Sunday Fun Day

There's not much that can top a play date on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon.  Especially when it involves good friends and pumpkin painting! If there was such a thing as four peas in a pod, this would be a prime example...

Ella and Cate are the same age.  Towns and Madelyn are the same age.  It's pretty much perfection at its finest.  They all get along ridiculously well and love each other like sisters.

After church a couple of Sundays ago I let them take over the front porch and have their way with little pumpkins and lots of paint...

 

They're quite the creative bunch...

 And they took their painting very serious...

 When they ran out of pumpkins, they wrote and illustrated stories on the steps...

Then they left notes for all the neighbors offering their makeover services for $10.99.  That's a rather scary thought given the fact that I know (from personal experience) how these makeovers go.  Let's just say they're, well, really colorful in their makeup choices!

The afternoon ended with a major Taylor Swift dance party on the sidewalk for all to see.  I've never heard so much giggling and seen such moves in my life!

They had a ball and went to bed early...done and done!
We're thoroughly enjoying this season and making the most of the dozens of Fall activities that seem to come weekly.  I think I might hibernate for the winter after it's all said and done...

Fall Festivals Galore

What a week.  It's been a whirlwind, no doubt. In a hurried attempt to get caught up, this will likely be more pictures than words...

DCMS Fall Frenzy came and went and was a big hit with a certain 1st grader.  We didn't find any replacement fish, but we did have Wal-mart vouchers for gold fish which I'm sure parents appreciated immensely.  I know I wasn't too upset about accidentally misplacing our vouchers.  Wink, wink.

Towns promptly secured her place in line to get her face painted...

Cate was entirely too impatient to wait her turn and ended up in tears over it taking so long.  All she wanted to do was hit the big blow up maze...

Who says you can't function like normal in fifty pounds of fluff?  Not Towns, that's for sure...

That's what she picked out that morning and I went with it. How on earth she climbed, jumped and slid with all that poofiness is beyond me!

Both of them took their daddy by the hand and drug him from one end of the school to the other a dozen times.  But then again, isn't that what daddies are for?

Buggy did end up getting her face painted eventually, but opted for the quick and easy method...

Cheek stencils only!
It was hard to keep up with Towns as she wanted to make the rounds with her friends...

Sweet girls!

Fast forwarding a couple of weeks...
Last Friday was Cate's Fall Festival at school.  She's opted to be "Dorfy" for the second year in a row.  I gave her endless options, and she meant she wasn't considering any of them.  She was too tall for last year's Dorothy costume, so we found another one and that's all she wrote...

I'm not sure if I can accurately describe how close those two are.  Cate told me the other day that Ella was "like our forf (fourth) kid."  It's sort of true!
J and I strolled into the big event together and I didn't get a second glance, but someone else did...

That baby loves her daddy!
This was all the love I got...

I'm fine with playing second fiddle when J's around.  She and I are joined at the hip most days which is what keeps me going!

Cate was interested in three things, and three things only.
Ella's brother, Ridge...

Her bag full of candy...

And being a wild child on the big slide...


 J talked her into doing flips down the slide, which led to the other kids trying it out.  One day they're going to ban us from these events...

 I love this little face...

Every time I put her in her car seat in the car, she latches onto me and gives me the best hugs.  Yesterday she told me she wanted to hug me "fa evah and evah" in her little southern accent which made me want to smooch her face off. She's pretty funny.  Last weekend we got out my grandparents' first bedroom suit to paint and put in the girls' room.  Want to know why she started crying when she saw this?

She thought we were moving her outside.  Have you ever?!

One more thing before duty calls...

 

 Do you know what today is?  Exactly 25 days until this cutie will be blowing out 16 candles...

It goes without saying...she's counting down the days like never before!

Just Your Typical Sunday Afternoon

Who would ever think that spotting a U-Haul trailer in a parking lot would bring this much excitement or entertainment?

It's the little things in life...right?

 Makes me think I need a U-Haul of my own to unload a house full of toys on someone else...apparently we don't them to entertain us! 

Fall Frenzy Prep Work

It's a beautiful day for a fall festival...and that's just what we've got on the agenda for this afternoon.  Towns has been looking forward to the magnet school's big shindig, and it's finally here.  She's heard all the hype from the kids in her class who have been before, so she absolutely could not wait for today.  She put on her most sparkly Halloween shirt and a hot pink pettiskirt that's larger than life and off she went skipping into school.  I was put in charge of picking up 300 goldfish for our class booth, the ping pong toss.  I just got a call that all 300 fish I was supposed to pick up in a little while are dead.  Now to find replacement goldfish (individually bagged, I might add - most places aren't so willing to do that for you) so there won't be 300 crying kids come this afternoon...ahhhh, the joys of motherhood!  It's likely to end up being a good story, so I'm gearing up for an adventure.  Somehow we'll have those fish.  I hope...

Towns is pretty excited about the ping pong toss and wanted to get a little practice round in before the big day.  Here you have the ping pong toss...McClendon style!  First, you need to pretend to wait patiently in line since word on the street is that the line for this game is the longest...

Check.  Now onto to practicing her tossing skills...

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again...

Score!

Since this was all her idea, I didn't have the heart to tell her that tossing a ping pong ball into a goldfish bowl isn't quite the same.  But something tells me we'll be coming home with a goldfish anyway.  That is, if I can hunt a few hundred down before this afternoon!

