Family Portrait

The other day, Sophia brought home a picture she made at school. It's a family portrait.

This is me. 

 This is Sophia, the little person in the middle.

This is Russell. 

Great job Sophia!

Dear Christopher Columbus,

Dear Christopher Columbus,

     I would like to take the time to thank you  or I guess I should say, thank you to my school district for giving us the day off today. It was really fun scrapbooking with Sophia. She made her first scrapbook. I cut up some of my cheap Halloween paper stash into 6 x6 pieces. Used my crop-o-dile (a heavy duty hole puncher that is a must of you make scrapbooks and need to punch your own holes). I had some binder rings on hand and, viola, we had a scrapbook.

Sophia got a little experimental with her materials (lucky for me, I'd had that pink stamp pad forever and didn't really care about it).

I've decided that I should go through my sticker collection and discard what I didn't want. That stash will be Sophia's new stash. And binder clips! A must to make the scrapbook more official. I must keep those on hand!

It was fun! And while I helped her with her book, I was also able to throw together a 2 page spread for her album. We had a really great day! We had meant to get out to a park at some point but it didn't happen.

We topped off the day with making pigs in a blanket. Sophia loved rolling those little piggies up.

So thank you Christopher and my school district for giving us some fun, family time!

Love,

Erin

The Perfect Weekend

On Saturday, we cleaned all morning (not fun, but it needed it and it felt good after it was all over). Russell didn't have to mow so he HELPED ALOT!

 I had enough time to add my newly made tags to my blocks on the mantel ( a class taken last weekend).

I even had time for a new creation. I got the idea off of Pinterest.

Sunday morning, we woke up at 8:30 (woot! woot!). Actually it was Russell's turn to sleep in so I got up at 8:30 (I had my sleeping in turn on Saturday morning). I woke up to the sound of rain. A soft, steady rain. It was music to my ears. Well, I woke up to that and "MAMA!!! I'M READY TO GET UP NOW!" over and over. It's so funny to Russell and I. Maybe because I actually remember getting out of bed as a child and shutting my bedroom door and playing quietly. But Sophia WILL NOT get out of her bed. When we try to explain that she can get out of bed to reach for her stuffed animal that fell on the floor, she immediately tells us that she doesn't want daddy to put the bars back up. That was our threat early on, that if she didn't stay in bed, we'd put the crib bars back in. And she still remembers that. I wonder what will happen once we get her big girl bed??? I can only imagine.

Back to my magical morning, when I went in to get Sophia, she came out and started saying things like, "Mom, how come my grocery cart is out? Why are my puzzles out? They're my chores and they need to get done". Huh??? Russell and I have been really good about the chore chart on the weekdays because it's routine but our weekends are kinda loose, go with the flow, usually. So we forget the chore chart. But Sophia remembered. Made me so proud.

So we had a totally lazy, relaxed morning and then headed out in the rain to do a few errands. Sophia was totally prepared! Goulashes and all!

Notice the snowflake leggings under there. Actually, you're not getting the complete picture. Dang! Why didn't I make her open up her raincoat so you could see the sundress. You can see it poking out underneath the raincoat. Sophia is under the impression that if it has a little pink in it, it matches and that mixing MANY patterns is a desirable thing. I actually LOVE this because it makes me laugh. She is such a funny girl! Love her!

And the greatest part about the weekend is that it rained all day on Sunday (not good for the Rangers) and the Rangers won their first game in this series! And the Aggies beat Tech!!!! Oh wait! The greatest part about this weekend is that I have tomorrow off! Yep! Gotta love Christopher Columbus!

Chore Chart Update

The chore chart is a hit! Sophia loves it! She must be a task master like her mama. And I'm going to wager that she is going to be a list maker like me as well. As shown on my other blogs, Kaminski's Creations and Perfectly Imperfect, we've been doing it for about 3 weeks now. After much discussion and debate, Russell and I have decided not to pay or reward her for chores. To us, there are things that are expected of you to do and not get a reward for (thanks for your input Tricia, it helped us decide). But you know what, Sophia is just really excited to move her magnets over. She gets a kick out of it. In fact, some of the "chores" she does without being asked and it's become a habit now.

As far as managing money, which is why we considered paying her for chores in the first place, we plan on giving her an allowance and teaching her to save, spend and donate as she gets older.

Fun With the Hardens

This past Sunday, we headed out to the Dallas Arboretum (for the first time in my life) with the Hardens. Our good friend Dyana let us borrow her family season pass so we were all able to get in FREE!!! And parking was even free that day. Saved us a ton of money! It's $12 for adults, $8 for kids and I believe parking is usually around $7.

It was a beautiful morning, nice and cool. Sophia and Atticus (and the dads) had a ton of fun playing chase.

Sure was nice having the dads there to act as handlers.

The fog....just kidding. It was really just the sprinkler system. It was more of a mist but the way the light was hitting it, it looked like fog.

Spooky!

They also have a lot of water features there, this being one of them.

Pure joy!!!

And they had a ton of hills to run down.

They had this fairytale/princess theme for some of their displays. So they had these huge story books for each princess along with some type of display to go along with it. Did someone say princess? It was right up my little princess' alley.

Sophia and Atticus got to sit in Cinderella's carriage. Unfortunately, getting them to look at the camera at the same time in under 3 minutes (they had a time limit and a line) was next to impossible. Plus, this random toddler, hopped right on in and wouldn't leave.

Here is one of the houses made of pumpkins and gourds.

And here are the best buds hugging!

And Sophia even got a peck on the cheek. Or almost.

I managed to get a few of Sophia with some pumpkins. By the way, according to the news there is supposedly a shortage of pumpkins. I found 'em! They're all at the Dallas Arboretum.

And the outing ended happily ever after with naps had by all (except for the dads, their choice).

I LOVE FALLLLLLL!!!!!!!!

Caught! Red Handed!

Well, I think I've caught my candy corn thief. I added new candy corn to the candle holder, in hopes of luring the thief. And it worked!!!!

Caught! Red Handed! So it wasn't Mona after all.

Good thing she's a cute thief!