Guess I am just Full of Love Today

That's all.

I Love the Consignment Store

Because where else can you dress your 4 year old (almost) like this, for 3 dollars?

I love the sun

It provides great opportunities to spend time together outside. Today, Jonah and Ryanne helped dig up the garden and get it ready for the winter. They helped make a compost pile and in the process, discovered a gopher's storage hole, full of roots.

Everyone enjoyed the warmth and I was just so grateful that is wasn't snowing.


Andrew just wanted to take a sunbath with Bucky. Can you blame him?

Operation Baking GALS- Round Four

That's right- I am hosting again for Operation Baking GALS. This is my third time participating and my second time hosting and it just really feels good to be able to support out troops in this way.
This time I am hosting 1st Lt. Carl Hopper. We first met the Hopper's in Athens, before Matt and I were married. They became our good friends and we spent alot of time together. Lia is an amazing woman and without her help (and the help of others), there is no way that I would have graduated. She watched Jonah for me when he was a newborn, so I could continue to go to classes (He was born in the middle of a semester). And then continued to watch him for the next year and a half, even when she was pregnant with her third child. Now that is a true friend!
Our paths split when they moved away and then we moved, but we have kept in touch, mostly because Lia is really good at that.
They are now stationed in Alaska and Carl recently left for his second tour of duty to Iraq.
If you think that you can spare a couple of hours to bake some cookies and send them his way, email me- mareskitchen@gmail.com
If you send it in the flat rate box, it will only cost you $10.95. Cmon ya'll, Give A Little Support (GALS) and Bake!

Silly Girls

I heard Savannah wake up and start screaming "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy" at 5:30. So being the caring mother that I am, I went into her room thinking that I would calm her down, rock her and sleep on the floor. I calmed her down and got her back in her bed and laid on the floor. She laid in her bed and said "RY, Ry, Ry".

Ryanne "Mom, why don't I ever get any sleep?"

Me " Shh, go back to sleep, it is still nighttime."

Ryanne "P-O-P, spells horse"

Savannah "Hose"

Ry "H-H-H-H- Horse"

Ry "Knock, Knock"

Sav "Whose der"

Ry" bottlehead"

giggling and more knock knock jokes

Sav "my turn, my turn, my turn" (I am not sure why she says everything in threes)

Ry "Twinkle, Twinkle, little horse, what are you doing?"

etc. etc, etc

You get the picture. When I realized that I wasn't going to be able to get any sleep and that they weren't going to be quiet, I looked at the clock, saw that it was 6:45 and realized it was time to start packing lunches.

I will leave it at that!

(The time setting on this blog is wacky, it is really 7:15 am)

UPDATE- Ry and Savannah actually fell back asleep as soon as I left their room and slept until after 8, so we only had one zombie- ME! (I got a nap later though :)

Faces for Grandma Becky and Papa Frank

Since I don't really have anything too exciting to say, but I know Grandparents check this blog daily, I am posting some faces!

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas??

Wait a minute, it is still October, right? Thank you snow, for reminding me once again why I wish I lived on a tropical island. I can't stand cold weather!! Looks like we will be watching movies, drinking hot cocoa, and cuddling under blankets for the next 6 months!

She truly is a monkey and I wish I had a cage (jk)

Thanks to this lovely demonstration that Savannah so willingly showed us, we now know exactly how she ended up in the hallway screaming her eyes out in the middle of the night. We decided she needed a toddler bed and moved her downstairs to share a room with Ryanne.
Jonah was delighted because he now has his own room upstairs and doesn't have to put up with Ry keeping him awake all night. (Jonah is an obedient angel, always has been. Good thing he came first :)
The past few nights have proved to be absolutely horrific. I have never had a crib jumper or a get out of bed a million times a night child. I don't know what to do.
Plus, Ry is not a quiet roommate. It has taken hours to get these girls to go to sleep.
I read books, sing songs, give them rules, etc, but without fail, Savannah reappears moments from when I laid her down and calmly told her to go to sleep.
Then to make it all worse, they wake up at unearthly hours. They are cranky, I am cranky and I don't know what to do. I mean we need sleep, right?
I guess maybe someday I will be able to laugh about it, or maybe it is payback for being so thankful and maybe prideful, that Jonah never did anything like this. Payback for listening to all the horror stories from other people and thinking in my head " I am so glad my kids don't do that". Hmm
So, if anyone has any ideas that work, please let me know.
Is locking the door, so they can't get out, against the law? Heaven help me.


p.s. when Savannah was on top of the crib rail with one leg on each side, she looked up and said "Ta-da!"

Ry finds her costume, Bana reads to and rocks her baby, and Jonah's date with Grandma as Indiana Jones

If you know Ry, you know that she is obsessed with horses. All kinds- unicorns, pegasus', ponies, all of them. She spends most of her time on all fours, galloping on her "clip-clops" (That is really what she calls them)
Well, we found her the perfect costume. Even more perfect was the price. We found it at a local consignment store yesterday and she has been wearing it ever since. Perfect!

Savannah is obsessed with her baby. She reads to her baby, feeds her baby, takes her baby everywhere and we even got the cutest video of her singing rock a bye baby the other day.

Singing and Rocking (with a few kisses thrown in)

Jonah's elementary school had its little Halloween Carnival over the weekend. I didn't really feel like going (it was so crowded last year), so I let him go with Grandma on a little date. He dressed himself like Indiana Jones (notice the name-tag) and even tied his little whip around himself without any help. They had the best time, playing games, eating food and having a date! I have the best mom in the world!