What I did at naptime...

I remember when Tina was about 5 or so, she decided she didn't want her braids anymore. So she snuck Mom's scissors and cut off her braid. She hid it in the bottom of the toybox so Mom couldn't find it.

Fast forward to the present. We've been trying to grow out Anna's bangs. Had them long enough that we could pull them back pretty well, but they had a tendency to come out. This afternoon at naptime, Anna snuck a pair of scissors into her bedroom. Did a little bang trimming. Yay! Glad we did pictures last month.

Tooth #2

So at bath time last night, I'm in the kitchen cleaning up for supper and I hear this:

"Mama! My tooth came out!"

Can you believe it? She's still two months shy of her 5th birthday and she's lost two teeth.

I think one of the top ones is a little loose...

Thanksgiving Feast

Anna's preschool had a Thanksgiving feast this Monday. They made indian costumes out of Daddy's old t-shirt, headbands with feathers, fmade macaroni necklaces and (Anna's favorite) got to paint their faces. We picked everyone up early and went to Burger Kind for the Feast.

This is Anna's buddy Preston. Next to Anna is "Big Caleb" from school, and you can also see Barrett, one of her buddies from last year. He's in the other class.


It was fitting that they were dressed up as indians - they were rowdy. Someone started banging on the tables saying "We want food!". Not sure if it was Anna, but the proof may be in the picture...

How can you not be thankful for a meal that includes a toy?

Caleb, of course, had to come inspect everything. He loves getting in the middle of things.

The "Thank You" Meal

The Sunday night before Thanksgiving, our church has a big Thanksgiving potluck. We bring the sides and desserts, the church provides ham, turkey and bread. It is always delicious!

This year, our youngest children's choirprovided a Thanksgiving program as our entertainment. They sang about 5 songs, and it was so cute!

Having known many of these kids since they were very little, it amazes me how grown up they looked. They really aren't babies anymore. Time sure does fly!

Anna is always happy to have a little stage time.



Caleb goes to choir, too, but he wouldn't get up and sing. He was mad because he didn't get to sit in a chair.

Since he's only 2 1/2, he's not officially old enough to go to choir. Problem is, I'm the older children's choir director, so he either goes there or we have to provide a sitter for him. One of his favorite people, my good pal Teresa, is one of the leaders of the younger choir, and she's nice enough to let him join in. He loves it. Actually singing in front of a crowd - he's not there yet.










My first attempt to upload video - here's one of my favorite songs they sang. It's called the Recipe Song. BTW - if it doesn't work, don't blame me. I'm new to this and my video card doesn't handle this kind of video well at all on my computer. I can't tell if I got everything formatted right or not.

Dude!

Sunday mornings, we're usually rushed to get to church on time. This past Sunday, we weren't. So the kids piled in Jerry's lap to watch a little more "Auto B. Good". His favorite spot is with both kids snuggled up in his lap.

Anna has on her new jacket (acutally a vest, because none of the jackets had sleeves that fit well) and her hat and scarf that we got at Old Navy Saturday morning after she took a class at Sci-Quest (about building things) and we ate lunch with Jerry at Cici's Pizza. Caleb has is "Brother George" glasses on just for fun. He calls them his "sunglasses".

Caleb has just figured out how to really do a good "thumbs up", so I took a picture of my three favorite people while they actually had nice clothes on. Instead of saying cheese, they said "DUDE!". One of Caleb's favorite expressions.

A gap-toothed smile

Anna had her latest dental check-up mid-October and they took a few x-rays before sharing the news with me that Anna was going to be losing some teeth pretty soon. She's got some big 'ol teeth waiting to come in, and her bottom front incisors were both slightly wiggly. The dentist's prediction was that we'd lose a tooth or two by Christmas. By early November, she had one tooth that was very wiggly. She enjoyed showing the wiggly tooth to everybody.

Saturday, Nov. 10, Daddy made an attempt to pull it, but he couldn't get a good grip on the tooth.
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The next day, during Children's church, it came out! Anna told Jerry, "Daddy, I felt something touch my mouth and it was God. God pulled my tooth!". She also pointed out that while Daddy couldn't pull it, God could. Her teacher was afraid that someone had knocked it out, and we assured her that no, we were expecting it to come out. They said as soon as it happened, all 14 other kids in the class started trying to wiggle their teeth.

