Horsing Around

Just completed this page of Avery and Emmie Leggett. The pictures are taken back in the summer when the kids were playing together at our house. I love these pictures of the girls. You would never know what upheaval there was around that pink horse. They are playing so well together in the pictures I captured.

Emmie took the horse home with her with Avery's approval. It was a loner horse. But there are rumblings of the horse needing to be returned. There is an electronic horse at Wal*Mart that Avery loves... it munches carrots and has a grooming brush... it whinnies and shakes its mane and tail... $250 bucks. It has sensors all over its body so it will turn in the direction that it is getting petted. He will also turn to sound. We better get that pink horse back lickety split! The pink horse doesn't say a word... I like it that way.

I found a YouTube video of the horse Avery is enamored with. Her name is Butterscotch and she is made by FurReal.

Avery knows that the horse is expensive. But she says that Santa can bring it to her so no problem. *cough* Whenever we go to Wal*Mart she wants to take time to groom Butterscotch and feed her her carrot. And has to give the pony a big hug and kiss on the nose before we leave. She would like to go back every day but no one wants to do that. Well I don't anyway. Its too painful to have this conversation everytime we see Butterscotch.

Hubby home sick = good day!

I know it probably shouldn't work this way BUT whenever Edward stays home sick from work, which is not often, my work load is lighter. You would think I would have more to do with a sick and helpless man around but NOPE!

Listen to my day... I got the kids to school on time and Connor accompanied us as usual while Edward got some sleep. Then Connor and I returned home. I took a shower and got ready for my haircut appointment. I had planned on taking Connor but, woohoo, no need to have squirmy toddler on my lap during my trim. I got my haircut like a civilized person... alone. And then.... *trumpets blow* I got solar nails! Yes! Solar Nails! Ooo I feel sooo pretty!

Tuesday I got my eyebrows waxed... so between the haircut and shapely brows I feel better than I have in a while. But then the nails... goodness!

Then when I got home all purdy'd up the boys (Edward and Connor) were sleeping again! So I got 20 minutes on the computer before they woke. And just in time too because I had to leave to go to a parent-teacher conference at Cullen's school. Again, without a toddler in tow. *skipping* I got a glowing reports on Cullen. His teacher reported that he is a very happy boy in class which is a turn around from when he started "big kid school". She said he is very well behaved which is a blessing since she does not have many boys in the class that are.. bless their little hearts. She said he is very tender hearted and that he is a ladies man... the girls seem to love him. haha. When I told Cullen what Ms Sharp said he scowled and said none of it was true. (Oh he is humble too.. so cute!)

I left the school and picked up Avery and we went and got the car washed. Which made me feel even prettier! And went back to pick up Cullen. We got home around 2:30pm and I got to sit at the computer making this scrapbook page with my new nails smiling up at me.

The page is of Avery and Cullen right before we moved to the new house. Avery was 17 months and Cullen 3 years old. The journaling on the page says:

Siblings are the people we practice on,
the people who teach us about fairness
and cooperation and kindness and caring-
quite often the hard way.

Ain't that the truth.

What a wonderfully magical day! Too bad Edward is feeling a bit better.

2 years ago today!

I can not believe that Connor came into our lives 2 years ago today.

It was a different world then. Katrina had hit us 3 months earlier. The first floor of our house was destroyed as well as the attic place blown in by the wind so we lost out master bedroom too. Out of 3300 square feet we probably had 800 liveable space but no water or electricity.

We had been living at Edward's parents since the storm. It was stressful. I hadn't slept in the same bed with Edward in 3 months. We split the kids up between 2 rooms. I was very uncomfortable, or course. The work at the house was never ending but I could hardly do anything because of the health risks. The phone calls between contractors, insurance companies, FEMA and the adjustors tied me in knots. We waited and waited for money from the insurance companies. Just creating a list of everything we had lost was overwhelming. I think it came to 25 typed pages in Word. Yes, 25 typed pages!

We were actively looking for another place to live since it looked like we wouldn't be getting back into our house for a long while. Houses were scarce due to the loss of housing from storm damage. Whole apartment complexes were damage to the point that residents needed to move. I looked at one rental home that was less than I would ever have settled for. I thought maybe it would be an answer to getting back our privacy and giving my in-laws their privacy back too. They wanted $3,600 a month for rent. What? And we still had to pay our mortgage too. Well that was out.

Edward and I decided that we just had to make a move before Connor was born. He was due at the end of November. And when it seemed we would never find a rental home or get a trailer from FEMA due to living so close to the bayou so we made the decision to move home. The guest room was still livable as was Avery's room. We had emergency heat at least and I got the water running. We had to get the well working again and the water heaters replaced since they were both under water. Volunteers from our church came out to help me move furniture so we could actually utilize the guest bedroom. And the love bugs were in every nook and cranny of the second floor.

