Bring on December

The trees out back are finally bare.

The boy's back on treatments so he can breathe air.

The mantle's updated for the next holiday.

The tree's all aglow in a Christmasy way.

The cards are printed, stamped, and addressed.

Our Christmas books are already a mess.

We're ready to start our first Jesse tree.

We've cued up a movie of the Nativity.

Our homemade wreath is up on the door.

And we've two, count them two, Lionel trains on the floor.

The shopping's all done and hidden away.

Bring on December! Bring on Christmas Day!

Thanksgiving 2010

Thanksgiving's not Thanksgiving without a little this

this

and this.

Scary!  Emily was a trooper, though.  Don't worry about me, I stayed outta the kitchen except for making my annual deviled eggs, which are the extent of my cooking skills, really. :)

Besides the good eats Emily and Lee pulled together to mark the holiday, over the course of our visit to GA the kids did a lot of this

  

this

and this.

And amazingly, there were almost no kiddie squabbles the entire visit.  That's unprecedented!

Then we took a few family photos and settled in to watch Auburn pull out another exciting win in the Iron Bowl.  I love holidays almost as much as I love football season, so I am in hog heaven this time of year.

As soon as that game was over, Josh and I piled the kids into the car and drove off into the night in order to avoid holiday traffic altogether, pick up the dog, feed the fish, greet the freezing temps., and hurry Noah off to the doctor first thing this morning.  Because, really, what's a visit with family without the sharing of germs, anyway?  Makes the holiday magic last a little longer, I say. :)

Anyway, driving all night is a stinker of a job, but we're glad it's done, glad to be home, and we're excited to pull out the Christmas trains and decorations today.  Hoping you are all enjoying this holiday week!

Off the Top of my Head

Did I ever say here that I am off the Ambien now.  Have been for awhile - months actually.  And it's just the coolest thing to me.  My doctor suggested a different approach to my insomnia and I am always up for a new solution.  So she put me on a low-dose anti-depressant and it worked like a charm.  I don't know how or why it works even though she did explain it to me and drew pictures of how the brain and sleep-related chemicals function and how the Welbutrin would balance those things.  That's all well and good, I guess.  I am just thrilled to be able to feel drowsy at night again and to have my brain be able to turn off and drift into slumber like a normal person again.  It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. 

We found a Christmas tree we actually liked this weekend for a price we could actually afford and it just made our day.  We haven't decorated it yet, but I don't mind just looking at the pretty little lights for now.  I love this time of year. 

Anna has been in MDO since mid-August.  That's 3 months.  And in that time she has had 7 different teacher switches.  Kinda ridiculous.  It's enough chaos already. So today we are telling the director we're withdrawing her.  And I'm not really bummed about it at all.  MDO is not as critical to me now as it was when Noah and Anna were babies.  It's so freeing to let another line-item in the budget go and to realize I won't even miss it.

We're hitting the road today for Thanksgiving at my sister's in middle GA.  We're so glad to get ahead of the holiday traffic that will be on the roads on Wednesday.  We're not looking forward to the hot weather that will apparently still be going on there, but what can you do?

Anna just discovered that she can see her reflection in a spoon.  She is quite amused.

I'm looking forward to seeing Harry Potter  with my sister this week.  I'm also so excited about the Auburn-Alabama game on Friday.  War Eagle!

I am making a new dessert recipe this week that is dangerously delicious.  I first tasted it at MOPS and I practically wrestled my friend to the floor to get a copy of the recipe.  If all goes well, you will be thanking me for posting it here next week.  Oh. My. Word.  Duhlicious.

Family Circus

Josh and I took Noah with us to lunch one day last week after picking him up from school.  Noah devoured Josh's lemon that came in his water and then he asked for mine.  "I wike wemon!" (lemon) he announced.  This was only made funnier to us when he chose his drink.  I rattled off 5 different sodas from the menu.  But instead of pointing to one of the soda icons, he reached over and pointed to the big picture of different beer bottles.  Ha!  Praying this was not prophetic - his gravitating to "wemon" and beer.

