A Bloomin' Miracle I Tell 'Ya!

I'm not sure what's happened with Halle lately but she loves having her picture taken. It's been a long time coming. Her sisters have never had to be coached, asked or prodded to have their pictures taken but Halle, well, she's just Halle. Yesterday she begged for blueberry crisp and I let her have some and this is the result. She always ends up with food on her forehead. I don't know how she does it but it's extremely cute. And last night she asked to have her picture taken while she was dancing in the living room. I'm really happy to see her personality come out. To "bloom" if you will.

And this morning at 7 o'clock I looked outside (I was quite groggy) and saw that my pumpkin had bloomed! And it was raining. And I didn't trust the bumble bees to do their work so I had to take it upon myself to make sure this pumpkin happens- you know, fertilization. So I put on my tennis shoes (I was maybe grumbling just a bit- or maybe a lot) walked out into the rain and ripped the leaves off of one male bloom, took out the stamen and dropped it in the female bloom. And then I did it again. I was in such a hurry to get out of the rain that I wasn't sure if I'd done it right the first time (plus I don't think I was thinking clearly). Not that it's a big deal, there are probably 10 blooming male flowers and 1 female so it's not like I was messing it up. And apparently that's how much I love pumpkins. I guess you can call me farmer Amy- that sounds ridiculous. I'm a bit concerned because autumn is literally around the corner for us and everything is going to really cool down. I'm hoping this little gal will be able to grow until at least October. We'll see. And if not I'll just be happy with what I get. And next year I'll have two years of pumpkin growing & pumpkin mistakes under my belt which I'm sure will make next year better. I'm afraid I might be hooked.

Because It Was Horrible to My Taste

This past Monday was family night of course, and I made burrito fixings since everybody loves burritos. Mostly. Actually, Chloe and Halle like bean burritos- the Taco Bell variety. I forgot to buy a can of refried beans so they were out of luck. But I did grill some chicken breasts that were marinated in Mojo. I love that stuff (it comes in a big bottle at Publix- do not buy Publix brand, blech) actually I love Cuban food and am very glad that I married a Cuban. Anyway, if you marinate the chicken for about 30 minutes (there's citrus in the marinade and it can start to cook the meat if you do it for longer) and grill it and it's fabulous- and really simple. We made burritos for the girls and all of a sudden Halle spit out something and we asked her what she was doing. To which she replied- "I spit out da chicken 'cause it was horrible to my taste". I wanted to be upset but I couldn't help but laugh.

Something that Travis brought home last night was horrible to my taste too...this pretty little apricot. So sad...

I've never actually had an apricot before that wasn't dried so I was excited to try it. Unfortunately it was mealy and tasteless and dry. I didn't finish eating it. It had to be that particular fruit because Travis loves them but he didn't like this one either. We'll have to try it again sometime.

In other news I've figured out my remaining sickness issue. Yeah, really I have. I'm allergic to TN. That's kind of anti-climactic, right? But I've noticed that my fatigue, headaches, feeling like I have a cold or flu symptoms were the same as when we had the cats. It left when we got rid of them and came back when allergy season started. So now when there's no tree pollen I feel fine, when it's low I start getting sinus headaches and really tired- any more than that and I'm done for. But I'm not the only one. My dad said he used to feel like he had the flu a couple weeks out of every month when he lived in FL. So yeah, that's it. It's nice to know that I'm not really, actually sick. My immune system isn't wrecked like I thought it was and that's encouraging. The not encouraging part is staying in bed for two to three weeks at a time because I'm allergic to trees. I love trees. And I love TN. But it's making Florida look even better. I wonder if I'd be OK vacationing here? We used to vacation in NC and I was just fine. Very sad.

