I have a couple of posts brewing that require actual thought and words and stuff.  They will have to wait until after the holidays.  (At least one is prompted by Mamalita.  Have you read it?  I want to discuss.)  Many of my posts are driven by what I find on my camera.  I mentioned that Tessa has recently become even more adverse to my camera.  The second I turn it on she hides her face.  It has gotten so bad that when we are watching Diego and Click the Camera comes on, she runs away.  Heh.  So I’ve tried to lay off the camera for the past couple of weeks since I know that Christmas will look like a paparazzi event with the flashes going off.  As a result, I don’t have many photos of the girls to share…and the 2 I do are the back of Tessa’s head.

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A rare photo of me – mostly for my BFF since she never checks facebook.  Hey Deanna – I cut off all of my hair and got red streaks last week:

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A house about a mile from us does it up Clark Griswold style every year.

The kids love it.  I’ve been told he pressures his neighbors to decorate early and often so that people can bring their kids down the street for a whole show.  The funniest sign appeared across the street this year at a house that remains dark each year.

Hilarious!  Initially, I wanted to take these people out to dinner because they have to be awesome!  Then I learned that Clark Griswold actually bought the Ditto sign and put it up.  Still funny and it makes me like him more.

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I’ve been trying to decide what to hang in my pink and black powder room.  I decided it needed to be a black canvas with the Eiffel Tower on it (don’t ask – no idea why).  But now I’m kind of thinking it looks too kindergarten.  (I painted it – it is meant to be simple and whimsical not fingerpaint-ish.)

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Speaking of being crafty, I painted the cutest plate for the girls to leave cookies for Santa:

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We got a little snow a couple weeks ago. The girls were very excited until we actually went out into the frigid cold.  We stayed out less time than it took to get them dressed to go outside.

Sabrina wouldn’t even lay down to make the snow angel she spent all morning talking about.  Not that I blame her.

The week started very, very dreary here.  Gray, rainy, and cold.  In an attempt to make the world seem a little more cheery while running errands yesterday, I pulled out my hot pink rain boots.  (They didn’t help.  Only being at home, on my couch, sipping hot chocolate while watching When Harry Met Sally would have helped.  Just saying.)  Tessa loves to wear my shoes and clop around the house.  And anytime Tessa appears to be having fun, Sabrina must horn in.

Kind of fun to watch Tessa try to figure out how she might get a boot on that comes to her armpit. The girls both struggled to get into a boot.

Success

Fail

I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by  Mom Central on behalf of Dannon. In addition, I received a gift certificate and products to thank me for taking the time to participate.

As October draws to a close, so does National Breast Cancer Awareness month.  But the fight doesn’t end when the calendar page flips and the pink ribbons become less visible.

Most of us have seen the other yogurt campaign that has us all mail the pink lids in.  I have to admit that while I am always happy to see companies help good causes, I couldn’t understand why they insisted on making it cumbersome to participate.  I’ve ranted about it on more than one occasion to my husband.

Then I saw Dannon is making it easier.  Buy a specially marked cup of Dannon yogurt (marked with the pink ribbon and Give Hope With Every Cup logo) until November 30th.  Then instead of mailing it, you go to the website www.cupsofhope.com and enter the code.  Voila.  Done.  And for each code entered, 10 cents is donated to  NBCF (National Breast Cancer Foundation, Inc).  Dannon guaranteeing a minimum of $500,000 donated and up to $1.5 million.

Yogurts with the participating codes include Light & Fit, Fruit on the Bottom, Activia, and All Natural.  We can have yummy yogurt while facilitating a donation to NBCF – everyone wins.

We’ve hit that period of the year where it is difficult to dress everyone.  We wake up and it is 48 degrees but by dinner time we are edging toward 80.  I, personally, love this weather.  My children are less sure what to think.  Sabrina spent the morning with a blanket and sweater but was quite unhappy when I vetoed the tank top she wanted to wear.

Tessa wasn’t sure what to think of the slippers I put on her this morning.

Yesterday, I sent Sabrina to school in a long sleeve shirt and jeans.  She complained in the car that she was cold but when I picked her up at the end of the day she scolded me for dressing her too warmly.

I love being scolded by a 4 year old.

And while it isn’t season related, it made me laugh that Sabrina insisted that she wouldn’t let Tessa wear this outfit.  I asked why and Sabrina said she didn’t like it and wouldn’t let her sister wear it.  Already a fashion critic.  (It is a little ridiculous but Tessa loves kitties and the consignment sale was really dark so I didn’t realize quite how bright it was.)

I love that even though I have 2 girls and even though both of those girls like dolls and tutus that I still find things like this:

Firemen apparently assessing the situation in the back yard.

I believe this one is responsible – she seems to have a real thing for firemen these days. (That is a piece from the fire house she is chewing on.)

Two weeks from yesterday, we should have the keys in our hands to our new front door.

The other thing I’ll have in my hand? A screwdriver to get those cutesy corner details off the screen doors.

Packed the first box of the move yesterday and discovered I really ought to dust even if I can’t see that high.

My lack of blogging isn’t a reflection of waning affection for my friends out there who check in on me.  Life is just pretty quiet.  Life being quiet is good for my sanity but not for my blog.

I love catching the girls unaware when they are sitting together to watch TV in the morning.

Birthdays are over.  My sister-in-law and her husband came to celebrate Sabrina’s over Labor Day weekend.  We always love having family in town.  Mine was last weekend.  I will say that FaceBook birthdays are so fun – made me feel loved.  Steve took us to the Atlanta Ikea as a birthday surprise with the goal of picking out some things for the new house.  He knows I love me some Ikea browsing.  We picked up a few things but with the car seats there wasn’t room to get too crazy.  I will simply say this – Atlanta is 4 hours away.  That is not a day trip with 2 toddlers.  We shall not speak of this again.