Monday morning, the 7th rolled around. School started back up at the beginning of November, I believe, so I was driving the kids to Oceans Springs from Gautier every morning and back again right after lunch. All I wanted to do was rest but in that body it was hard. I was helping get breakfast for the kids with my mother in law when my water broke in the middle of the kitchen floor. This was 3 weeks before Connor's due date. My other two kids had been induced so this was the first time I had experienced my water breaking. What a very strange feeling. I finally had to put a towel between my legs to catch the fluid. And off we went to the hospital leaving poor Evelyn with the 2 older kids. Connor was born at 4:30 in the afternoon. I know he would have come sooner but the doctor orchestrated the medicine I was given to correspond with his work schedule. No need to inconvenience the obstetrician, right?

We took Connor home to grandmommy and Papa Roy's house and moved back into our house by that weekend. We lived with emergency heat and it still was freezing at night. I would swaddle Connor in a winter bunting to sleep in his bassinet. Cullen's twin bed was at the foot of our bed and Connor's bassinet by the bedroom door. We slept like that for months. Avery was the only one who retained her room. The stairway to the first floor was covered with heavy plastic and tape. Then every available blanket and comforter was laid over it to keep the cold from coming up from the first floor which was gutted. My mom arrived 2 days after we moved back home and what a lifesaver. It is so true that when mom is around everything seems less hard. I was so happy to have her there with us. She slept in the a twin bed we set up in the dining room. So strange to think of it now. Her sleeping in the middle of our great room. That is my mom holding Connor. Wasn't he just so tiny? Gosh I could just eat him up... still could. But he says "Enough!" when I try. haha

And now 2 years later we have our home back. We haven't had a storm head towards us since Katrina and the property has for the most part gone unflooded. And Connor turned 2! Lots to celebrate.

Flying Tiger scrapbook page

Back in September all the kindergarten classes at Cullen's school were studying transportation. Each family was challenged to do a project for this unit. The challenge was to make some form of transportation from a cardboard box. I posted some pictures of him after we finished making the Flying Tiger.

This is the scrapbook page I just completed of those pictures. I used card board and tape elements because that is what held the plane together. Paint was also used during the project. I had Cullen into my graphics program and he actually painted the red and green on the corner cardboard piece.

The "artists rendering" was actually a picture Edward drew with Cullen when they were imagining what the plane would look like. It took two long nights to complete this project. Cullen was in bed 3 hours before we quit each night. Edward and Cullen were quite proud of the results.

Matching Set

This is the other digital scrapbook page I did from the pictures I took yesterday at the barn. Cullen is swinging on the fence gate.

I like that he is not looking at the camera. Makes it a bit more artsy. Not sure why boy's pages are always so hard for me. I want to use pretty colors and ribbon and such. But I try to make something that Cullen will like when he gets older... not a page where he ponders what the heck I was thinking. (Well I am sure he does that already anyway.)

I also like how he actually LET Avery lean her head on him. She sure loves her brother and he gives her such a hard time. I guess that is a brother's job. I know my brothers did the same.

New Digital Scrapbook Page

Today was a beautiful day here on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. I spent a good part of the day working around our barn. Not that we have any animals. But its over grown and limbs have fallen all over. Its right by our front gate to I wanted to tidy it up and mow the grass down. Its quite a job since it hasn't been mowed in over a year.

We have 6 acres of lands and when we looked at the property initially the whole thing was cut. I said to Edward, can we really keep up with this? Well, the previous owners has two horses who really did all the work. We have chosen to let the pastures grow up. We cut along the drive way to keep it looking somewhat manicured and then we cut near the house, front and back and along the bayou which takes a good bit of time.

But now that the weather is turned cool I am up for a bit of a challenge. Spring and Fall down here are my time to work in the yard. My body can not tolerate the heat in summer. Any work outside makes for a migraine. But as I said, today was a beautiful day. I could have stayed inside and cleaned. The house is always in need of my loving hands. (haha) But I went outside and the kids followed.

They were climbing on the fence. I took come great pictures of them with the house in the background. This one is of Avery. Dang but she takes a good picture. It never fails. I titled it "Fall for Avery" because though she can be quite a hand full once she puts that cute little face on I can't help but fall in love with her all over again.

The kit I used is called MINT JULEPS & ROSY TEA collaborative contribution by Jennifer Layden of Jennilyn Designs. I bought the kit at Oscrap.com today. Today was National Scrapbooking Day or something. I can not remember. But there were an awful lot of digital scrapbook stores having sales. Good sales! I love the colors in this kit. It was perfect for Avery. I am going to scrap Cullen's picture next.