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Me and my paper cutter did some work for Ashton's teacher all while enjoying the season premiere of Grey's Anatomy!

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This year, I am FINALLY able to be a room parent for the girls. I am one of two for Landry's class and I am one of four in for Ashton's class. I haven't been able to do this until now since Landry wasn't in school. 

This evening I had my "Room Parent Training" meeting for Landry's class...now that I have had my training, I guess I am official and need to get to work!

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Do ya wanna know how I feel about cleaning blinds?

Well, here you go...

strongly dislike, loathe, detest, and really I just hate to clean them!!!

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PLEASE ... Help A Sista Out!

~I am a HORRIBLE decorator.

~I don't use many accessories because I don't know what to do with them, or how to arrange them, or even what to get.  (My brain just doesn't work that way at all!)

~I have never had a lamp on this end table because I have had small children who would pull it off.

~But now, I think I need something to go on this table with this lonely lamp that I just got today which is why the tags are still on.

~I would LOVE any ideas or suggestions...

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The other day the girls and I ran into Target real quick to get Lan-Lan some shoes and as we walked by an endcap,we spotted this box of Halloween shaped mac-n-Cheese.  We decided to grab one and give it a try. 

So today I made this trick or cheesy mac-n-cheese for them for lunch. They loved it...they had the best time inspecting each bite and announcing whether they were munching on a bat, a ghost, or a pumpkin.  It was a fun change and we love all things fall and halloween in our house!

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Landry attended her first birthday party for a classmate today.

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Does this barrette look familiar to anyone?

I remember making these when I was a little girl.

One of Ashton's friend's mom made this for her to wear with her spirit wear on Fridays and Ashton was totally thrilled not only because of the "really cool barrette" but because it is old school from Mommy's days of being a little girl!

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This morning, my littlest girl wanted to have her hair in braids just like her Sisser.  Sounds easy enough...only I couldn't do "piggy tail" braids like Ashton's because Landry's hair isn't quite long enough yet. So....I had to do french braids and I wasn't even sure I could do those.

But as you can see, I was able to make french braids an Landry was happy as can be.  Ashton LOVED that Landry requested braids to be like her!

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This is a guaranteed 30 minutes of our day Monday-Thursday...Ashton's reading portion of her homework! 

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Oh how I have missed the gym! I am pretty sure there was a layer of dust on my gym bag since the only use it got lately was when the girls played with my equipment on a few occasions.

Today I was able to get back at it...I had taken a little hiatus with potty training and school starting.

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College Week for ARB is upon us once again...and this year she chose a different college to represent!

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$6 wallflowers make me so happy! 

Now I have some fall smells and I am excited to make it a little more fall-ish around here!

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Today we headed out to our first ever Balloon Festival. This event has been held for several years and we have never been (we tried to go last year but we had a ton of rain so we opted out of the mud and mess) so we were excited to go this year.

Let's just say that we have been there done that and we can check it off our list of things to do.  I am glad the girls were able to experience seeing a hot air balloon up close!

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This evening, Ashton and I went to celebrate Macy's 8th Birthday! Miss Jodi had a super cute and fun party planned....all the big girls had a blast! I think it was everything MGL wanted! The best part was that it was on her actual birthday!

Happy Birthday Macy G...we love you bunches!

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I love, love, love the Container Store. I love my newly organized and LABELED pantry. 

Unfortunately, no one else in my house is as in love with the pantry as I am. Well, Landry does love the snack box with her name on it, but I was hoping for BB and Ashton to get excited too.They just didn't respond like I wanted them to. I think they think I am a little on the weird side for being THIS excited over a pantry!

But this just makes me happy....and calm....and giddy...and excited. Maybe I am a little weird....

Believe it or not, I wasn't able to find a solution or storage thingy for everything as you can see from the "collection" of stuff directly above the girls' snack boxes...but I will keep looking. But for now it works and I just focus on the things with labels and boxes and bins!

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This morning (bright and early) I took Lan-Lan to her very first dentist appointment. She is no stranger to the office since she has been when Sisser has had her appointments, but today she only got to hang out in the Kiddie Korral for a few minutes before it was her turn!

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Ashton's 4th Annual College Week begins next week and in preparation, the students were asked to decorate a pennant from a college of their choice.  This year she chose the University of Alabama...her Uncle Todd goes there, Papo-the-Great was an alumni and Mamo, Papo, and Mamo-the-Great are all big fans. She has done her dues with Mommy's and Daddy's colleges in the past so it was time for her to expand her options.

She was pretty pleased with how it turned out...she came up with the design all by herself and executed it too!

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This child literally makes me laugh all.the.time. Although in this case I was trying NOT to laugh because this was totally inappropriate and I really should NOT have taken a picture, but I just had to have it to show Daddy since he wasn't home when this happened.

Ashton and I were doing homework and Landry was in the playroom playing. After about 5 minutes of not hearing anything from her, I asked her what she was doing and when she turned around her face was GREEN!

