's Glory

 

Halloween 2013 was, in one word, awesome.

 

From the decorations:

to the costumes:

and of course the food:

We partied first grade style:

and pre-k style:

and ballet class style:

Pretty sure trick-or-treating for the eight kiddos was successful:

as was the drinking-in-the-rain for the eight adults:

And what good Halloween doesn't end in ghost stories:

 

and going through the candy:

Cannot wait for next year.

Happy Halloween!

2013

2009 through 2012
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