what Hayley said

My two favorite moments with Hayley in the past 2 weeks:


About a week ago, we were at the parsonage and Hayley had a whole stack of papers with foam stickers on them that she had done in the nursery. She was spreading them out and picking them up and stacking them and her general assembly of busy-body-ness. She asked me to lay them out, and it was one of the few times I didn't have anything else going on so I was just playing with her, so I spread them where she pointed and asked, the very first time she asked at that, and when I got done, she said "I'm so proud of you Mommy!"

oh.my.word.

Last Friday we were decorating the house for Christmas as is our day-after-Thanksgiving tradition. For Christmas last year Hayley had gotten a Veggie Tales Nativity...

(photo from Amazon)

So Michael was unboxing/un-plastic wrapping the pieces, handing them to her, and she was putting them on the little table next to the tree...the designated "nativity" place... He handed her the last piece (the baby Jesus in the manager) and she took it, turned immediately back around to him and said "No More 'Nough Room!!" y'all. We had not even read her the story yet...and while she meant it quite literally - she didn't have any more room in her line of characters for him to sit... we did the only thing we knew to do, "No baby, there wasn't enough room...but we'll make some..."

My Favorite Christmas...WORD

My favorite Christmas...WORD:::


BEHOLD!


Stay tuned for more of My Favorite Christmas... STUFF in the next few weeks.

no lie

I just had someone in my office... she told me she was dyslexic...

except

She said she was dyselic.


I. AM. NOT. KIDDING.

overheard

in regards to Bowen...

"her loves me..."


"her wants me to hold her...."


"her huggin' me..."


"her won't let go of me..."


"her got me wet!"

an update to the email progression

These are the next 2 emails in response to the one I posted here...

5 minutes ago, different sender: Mama typed in wrong date.The christmas party at boone's will be on sat, dec 4, same time, same place. Excuse her typing abilities.

2 minutes ago, original sender: ALSO, I FORGOT TO SAY IT IS $5.OO PER HEAD, HAVE CORRECT CHANGE PLEASE

That's right.. we may be your family, but we are not the bank...we don't give change, loans, or credit, so you better be on top of your game.

reason #5476809

as to why I love my big crazy Southern family. (the below is an exact replica of an email!)

WHAT; CUZ CHRISTMAS PARTY


WHEN; DEC 12TH-REGULAR TIMES

WHERE; BOONE’S BAR AND GRILL

MUSIC; SAME DJ, HE IS READY FOR US

BRING YOB, AND A DISH

Morning Person

This morning around 6:45 Michael opened the door of Hayley's room... so that she would wake up and come on out.... About 2 minutes later we hear her at the door... she peeks her head out and says "Hayley go back night night" and shuts the door. We were speechless, until....


bahahahahaha

That's my child.


She only stayed "night night" about 2 more minutes. But oh.my.word. It totally made my day.

A Quick Confession

Its payroll day and I need a momentary mental break.

I have a quick confession. Some of you may know this about me, some of you may not.

I love ... a Countdown! Best of the 80s - I'm There! Top 40 Songs of the Decade on CMT - I'm There!, Top 100 Songs Ever - I'm There!

Hencetotherefore, I stayed up to midnight Monday night watching a countdown. Which, if you do the math, means I got 2 hours of sleep before Bowen got up the first time. Guess who was practically dozing in the glider while feeding the baby? Just don't report me to the CPS or Hospital... you know you have to sign an agreement now on discharge that says "if I'm too sleepy, I won't...."

hayley's version...

fridgefrater

Your welcome

Clearwater articles are now up to date.

You can access all of them by clicking on the "Clearwater" linky over here to the right.... and not have to search month to month.

a'coming

Last night Hayley and I were playing in the floor, per normal...

All of a sudden she looks at me all bright eyed and says "liberry comin'! liberry comin'! Everybody clean up, liberry comin'! Yay! (and started clapping her hands) "Get in circ mommy get in circ, libery coming, yay! (more clapping)

Then she brought me a book to read.

I'm guessing Tuesday is libray day at Sha Sha's.

I'm just glad to know that she loves it.

TA DA

Another night of Big Girl Panties for Hayley! Wooo Hooo!!

I've made the executive mommy decision and am not buying any more pull-ups.

Hoo. Ray.

I also have to apologize for not posting my Clearwater articles recently... I will try and do that tonight if I get some alone time with our computer... so that I can catch y'all up... If you'd like to get Clearwater in the mail just send me an email with your address and I'll get you all set up! I really want to get us a map to mark all the places we send it to. We've got 2 overseas to different military bases and we've got at one in California and lots of other states. I think its so exciting!

We became World Vision sponsors a few months ago and I got my first letter from Ghana. I was like a kid on Christmas, it was so exciting!! I have always loved a pen pal!! I sat down and wrote her back the very same night! Now I just have to remember if I mailed it or not... hmmmm....

We also packed our Operation Christmas Child boxes this week and sent them for delivery. Yay! It was so much fun to shop for those little boxes. Michael says I think way too much about it... but I really, really want my kids to like what they get. And I even caught myself trying to make sure that there were even amounts of candy... I mean, and I don't even know if they'll go to the same drop off point, so really, why does it matter?? But it did!! And then I was taking such care packing it just so...when I thought about that it has to be looked through for contraband, so there goes that too... Like Michael said, I probably thought too much about it. I put our address in with our boxes so I hope to hear back from one of the kids, but who knows. And even though you didn't ask, yes, I sent Georgia Bulldog cups and footballs for them. A little red and black goes a long way!!!

: )

new to us is just as good!

We got a box of hand-me-downs today.... guess what was Hayley's favorite???

squash

Tonight Bowen got her first dose of baby food. Squash to be exact.