And on another note- I finally have Amanda's schedule! And I don't think I'm going to be all that busy with her stuff. I need to look at it again but she really wants me there for her competitions and for the award ceremony- for which I need at least a semi-formal dress. I don't really feel like buying one of those right now. And I'm having a bit of trouble not being critical about some aspects of this whole thing. I know that acting is my daughters passion and I appreciate that. I just hate the whole modeling, image aspect of it. I found myself being a bit sickened as I watched a little girl of about 5 posing for her dad when I was at Amanda's last practice. She was made up like a little model and clearly that's the aspiration. It's just not my thing. So I need to make it a goal to not judge and be loving and excited for these kids- and adults- that are trying to make a career in a field completely about image. And talent- a lot of these kids are really talented. And this is what Amanda is called to. I'm supporting her and praying for her. I just need to leave my condescending, self righteous attitude...well, I should just lose the attitude. Ooh, I think it worked...I feel much better now ;)

And I think that's all of my ramblings for the day.

Catch-Up

This season is a whirlwind whether or not you intend to do anything. Seriously, busy. Last weekend was the worship arts concert that I was in. The choir didn't really sing much but we were on stage the whole time since it takes a long time to get a choir in place. And even though we didn't sing much it was really nice to be part of the whole thing. I was really impressed with the quality of music from the band and the amazing stuff that the dancers did. There were back flips and front flips and breakdance-looking-gymnastic-type-stuff. Overall it was really cool- I'm sad Travis missed it.

We had snow on Thursday! Which is where I got the new blog header. The girls and I had so much fun and it was that really wet, packing snow that is perfect for snowballs and snowmen. Chloe and Halle made me laugh because they'd make a snowball and throw it at each other but never hit the intended target. Chloe finally just pressed the snowball on Halle's back. Here are some pictures of the snow. Yes, my Thanksgiving pumpkin is still on my front step. I didn't get any pictures of the kiddos because the batteries died but you can see how much we got. I wish I'd had a sled. I did see deer tracks all over our backyard- super cool. Since I don't do any heavy duty gardening, I'm thinking of feeding them.

Travis has been sick for a week and we found out yesterday it's walking pneumonia. I had a temporary freak out feeling when he told me but it's called walking pneumonia for a reason. I'm not sure if I've ever seen Travis this sick for this long. He will have missed a week of work and with the week he took off for my grandma's funeral, I'm wondering if there will be any vacations this year.

Chloe had her school Christmas program last night. This is the first school that has had a Christmas program. I didn't take the video camera thinking that it would be hard to find a good spot to film. But as it turns out Amanda took a message from Chloe's school and mixed it up in such a way that we were 50 minutes early for the show- so we got a front row seat. Travis couldn't go and I was bummed but I remembered that my camera has a video feature and we purchased a 4 gig CF card for it this past weekend so I was able to record some of it- in 30 second intervals. Which you'll find below. It's pretty pixelized but hopefully Travis can pick Chloe out of the crowd. You can see her head right between the Asian girl and Indian boy on the front row. She was very excited about the whole thing and proved it by posing for the camera.

Ah, we're in the silly picture taking days- I'm so excited!

In other news we were able to refinance our house and signed the papers on that this past Monday. I have to admit that I've wondered if we really made a good choice buying this house. When we were buying it and expressed doubt, people would say "its in Franklin" as though that's the end all in buying destinations. I know in Middle TN there's the attitude that everything in Franklin is made with gold- but you've seen my house. Anyway, it did appraise and we're actually able to take some equity out (we had equity? who knew?) and put in new windows and some other yet to be determined improvements. I'm writing a check to the window guy tomorrow for 7 energy efficient windows! That's the whole house. They should be done by the middle of January, although I think rain could push it back to the beginning of February. I hope it's sooner though because I'm cold. I promised pictures of the house in my last post but I've only got this one.

See anything missing? Does this ring a bell?

I thought I'd taken more pictures of the window with the shutters so you'd probably only notice if you've been to my house. When I was painting the wood around the window, I couldn't leave the shutters unpainted because they'd be a different color. But have you ever tried to paint shutters? I finally decided that I didn't have the time and really needed a sprayer so I took them down. In the whole house there were only a couple of things that I liked and the shutters were one of those things. But in the end I think I like the look of the curtain better. It's a little less convenient but it's cute.

