Night 25

It's Pluto's last night where he will return in the morning.

Sabotage-Pure Sabotage

Clearly my threats mean nothing. I work to organize my family's life and they sabotage my efforts! I pre-match SKV's clothes, yet somehow she and Kevin (uh hum) pick a shirt from here and pants from there and leave the other items in the drawer. So after working it out, yet again, I told Kevin that we have rules and if they messed up her drawer anymore I'd pick both their clothes out...his response, "Please pick out the clothes." (facepalm)

Now I'm onto the "art" closet that SKV has acquired over the years. It's a royal mess. A mess that I have cleaned, organized and filtered time and again. So for my "Christmas cleaning" I'm back in the small quarters trying to figure out how it came to this...again. After going up and down the hall I told Sidney Kate that if her closet got in this shape again I would make her and Daddy sleep in a tent in the yard. Her response, "That would be fun." (sigh)

They are two peas in a pod. Papa Cox resides in both of them. Embree Claire and I are in trouble.

Night 24

Pluto and the tooth fairy had a night of play.

Night 23

Reading about Tink's adventure with Tinkerbell herself! I bet Pluto is star struck!

Night 23

Just hanging around...waiting for his girls to return.

Night 22

Who doesn't love camo? Especially if it's elf camo?

Night 21

The girls got furbies from Gran Mary and Papa....Pluto is taking his turn talking to them. 

Sent from Carrie's iPhone

Go P-Pack!! Wooooo!

If anyone ever wondered who the Venable family cheers for...

The youngest is working on getting the crowd pumped...nice work!

Night 20

Ice slide?!

Night 19

Uh oh! Pluto's annual decorating spree! I know two little girls who won't believe this!!

Night 18

Present diving...

Writing...my First Diary

Sidney Kate is working hard on her writing and spelling. I'm pretty impressed with how well she is doing-considering I don't feel like I've worked with her nearly enough. This just goes to show you how awesome our CMCC and BHT teachers do with kiddos!
Her letter was her personal vent on the fact that ECV was wearing a rain jacket that she probably wore once in her entire life. It's now too small but she was still upset with this today. I guess this was technically her first diary. :)

Eating in Public

So how do you handle a screaming child who wants to continue to crunch up a bag of chips by slamming it into the table? Whip out the camera and take some selfies. This distraction only lasted a bit...

Night 17

They had great giggles after seeing Pluto in ECVS boots today-I am sure they'll shriek over this simple move. 

Sent from Carrie's iPhone

Night 16

These boots are made for walking...

Night 15

Pluto is worshipping under the tree. Reading the Lord's Prayer and Friday's prayer from Give me Grace.

Night 14

You guys should see this upside down!

Sent from Carrie's iPhone

Big Sister Crutch!

SKV will forever be the best big sister! She was leading ECV to bravery! This is her second year enjoying Santa and she had no fear hopping right up in his lap. ECV reluctantly stood close holding her hand and finally smiled big!

The Santa Approach

He entered the building...ECV couldn't run fast enough to daddy. She sat in the safety of his arms, snuggled with her big sister. He got closer and closer until he was high five distance.
Good Santa! Ease into it

Night 13

Do you know how hard Elf Selfies are? These little elf arms just aren't long enough! However Pluto managed to grab a few friends and snap some sweet pics.

Night 12

Pluto is trying to help the girls with their finding skills. They give up so easily.

Best Big Sister EVER!

I've recently learned that ECV throws her leg on SKV nightly and says, "Rub me See-Kay!" Being the awesome big sister she is...she rubs her leg. Apparently till she falls asleep just like this.

Night 11

I guess if ECV won't sleep in her bed-Pluto will.

Night 10

Someone must have heard there was fresh candy in the house from the parade.

Night 9

Pluto must have had the same kind of day the rest of us had.

Night 8

I think Pluto is taking advantage of the toys. He seems to have a booming business though-making money and he's in high demand.

SKV celebrates 80 bear paws tomorrow with hat day-she told us NO HAT. Maybe Pluto can change her mind.

Night 7

Pluto's annual TP of the tree...

