Signing Off

I hate to say so, but I won't be blogging for the next few weeks.  And that's unfortunate because we will be doing SO MUCH that will need to be blogged!  We Browns are hitting the road - Visiting with every single cousin the kids have on both sides of our families.  Visiting with old friends from before marriage.  Visiting (hopefully) with long-lost out-of-the-country friends who are stateside at the moment. Visiting with my sister and my beloved Brown family. And even visiting with some of Noah's birthfamily!  And, oh yeah ... visiting with Mickey and his crew! The kids' brains are about to explode in anticipation of all that is awaiting them!

My brain is about to explode in anticipation of my growing to-do list!  I think I need a nap just thinking about it all!  We leave in the morning and I have yet to pack a SINGLE thing.  Don't worry.  That's just how we roll when it comes to road trips.  It will all get done, I promise!

Anyway, we will be away from home for a solid two weeks and that fact makes me a smidge anxious.  The last time we were away from home that long was over seven years ago when we first got our hands on baby Noah.  And it was actually a solid month away then, so I guess this two weeks will be cake, right?! 

Before we shove off, I couldn't help but crank out one more post of some fun details from this week.  We have been productive!  Gotten a TON of school work done, sold the last of my stuff on GTP, prepaid bills, and put our mail on hold.  Lots of nit-picky stuff like that to wrap up before we go.

Anna (and sometimes Noah) has been busy with the blocks again.  It takes me back to my own block castle childhood every time.  Just feeling nostalgic and snapping pics to mark the moment.

I whipped out a couple of these to sell again this year.  Then I thought better of it and will just use these for teacher gifts after all.  Save myself a couple errands in December.

I Grouponed, created, ordered, and received our Christmas cards for this year.  Love them!

I also had a conference with Noah's Speech teacher and we set up some new goals and a new schedule for him when we return that I am really excited about.  I also got Noah signed up to start at a nearby homeschool co-op enrichment group in January and I think it will be JUST what the doctor ordered ... for him AND for me.  I will get 5 uninterrupted hours to myself once every week because of it.  Really looking forward to the New Year!

Noah and Anna got to make a little something special for our Disney trip.  Yes, I should be prepping and packing.  Instead, I am pulling out craft supplies.  Ha! 

His Taa Daa!

Her Taa Daa!

In true procrastinating form, I even have a bunch of girlfriends coming over tonight to gab and craft together.  I have a burlap wreath I am ready to get done finally. Priorities, people!

And, oh yeah, how precious are these things Anna brought home from pre-K yesterday?!  That pumpkin is made from a roll of toilet paper on the inside.  Adorable!  The only thing cuter is Anna's list of things she is thankful for ... including hugs and kisses. 

It's gonna be a wonderful Thanksgiving again this year.  Wishing you the same.  See y'all in December!

Chester Update: Ten Fun Facts

I know what you are thinking: Who the heck is Chester?

Well, I'll tell you:  Chewie!  Chewie is the new Chester.

 I know what you are thinking:  Wait, what?

It's alright.  I will explain.  :}

My phone rang Friday afternoon and time stood still for a moment when I saw it was our vet on the caller ID.  My heart jumped into my throat because part of me (my heart) wanted them to offer our dog back to us and part of me (my head) did not.  As destiny would have it, they did not.  But they did offer up some sweet news that was a real salve for our wounded and wondering hearts.

• First - Chewie has a home now!
• Second - His new owners kindly gave the vet permission to contact us and let us know.  Bless them!
• Third - That is because his new owner IS one of the vets there - Dr. Crabtree - who saw my broken-hearted email to the vet from a couple weeks ago and had mercy on us.
• Fourth - off topic, but only a little - crabtree is now my new favorite word!
• Fifth - Chewie's new family includes 9 cats, a yorkie, and a guinea pig (or maybe she said bird?).
• Sixth - The girl said everyone at the office sat Chewie down and gave him a good talking to about how he is NOT allowed to chase the cats, though.
• Seventh - That cracks me up.  Sounds like he gained a whole office staff fan club during his wait.
• Eighth - Chewie will have top notch medical care now, won't he, with a vet as his owner?  That is awesome!
• Ninth - They did rename him Chester and it's working out ok.
• Tenth - I actually cried on the phone and thanked them profusely for calling and letting us know where he landed.  That was really sweet of them and they didn't have to bother.  I will sing Critter Clinic's praises to everyone who asks from here on out.

If we can't have him back, it helps to know that everything will be ok for Chester ... who, you know, will always be Chewie to us. ♥  

We got a little weepy again at having to think about him again, but those tears were mingled with happy, relieved tears, too.  