Can you see the gap?

When we got home from church, Anna got her tooth fairy box and Daddy took the tooth out of the kleenex it was wrapped in.

Anna was so proud! That night, about two hours after she'd gone to bed, she hollered for us and asked when the tooth fairy was coming. She was informed that she had to go to sleep first. She was very pleased with the "gold coin" and the doll she got.

I can't believe she's growing up so fast!

Soccer party!

To celebrate the end of a season of soccer, we all met at Chick-Fil-A to play on the playground and have a "soccer party". This is Anna's entire team, the Tigers.

Brianna was our most aggressive player. She's in Kindergarten. Like the teeth? Courtesy of Coach Christy, who bought a soccer ball cupcake cake. They all wanted black cupcakes, and it turned their teeth a really gross color.

Anna had been playing in the indoor playground when we called them around to get their trophies. The trophies are actually banks, too, which all 4 kids thought was really cool. I'm not sure what happened to her hair...

Preston was our best defender -he could take the ball away from everybody. Anna knows him from church - his family moved here recently. I apologized to my parents for the wierd mouths, but they had fun and when we saw Preston at church the following Sunday, he was back to normal.

This is Connor, who it turns out lives about 4 doors down from us in the new subdivision next to us. He and Anna will start at Creekside next year. He's a sweetheart - and always very excited about playing soccer!

Of course, we can't forget our mascot! Caleb provided the entertainment between quarters, running onto the field yelling "My turn!" every time we came over for a water break.

Note to self...

Don't give kids markers on the 4-5 hour drive home.

They get bored.

Then they do this:

and this:

What we did at Granny's house...

Our usual last stop in Knoxville is Great-Granny's house. This time, we were surprised to find she had an extra visitor. This cat was so interested in the food she was eating she didn't mind Anna's attention at all.

Yeah, Daddy, we do play chase when you're not around. Even at Granny's!

I can't even begin to describe this chair. The kids love it. They get it out every time they come over. The teapots were new this time.

This picture is for Granny. She loved seeing Anna with this veil on.

Don't worry Daddy, we cleaned up before we left!

Staying at Skunk Ridge

So while were were in Knoxville, we "stayed" at Skunk Ridge. It's a real treat for the kids, and was even cooler because each one got to spend the night "away" from "home" - Anna at Gracey's and Caleb at Grammaws. So for two nights, I only had one child with me - weird! Caleb took advantage of it and had Meemaw explore the farm with him.

Caleb was so funny when Aunt Tina came for a quick visit. He asked her the question he learned (and loves) at the family reunion - "What's your name", and then told her "I love you" and gave her a big hug.

Aunt Tina brought a little something to show off - her new car! It's a Honda Fit, and it's a cool metallic blue. I'm jealous -it has an MP3 player built in! Congrats Sis, you and Jason deserve it!

Not to be outdone by the presence of a new car, Caleb had to show off his truck...

Skunk Ridge has lots of cheap entertainment. For instance, these bamboo sticks make great swords.

Anna spent a considerable amount of her time at Skunk Ridge trying to convince my folk's cats that the was not dangerous and could be trusted. She'd climb up on the cat's favorite sofa and holler "Momma, I'm sitting VERY still!" She was quite proud when the morning we were supposed to leave, she sat still enough that Abby hopped up to take a nap with her.

The last thing Anna and I did was stop by the Museum of Appalachia to look at the gift shop. Anna was much more interested in chasing the chickens outside. It's what she looks forward to the most about this stop. Maybe we need to look into getting some chickens as a source of cheap entertainment...

Baby Shower

We made a trip into Knoxvile the weekend of November third to help out witha baby shower for Jerry's cousin, Stacey Helton. She lives up in Sevierville, and we don't get to see her too often. Her baby is due right around Anna's birthday. Stacey's the one with the corsage on.

Anna had been looking forward to this trip - she was promised a sleepover at her cousin Gracey's house that night. She had a ball there!

She enjoyed the shower, too. Of course, all this exposure to pregnant bellies has led to some awkward questions- mostly about whether I have a baby in my tummy and how it would get there. My answers are "No", and "God puts it there". That works fine for Anna, except she seems to think I need one (and once insisted I needed two). I disagree - for the moment, at least.

