monkey see, monkey do

The Tuesday before Thanksgiving we went to Imagine It!, Atlanta's Childrens' Museum, with Leslie, Isabella and William. I had been wanting to take Micah for awhile because one of their current exhibits is Curious George. Micah LOVES Curious George...aka George...Monkey. I am going to be as positive as possible in my explanation of our experience yesterday. Ready, it was MASS CHAOS! SENSORY OVERLOAD! There were three buses full of kids on a field trip who had about as little adult supervision as possible.

The whole point of a hands on children's museum is to see how things work, but you have to put everything away when you are finished with it. This did not happen. There were balls being thrown into the wrong places so some of the 'machinery' was clogged up and wouldn't work. The food from the farm and grocery exhibit was thrown EVERYWHERE.

I could go on, but I won't. Though my brain almost EXPLODED from the unorganization of everything, Micah and Bella seemed to have a pretty good time. Yay, because that's who we were there for! At one point the Imaginators (the museum's entertainers) did a show that all the field trip kids went to watch so we had more of an opportunity to check things out without being run over.

We spent about 3 hours total there and Micah and Bella tried almost everything. Except of course for whatever Micah deemed 'cared'. They drove the fa

rm truck and tractor, went shopping in the store, painted on walls, built shapes with this awesome sand they have, played in the water, fed balls into all the 'machinery' and of course visited the monkey exhibit. However the most Micah wanted to do there was just walk around and point at all the characters he knew. It was still cute though :) Their favorites seemed to be shopping in the store and the sand.

By the time we were ready to eat lunch my brain had had it with noise so we ate in the vending machine area which was a small room with a wall of glass. You could see the chaos but you couldn't hear it :) We will definitely return to the museum again to play, but hopefully there won't be a field trip there next time!!

As promised here is a list of Micah does/has done/learned just because Monkey did them on an episode.

*Takes HUGE bites of his sandwiches. We call them big 'ol monkey bites.

*Eats whole carrots. (George did this when he helped Bill feed the bunnies)

*Went to a corn maze.

*Likes Doughnuts.

*Penguins, Seals and Whales live in snowy water.

*Builds things out of sand.

*Started wearing a ball cap.

*Notices the birds and wants to feed them.

*Talks in a New York accent occasionally. (Seriously for weeks he called water...wada because he heard someone say it on the show)

*and many more names, animals, places he's been introduced to because george saw them, went there, or destroyed it :)

Two Crazy Monkeys!

best shot

If you have already heard me complain about this countless times I'm sorry because here it is one more time. I LOVE that Zach is an AMAZING photographer. I HATE that it means getting pictures of our own family is super hard. When you are the one who is always the artist behind the shot it's hard to be the subject in front of it!!

Saturday morning Zach and I tried (as in TRIED) to get good shots of the boys together and us as a family. We really wanted to capture the beautiful colors of the leaves in our front yard before they were all brown and yucky. It was not an easy task. Micah was not big on cooperating and Connor was too interested in eating the leaves than looking at a camera. Zach took over a hundred pictures with his handy dandy remote control and thankfully we got about 10 that were pretty good. We still don't have one of all four of us looking at the camera AND smiling but that might be asking too much as this time :)

Enjoy our best shots!

only in women's group

Only in our women's group can you begin talking about the Laws of Boundaries and somehow go on a 45 minute tangent on who makes their beds and doesn't, keeps their homes clean or not, throws things out or saves it all and still come back around to somehow (kinda) relating it to what we were supposed to be talking about!

I'm not sure that when Dr. Cloud wrote the book boundaries he had ANY clue what this group of ladies would 'read between the lines'. Seriously though we started talking about the 10 Laws of Boundaries and got up to the fact that God does give us some power. As in he gives us the power to go to people for help, he gives us the power to ask to change ourselves though we can not change others. I'm not sure how it happened but we got into bed making, chores, cleaning closets, with a little bit of husbandry mixed in. Thankfully there's always someone every week who will lead us back to the gospel to make sure it all makes since through Christ somehow.

I can definitely say I leave my church foyer (where we sit) a happier healthier person every week because of these women that God has placed in my life. It's like a free therapy session every week except that might therapists also happen to be the fellow crazies too!!!

28

Today is my birthday. 28th to be exact. It doesn't feel old. It feels even. I like even :)

For my birthday I wanted two things, clothes that fit andsleep. I accomplished the first a few weeks ago on a girls' shopping trip with two of my best friends and Zach helped with the second by renting us a hotel downtown! Friday my mother-in-law came to stay with the boys while Zach and I drove to Atlanta and stayed at the Hyatt. We ate dinner first at Morton's Steakhouse because it was in walking distance to the hotel and then went back put on our jammies and laid in bed basking in the SILENCE! Apart from the three drunk girls screaming off their balcony at 1 am it was a pretty good nights sleep. The best part was that the next morning when we woke

up we actually got to lay and bed! We ended up leaving the hotel around 9:30 so that we could make the most of the two short hours we had before we needed to get back home. Zach drove me around to show me all the places he visits/sees around his work, went to Highland Bakery for breakfast and made a quick stop at Barnes and Noble. When we got home we were greeted by these two stylin' boys...