Josh and Noah do a lot of Lego play lately.  A lot.  Josh is so into it, he even snuck into Noah's room while he was sleeping and brought down a tub of the Legos to - ahem - "sort" on his own.  His comment when I ribbed him about it was that Legos are therapeutic.

Anna was really, really fussy and irritable one night last week.  I reached my limit and cried out, "Anna, you need to go to bed!" and it was true.  But Josh laughed back, "I think YOU need her to go to bed,"  and I laughed, too, because that was more true.

Anna says turkey a lot lately with all the Thanksgiving-related activities and shows and talk going on.  But the way she says it comes out, "Dookie."

Noah got Chewie a little too riled up last night and Chewie accidentally bit him too hard.  Noah wailed and cried and panicked and I held him and blew on his hot little face to calm him down.  Anna got in on the action as well.  She hurried over with her fairy wand and tapped Noah's boo boo to make it better.  Adorable, right?  Not as adorable was the fact that only moments earlier I had to get on to her for sticking that thing up her nose.

Chewie's vices - eating several toys a week and getting into the bedroom trash cans to eat baby wipes, kleenex, and ear plugs. 

I haven't seen The Little Mermaid in years and years and years.  But now that the kids are old enough to watch it, I have.  And it turns out I still know that movie by heart - every single line of the script and every single word of the songs.  I don't know whether to be disturbed or impressed by this.

The Camera Loves You

Yes, my baby girl and my beautiful boy, the camera loves you.  But oh, Mommy loves you more and more and more.

Some of our favorite shots from this year's photo session with Shannon Watson.  Click on the collages to see them bigger.

We'll call this one  
The Many Moods of Anna: An Hour in the Life of

We'll call this one  
My Beautiful Noah, King of the Belly Laugh

Wreaths

I got a little crafty this week and made several wreaths after seeing similar ideas on different blogs.

This one's my favorite and is headed for our front door as soon as we get back from Thanksgiving at my sister's.  The frame beneath the garland used to hang in Anna's room but wasn't used after her upgrade.  So I love this idea even more since it put that thing to good use.  

I made two of these and they will hang on each side of our mailbox.

I am not really diggin' this one so much.  There's just something missing though I can't say what.  And Josh and I think adding anything more would just make it worse. Eh...We'll see where this one's headed.  Maybe I can take it to my sister's for our White Elephant gift exchange.  :)

Amens: Minor Prophets

Notable for Kimmie from the minor prophet books taken from The Message translation.

• Hosea 6:6 - I'm after love that lasts, not more religion.  I want you to know God, not go to more prayer meetings.  (I'll always heart this NKJV also - For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.)
• Amos 4:13 - Look who's here: Mountain-Shaper! Wind-Maker!  He laid out the whole plot before Adam. He brings everything out of nothing, like dawn out of darkness.  He strides across the alpine ridges.  His is GOD, God-of-the-Angel-Armies.  (I still love this in NKJV, too - For behold, He who forms mountains, And created the wind, Who declares to man what his thought is, And makes the morning darkness, Who treads the high places of the earth - The Lord God of hosts is His name.)
• Amos 5:21-24 - I can't stand your religious meetings. I'm fed up with your conferences and conventions.  I want nothing to do with your religious projects, your pretentious slogans and goals.  I'm sick of your fund-raising schemes, your public relations and image making.  I've had all I can take of your noisy ego-music.  When was the last time you sang to me?  Do you know what I want?  I want justice - oceans of it.  I want fairness - rivers of it.  That's what I want.  That's all I want.
• Micah 6:8 - But he's already made it plain how to live, what to do, what GOD is looking for in men and women.  It's quite simple:  Do what is fair and just to your neighbor, be compassionate and loyal in your love, And don't take yourself too seriously - take God seriously.

Amens: Job

Favorite translation from Job taken from The Message.