After the "NO ma'am, we do not write on anything but paper and the white board" and "Where did you get the marker" and Landry Paige, that is NOT a good choice" I rushed her to the bathroom to wipe her off. But I had to stop by the camera to snap this and could she have posed any better for me...really?

Luckily, it was a Crayola Dry Erase Marker that wiped right off with water, but can you imagine if it had been an EXPO dry erase marker! WOWZER!

When I asked what in the world she was doing, she responded with this answer "well, I was just trying to be Twist (From the Fresh Beat Band) wif sun-cream". {There is an episode when the band members apply sunscreen and Twist can't quite seem to get it all rubbed in.}

Nice. Really Nice.

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Today is opening day for the NFL...we  love football in our house. So of course today Daddy and the girls had to show their support by wearing their new cowboys gear!  Mommy's KC Chiefs play tomorrow night so I will be sporting my Chiefs gear tomorrow!

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To most people these look like ordinary wooden spoons...ones that belong in a little girl's play kitchen. But to our little two year old they are drumsticks.  You see she loves a show called the Fresh Beat Band and her favorite character on there is the drummer.  So she walks around here looking for anything that could be used as drumsticks...markers, wooden spoons, etc.  She usually likes the big wooden spoons out of my kitchen drawer and today she and Ashton were drumming away with two spoon each and on Ashton's bed of course, where they don't make much noise and won't  damage anything!

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Today while my BG was at school, I moved her bedroom furniture around.  It is very Big Girl...she loved it and was so excited until it was time to go to sleep...she is just like her Momma and doesn't like change and takes a while to get used to things being different.

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Landry and I have been working on writing the letter L for a while. She loves to "write" and always wants me to show her how to "write" something. So back when she first showed interest, and whenever she asked me to "write" something, I would write an L or her name. 

Today while Big Sisser was doing her homework, Lil Sisser wanted to write on the dry erase board.  First we drew smiley faces and it took two times (one of me drawing and one of her drawing) before she wanted to write.

I practiced writing an L and saying "down, stop, over".  Well something totally clicked because she totally wrote a bunch of L's that actually looked like L's. She was so proud as were Ashton and I!

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Ashton took this picture on our way home from dance tonight....after the sirens went off and tornadoes were touching down and spotted in DFW. It was quite a drama filled afternoon/evening.

So this pretty rainbow was a nice and calming way to end the weather drama!

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Today was full of more rain...like all day kind of rain. Landry was quite insistant about wearing her rain boots when we went to pick up Sisser from school, but she was not happy that I wouldn't get her rain coat....it was way to much to hassle with since we weren't getting out of the car.

I couldn't help take a picture of "being mad" mad at me!

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One of the things the THIRD grade teachers told the parents at Curriculum Night last week was that one way we can really help our kiddos is to help them learn to tell time on an analog clock...they even said it would be awesome (and they realize not realistic) to take away every digital clock in our house.

So, even though Ashton is pretty good at telling time on an analog clock, she is by no means fast at it. So we decided to get her a new, big girl watch to help her get quicker. So after Landry's swim lesson this morning I took her to pick out a new watch. I am not surprised it has a  peace sign on it...I think she is already tired of us asking her what time it is.

She was so funny about choosing her watch...I told her she was going to wear it every day so she decided she needed to get one that "would match with every outfit she wore".  I was cracking up...she had a difficult time choosing...but decided that "black goes with everything".

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Okay. So. This little light right here...the one we put in each of the girls' bathrooms to replace the fabulous "Hollywood Lights"....the one that we spent most of yesterday trying to get put up....the one my Hubs had to make a 101 trips to Home Depot for....the one my Hubs almost put his fist through the wall for in frustration...this light is up.

The light is  FINALLY up thanks to our fantastic friend and resident Handy Man Bill Leonard who took time out of trying to finish his own kitchen renovation project to come over to our house and rescue us. What we thought would only take 30 minutes or so ended up having him here for 2 hours complete.

So this simple little light wasn't as easy to install as it should have been....not for Bobby and not for Bill...but it is up!  Thanks Bill and thanks Jodi for letting us borrow your hubby...yall are the BEST!

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I am working on getting this house organized and let me just tell you that we have a ton of stuff. Our girls have a ton of stuffed animals and such....this is a tub of "friends" Ashton just can't seem to part with (and this is after going through and getting rid of a bunch). 

I think stuffed animals are cute but I am not a fan of the space they take up!

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This evening we kicked off our long weekend with a super fun cooking party to celebrate Sweet Anna's 6th birthday. Miss Gina did a fabulous job (as usual) planning the evening and my girls absolutely LOVED it!

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Landry brought home her first piece of "work" today.  This little girl was so excited and it was soooo cute!  We hung it on the fridge for Daddy and Ashton to see when they got home.

She explained to Daddy that she didn't draw dogs...she drew  DOTS! As you can see by the wrinkles, she has been carrying it around all day. I only wish I would've a) gotten a better, more clear picture of her work and b) gotten a picture of showing Sisser and Daddy!

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Today we got a good soaking from all the rain...it was definitely needed! I am just glad the downpour didn't begin until we got in the garage after we picked up ARB!