And lastly, we've decorated a bit around here. Amanda is crazy-excited this year and started decorating before I had a chance to. My mom gave us her Christmas village that Amanda has very fond memories of. She set that and the nativity up when we got back in town after Thanksgiving. I haven't taken pictures of the whole thing but here's a shot of my little sweeties putting the star on the top.

And that's a wrap. I'm not sure if I'll check in again before Christmas but I hope you all have a merry one.

I Found It!

I finally found the fabric I was lookin for at the quilting shop in downtown Franklin. I picked up some at JoAnn but it wasn't what I had envisioned. And it was pink and orange and not at all the shabby chic style that Angie is going for. This won't be a perfect match but hopefully it will go with the "spirit" of the room. The quilting store was great. I've never been in one before but they had tons of fabric in every imaginable pattern. They definitely had a better selection for what I wanted. I'd show you a pic of what I picked up originally but my camera is completely dead and it took way too long for me to figure how to post a pic using Amanda's camera and software, etc. but lets just say I won't be keeping it. Looking at it now I'm wondering what I was thinking since I don't even like it.

Halle has battled the flu and won this week. She had a high fever for 3 days and so I took her to the Dr. because that is very unusual for her. But the Dr. said it was the flu and that she was on the other side of it and that there was nothing they could do about it. Which was fine with me because I don't want her to be on antibiotics anyway. It's actually been almost a year since the whole tragic mouth incident when she was on antibiotics. She also has quite the scar on the roof of her mouth. I didn't realize that you could have a scar there. But she's much better health wise and I'm happy because she.was.miserable.

And I got a haircut this week! At a super-awesome salon no less. When I lived in Hendersonville the property manager of the apartment complex that I worked at recommended that I go to Fantastic Sam's because a girl that worked there used to do hair at a department store. It's the one that was Proffit's then Hecht's then Macy's- whatever store it was before Proffits which was before my time. Anyway, I've gone there ever since but since we moved to AL and came back I started letting another girl cut my hair. She's nice and my hair always looks fine but there are always spots that she misses. Plus I was tired of driving an hour and a half round trip to get my hair done- and gas being over $3 a gallon sort of pushed me over the edge. I was hesitant to call them because I got my hair done at Micheline's in Lakeland a couple of times and they were super snooty. When I moved back to Lakeland from PC I called them because just before our wedding I decided to highlight my hair with a cap and hook and ended up bleaching a quarter size spot in the middle of my head. So I called and said I needed to have my hair colored, blah, blah, blah and the not so nice guy on the other end said that they'd have to look at my hair and then decide if they'd color it or not. Seriously? So it was a huge relief when I called and they were really nice. I even asked for an internist (cheaper haircut) and she was excited and said they had an appointment available in 20 minutes. It was totally my lucky day- blessed day, whatever, I was happy. Then I colored and highlighted it (with some help from Amanda) and it looks pretty good. I'm looking forward to the day when I can afford to have someone else color my hair. It is such a chore and I hate it. Amanda had her hair done the same day by a guy that had cut her hair when she went to get it done for free during the apprentice class that they have. He had to cut quite a bit off because a lot of it was breaking from all of the bleaching she's done to it. All in all I think we're both pretty happy.

And that's a wrap.

Happy Weekend- End

Hmmm, could it be that I totally forgot to blog about taking the girls to see The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything? How could I? It is a super huge deal since Travis and I hadn't taken the girls to see a movie since Pooh's Heffalump movie came out when Halle was just a month or two old. Anyway, Travis had the day off because he was going to do an acting thing that didn't pan out so he had the whole day free. Tisra was kind enough to babysit Halle and Travis and I had a few hours to ourselves. As per usual we had too many things to do here and dropped Halle off about an hour after we planned to. And as per usual we tried to cram too many things into the day so we only had about tow hours together but hey that's two more hours than we've had in a while and we appreciated it so much.

