Happy 8th Birthday Madison Grace

All I ever wanted to be was a mom.  Eight years ago today you made that dream come true.  I will forever be grateful to God for blessing my life with you.  You are my firstborn, my buddy, my sidekick and all my dreams come true!  I love you Madi Moo!  Love, Mom

Moments that make me smile

Saying goodbye to my babies as they go off to school and daycare and coming to work is never fun.  This morning I walked into work and went to unlock my door and found this message on my dry erase board.  Is this not the cutest and sweetest thing ever???  I particularly love how Madi spelled awesome!  

And even more snow...

We have a horribly sloped yard which is usually a bad thing; however, when it snows... IT'S AWESOME!

SNOW ON CHRISTMAS DAY!!!!

This was a beautiful snow.  I love how it covered the trees and made everything look like a winter wonderland!

Christmas Morning

This was the first year we spent Christmas morning at our own house instead of my parents.  I was a little sad being that this was the first Christmas I have ever spent away from Mom and Dad but I felt it was important to start some of our own traditions with the girls.  I think it went pretty well!

Christmas Morning Bed Head

Madi reading the letter Santa left

Rylee insisted on putting on every new clothing item she got

Very important call... Santa perhaps?

 

Cheap Halloween Crafts with the Kids

Ok, so yesterday I showed you a table full of cereal boxes.  Today, I show you homemade and basically FREE Halloween decorations.  Keep in mind that our decorations are a work in progress and there's more to come. (Did I emphasize that enough?)  I mean who in the world puts out one witch's hat and one haunted house and calls that decorating for Halloween???? Certainly not me - daughter of Wanda Faircloth - queen of decorating for holidays!!!! (One day I'll post an assortment of pictures of Mom's decorating to prove my point).  

Now, on to the decorations!  

See how this

 turned into this...

and this!

How it went down.

1st - Remove clothes from Rylee as she likes to paint decorations as well as herself!

2nd - Disassemble cereal boxes so that you can paint the inside surface 

(the outside of them is a little too slick).

3rd - Draw patterns and paint

4th - Cut out and assemble 

* Note: for the witch's hat brim we gathered some ribbon using thread and then formed it into a circle that we then hot glued onto the hat. 

 

Goulish looking child in the back also made by me!  :)

Getting Ready for Halloween

SPOOKY!

Check back tomorrow to see how these cereal boxes were transformed 

into this year's Halloween decorations!

The Harvest Moon

One of Madi's homework assignments yesterday was to go out and look at the harvest moon .  I love fun homework assignments.  Moon watching is so much more fun than math  - right?  

After bath time , when the sky got dark, we went out onto our back porch to see the moon.  The only problem... our house is kind of  nestled down in a valley and the moon was barely visible behind the trees.  

Not to be defeated, we jumped in the car - PJ's and all  - and went exploring until we found the perfect spot to view the bright, beautiful moon.  Enjoy the pictures below.  I wish my camera had a better zoom on it because the moon looks so small in this picture but it was actually very big and bright in the night sky.

Then it was back home for story time, prayers and kisses and hugs goodnight!