Closure is so good, even when it is bittersweet.

Love to you, Chew-Chew!  Happy trails.

Taa Daa: Cupcake Decorating!

I {rEaLlY} enjoy baby showers.  I enjoy getting to appreciate sweet babies and all their baby needs and colors and outfits, but I enjoy it because I get to take it all in from a comfortable distance and then I get to go home and sleep a solid 8-9 hours.  You know me.  We don't want no mo' crying babies in this house!  (We are, however, prayerfully considering starting back down the foster/adopt road sometime next year, but that's a blog post for another day.)

Last night, I went to a baby shower with a bunch of girlfriends
at a local cake shop. 

I don't know why I didn't expect this, but I was tickled "pink" when I learned that they were going to teach us to decorate cupcakes during the shower.  That is a skill I have never pursued (you know how Kimmie hates the kitchen) but it ended up being so "sweetly" simple and really kinda fun!

Look at me go!  Not a twitch of fear in those eyes.

My finished products. ♥

I may never pay a cake-maker for the kids' birthdays again!  Excuse me while I head off to add piping bags, fondant roller, and icing tips to my Christmas wish list...

Noah and Tooth #2

Tonight, Josh and I went to a movie while my friend, Cindy, kept the kids for us.  Out of nowhere, I get a text with this little surprise on it.  Noah pulled his second tooth!

All it took was a big old bite of corn-on-the-cob to loosen it up real good and get the creative juices flowing.  Once he saw blood, Noah and his buddy, Claire, came up with plans for getting it out that involved strings and doors, I am told.  Ultimately, Noah just worked that tooth until forcing it out on his own.  Methinks he wanted to take care of business while he had a sizable audience to show off for!

I am so sorry to have missed another loose tooth coming out, but so relieved to have had a good friend there to capture the memory for us.  Cindy said Noah asked her to take a picture of it before cleaning him up because his mommy "likes the pictures to be really bloody."  Ha!  (The boy speaks truth.  I was sad Josh didn't get a good live action shot for the first one.  Bless Noah's heart for thinking of that detail for me this time! ♥)

Fun note ... Noah lost his first tooth exactly a month ago tonight.  How's that for timing?  :)  Before going to bed tonight, he went out the front door and spoke aloud to the star that he believes is the tooth fairy - the really shiny one that you can't miss.  He called out to her to let her know he pulled his tooth.  Precious!  After coming inside, we snapped a pic of his teeth all cleaned up.

And he asked if he could write her a note this time. It went like so  ...

Tonight he opted to leave the note and the tooth on the shelf by his door instead of under his pillow.  Here's hoping we can pull-off the switch without getting caught tonight.  I am gonna do the deed this time since I stay up the latest.  :}  What fun!

Bless him - the boy went off to bed letting us know that he hopes the tooth fairy leaves him a quarter so he can use it in the candy machine at Publix.  The heart wants what it wants, I guess.  We'll see him that quarter and raise him a decent bill ... just cuz we love him so and can't help ourselves. Also, just for fun, we looked up a picture I remembered and wanted to see again ... in memory of the two teeth that are no more. 

What fun to recall when they were the only ones there.  That seems like such a LIFETIME ago.

The Good News Is...

This.

All over her belly and bootie and back of her legs with a few on her arms and thighs, too.

 Add that to the green snotty cold and cough she has and we were googling all sorts of germs and symptoms to find a match.  Nothing fit though.  After a private photo/conference call with my sister, the nurse, we deduced that these were not, in fact, post viral bumps as we thought they might be.  So we decided we better hit up the pediatrician to rule out childen pox or some other ick factor.  BUT, one more google search after that ended up revealing the truth.

The good news is that we are pretty confident it's not chicken pox.

The bad news is that we are pretty confident that Josh's new baby, the hot tub, is to blame. : S  Just google "hot tub folliculitis" and you'll know why the chances are slim to none that I will ever get in that hot tub of ours at all!  And it's gonna take a lot of bleach and chemicals before I trust letting my babies back in there either. 

Family Pics 2013

We went with a new photographer this year and he did a wonderful job on our family session at the tail end of October.  Even better, he got our images back to us in a quick 2 weeks!  So I had fun looking over them at length this week and shopping Christmas cards, too.  Here are some of my faves... out of 50 faves ... out of all 120 great shots he got back to us. 

Love this time of year!

Recipe: Sweet Ham/Cheese Sliders

Um.  Wow, these were delicious!  Stop what you are doing and add these ingredients to your grocery list right now if you don't already have them around.  You can thank me later.