Job 38:8-11 - And who took charge of the ocean when it gushed forth like a baby from the womb?  That was me!  I wrapped it in soft clouds, and tucked it in safely at night.  Then I made a playpen for it, a strong playpen so it couldn't run loose, And said, 'Stay here, this is your place. Your wild tantrums are confined to this place.'

However, I do also love these same verses worded in the NKJV:
Or who shut in the sea with doors, When it burst forth and issued from the womb;  When I made the clouds its garment, And thick darkness its swaddling band; When I fixed My limit for it, And set bars and doors; When I said, 'This far you may come, but no further, And here your proud waves must stop!'

Can't Believe I'm Saying This

I can't believe I am saying this, but ... we finally did it.

We finally set up a stupid Facebook account.  We, meaning Josh and myself together.  We set up a joint account cuz neither of us is real sure we even want to be on that grid so we just made one together to test the waters, to be less detectable to the general public.  And we really only did it because Josh can't seem to wait til next year like I have been trying to put it off til.  And then Noah put me in time out for saying "stupid" as well he should have.

You would not believe how anxious I am about it.  About the slippery slope it can be, though we swear we have safeguarded ourselves from that.  We pretty much expect to only use this account as a way to see what we'd like to stay updated with amongst people we care about and are already in contact with.  Other than that, we'll  almost not be there at all.  We don't plan on maintaining a page or anything.  We love keeping all that on the blog too much already. 

I'm nervous about hurting people's feeling when we don't accept their invite.  We just can't give our time to people we haven't had in our lives in years and years.  Then again, we don't want to be unfriendly - that's not Christlike. But we have to be realistic about our time ... and about how hard it will be to look away once we do have access to tons of interesting but unnecessary stuff about people we once knew but don't know anymore. 

Oh my word, I am so anxious about this.

But yeah, like I said, we are on FB now - joshandkimberly brown.

We Made It

I made the shepherd costume out of a Jedi costume and curtain sheers.  Josh made the shepherd's staff from a branch off our tree.  Anna made a lot of noise and commotion.  Noah made an adorable David.

  

 

 

Gadgets I'm GaGa For

Pot Strainer.  So much easier to store and clean than its bigger bowl sized counterparts.  Its quicker to use than the bowl types, too.  This cheap thing is one of the best $1.99 purchases I ever made. 

If you are like me, you cringe when your kids drink from juice boxes and Capri Sun pouches. No matter how much you warn, those little hands and those curious minds will squeeze and spill them every time! This bad boy allows my kiddos to drink from juice boxes and capri suns without all that drama.  I keep one of these in the house and one in the car.

Yes, it is as you have seen on TV.  The Twin Draft Guard works great! We even went back for another.

We installed two doggie doors in AL and swore we'd never do dogs again without them.  So when Chewie joined the family, the dog doors were as critical for us to get as dog food.  This one gets Chewie onto the back porch and we have another smaller one that gets him through the door on the porch down into the yard.  Not having to jump up every time a dog wants to go potty or just plain go outside is a glorious convenience and time saver.

I love you My Tot Clock.  I wish I had discovered you back when I got Noah his other timer/nightlight/clock.  I swear by you.  This is the one in Anna's room and it turns light blue during her naps and she knows she can't get up until it turns yellow again.  At bedtime, it turns off (or dark blue if you like the light) and she knows she can't get up in the morning until it turns yellow again.  There is also a red light for time-outs and a green light for whatever other set amount of time you would like to have ready at the push of a button. 

Box Fan.  These bad boys are a nursery's best kept secret if you ask me.  We wasted several years relying on Noah's sound machine to drown out outside noise.  We even got one for Anna when she came along, but neither of those were as soundproof as a plain old $15 box fan.  We have one in both kids' rooms and they pretty much run 24-7. You just don't hear a thing over the hum. 

Although the season for this machine has just ended, it bears mentioning still.  This is a dehumidifier and during the summer months we kept it upstairs because it always felt so much hotter and more humid up there.  I was amazed at how much water it pulled out of the air.  If we ran it all day, it easily collected 2+ gallons a day.  That is a lot of water!