Yes, we are buying a house which is exciting but we’ve hit that lull between agreeing on all of the terms and actually exchanging money and keys.  Somehow, recounting my efforts to obtain good rates on our home owners insurance didn’t seem like blog fodder.

Tessa is so serious when she plays.

The only other thing I’ve thought about posting about is my angst over whether to switch pediatricians.  I love our guy.  Love.  And trust.  That made it worth the almost hour drive to his office for the past 2 1/2 years.  But at our last few appointments we have encountered a long wait to see him.  Last week after spending an hour in the outer waiting room, I rescheduled and left before we got to see him (seriously, would it kill the receptionist to tell us he is running over an hour late due to emergencies when we check in?).  The long wait coupled with drive time means a well visit can take up half of our day.  Buying the house obviously means we are staying in this town…perhaps it would be smarter to get a pediatrician closer to home.  But I love him.  (I know – me and my first world problems.)  I’m still on the fence.  We’ll see where I land.

I love seeing my girly-girl enjoy non-girly activities.

Tessa doesn’t seem like she will be a girly girl but who knows?

I had planned to go to a Guatemalan adoption gathering in Florida next month but the house buying put the halt to that – both because of funds and timing.  Steve and I had hoped to take a few days away by ourselves (we haven’t spent more than a few hours alone in 3 1/2 years) around Thanksgiving but the house thing also squashed that plan.  (BTW neither of those is complaints…we are really excited about the house and are very fortunate.)

So you see why I’ve had very little to share on the bloggy front.  I will likely be posting exciting photos of boxes and empty rooms and empty rooms filled with boxes soon.

As of today, the last contingency was removed from our contract so unless something happens to make our funding fall through or the seller completely wig out and just don’t show up to sign the papers and hand over the keys, it looks like we are buying ourselves a house.

The inspection was done 2 weeks ago.  The inspector (who is known to be picky) joked that it was such a great house and in such great shape that if our deal fell through he would happily buy it.  The only findings were incredibly minor: a toilet valve because one of the toilets run, the shower head in the master bath needs tightened, and some dirt needs filled in one corner where the sidewalk and driveway meet because it has eroded away a bit.  Seriously, that was all.  I can find more than that wrong with the house I am currently living in.

Our appraisal was done last week and we received the report today.  It was appraised for a little more than we are paying for it and no repairs are required.

I’m excited to have a decent dining area again – we will have a big dining room (although please know that they use a fish eye lens for these photos – the rooms aren’t as big as they look) as well as an informal dining area.  This photo is taken standing in the foyer.  That is the front door and dining room.  The door way on the left of the photo is the butlers pantry (HA!).

This is the living room (not as huge as it looks – I swear).  To the right is the informal dining area.  The bright room in the back is my favorite room – the florida room.  It makes me smile.

The kitchen.  I will miss my island but I am not going to lack in counter space or cabinet space.  It is actually a little embarrassing how big it is.  I would love to change the hardware but would probably need a home equity line of credit to buy that many knobs and pulls. I am gah gah for the floors.  The cabinets…might end up painted.  They are the builder’s standard and I’m not in love with them but we shall see.  The counter tops are black granite.

To the right is the butlers pantry again (HA! Yes I laugh every time I say it).

So there you have it…a little more of a peek into our new digs.  I will probably share more as we get closer because I’m excited and because I love seeing houses so I assume some of you do too.

Would it change your opinions of Chris if I told you I Chris had a fever and a sore throat and it was ice cream cake?  It was the first time I Chris was hungry in 24 hours and in my Chris’s weakened state I Chris couldn’t resist the ice cream cake.

Y’all are a little rigid with your birthday protocol rules.  He had his favorite Lincoln Bakery cake at his mom’s house.  He left me alone in his apartment, sick and weak, to go eat dinner and cake and celebrate.  Have you ever seen a bachelor’s cupboards and frig contents?  I’m not sorry and I would do it again.

* Loved Paul Harvey which has nothing to do with this blog post. That was his tagline.

Everyone is a critic.  Tessa seems to be trying to tell me it is time to vacuum the dog hair off the stairs.  It is a never ending job.  Just wait until she is big enough to handle a real vacuum…

Sabrina is extremely unhappy that we aren’t getting out much this week.  It is hot hot hot.

Yesterday was 98.  The weekend was high 90’s with heat indexes in the triple digits.  Last night at 10pm it was still 86.  Friday actually looks like a bit of a relief.  We live in a very shiny, new area so there aren’t even trees big enough to provide much shade in parking lots.  We have the a/c set on 78 upstairs and for the hottest hours in the late afternoon it can’t manage to get it below 80 upstairs.  So yeah, hot.  I expect hot here in the summer – just not so early.  Gah!  I keep joking with Steve that I’m taking the girls and visiting family up north – we’ll be back in time for Halloween.

Reward for reading my rant about the obvious – some cute.

Sabrina chooses moments to take her big sister role seriously.  Lately, her favorite big sister activity is to help Tessa put on her shoes when I declare it time to go somewhere.  Tessa seems amused by this and usually lets Sabrina do it as long as I’m not in her line of sight.  It is adorable to watch and listen to but unfortunately when I manage to grab the camera it distracts them both and ends the moment.

I rarely watch videos that people post on their blogs and as a result I don’t share videos often.  But this is hilarious.  Seriously.  Watch it. I’m going to try and embed it but I’m not very good with video on my blog so click THIS LINK if it doesn’t work below.  I’ve watched it 5 times today and Sabrina has started singing along with it.

Dad Life from Church on the Move on Vimeo.