We decided we definitely needed to see a matinee because it costs *a lot* to see a movie these days. So we checked Chloe out of school in time for the 3:15 showing. And just in case you ever want to know the matinee prices are good until 5:59 PM. The movie was very good. The animation was fantastic-amazing-wonderful. I got a little bored at times, but I got a little bored during Ratatouille. But Chloe was plastered to her seat. She declared it the bestest movie ever and was able to get a free movie poster which she personally hung on her wall as soon as we got home. It was a great family time and I was really glad to be able to support Big Idea.

And speaking of movies, Amanda went to see Cloverfield tonight with a friend. I was unsure about her seeing it since she cries like a baby anytime she gets scared- no seriously. She actually ran out of a screening of a film that was done by some of her Gov. School friends. But Travis read the review by Plugged in Mag and was OK with it and said she could go. But I told her she's not allowed to sleep in our room if she gets scared :)

And it seems that my precious Chloe has passed along her illness to me. I was on a really good streak of not getting sick too, so that's a little frustrating. I thought I'd be better by today but no dice, maybe tomorrow. *But* I think I may have ruled out wheat as an allergen or at least an aggravator to my health and well being. I haven't had any bread in at least two weeks and I'm still constantly having sinus issues so I guess I'm allergic to something else- maybe it's my house. Or my cat. I know I'm allergic to my cat. Or maybe it is wheat but I'm allergic to my cat too so I'm not noticing a difference from not eating wheat. So maybe I should go see an allergist and quit bugging you guys about it.

Oh, and another little thing that I forgot to post about is that our Life Group leader called and asked if I was ready to lead worship at Life Group yet. She'd asked me late last year and I told her that I just didn't feel released to do that yet. But the beginning of the year brought some new freedom for me and that includes leading worship. So I'll be leading worship (with Travis) the first Life Group in Feb. I'm excited but I haven't done it in such a long time that I'm not sure I remember how. But since this is a new season for us my hope is that I'll lead worship in a new way as well. I'm also considering playing the piano for one song that I want to do so I'll really need prayer for that. I can play the piano but I don't play as well as some other people *and* I get crazy, crazy nervous. When I was a minister of music I practiced all-the-time. Mostly because in a church of 250 with a choir of 13 there isn't a whole lot to do. But the pianist and organist kept encouraging me to play for a worship service, which I never did. So I think that this intimate setting might be better suited for me to see how it goes. Um, except that we have professional musicians and a manager for a huge Christian band in our group. Hmmm, maybe they won't be there that night? Or maybe I will just practice like crazy and do this for the Lord and trust him to help me.

And for huge, huge news- drum roll please- Halle went to the three year old class today! As you know, she started going to the potty just days before her third birthday. We've had our ups and downs since then; mostly ups. But she had to be completely potty trained before she went to the three's class. So she's been in the two's for at least three weeks in panties and hasn't had a single accident and Travis decided to take her to the three's class today. I was worried that she might be overwhelmed with pottying and a new class but she did completely fine. Actually, she did even better than she has done in the two's class because her new class does projects and other fun stuff. She even told me about Zaccheus climbing the tree tonight and that she had "so much fun" in her new class. With the trouble I've had getting her to go to her class and her all around clingy-ness, her newfound independence has happened pretty quickly. She's a bit mommy-clingy during the day at home but all in all she's doing so much better.

And tonight was Trav's last night at HD. I'm more excited than I though I would be and I'm not nervous- which I thought I would be. Absolutely everything is in God's hands and I am very excited about what He has for us.

And I guess that pretty much sums it up. And now I'm going to crash because I don't feel well. But at least I had a small respite from sitting on the couch watching TV.

Happy Birthday Halle!

It's Halle's third birthday. I'm excited and thankful that her first three years have been wonderful. She, however, is clueless. Every time I tell her happy birthday she'll say "happy booday to YOU Mommy!" or "IZ NOT MY BOODAY!". So I decided to quit telling her. And I don't feel even the least itty-itty bit guilty about not having a big party for her.

