November 6

I'm thankful for Little Miss Audrey. She is something else. I tell her that all that time, and she replies, "I'm not something else. I'm Audrey!"

She makes me laugh. She makes me want to scream. And then she makes me laugh again. Oh, the joys of a three year old girl!

Singing is definitely one of her favorite pastimes. She will listen to a song over and over and over again, studying the words until she can sing it all by herself. Right now, she loves all the songs from the musical Hairspray...and she knows a lot of the words to several of those songs (it may not be entirely appropriate for her to know all of those words, but at this point, she has no idea what they all mean). The Beauty and the Beast soundtrack is also a favorite. I uploaded this video to Facebook the other day...listening to her sing is one of my favorite things!

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November 4

I am thankful for the month of November. We had a CRAZY October, and November is looking to be much, much calmer so far. I am grateful for some down time and time to hang out at home with our little family.

We have nothing going on this weekend, so we decided to make tonight a family pizza and movie night. I was explaining to Audrey what we were going to do tonight: make pizza, watch a movie, eat popcorn, etc.

A few minutes went by, and then Audrey said, "Mom I gotta get my rolling pod."

"Your what?" I said, with no clue what she was talking about.

"My rolling pod. It's in the basement. I'll go get it."

So Audrey goes down to the basement and comes upstairs with a rolling pin from her toy kitchen. "Here's my rolling pod," she said. "I use it to make the pizza with you."

She is too funny! She did use her rolling pod, and we made some yummy pizza for dinner!
We popped our popcorn, ate it all up and now we are finishing Winnie the Pooh. It is just about bedtime for the girls, and then Daniel and I get to watch a movie too!

November 3

I'm thankful for baby Isla!

She is a sweet little thing, though she does have her stubborn moments. Just ask our physical therapist (who said yesterday that Isla was her first real challenge in all her years of physical therapy)! The girl is happy unless you make her turn her head or lay on her tummy...then, watch out world!

She is making lots of progress in physical therapy though. Huge improvements from when we started! She still has a little ways to go in improving her neck muscle strength. And I'd like to see her start to do better on her tummy (the helmet has set us back a little there). But I'm thankful that she is developing well and appears to be a healthy and happy baby!

November 2

Today, I'm thankful for my computer. I don't really notice how much I use it until it is gone! My power cord died this morning. I can't count how many times today I went to do something on my computer. It's a little pathetic how much I use the computer...but I really do use it for everything. I'm grateful that we are able to afford such a luxury, as well as the new power cord that will be here tomorrow!

November 1

Following Kellie's lead, I'm going to try to post one thing I am thankful for each day until Thanksgiving.

Tonight, I'm thankful for good books! I have spent the past 2 1/2 hours reading a live online chat with Michelle Hodkin, the author of The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer. I read this book recently and could not put it down! (Kellie, you need to read it soon because I need to talk to more people about it!). It is a young adult mystery/horror/romance book. Seriously, there are some good books in the young adult genre! Anyway, it's the kind of book that has more questions than answers. It's also the first book in a series and ended with a major cliffhanger. The next book doesn't come out for another year, so it's going to be a long wait.

I really do enjoy reading a lot. It's tricky to find time to read these days. Right now, prime reading hours for me seem to be between 10 pm and midnight, once everyone else in my house is sound asleep. Sacrificing sleep is worth it for the sake of a good book! =)

October 31, part 3

I really don't like having Audrey's birthday and Halloween on the same day. I suppose we don't have to do anything for Halloween and that could solve the problem. But so far, it's been fun to dress the girls up and go trick or treating with friends.

We just have to accept that it is going to be a crazy day! I wasn't sure if Audrey would be able to handle it all, especially since she was a grump for most of the day. ("I'm just having a hard time today," is what she told me all morning long).

She did a good job with trick or treating though...from posing for pictures to going up to the houses and saying "trick or treat" and "thanks." We walked around our block and Steve and Amy's block. It was fun!

Here are this year's costumes: a caterpillar for Isla and a butterfly for Audrey.

Cael (and Steve and Amy) went trick or treating with us for the second year in a row. Cael looked awesome in his airplane costume!