Sweetness

Last night Bethany, Towns and I made a trip to Target while J put Cate to bed.  Towns has been saving her money for something special, but lately it's been burning a hole in her pocket.  She wanted to browse the clothes section.  The girl loves some sparkle, and you're guaranteed to find it there.  We had the best time looking around.  Well, I assume she did, but I know I did.  She's the funniest kid without trying to be.  After spending a few minutes in the big girl section she said, "I'm so not feeling these clothes tonight."  She talks like that a lot which is hilarious coming from a six year old.  Especially when you're not expecting it because she's usually the quiet, reserved one of the bunch.  She suggested that we go look at the clothes in Cate's size.  One thing I love about Towns is her heart.  She truly loves doing nice things for someone else.  She spotted a shirt she thought Buggy just had to have and wanted to spend her money on it.  She reminds me so much of Bethany.  That's the way B has always been.  She's always picking up little goodies for her sisters.  It doesn't have to be anything big at all. It's the thought behind it that's so special.

 When we got home, she meticulously wrapped it up just so and wrote Cate a note to go with it...

I ended up telling Towns that I'd buy the shirt so she could save her money.  It might not have been what I would have chosen, but there was no way I was telling her to pick out something different.  After all, such sweetness trumps my distaste of plastering characters all over clothing.  And she was right, Cate loved it and couldn't wait to wear it to school today...

She might look like a Disney jailbird, but that smile is totally worth it...

Homecoming 2011

Last week was Homecoming for Bethany which is always such a fun week around here.  Float building, a bonfire pep rally, a parade, and then a big win Friday night?  Doesn't get much better than that!

The parade is my personal favorite.  

 These chicks sort of like it, too...

And what they really liked was tearing The Paper Chase to pieces trying to find the perfect colored pony tail holders to go on their wrists like the big girls wear...

Mission accomplished!  By the end of the afternoon we'd made four trips in and out.  Talk about commotion...we created it in that precious store!

Towns was so excited that a couple of new friends from school were there, and I only wish I had a picture of the four of them dancing to the band as it marched by...

Sweet girls!

It's always fun to see the class floats.  I wasn't the only one who thought the sophomores got robbed of winning the competition...

Theirs was so good - definitely not a last place float!

It's all about the memories, though.  Win or lose, I'm sure they had a ball building it together.

Finally, we saw what we'd been waiting to see.  Bethany is of celebrity status to her sisters, and they were so proud to show her off to their friends!

There's just something about seeing this little thing coming down Bank Street that makes me smile...

She's about as cute as it gets...but maybe I'm a little biased!

She gave us a wave, and just like that she was gone...

Friday night she helped cheer the Raiders on to victory which was the icing on the cake.
{I didn't dare pull out my camera at the game as I've been warned about that before...ha!
Thanks JM for doing it for me!}

I say it all the time, but oh to be a teenager again...

Hot Rod

Turn your back for a split second and this is what happens...

She didn't have a clue that anyone was watching her...

Of course, when she realized she had an audience she turned on the charm. She should have been thinking, "oh great, I'm caught" but in all honesty she was quite proud of herself...

  Bless her heart, she loves anything and everything her daddy loves...

 And she's pretty funny to boot...

This little hot rod and her mama are glad it's Friday...happy weekend!

Scars & Skipping Rocks

After a week of looking like she took a spiked club to the chin, I'm happy to report that blondie is looking (and feeling) more like herself again.  I was so worried about what that injury would leave behind.  So far, so good.  Her chin is a bit red, but that's nothing that a little Mederma and vitamin E won't cure.  She was pretty excited when the yucky stuff started peeling off and she could see her "real face" again as she called it...

Her left knee and arm still look rough.  She's getting there, though.  And I'm not sure if she's walking with a sympathy limp or if it really hurts that bad, but I'll baby her all day long no matter what!  Other than that, she hasn't skipped a beat or complained about how she's felt.  She usually milks her ailments for all they're worth, so I have been pleasantly surprised this go 'round.

I don't know about y'all, but if feels like we never slow down.  Tuesdays are the one day a week when we don't have anything to do or anywhere to be after school, so we took full advantage of some much needed down time yesterday. There's no better place to do that than at the park, naturally!

Cate took her show on the road.  She's a clown wherever we go...

Towns loves to give me heart attacks.  She knows better than to climb to the top of the twisty slide, but she does it anyway.  I caught her in the act, and she knew she was so busted...

How quickly she forgets what happens when you don't listen to your mother's warnings!

She changed her tune and told me that she wasn't planning on climbing to the top in the first place...

She just needed a "quick rest" or so she said.

We ventured down to the river, but not before a good dose of sisterly love...

Okay, okay.  I give.  This is what it's really like most of the time...

Except usually it's Cate trying to bite Towns or something other than kissing her.

Both of them love climbing on the rocks and playing by the river...

  That goes way back.  When Bethany and Towns were younger, their favorite thing to do at the park was climb on the rocks and wade out knee deep or so just so they could get their clothes wet.  Some things never change because that's exactly what the girls wanted to do yesterday.  I got their minds off of it by trying to teach them how to skip rocks.  I don't know about your children, but mine take things very literally.  I should have known better than to tell them that the trick to skipping rocks is to throw it "side arm".  Towns hurled her huge rock to the side as hard as she could.  That wouldn't have been a problem had her sister not been standing a foot away from her and taken a blow to the forehead.  I'm not sure how she rationalized that throwing her rock to the side would have allowed it to skip across the water that was right in front of her, but nevertheless she felt really bad about nailing Cate.  I probably should have started the lesson with the tip that small, smooth rocks skip better.  Maybe then Towns wouldn't have been holding a boulder in her hand when she decided to throw it to the side.  All Jonathan could do was shake his head, laugh, and tell me that I should have left him in charge of teaching them how to skip blasted rocks.  Other than the head injury, they loved it...

Between Towns' bike wreck under my supervision and now this rock throwing incident, my dear husband has an arsenal of ammunition.  He's a teaser if there ever was one.  I have a feeling he won't be letting me forget this for a while...