Sweet Ham and Cheese Sliders

1 stick butter
1 T dry mustard
1 T worcestershire
2T brown sugar
1 T poppy seeds
Hawaiian buns
Ham
Swiss cheese

1.  Bring butter, mustard, worcestershire, brown sugar, and poppy seeds to a boil in a saucepan.  Set aside.
2.  Assemble sandwiches with buns, ham, and swiss cheese.  Place in baking dish, pour sauce all over, cover, and marinade for 24 hours or overnight.
3.  Preheat oven to 325.
4.  Bake for 10 minutes covered and 10 minutes uncovered.  Enjoy!

Be prepared to make another batch or two. :}  Seriously.  Josh ranked these bad boys up in his top 3 favorites I have cooked.  He even said he would have preferred some more of these over the pumpkin pie he had for dessert.  That's saying a LOT! And what's more, Anna ate it and loved it, too.  Cue stunned silence.  She doesn't like anything new I try!

Here are some tweaks/mistakes/adjustments I made to my batch:

• I completely forgot about worcestershire.  Oops and oh well! 
• I used mini sub Hawaiian buns and I really like that better than the smaller bun options.  I almost wonder if the smaller buns would have been soggier because they are thinner?  
• These were not soggy at all and they were even a little crunchy on the edges from baking in the oven. Just right!  
• Some recipes don't bother with the marinating, so that is an option for another day.  For this batch, I marinated the full 24 hours.
• I heated the oven to 340 ... only because they were still so cold from the fridge.
• Also, I poured the marinade over only the bottom halves of the sandwiches once they were assembled in the pan. Then I put on the tops and brushed the leftover marinade on very liberally.  And I STILL had leftover marinade.  Next time I will just pour over the whole thing as the recipe says and see how it goes.  I was worried about it being too sticky to handle and eat easily.  Then again, we LOVED how this batch turned out so Josh suggests I don't change a thing. 

I only wish I'd snapped a picture; they looked as good as they tasted.  SO YUM!  

Halloween 2013

Halloween was so strange this year.  Must be the mood after losing Chewie last week and then the anticipation of how the holiday would go down with the weather that came through the night of Halloween.  Everything was just off.   And everything was just up in the air right down to the last minute.  In the end, our neighborhood and many in the area officially postponed Trick-or-Treating til the next night, Friday, Nov. 1.  That plan made sense and we were all for it, but we also took the opportunity to go do a new sort of trick-or-treating on the actual holiday, Oct 31st.  We suited the kids up and headed over to a local nursing home that hosted their own indoor trick-or-treating.

Getting into character - Cowboys and Indians!

Playing the friendly photo-op part when necessary.  All night people asked Noah if he was The Long Ranger.  He eventually just started saying Yes.  Ha!  I guess that makes Anna an inadvertant Tonto?

By the time we were done, it was no longer rainy, but it was good and windy.

The air felt so good by then, that we just sat down and enjoyed the moment on the home's front patio.

Anna is all about making silly photos lately.  We humored her.

And back at home, we got down to the necessary business of sorting out peanut candies.

Then, Friday night, we suited up again for a PERFECT-weathered evening of trick-or-treating in the neighborhood.  It was our best year yet. 

The kids were off to races.

Josh was able to walk along the street with me for a change, since Anna apparently didn't need the escort she has required in years past.

We did keep telling the kids to slow down.  They didn't have to run and they were gonna need their energy.  They didn't listen.  After 5 houses, they were winded and moving a little slower. Ha!

This house ended up being the most memorable for the kids.  They stopped yards away from the front porch once they got an eyeful of that scary clown.  Anna only hesitated a little.  She plucked up the nerve and walked right up to It.  Well, right up to arm's length at least.

Noah took a few more moments to size up the risk and slowly approached the scary clown, too.

Noah was less nervous at other houses after that.  And when he was nervous, he whipped out his toy gun and shot at the scary things he saw. That seemed to do the trick for dealing with his fear.

By the last 30 minutes of the night, Anna was WORN THE HECK OUT and Daddy was back at his post from years past, carrying her from driveway to driveway.

It was fun to run into friends as we made the rounds up and down many streets.

But it was fun to call it a night and head home, too.

Noah and Anna were eager to do some handing out candy of their own. 

They felt so grown-up.  It was adorable how seriously they took the job.

Anna sporting her self-titled Fierce Face.

Another Halloween (two of them technically) is in the books!  

And - bonus- Josh and I made out like bandits in the peanut screening process, too.  I have been savoring every little Butterfinger and Peanut M&Ms I can find in the dangerous candy stash. :}