Jesus Is the Reason for the Season and Archie Knows It :)

So proud of Archie for the drawing that he's submitting to the Virginia-Pilot art contest. I really hope he gets published. He made two drafts of this picture and spent nearly an hour drawing it. I am so happy that picked Jesus' birthday as the topic of his drawing.

Archie loves art of all kinds and is obsessed with entering contests. If you know of any, let me know and we'll probably submit an entry. Lots of local papers have them this time of year.

Christmas Preview 2012

Turkey Dash Through the Park 2K FUN!!! The First Race for Grace (and Archie)

It's been awhile since I've run a race, ummmm.ok...before kids. I guess 2K was the right distance to re-start with. I ran with Archie, and Hunt ran with Grace. So proud of them both! Archie got off to a rough start with is shoe flying off and a cramp in his side, but he walked a minute, and then we went slow and steady to the finish. (Well, Archie took off on a mad sprint when the finish line was in sight.) We were definitely middle-of-the-pack finishers, but all the kids got medals. Meanwhile, Grace and Hunt were going great until we got near, Grace fell, and she was (in the words of Hunt) demoralized when we passed them. Nevertheless, I'm super proud of her for going on her own steam all the way. Hunt said she ran a lot of it.

Grace upon entering the trail portion of the run: "What if we get lost in these big woods? How will we ever get back to Maryland?" Hunt said it drew quite a few giggles.

Bunk Bed Fun!

The kids have been begging for bunk beds for awhile, and we finally decided Archie was mature enough to sleep in a top bunk. They're great space savers, and we've enjoyed freeing up the rest of their room. They convert into twins if we want to use them that way later. Underneath, there's a large toy car parking lot nicely masked from sight by the dust ruffle.

 We also have a Lego table corner that the kids love.

A view of our third "extra" bedroom. There's not much in it now so it's a great play room for the kids. Dress-up clothes stay stashed in the rocket ship!

Archie's 20-inch bike!

We've been pretty busy since arriving in Maryland but not too busy to squeeze in buying Archie's birthday bike. We were planning on getting a 16 inch, but the guy at the store thought a 20 inch would give us a lot better bang for our buck. Think he was right, but Archie's had to get used to it! Go, Archie, go!

Greetings from Super Why and Princess Presto!

Archie and Grace are in love with the PBS Kids superhero show about reading called Super Why. While not everyone recognized the characters, I thought it was cute they wanted to be a pair of characters from the same show. I took these pictures one afternoon since I thought it might be too dark on Halloween night.

Funny note: One day before the costumes came out, Grace went streaking out into the yard wearing only PJ shorts and a superhero cape yelling, "I'm Super Why with the power to read!"

There was plenty of Halloween prep to do with pumpkin carving:

We had to do most of it in the midst of a hurricane. I think I said a few posts ago I would never park my car in the garage. By moving pretty much everything into the house or around back, I was able to squeeze the Highlander in by an inch or so in the front/back. This garage was definitely made for a compact car, which we do not have. Parking indoors DEFINITELY will not be a regular occurrence. I just figured since our car is the most valuable "thing" we own, it made a lot more sense to have it indoors than boxes of outgrown clothes and yard toys and the other worthless junk that usually sits in the garage!

I tied down and tarped everything in back.

Halloween night showing off the Jack-o-Lantern! The power was off for about 47.5 hours and came on just before trick-or-treating.

 What a pile of candy!

Beautiful Girls and Surprising Critters!

One thing I love about the start of a new season is getting Grace's new clothes and hand-me-downs out. I love the first time she wears a particularly cute outfit! Not surprisingly, after church the last two weeks, I have had the urge to take Grace outside and snap some pictures. Surprisingly, ran into this guy right by our townhouse! Grace wanted to go pet it, but it didn't let us get quite that close...

On to my girl:

Last week's pic. This jumper was mine when I was her age. It got passed down among all the cousins and came back to me/Grace in great shape! While I let go of most of the 80s-looking-Leslie's-childhood-returns, I thought this was awfully cute when paired with some new boots!