More shower pics - quick introductions on the names I know - Granny is in the blue sweater, the original Amy Jenkins (nowWilliams) is next to Stacey in the striped sweater, and their Mom, Henrietta is in the red. Standing next to Henrietta is a girl whose name I can't remember - we always saw her, her Mom and her brother at Christmas because theyd always come to Granny's to say hi. She was about 7-8 when I met them. Now she's a junior in high school! Made me feel OLD.
Note Anna at the bottom corner of the picture. She'd gotten a doll to play with out of the nursery and kept going over to this bush in the corner next to me to play with it.

There's Aunt Amy Jenkins (Maggie's due the Tuesday before Thanksgiving) and the shower gifts. This was well before the shower started - there were way more presents than this.

The kids were happy to help unwrap the presents. I think the girl and boy next to Anna are Stacey's grandkids. I'm not positive. Eddie has a grown son and daughter and his son has two kids about Anna and Caleb's ages. Eddie's son is in the Police Academy and will soon be following in his dad's footsteps (not sure if he's going to do K-9 duty, though.

Anna loved all the books that Anniston got. She had to pre-read each one to make sure they were good enough for the baby. She gave the thumbs-up to all of them.

Happy Halloween!

Say hello to Brother George and Brother George!

Our church held a Trunk or Treat on Halloween night as an outreach event. After doing the walk in our neighborhood and my friend Teresa's neighborhood last year, it was really nice to have the kids in a small, contained area while they got their candy. Plus they had games, popcorn, cotton candy, and Caleb's favorite, "sip". That's anything carbonated.

Caleb loves Diego and Bot the Builder, but his favorite person in Alabama is our pastor, George Whitten. Every time we walk in the doors of the church, Caleb asks to "go see bro George!". So we figured, why not let him dress up as our pastor for the festivities. A few trips to several consignment stores snagged us a good suit, a sale at Kohls for the shirt and tie, some "silver" hairspray, and a pair of glasses (from Build a Bear Workshop, no less), and we were all set. Oh, and a few minutes with my printer at home for the name tag.

Brother George was pretty surprised to see a smaller version of himself walk up when we were gathering for prayer beforehand. Caleb walked right up to him, and said "I'm just like you!"

They had to pose for several pictures.

I'd picked up a "princess" treat bucket for Anna. She liked it so much that when she got up from her nap, she got dressed in her pinkest princess dress, put on a crown, and came to show me her costume. I'd bought a different dress for her to wear, butf she insisted. So we fixed her hair, added some "rapunzel" exensions (a hairclip she'd gotten at Libby Lu), and got ready to go. The shoes were my idea - I thought the high heels would get old after a while.

I'd told her that we were going to get there early, so she brought her markers and her coloring book. She spent about 15 minutes finishing her picture before she came out of the truck. She had a ball once things started rolling, doing a lot of things on her own, and gathering as many treats as she could fit in her bucket. She came up to me several times to show me how much she'd collected. When Jerry got there, they had fun running around together.

Looks like we're doing a dance in this picture. Caleb just flitted about the whole evening. He'd go play on the playground a little, try to snitch some gum from the duck pond game, and then search out whoever had Tootsie Rolls. They are his favorite candy at the moment.

Can you see Anna in this picture? She didn't stick around much for pictures. She wanted to fill that bucket!

I get the urge to shout "Show me the money!" every time I see Caleb in these glasses. There's a strong resemblance to the kid on Jerry Maguire, isn't there?

The first time Caleb showed Jerry these glasses, he told him, "Daddy, I have glasses just like you do!" He was so proud. HeE loves to wear them around the house. Funny, when you don't need 'em, they're the greatest thing since sliced bread. How much do you want to bet he'll hate them if he ever needs them? Given that Jerry and I are both blind as bats, it seems a little inevitable.

Caleb had to go visit his buddy several times. When people asked who he was (he'd dumped the name tag pretty quickly), he'd say "I'm Bro George!" or "I'm Bro George Caleb!"

I think he'd just spotted the bin of treats when I snapped this shot.

Of course, Daddy's still his very favorite person!

The darker it got, the colder it got. Jerry manned the trunk of our truck for the last little bit, and Anna wanted a little snuggle.

Daddy's little princess! She told him the other night that she was going to marry him when she grew up.