Saturday afternoon we packed up the boys and headed to Athens to tailgate for the Auburn/Georgia game and see Andrew in the dog/dawg walk. Zach's family are hardcore UGA fans and Zach and I are HARDCORE Auburn fans so it always makes things 'interesting' during this part of the season! However, we did enjoy seeing Andrew walk through the crowd and enjoyed seeing part of Zach's family that we don't get to see often. We ended up losing...again :( But as you always say...There's always next year!!! War Eagle!

sunday song

Let me Sing

Andrew Peterson

I wanna open up my eyes
And see a more beautiful world
Let the hand of God Almighty
Sweep his colors through my life
I wanna hold tight to the laughter
And ride it like a child
On the winds that billow joyful
Through the sky

I wanna open up my heart
But you know, sometimes it's hard to find
Because I've buried it beneath the selfishness
That I've hidden behind
I wanna stand my ground unshaken
But I wanna tremble when I kneel
And let my song remain unbroken
Through the tears

So let me sing for the love
Let me love for the lost
Let me lose all I have
For what I found on the cross
Let me trust you with my life
Let me live to give you praise
Lord, let me praise you
For the grace by which I'm saved
Lord, let me sing

I wanna open up Your word
And let the thirsty enter in
So they can drink deep of the water
You have given to them
I want to run the race with vigor
I want to fight the fight with strength
And let my song rise from a whisper
To a scream

I wanna open up my arms
And embrace that old rugged cross
I wanna take pride in the reason
And be humbled by the cause
And when this lisping, stamm'ring tongue
Lies silent in the grave
Then in a nobler, sweeter song,
I'll sing your praise
I'll sing your praise

So let me sing for the love
Let me love for the lost
Let me lose all I have
For what I found on the cross
Let me trust you with my life
Let me live to give you praise
Lord, let me praise you
For the grace by which I'm saved
Lord, let me sing

water for christmas

It's nap time and instead of cleaning up the mountains of toys around me I decided to blog hop for a bit. I just started reading this new blog Clover Lane and am so glad I did.

Please head over there at glance at her post. I hope you'll be glad you did too!

** Please do not feel like you have to donate anything but I did and probably will again. I would just love to hear your thoughts/feelings when you read about charity:water.

happy napper

I love when Connor takes a good nap because he wakes up like this...

new toy

I am a sucker for a Scholastic Book Order form. I loved looking at them when I was little, loved sending them home as a teacher and now love getting them from Micah's preschool. One of the items I ordered was a Christmas Pattern Block activity book. There are many different pages of winter and Christmas shapes that you can use the blocks to fill out. They even have the 'cheat' sides that show you exactly what blocks to use. The blocks are also magnetic so they store on the magnetic page in the book and can by used on any metal surface.

This morning while the little boys were sleeping and and Bella was at school Micah and I had some fun playing with it. These short times on Wednesday mornings are about the only time I have Micah to myself so I try to take full advantage of it. We did

a couple of the patterns in the book and then had fun making our own pictures.

Per Micah's request, we made...

A Face

A Tree

A Rug

and COLORS

half a year

Connor is six months old today. That is half a year! WOW. My big ol' baby is halfway to toddlerhood. He has done so much new stuff this past month.

* He actually likes to eat his cereal now and will be moving on to veggies and fruit this week.

* He can sit up on his own for short periods of time. We try to practice every day but he's not a big fan. Unless of course he's in the bath because then he can splash like a mad man.

* He still watches absolutely EVERYTHING Micah does and now adds smiling and laughing at him.

* He has already started scooting across the floor. He can also get up on all fours but hasn't started crawling yet. I'm not quite sure how I feel about this new development :)

* Current nicknames: squishy, boogie, connorconnor, connorkins and chubbywubby boy.

wild things

it's friday and i know where the wild things are!

pumpkin patch

We finally made it to the pumpkin patch! This October has been very busy, especially on the weekends, so we hadn't gotten a chance to go to Southern Belle Farm yet. Sunday was the last day they were open so we headed straight there after church. Micah enjoyed it even more than last year, but still wouldn't do all the activities. He REFUSES to do a hayride or the cow train. Zach convinced him to go on the slide but when I asked him if it was fun he said, "No it was not!"

His favorite parts were the corn house, the tractors, riding the bike, feeding the goats, and going through the maze. He was all about the maze because there is a Curious George episode about a corn maze. I will have to post soon about all the things Micah does just because George does them! Connor was a trooper the whole time. He sat patiently in his stroller and stared at the world. He loves being outside so as long as he was out there he was happy. I just wish we would have taken our family picture when we got there because by the end of the afternoon Micah was over smiling at the camera. Oh well we can try again next year :)

happy halloween

From your Toy Story friends

Woody, Prospector, Buzz Lightyear and Jessie