Lauren in Wonderland

I'm so excited about "our" new chair!! Saturday morning when we opened the garage door, there waiting across the street was this fantastic chair at our neighbor's garage sale! I immediately began to imagine all of the pictures I could take with this chair as a prop and had to have it. Doug told me I should haggle when I went to inquire but it was the exact price I thought it should be and plus...I'm just not a good haggler. I've taken to referring to it as the "Wonderland" chair because it reminds me of a chair that "Alice" should have sat in at her tea party. Seeing as how I've been trying to convince Anna to have an "Alice In Wonderland" birthday party, I thought the potential for this chair and her next party could be unlimited.....at least that's what I told Doug to convince him that we needed to have this chair come home with us. After we dropped Anna off at school this morning, we ran out to part of a nature preserve that's just down the street. Lauren was the such a good little model for us. I love how you can see both sides of her in these pictures. In some, she still looks so little and in others she looks all grown up!

Playing with light

Wednesday evening I had so much fun tagging along with Trish and Tracy on a little photo shoot. They both just returned from a fantastic workshop with Zack Arias and wanted to practice the "OneLight" technique they had learned. It's absolutely amazing the difference "one light" can make in a picture. It really makes everything more dramatic! Tracy's sister Kim is in town and was gracious enough to be our model. We had the best time and I can't wait for our photo trip to Napa next month!

Still here....barely.

Sorry for my blogging absence as of late. The past two weeks have been a total emotional rollercoaster. We've been trying to make some huge decisions regarding the next "stage" of our lives and it's just been exhausting. As most of you know, Doug's last day of work in the Air Force is the 31st of this month. His actual retirement date is 1 Feb 2009. For the majority of 2007, we had been planning on moving to Wisconsin upon his retirement. As of February of this year, we changed our minds yet again and decided to head to Alabama. Our plan was to make the move to the South when Anna went on her Christmas break. When we learned we were going to be adding to the family we decided to stay through the end of January to have the baby and then move. About 14 days ago, Doug found what he described as "THE perfect home" on realtor.com. The home was in Wisconsin. The house seemed so good that it reopened our discussion regarding Wisconsin. We changed our minds yet again and decided that with the economy the way it is there would be many more job opportunities available up Chicago way...not to mention Wisconsin is just a good place to live and raise kids. Doug purchased a ticket and flew out there this past week to look at houses. What I've neglected to mention is that he decided if we did indeed find "THE house" we should move at the end of November prior to the birth of the baby. No pressure, right? Anyway, the house that caused all the initial hubbub ended up off our final list due to the age and asbestos concerns as we would be looking to do some renovations down the road. After Doug viewed about seven properties on Thursday, we narrowed the search down to two incredible homes with beautiful land. We discussed it throughout the evening Thursday and then again Friday morning. I was just a basket case and spent most of my time in tears. This may sound silly. Doug even kept telling me that I should be smiling, not weeping. For those military spouses out there, maybe you can understand. You move from house to house year after year doing your best to make a home for the family. You put everything off....for years....because it's not your permanent home. I've been in a lot of your homes and you guys take it further than we do. We don't paint or buy curtains although we do hang pictures on the wall. We usually don't plant any flowers because you're not normally around to watch them grow. Doug often says, "Any amount of money that goes into this home comes out of our permanent home". So, you wait, and you save, and you dream....knowing that you'll get there eventually. Well, here we are. It's the permanent home and it's a HUGE deal. It's the place you're going to raise your family and hopefully spend the next 20-30 years of your life. There are expectations and dreams built around this structure that are hard to describe. So, finally after laborious discussions over and over, we decided to just bring Doug home and talk about it over the week. We found that neither of our two favorite homes (although both amazing) really fit the bill as far as all that we had pictured for our "final" home. Doug was still anxious to just get up there and go into a rental home. You know how it is...when you make a decision, you just want to implement it...get going. We've been thinking about this for a decade and now that it's almost here, we don't want to wait any longer. However, I just couldn't see rushing up through snow covered passes in the winter, finding a new doctor, unpacking, making Christmas happen, having a baby and feeling settled....IF it wasn't for "THE house". So, we finally agreed to stay here through our lease extension which now runs to March. It answers a lot of questions for us regarding employment for Doug, the birth of the baby, travel outside of winter, and gets us closer to the sale of our two homes in NE and LA where we currently have tenants. We both feel good about this decision and a bit relieved. While we were laboring over this, I just didn't feel like talking or writing or doing much. Well, I take that back. What did I do with the possibility of an impending move on the horizon??? Did I begin to organize, clean out and prepare for movers? Oh, no. I think I was in serious denial. I made 2 and began work on a third tutu for the girls, planned Lauren's pirate birthday party... for January, worked on Christmas cards, studied countless before and after pictures for renovation ideas on a cape cod that we couldn’t afford and picked out fabric as a backdrop for Jacob’s photo and birth announcement. Real smart, huh? So, that's my story. I think I'm back now and I'll try to get some new posts up soon...until the next drama unfolds. :)

Throwback Thursday

Our little witches two Halloweens ago...

