I like this . . . .

This is not my house; and I don't know if my neighbors own guns . . . . but I like it.

Haircuts

I gave both girls haircuts today. I've cut Laney's hair a few times before, but I'd say this was her first "real" haircut.

This was the best "before" shot I could come up with:

And here's after:

And Mariah after:

(And speaking of haircuts . . . . I've been so out of it lately, and my children so neglected, that Mariah cut her own bangs sometime in the last couple weeks without my knowing it. I commented to Mike about a week ago that Mariah had all these little wispy hairs on her forehead. It didn't dawn on my until just a couple days ago that there were quite a few, and they're all the same length and look way too uniform to just be newly growing-in hairs. I asked her about it, and she said she cut her hair in mom's bathroom with daddy's scissors, and she got a little scratch on her head. Lovely.)

Little Laney

The other day, I walked into the living room to find this:

Going Places

Mariah is always planning little excursions. She packs stuff into purses or bags and/or the stroller, and then she's off. I'm not sure where she was headed the other day, but she came to me looking like this:

A few minutes later, I looked out the window and saw this:



She was walking so purposefully, back and forth across the yard--definitely headed somewhere . . . .

Outings

I feel much better when we are out of the house. So, we bought a zoo pass, and I've been taking the girls once or twice a week.

A couple weeks ago, we went to the botanical gardens in downtown Oklahoma City and had a great time.

Halloween Festivities

I'm not really a fan of Halloween. I do like the fun costume part for kids; I don't like the something-for-nothing candy-candy-candy part; I really don't like the scary-evil-spooky part.

We found a way to enjoy the fun part and skip out on most of the yucky part. The girls dressed up as Cinderella and a very cute ladybug. The night before Halloween we went to our ward Trunk-or-Treat. Even feeling sick, I managed to make a soup and some rolls for the dinner (motivated by the fact that our family would have a vegetarian/healthy option to eat).

Before dinner, the kids got to do little carnival activities and then go trunk-or-treating in the parking lot (a much-safer-and-less-hassle option than neighborhood trick-or-treating).

Halloween morning, Mariah got to choose 5 things from her trunk-or-treating loot. She was quite pleased. She ate them all immediately.

Halloween night, we skipped the dressing up and trick-or-treating and went instead to a little party with some of Mike's classmates and their families. We had pizza for dinner, and then the girls played with the other few children there while the adults played "What Were You Thinking." We had a great time, hardly tainted at all by Halloween-ness.

(Sorry again about the random and out-of-focus pictures. The girls just refuse to pose.)

Turner Falls

Mike had a one-day fall break in the middle of October. We joined some of his classmates and their wives and went camping. We loved it!

Turner Falls is about an hour and a half south of us; it's beautiful. Huge falls with a fabulous swimming hole and river. It was a tad cold for swimming, but we'll go back next summer.

The girls had a great time. Mariah especially like "The Castle," which is just that--a castle built into the side of a hill by some guy in the early 1900's. He actually lived there.

We also went on a somewhat treacherous hike to some cool rock/river formations. The girls were very brave in the packs.

Perhaps my favorite part of the trip was that I didn't feel sick almost the whole time (as long as I had food in my mouth). The moment we walked in the door at home, I started gagging again. Aah, pregnancy . . . .

(Sorry about the randomness of some of the pictures. My children will not pose for pictures.)

Leaves from Home

A few weeks ago, Mariah got a "parcel" in the mail from Grandma Shaunna. It contained a cute letter and a bag of colorful fall leaves, collected from BYU campus and Grandma's garden. Mariah loved her leaves; she spent a lot of time deciding what shape each leaf was. (The leaves and thoughtful letter made me a little teary and homesick.)

My Excuse

Our blog has been seriously neglected lately; I hope to redeem myself soon. But I do have (I think) a pretty good excuse. I've been feeling lousy, lousy, lousy! I've been going to bed at 8pm, and sleeping in until 8am; I've been taking a nap during the girls' nap; last night was the first night in weeks that I fixed dinner; I can't enter the kitchen without gagging (or worse); I've read the entire Harry Potter series and several other novels; etc., etc., etc. If you haven't guessed (or didn't already know), I'm pregnant! Little #3 George is due at the end of May. (Somehow I forgot just enough how awful these first few months are to do it again.) We're very excited, and if I didn't have such an amazing husband, I don't know how we'd be surviving. He gets up early with the girls, gets them breakfast, puts in a full day at school, comes home and cleans the kitchen and house, makes dinner, and gets the girls ready for bed before hitting the books again until late late late.

Yesterday and today (so far) I've felt significantly better; I'm hoping I'm on the upswing, and it's not just a fluke. I'll keep you posted.