We took her out for dinner last night to Chili's. We could have (and maybe should have) gone to Chick-Fil-A but my parents gave us a gift card for Christmas to Chili's and since it's been six months since the Buttons have been to a for real restaurant we thought it was a good idea. It wasn't. Halle isn't used to having to sit for so long (Chili's was packed and it took a long time for our food to get there) and so there was lots of wiggling and bouncing and trying to get away. And since she was in "big girl panties" for the very first time there were several trips to the bathroom. It was a bit stressful. Then we went to look at Christmas lights and after just a few minutes of that we heard a little voice in the backseat say "I hafta go to da bafwoom". So we headed back home and she "held it" until we got there. So my little one is out of diapers before her third birthday- whew! I wasn't sure we were going to make that one. I can't say that she's completely potty trained because we still have some issues with some things but she's not really having any accidents either. Yay!

"Oh, oooohhhh my eaw huwts, help meeee!" That is the pitiful little cry I heard from the back seat this morning after Halle and I dropped Chloe off for school. She's been sick since Saturday and I've not taken her to the Dr. because she just got off antibiotics and I wanted to wait it out. And now since I know that she has an ear infection I'm more determined to wait it out. Last summer I got some ear drops from the health food store for Chloe and put those in her ear 4 times a day and made sure to give her some Ibuprofen every 6 hours for the pain and she was over it in two days. Halle is watching "de-de-Dowa" (that's how she asks for Dora) right now and has had ear drops and Ibuprofen and seems to be content-yay.

I am REALLY feeling better today. I feel better than I have in close to a month so there are tons of things I want to get done and none of them include watching TV. It's been very frustrating to be sick so often but I know that God is bringing healing and restoration to our house and even though it hasn't manifested itself yet I know it's happening. So, I'd like to vacuum and wash the van. It's so big that I usually take it through the car wash but since the weather is warmer I think it could use a good hand washing. I'd like to work on Chloe's fan blades some more, the problem is that it's not something that I can rush if I run out of time and I hate having to stop painting if I'm on a roll. I think if I was able to have my paints out all the time I would just always be painting. It's like blogging though- if I don't do it regularly I lose inspiration and am not willing to just paint anything.

Amanda really liked the fan blade I did for the girls and I'm thinking of painting something for her birthday. I just don't know if I have the ability to paint what's in my head. I'd like to do and abstract of her- black hair/wild eyeshadow. I haven't begun to tackle faces yet and while it wouldn't look like a photograph of her (abstract you know) I would like for it to not look like a blob. My other idea is crazy simple and would match her bedroom- so I'll fool around with both things and see what I can come up with. There is also tons of cleaning that needs to be done- since I've only done what we absolutely needed to survive lately. I don't want my parents to think they're in a dump. And I need to try to tack down the 15 or so tiles that are popping up on the floor. Bargain tiles aren't always a bargain. Sooo, I'm afraid I shall have to make a list. I don't like living by lists because I don't like to be told what to do- even by myself- so pathetic and I really need to get over that. But I watched a show the other night about a lady that had a set of twins and then had a set of sextuplets! So she has 8 small children to take care of. Now if that was me our house would be in utter chaos. But she had lists and schedules and was so organized. It was truly amazing. I think that I will have to take baby steps toward something like that though.

So for today I will make a list of the most important things that I feel like I can get done today. As it is right now I look at everything that needs to be done and I start doing it all at once. I don't finish one thing before I start in on another thing that catches my eye and forget about the first thing, then I remember the first thing while in the middle of the second or third thing, and the kids are yelling and getting into things and I feel the stress right in the middle of my chest. I actually feel more stressed at times here than I did at my last job. I don't think that's healthy or necessary so I'm going to have to change- change is hard.

I'd also like to get a Pilates session in today because my muscles feel very stiff and it's relaxing. A walk would be nice too....I should get to that list.