Pumpkin Patch

We made it out to the pumpkin patch on Saturday morning to get a few shots of the girls. My favorite is now at the top of the blog. I am such a mess though. I kept stepping in rotten pumpkins and fell over twice. Doug says I'm a weeble wobble these days but I do fall down. I'm not used to the change in my center of gravity. :) The girls had a good time...especially once we pulled out the apples and cookies. They couldn't be bothered to stop and smile as they were inhaling Halloween cookies as fast as humanly possible. They knew I was preoccupied and so they were attempting to get as many down as they could before I stepped out from behind the camera. I think they ate about 6 between them. I thought it would be fun to change the blog a little for the month of October. Let me know if it's too annoying!

Anna wanted to be a mermaid this year. I was so surprised when she agreed to my kitty cat costume idea. It must have been the tail that sold her on it or the fact that it was a cat dress. As long as you let her wear a dress then she's a happy camper.

Lauren loved the pirate idea. We did have to go buy her a sword to go with her costume though. She kept trying to pick out the ninja/skeleton warrior swords that were twice her size. I finally convinced her to get a little one with a blunt end. You have no idea how much work that took. We have a little parrot for her shoulder too. She just told me this morning, however, that her pirate outfit isn't done...she says she needs an eye patch now. I guess when she gets into something, she's going to do it right!

She's not so little anymore.

I look at her everyday but some days I can really see her, the young lady she’s becoming, the woman she will be. It amazes me how quickly it has come. She’s always spoken beyond her years but now she talks about when she’s grown and married. She’s already playing the role of a mommy and carries her doll “Lily” everywhere. She even gives us babysitting instructions for taking care of Lily when she’s at school. For those of you that know Anna, she’s carried a white, lovey bear around with her since she was little. She calls him “Daddy Anna Bear”. There’s also a “Mommy Anna Bear” and a “Baby Anna Bear” but it’s “Daddy Anna Bear” that is worth more to her than gold. You know he’s important when you realize he’s been forgotten at a hotel and in a panic you turn around to drive the two hours to get him. Anna always sleeps with him. I can attest to some anxious nights prior to bedtime where Doug and I have scoured the house desperate to find where Daddy Anna Bear disappeared to during the day. The other night as I was tucking in Anna and her Daddy Anna Bear, I happened to look over at the wall by her bed. There on the floor, she had set up a little blanket and pillow. Under the covers she had tucked Lily in and right next to her was “Baby Anna Bear”. I smiled to myself, gave Anna a kiss and wished her “sweet dreams”. As I was walking out of the room, I heard her blow a kiss to Lily and say, “Good night, sweet baby, sweet dreams.” I know there will come a time when my baby will be tucking in her own baby for real...but I won't be ready for that anytime soon....probably not for another 50 or 60 years or so :). Can’t she just stay little forever?

Candied Apples and Conversations with the Peanut Gallery

I made candied apples for the first time today! It wasn't as difficult as I had envisioned although my first batch was definitely the learning batch. When the instructions say to let the excess caramel drip off, they really mean you should take the time to do that. My first four apples, after chilling for 15 minutes, looked like apples with sticks stuck in them standing on top of a plate of caramel and pecan chips. The majority of the caramel (and the pecans along with it) just ran right off onto the wax paper. After I got things figured out, the second batch looked much nicer. I'm happy about that as I want to use them for a little photo session I have planned with the girls at the pumpkin patch. We had planned to go this evening but it's 98 degrees here today. The girls and the apples both would have melted by the time we got into the pumpkin field. We're planning to try it first thing in the morning. If the shots turn out, I'll stick some up on the blog.

Random Conversations with the Girls

At my doctor's appointment the other day, Lauren was telling the physical therapist that she could sing several songs. She started by humming the wedding march and then proceeded to sing the "Ring Around the Rosey" song. It went like this:

Ring around the rosey, a pocket full of posies,

Asses, asses, we all fall down!

Anna mentioned in passing the other day that she was starting to like boys for the first time. This caught my attention and so I asked her to tell me more. She said she thought she did like boys but they still made her nervous because as she put it, "Boys like to say "Dude" and they try to get you to say "dude" too. I don't like that word." I guess this is a sign of things to come. Wouldn't it be nice if the worst thing that boys ever asked her to do was just say "Dude" with them??

Did you know that apparently mustard is made of shredded corn? Anna told me so. I always thought turmeric was the reason for the yellow color. You learn something new everyday.

Lauren has started saying, "Only 3 girls can do this." I guess it's necessary to be at least three years old before you can perform some of her radical moves, i.e. jumping from the second step of the stairs, doing a somersault or breakdancing. Interesting. I wonder just what 37 girls can do that others can't.

How is it that something that seems so harmless can cause a problem? The "Chicken Little" cartoon was on Disney the other day. We recorded it for the girls. I walked into the kitchen yesterday to hear Anna singing the Spice Girls' song, "If you wanna be my lover...". I nearly choked and asked her where she'd heard that song. Apparently on "Chicken Little" a duck and a pig have a karaoke duet and of all songs they sing that happens to be the one. I tried to explain to Anna why I didn't want her to sing that song and gave her alternate word suggestions. Now she's singing, "If you wanna be my mother or butterfly or sunflower." Mothers need to have their own motto like the Marines...ours could be "Semper Vigil" (Ever Vigilant) or even better "Nothing's Safe" although I don't know the Latin for that one.