She
Ate
Every
Bite.
The
Whole
Stage One
Container.


Baby Girl was hungry.

hayley's big night

So Saturday night, Hayley slept in Big Girl Panties. All night long. And she got up in the morning. She was dry, the bed was dry, the panties were dry. We were fabulously excited.


Then she asked to wear a pullup all day.... hmmmm... do we just not buy anymore?? Since we know she can do it???


PS I'd like to claim it was my excellent mothering and potty training skills that prompted said event... that however, would be false information. I just forgot to check what was on her bottom before bedtime.

dear sunkist

Dear Sunkist,
I have been a loyal fan for most of my life. I have only abandoned our friendship in times of pregnancy. That is, until now. I had forgiven you for disappearing out of the vending machines at work. I had even extended that forgiveness to disappearing in 20 ounce bottles at the gas stations. However, now, I am drawing the line. I purchased a case of you *just like I do every 2 weeks or so* just the other week. When I opened your first can, it was flat. And so on and so forth through the whole case. I sent you a polite little letter on your website telling you about my less than stellar purchase. You were kind enough to respond, I'll give you that, but I will also let you know, that I will no longer be buying your product. You sent me a $2 coupon..um, hello, that doesn't buy a whole case of your soda... if you were still in 20 ounce form, that would buy 1 of you and give me a few cents in change back. This is entirely unacceptable... I have been a loyal customer for life and have never sent in negative feedback to you before. I am not an abuser of the Customer Service process. However, you have insulted me with your meanial coupoun. Hencetotherefore, we are done.

a cute little laugh

Bowen is coming into laughing... its too cute when you can get her tickled. Last week we were having "one of those days" and it was just chaos and whining and crying and stuff everywhere and way too far behind to even know where to start. Bowen had been fussing the whole time we'd been home from daycare and we had entered "survival" mode. So I put her on the floor, much to her dismay, to fix her a bottle and try to get her to take a nap (and hopefully wake up a happy baby). I was well-focused on the task at hand when I heard Michael whisper "Meghan...come here... look at this..."

Bowen had rolled over on her tummy. Hayley was about 3 inches from her face and she was talking. Then she'd stop and Bowen would chuckle. I got closer and this is what I heard "you no tee tee in your pants boa...you no tee tee in your pants" *chuckle* "you no poop in your pants Boa you no poop in your pants" *chuckle* and it continued for 3 or so minutes. It was bliss in the midst of chaos. A perfect moment between those two girls...

a random act of kindness

Its been over 6 months since this happened to me, but I just thought of it again yesterday...

I had to go to Atlanta in spring for work... of course, the meeting was in some downtown, tend-to-be-sketchy surroundings, in a pay per the hour lot... we pulled in and were trying to get our ducks in a row to get out when there was  knock on my window... I may have had a small heart attack, this is Country Come to Town and all... I rolled down the window and this guy offered us his parking pass.. He had paid for a full day but was leaving... so we took it, and check it, it was legit, so we pulled into the space he paid for and went about our way, passing a guy who begged an apple off Mom in the process. We decided giving an apple was better than money anyway.

So then when we got through and walked down said sketchy block again and got into our car, we saw another car pull up... so we paid it forward... and passed the slip that was passed to us to the next guy.

A random act of kindness in a town where it was unexpected.

It still makes me think "what a nice thing to do" ... that guy didn't know us or owe us or nothing, he just saved us some money by passing along what he had already paid for.

dear applicants

I am glad that you have decided that getting a job is in your favor. If its not too much to ask, please make the following considerations before you submit your application...


1. If your email address involves nicknames, references to sexy, boo, or anything else that gives me a glimpse into your personal life, please don't list it as a means of contact on your application. If you don't want to part with your identity as "miss thang" then at least get a new email address that is generic that you can use for applications.

2. If you are going to list your cell phone as a primary means of contact, please consider changing your ring back music from Saturday night jams... you may also want to re-record your voicemail. just a thought.

3. English is not a foreign language. Please don't list it as such.

Sincerely,

Meghan

Children's Books

Let's have some fun with kids books... if you are in my family, don't buy these books for us...we already have them! But if you're joining in from Five Halos, welcome and read on!!

We have read this and read this and read this until we can now read it without opening the book!!


(photo from Amazon)
Bright colors, good little rhyming rhythm to words... "One little rain drop, dark dark sky... two little rain drops clouds go by...." counts up to 10 then back down!


(photo from Amazon)
A really fun rhyming book with a fun little rhythm to read! I love it way more than Hayley does, but its just so stinkin' cute!! Everyone in the house has a different snore but only one snore wakes everyone up!



Another Hayley favorite...counts up to 10... fun little rhythm too! "One pig wants potatoes so mama starts to cook, then one pig's little brother decides to come and look..." very cute pictures with hidden gems in them (the papa pig has potato skins for hair! the birds are drinking the spilled lemonade!) for your little reader to find funny!



This is Hayley's new favorite book... "I love my tutu I don't care, I wear my tutu everywhere!" A cute little diddy about Tilly who wears her tutu everywhere... ideal for little girls who are getting ready to start dance!


(image from Amazon)
Cute little book about the manners of "asking." Geared more for early elementary aged kids as the pictures show more than there are words to explain... but who doesn't love an alligator?


Well, there are the Top 5 Most Read Books at our house!! Enjoy!

flying ladybug

happy cow

lady bug boo

oh yes!

(Image from Amazon, Squirt is a Disney Pixar superstar (in my book anyway))

FOUR DAYS and I GOT IT!! For less than $10 might I add!

She is going to be so cute next year... if it fits...if not, somebody is going to be super cute next year!!!