Reality Check

Do you ever have those moments when something you read or hear hits you like a ton of bricks and you know without a doubt that God put it right in front of you for a reason?  Like He's talking straight to you and no one else?  That's the kind of moment I had when I read my devotion this morning...

1 Timothy 6:6-7, 17-19 ⁶ But godliness with contentment is great gain. ⁷ For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.¹⁷ Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. ¹⁸ Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. ¹⁹ In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.

Contentment.  That's a hard one for me.  But it's exactly what I needed to be reminded of as lately I've let my mind think way too much about what kind of car I'd like to get next, how I would love to have a bigger house, how I'd be happy if I could just get this or get that.  How foolish!  I have more than I need and most everything I want, and who am I to think I need more, more, more?  I've gotten several emails lately about different ministries in our church who are getting food and toys together for those in need during the upcoming holidays.  That's a good reminder of how blessed we really are.  I never give a second thought to where our next meal is coming from or if we'll have a place to lay our head at night.  And here I am letting my thoughts and time be consumed by such trivial things like a new pair of Fall boots, a better car or a bigger house.  Talk about a reality check.  Our pastor has said several times that he's never seen a hearse pulling a U-Haul.  Think about that one.  What I am left with after reading those verses several times over is that using what we've been blessed with in turn to bless others is what it's all about.

Speaking of...

This child could stand to bless some little girls with the umpteen dozens of baby dolls she has.  She turns the living room into a daycare center every day and has more than she could possibly play with.  That's precisely why we keep the sentimental stuff and take the rest to the Neighborhood Christian Center and the Salvation Army every year before Christmas.  It's a huge lesson for the girls.  They didn't understand it at first, and Cate still asks if we're just letting other kids "borrow" their toys with the hopes of getting them back one day.  Truth is, they never, ever miss them because they still have plenty.  This is what I need to remind Santa of when he tends to go a little overboard in December...
Can I get some accountability on that one?!

Trick-or-Treat!

I don't know about y'all, but I don't think I've ever been so glad to see November 1st in all my life.  I'm officially October'd out.  Granted, I have loved every minute of every last Fall Festival, pumpkin patch trip, Halloween party, pumpkin carving event, etc. But if October had 32 days, I might have to be committed.  Please tell me I'm not the only one?!  I think this must happen the older your children get and the more involved they are in things.  Surely so.  And while we're on the Halloween subject, how do you feel about it? I'm curious to know.  I have a sweet family member who is very dear to me who for Biblical reasons chooses not to let her family participate in Halloween.  I'm certainly respectful of that.  Our children have no clue that there's any dark or wicked connotation whatsoever.  At our house, it's not Satan's day.  We give God the glory every day, so I see nothing wrong with dressing my children up in fun costumes and going around the neighborhood filling a basket full of candy.  They genuinely think that's all there is to Halloween.  I might feel differently about it once they start seeing that there could be more to it than just that.  There's no doubt that it will happen eventually the more they're around other kids at school.  But I also firmly believe that if we're doing our job raising them right, they'll be perfectly fine and keep the focus where it should be.  And now I'm officially off my soap box...

That said, we had the best Halloween ever.  The Tourneys came over to trick-or-treat with us which always makes things crazier, louder, and "way more funner" as Buggy says.  Before they arrived, I told J we could take turns getting a picture with our little witch and Dorothy.  I always hold up my end of the deal...

 And then when I look back at the pictures he's taken, his fingers are in front of the flash and the picture is black, I'm mid-sentence, scratching my nose, or something like that.  This was the best we came away with...

 See what I mean?  God love him, he tries so hard but I don't think he needs to quit his day job!

Our neighbor, Alicia, is always so sweet to the girls.  She plays along with all their shenanigans like the other day when they left a note on her door asking her to pay $10.99 for a makeover.  We went to Auburn together and were in the same Rush group.  Years ago I was pleasantly surprised when we moved into our house and I found out that she'd be our neighbor.  Small world!  Anyway, she told me she had a special treat for Towns and Cate and that they needed to come to her house first.  So they did...

 They came away with mini OPI nail polishes from Sephora in every shade under the sun and chocolate mud masks for their faces.  The woman knows the way to their hearts, that's for sure!

Finally, it was time for the main event.  J drove a truck home for one reason alone...

 This the only way to do it when you have 7 children and you'd like to come home with all of them present and accounted for.  The daddies manned the back of the truck while the women chauffeured.  Talk about laughing until your side hurts.  I don't think I've ever laughed as hard as I did last night!  I didn't take any pictures of the actual trick-or-treating, but then again...remember how many children we were chasing?  That should speak for itself.  On a different note, have you noticed that most of our pictures lately are missing one important chick?  That would Bethany.  The girl who used to think we were pretty fun to hang out with.  The girl who will be 16 in 19 days.  She's got quite the social life now, but secretly I think that it's fabulous even though I give her a hard time about it sometimes.  She and her friends convened at a friend's house for dinner and a movie.  I don't know if she'd like me to tell you that she dressed up as a ballerina with my gorgeous, sparkly Princess Ballerina Camp "uniform".  She was pretty cute, too.  Maybe you can see her again sometime soon. :)

She did ever so kindly flatter us with joining in on the pumpkin carving Sunday afternoon...

 The girl is a genius.  She gathered all the pumpkin seeds and worked her magic on them to make the most delicious snack I've ever tasted...

 

  I still don't know exactly what she did, but I know it included cinnamon and brown sugar.  Towns even asked to take some for her lunch Monday.  Usually if it's not a Little Debbie she doesn't want it, so I was pleasantly surprised that she opted for something healthy.  Or maybe she just didn't know it was healthy.  That's probably more like it!

 We carved and colored and everything else you could think of to do to a pumpkin...

 Cate is not the child who likes to get her hands dirty.  Towns and Bethany don't mind a bit, but not Buggy.  She might be as rough and tumbled as a little girl can be, but you can forget her voluntarily getting her hands covered in "pumpkin guts"...Towns' terminology, not mine.  Until this year.  She was so proud of herself and made sure she told us several times that she was totally fine about her hands being nasty.  Baby steps.  Of course, she was in the bath tub .5 seconds after we were done because she couldn't take it any longer!

Do you ever get sentimental about knowing you're seeing your kids in a certain favorite outfit for the last time?  That's the way I was Sunday after church.  We've gotten as much use as possible out of these little dresses and they were practically wearing them as smocked shirts...

Never again will I see them all matchy, matchy in their Halloween dresses because next year it just plain and simply won't work.  It's no fun growing up...

After I cover a pumpkin patch field trip and a class Halloween party, I'll officially be able to cross October off the list.  And then, like the girls last night after they'd lasted as long as they could (and went to bed with wet hair), I might be knocked out for a day or two...

All in the name of preserving the memories, of course!

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...