A page for Paige

So as I battled the chaos we all know as Walmart yesterday a friend reminded me that I had not blogged for a while, so this is for you Paige. Not much new going on here. Chris has been working a lot extra the past few days so I havent seen him much. The girls are bugging us to get lights on the house and we havent done it yet. Oh and I did battle black friday and we came up with some rules:

1. Do not buy the things that are not on sale. They will be there tomorrow and there is no reason to stand in long lines for stuff like that.

2. Do not get a cart unless your purchase calls for it. They are too big to maneuver and in large crowds you end up with a traffic jam situation.

3. Decide who will be the place holder upon entering the store. Put that person in line and then go get what you need and bring it to them. Warn the other shoppers around you that you are merely a placeholder and others will be bringing their stuff to you. People are usually cool with you doing this.

4. Cut the weak link from the herd. If you give people fair warning about where you are in the line progression and they do not make it back by the time you are at checkout....leave them. They need to just fend for themselves. Brutal I know.

5. For the love, if you have a cart take it with you. Do not leave it in the middle of an aisle. Nothing drives me more crazy then people who detach from the cart for a side conversation thus causing a traffic jam. Costco shoppers are notorious for this.

6. If you are not sure if you want to buy the on sale item, get it anyway and bring it back if you change your mind. At least you will have gotten it at the sale price if you decide to keep it.

I think I had one more, but have since forgotten it. We always end our day with lunch at the OG and a movie. This year we saw 4 Christmases and it was really funny. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, God bless you and your family.

Upmost

This was part of my devotion this morning. I hope it speaks to you as it did to me:

We should be so one with God that we don’t need to ask continually for guidance........If we are born again by the Spirit of God, our devotion to Him is hindered, or even stopped, by continually asking Him to guide us here and there. ". . . the Lord led me . . ." and on looking back we see the presence of an amazing design. If we are born of God we will see His guiding hand and give Him the credit.
~J~

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!

Most of us take for granted the ability to pronounce letters. They flow off our tongue naturally without effort and all is well. That said, Allison has always had trouble saying the letter R. I just thought she would grow out of it, so I was not concerned. During one of our summer functions a friend and her mom (I love you Jen) pointed out to me that Alli could not say her R. Something I knew but didnt think anything about. My friends mom is a speech therapist and said that services would be available to her for free in school. I asked if there was something I could practice with her to work on it myself. She said no, in a totally loving and honest way. She said that her tongue has to lay down in the back to pronounce the R. Alli said the word red, like wed. Anyhow, I took this as a challenge.If someone else can get my child to say her R, by golly I was going to try too. Alli was eager to try her letter r. It started out that she would sort of growl to get the letter out. That was cool with me. Well, after about a month of her really trying, she can say her letter R. She is really into emphasizing it too and we notice and are sure to give her praise.

He Knows Me

Yesterday Chris got off work a little bit early. He went in early, hence he got to come home early. While most women might appreciate some long stem roses or a glass of wine, my husband knows me better than that. He came home with some long stem french fries and a tall glass of iced coffee. He knows me. I appreciated that far more than any flowers I could ever get, chocolates I could eat or anything like that. I loved it!

Halloween

So for Halloween we had a hula dancer, hot lava girl, and a Snow White with hot pink hair. Lou had to have the hot pink hair becuase Alli did. It was really cute. We started out by going to South Hills for the carnival and then we came home at 6:15 to answer the door to hopeful trick-o-treaters. Last year we had 185 and this year we topped that with 260. We attributed the large numbers to the warmer weather. Last year it was simply bitter cold out and Chris did not take the girls for very long. This year it was nice out (in the high 50's) so it brought more people. We finally turned off our porch light at 8:30pm. That was late enough for us. My mom and brother came up to see the girls in their costumes and answer the door for us. It was a lot of fun. Here are some pics of our cuties. Also, we got a new camera b/c our last one was wiggin out. Aldersons, sorry we no longer sport the same camera.

October update

Here are a couple random things we did this month. One day we went to the pumpkin patch with some friends. That was a lot of fun for all of us. The one negative to the trip was the cost. It was a little spendy. $6 for each person, kids 2 and under were free. This price did not include our pumpkins or the bouncy obstacle course. So it was about a $30 day. The girls sure looked cute though.
Also, my mom, dad, brother and I started a new tradition. We go out for a meal together every other month. I never had this as a young adult and so to go out as a family really feels like we are making up for lost time. We talk about memories and someone different gets to pick where we go each time. It is so fun. Side note, my brother left a couple pizzas on top of his car and drove home. It was not until he saw them flying in the rear view mirror that he realized that he had done this. He never reads my blog, so he probably wont know that I blogged that. Love you.
The last pic have my Lou Lou and her head injury. She fell from the piano bench and ended up with three stitches. The huge praise out of this was that a friend did the stitches, so Lou knew her and was comfortable with her. That is all for now, peace out!

Not So Bad

So 30 is not so bad thus far. The other night at hula I did a move that I could not do a year ago. I made the comment that my 30 year old knees did a move that my 29 year old knees could not. My teacher just attributed it to the fact that my legs had gotten stronger and used to the moves, I will say that 30 year old knees rock!