Night 6

Close call tonight! Pluto was not in his take off place, the bar, like usual. After searching high and low we had to go into SKVs room on a mission and failed horribly, waking both girls up. After we explained that Pluto might not be able to fly away and Santa might change the touching Pluto policy-everyone started searching. Kevin found him in SKVs closet and ECV fessed up by saying, "Oh I hide him." Then she went through the motions of what she did. Entertaining to say the least!

Night Five

Someone seems bummed he wasn't invited to see Frozen with the grandparents tonight. His response is gathering his royal friends for a midnight showing.

Night 4

Someone wants to go to school with SKV.

Night 3

He's opened up his own restaurant!

Night 2

Pluto missed the girls tonight. So he slept in their bed.

Pluto's Return! Night 1

Messy and exciting return!

Tired Girl

Today was the last working day before Thanksgiving break. Daycare lost power midday and someone had to come home. Missed naptime. Technically they could have napped without power right?

My Momma-Their Grandma-Our Joan

I remember being sick as a child and my parents telling me that they would gladly be sick in my place-that they would take my germs, suffer the symptoms if it meant that I'd be healthy and pain free. This happened probably every time I was sick and miserable with ear infections, eye infections, stomach bugs and more. I think all parents wish that for their kids. Of course, it's one of those things that you probably never really understand until you have kids of your own. And even having kids of my own, it's not that easy. It's a type of magic that one can't do-I could never take away germs from Sidney Kate or Embree Claire and make them better-but I tell them that I would. If God allowed me such power I would be all over it.

However, over the past three weeks my mom has come as close as anyone could to making this happen. She has sacrificed herself, and indirectly my "Deddy" to help take away the germs of my household. For some strange reason, our home has been bombarded with germs, upon germs, upon germs...nonstop the past THREE weeks. I'm not talking little sniffles and tickle coughs...I'm talking "belly hurts," high-endless fevers, stomach bugs (and all that comes with it), more, random high fevers, sore throats, eye infections, ear infections, body aches/pains and runny...everything. But not once, when she was phoned, did she say no to my calls and requests for help. "Help keep a child so I can go to work", "help keep a child so I could heal myself", "help me not lose my mind because everyone is sick and there is no standing adult left in this house to properly care for a toddler." Every time she was needed she said yes and, in turn, sacrificed her health, knowing that more than likely she would be sick next. She said yes to help us survive the illness so we could get better-faster. She couldn't take away the pain and make us healthy but she sure made being sick a lot easier. Talk about a bright spot during a storm-that would be her. What a blessing from God: to have a mom who is a caregiver by nature...just like her mom. 

Now that we are on the mend...she's sick. The picture above is Embree Claire cleaning at Grandma's...I wish we could just arrive at her house and clean those germs away for her. Since we can't-let's all say a prayer for Momma-Grandma-Joan...BEST MOM EVER! :)

Entertainment

I'm glad someone(s) feel well. After two weeks of the stomach bug followed by Mommy and Daddy having sinus mess-the girls are back to playing.

Last night I had a 103 temp (after my dr visit of course) and...Kevin happened to be in Charlotte watching the Panthers beat the Patriots. So this is how my "Mom-of-the-year" night began. I picked up the girls, fed them McDs (Dr. Fuhrman and I shudder), put them in the bath with directions to "bathe yourselves," after putting their hair in ponytails bc we were skipping that, then pjs for all and every girl in the house was in the bed at 7:30.

Overall the parenting part was a success. The girls took great care of me-only fighting over who would take more care of me.

Today Kevin was off-I guess you get rewarded for a night of NFL that way. He handled kiddos and noticed ECVs eye was red so he took her to the dr. She's had an infection from drainage and will be clear for school tomorrow. These were taken when he got home from getting SKV.

Ugh...

TEETH! Vampire teeth!

These teeth might be the best Halloween thing they could have gotten. They have enjoyed them so much!!!

Pumpkins 2013

Here are our carved pumpkins!!

First LOOSE Tooth!

Oh my goodness someone has a loose tooth. This is HUGE!!!! She discovered this today and she has let us both wiggle it-she's so impressed with her tooth-all moveable and stuff! Now we await the big fall/pull out. I sure hope whatever fairy she gets has been pinning ideas on Pinterest because I sure haven't. Hope that fairy also knows two children sleep in that bed. Good luck toothtfairy-FYI she's expecting round coins-so you're lucky it's not paper. I know the government is currently shutdown-not sure how that impacts your business.