Buddy the elf returns...

Our elf on the shelf, Buddy, has returned for the season and it seems he's come back a little lazier. His very first night here, and he didn't even bother moving from his spot in the kitchen! Oops. I guess he "really liked that place" because he "could see and hear everything well" from there.

Dang Buddy. All I need is something else to forget right now. I can't even remember conversations from two days ago.

This little piggy

Some good friends of ours have a daughter who turned 13 over the weekend. All this 13 year old wanted from me was for me to make my homemade strawberry cake for her birthday dinner. I was more than happy to oblige! I decorated it with a pink fondant pig face bc she recently got involved in the 4H stuff at her school (of which I have no clue what that entails other than she has a pig that she has to take care of and show it off at things that are like pageants).
I made the fondant myself with a homemade marshmallow fondant recipe. It turned out prety cute!

Pinspiration

Happy thanksgiving y'all! In honor of the first thanksgiving and courtesy of Pinterest, I decided that we would make our own tipi. Below are the Pinterest pic and our attempt. As you can plainly see, I totally nailed it...

Moments

It's moments like these that warm my heart... My boys coloring with little sister looking on while I cook dinner.

Still life

This morning after the morning rush of getting one kid off to school and the others fed and clothed, etc, this bowl of lil cuties (mandarin oranges) caught my eye. It made me smile for just a minute and made me thankful for the little people that eat these little oranges up for snacks in the afternoon.

I am so thankful for these moments when God reminds me of how rich my life is.

Life is good. Lil cuties are good. Amen.

Jeggings and crocs

Thoughts:

Jeggings and crocs are so much cuter on babies and children than adults. Personal experience.

Creep-y Halloween

Halloween isn't scary for my kids. I have never liked scary Halloween stuff**, but the title of my post isn't about creepy in a scary sort of way. Rather, Abby is about redy to creep her way around the house. Girlfriend is thisclose to crawling!


**footnote: so, we may get worst parents of the year award for this, but last night, we were at a friend's house and they had a 10 year old friend over who was dressed as a gorilla/monkey. Complete with full monkey mask-like planet of the apes monkey. Our kids were out back when this monkey came over, and my husband thought it would be funny if this kid ran outside and scared Jackson and Sloan. Jackson- not afraid of anything- just took a swing at the monkey as he ran by roaring. Sloan, was a different story...he ran screaming his lungs out trying to hide behind someone, something, anything. It was funny, but for what it's worth, we immediately regretted it. Especially at bedtime when he wanted to sleep with his light saber so he could hit the monkey with it if he needed to. We almost ruined Sloan's first Halloween trick or treating. Yeah, bad parents.

Anyway, here are pics of Halloween costumes, pre-spooky monkey and Abby about ready to take off. She still manages to log roll her way around a room, though, so the lat pic is one where she ended up under her bed.