Bark. Collar.  Need I say more? 

Brown Family Photo

We recently got the proofs from our family photo session and I can't wait to share them as soon as I get my hands on the CD.  But until then, I just couldn't help posting Noah's rendition of our family in all its adorable preschool glory.  It's a first for Noah (as far as Josh or I know) so it's sort of a big deal for us.

He's never ever cared to color or draw and to our knowledge he's never drawn actual people, let alone name them.  Up til now, he's only ever bothered drawing a sun with big circles for eyes.  So his inclusion of actual faces and arms and legs was pretty notable to us. The ghost that is Noah leaves me scratching my head a little, but the boy said that it is him, so I guess I have to accept that.   Artists can be be quirky, I've heard.

Noah and Anna say Grace

Tonight at dinner, Noah prayed his usual with an added closing he must have learned at school:  "Thank. God. Thank you for heppin' us. Thank for our food.  Jesus' name, Amen.

Anna took us by surprise by praying, too:  "God.  Food."

Tongs + Toys

Tongs

+ Toys

 =  Fun

For

Boys.

I'd wager the girls will like this task, too. But my girl's been gone to Gatlinburg on a road trip with her daddy since Wednesday, so it's just me and the boy til tonight.  

We're running out of things to do in their absence ... so it helps that I just so happen to have a book full of fun fine motor stuff to do to fill our time, I mean, his time.

 Look at him go - two at a time!  Didn't I say something about him being headed for a career in brain surgery?

He's rounding home base in this shot as he picks up the final treaure - candy!

And - bonus!- the wrapper was a challenging fine motor skill activity in itself.

And then he did it all again.  I totally recommend this activity.  Requires almost no supervision ... unless you are a bored momma with a camera and an otherwise empty house.

Mighty Fine Motor Fun

I'm pretty sure that once I am done with Noah's fine motor skills, he'll be ready to split atoms or operate on brains.  That, or at least stay between the lines when he colors.  :) Snapshots of our latest fine motor skill activities...

Look at those bilateral hand skills in action!  Observe how he uses two hands together!  Watching the oil and water NOT mix was the best part of this Moving Bubbles activity for Noah.

Painting with Q-tips and the leftover food coloring solution.  Go pincers, go wrist action!

Even Anna was getting in on the hand-eye coordinating straw jewelry fun.  Ooh and Aaah over the forearm and wrist control!

Reusable stickers/clings offer fun practice for refining grasp and release of small objects.  You'd be amazed how involved peeling, pressing, placing, pushing can be.

More practice with scissors.

This Hide and Seek Play Dough activity turned out to be way cooler to Noah than I thought it would be.  I'd hide a marble in a mound of dough and he'd have to pull, squeeze, mash, smear, rip, cut to locate it.  He was so into this!  He kept doing this himself long after I had left the room.

These are shining examples of how kids learn and develop through play.  Finger coordination and strength improving by leaps and bounds!

I let Noah get his hot little hands on some rubber cement.  Yes, it got messy.  But that boy was spellbound by the dipping, scraping, wiping, smearing of the glue.  In this shot, he was using leftover straw bits to sprinkle on a wreath.   So. Many. Fine. Motor. Skills. Involved.

This stapling turned out to be a flop because he was just not strong enough to staple hard enough so it would release.  But that is kind of the point - building up finger, hand, and wrist strength through more repetition of this.  I'll keep my eyes peeled for a smaller stapler, too.

Today I finally remembered to pick up some golf tees for this Styrofoam Construction Activity that helps the child gain finger strength and eye hand coordination as well as expand tool usage. 

 
This was just an afternoon of playing with Daddy, but I know better now.  All I see are fine motor skills in action!

Lest you think I came up with this stuff, let me just say again - Mighty Fine Motor Fun by Christy Isbell provided all the ideas and information.   Such a great resource!