R-E-D with a little bit of H-O-T

It's a little hot here today! But, we should be used to this because it always gets hot again after we've had several bits of cold weather.

I took Logan to the doctor this morning because he has had bad drainage for 5 days. The doctor said he didn't think Logan had the stomach bug, but that his drainage is causing him to throw up. Sounds good to me, but it's probably still a good thing I've kept him cooped up in the house. You just never know.

Since it was so warm today and we were up and out bright and early, I decided to take the kids to the church playground. That's actually a pretty big deal for us because I don't take them much. I'm not really an "outside" girl. I prefer the indoors! We occassionally play out on the front drive, but only occassionally. The kids had fun and Logan is getting really good at playing on the big kid equipment. I think he can handle the big stairs by himself without toppling down. That brightened my day a little. It's major work for this momma at his stage in life right now!

Both kids are napping and I need to be sterilizing and cleaning a bit, so I better hop off here!

Stomach Bug!

Yes, the stomach bug has hit our house! I got a call from Logan's MDO Director this past Thursday to come pick him up because he had gotten sick at school. Yuck! Every mother's worst nightmare! He really doesn't act like he is sick. When I've gone to get him out of his bed each morning the past couple of days he's had a little pile in his crib. Nothing more than collaborated milk, but still, let's face it. It's throw up! He's been happy and normal acting during the day. Yesterday, he didn't get sick at all so I thought we were on the road to recovery. I had planned on taking him to church this morning. But...when I walked into his room this morning I smelled it. You know the smell. He had another small pile in his crib. So, I guess it's not over yet. Hopefully he will be well by Tuesday so he can go to MDO. This momma needs to get out of the house. We've been home bound since Thursday!

But, that's not all. Last night I found Gabe in the bathroom. He never actually got sick, but was nauseated. I made a trip to PDQ at 2:00am to get some Sprite for my dear honey! I'm so not a compassionate person (when people are sick,) but I guess I had a little mercy for him last night. God definitely did not call me to be a nurse!

My parents took Madison to church this morning and I stayed home with my sick boys. Hopefully today will be the last day of sickness!

Ponytail Holder, Picasso, & Festival of Tables

This cute little girl informed me with a panicked look on her face the other day that she had just put a ponytail holder up her nose! (The clear plastic kind.) Somehow I remained pretty calm and held down one nostril and had her blow! Out come the snotty ponytail holder. Whew! That could have been a trip to the ENT. I asked her why she stuck it up her nose and...she had no answer! Just glad she immediately told me.

We might have a little Picasso on our hands. This girls loves to paint. I let her paint her mini pumpkin after I had the pumpkin painting party at my house a while back. She loved it so I bought her some washable paints and she paints in her highchair pretty often. It's really not too messy. I just have to wash her hands and wipe down the highchair after she gets done. The paint always washes right out of her clothes if she gets any on her.

We had a Ladies Night at our church the beginning of November called "Festival of Tables." Each table hostess is responsible for decorating their table with a centerpiece and dishes. I always decorate a table each year. It's a lot of work hauling everything from home, but it's a great reason to pull out that china that hardly ever gets used! I love eating from fine china. I mean, it's all about the presentation, right?

Tables can be decorated in a Fall or Christmas theme. I always go with Christmas. It's a little fancier and goes well with the fine china I think! We enjoyed a yummy dinner, entertainment by a high school violin player in our church, a craft demo, and a guest speaker.

Our Sunday School class filled three tables. I was glad so many girls came this year! Here is was my table.

SS Class Table #2

SS Class Table #3- They had a cute owl theme.

It was a fun night!

Half Marathon & Fall Fest

I'm still playing blog catch-up...almost there. Gabe and I recently ran the Soaring Wings Half Marathon in Conway the last weekend in October. It was my first half-marathon. Gabe has ran a full marathon before. My goal was to run it in under 2 hours and by golly I was determined to do just that. I finished in 1:59:52. Gabe finished in 1:50:02. Great times!

Running Buddies

Saturday night we went to our church's Fall Fest. They had pony rides and a gym full of inflatables.

This picture took LOTS of effort! But hey, it's all worth it in the end, right? RIGHT?

After about an hour of fun, we headed to Ed and Margaret's for my birhthday dinner...and Gabe's late birthday dinner. Dinner was great as always!

Playdates & Parties

Back up to last Friday...whoa! I'm way behind on blogging and I have to rewind a few days because we've been up to some fun stuff lately. It's been busy around here and I know with the holidays approaching it will just get busier! Last Friday morning, we loaded up and traveled to Ft. Smith to attend Eli's Halloween Costume Party. Pictured above is one of my childhood best friends, Lauren and her son Eli. Lauren is due with her second son mid December. Why she decided to pull off a party, I have no idea, but she pulled off a heck of a party!

Eli the "cow"
Madison the "giraffe"

Logan the "frog"

I love throwing parties and I love attending great parties! I didn't know this about Lauren, but "she can throw a party!" I mean, anyone call throw a party, but a great party is all about the details! It's all about the presentation, right? ;)

I'm assuming Lauren made all of the food. She had green rice krispie treat "Frankensteins," mini pumpkin muffins, "mummie" wrapped hot dogs, fruit, cupcakes, cookies, chili for the moms, AND veggie chili. Now, I didn't partake in the veggie chili, but I'm sure some moms were all about it!

LOTS of decor!

Trick-or-Treat buckets for the kids to decorate and take home.

I did count heads at this party. Around 20 moms and 35 kids. Can I say, OH MY GOSH??? I would literally freak out if I ever had 35 kids in my house. Talk about, HOUSE WRECK!!! But, the crazy thing was that it actually stayed under control. Lauren has a huge backyard and about half the crowd stayed inside and the other half stayed outside. The kids also seemed smaller than Madison so that made a huge difference. I mean, I would NEVER in my right mind invite 35 two year olds inside my house. There were many crumbs of food on the floors inside, but besides that everything pretty much stayed in tack. A job well done, my friend!

Russellville Girls

Emily, Maggie, & Molly

Stephanie, Audrey, & Stella

Pretty sure I probably got the twins mixed up!

And, we missed Breanne!

I was exhausted by the time we finally pulled out! Playdates and I go round and round!

But, the fun wasn't over yet! Oh no, we had a birthday party to attend that night for Madison's friend, Anna Kate, at the Jump Place in town. Cinderella and Snow White were there!

Madison wasn't quite sure what to think at first, but she liked them as a little time passed!

A fun, filled day!

Painting Pumpkins & Mentorship

Whew! It has been a whirlwind of events around here since last Thursday! We've taken part in LOTS of fun activities, but this momma is exhausted! I'll start with last Thursday! Megon is one of my best friends and she turned "30" on Saturday! Since she was turning the big 3-0, I decided to throw a special little party for her...a Pumpkin Painting Party! The party was at my house during MDO so it was just us mommas. We ate finger foods and painted pumpkins and had a great time!
Megon & her cute pumpkin!
All the girls who came.
Kristen & Beth
Melissa
Katie

Lydia

Thursday night, we had a ladies night called "Connections." Terri (she is the 2nd lady from the left) started a monthly mentorship gathering. We met for the first time this month. We will meet each month in a host home where we will enjoy dinner, a devotional, and discuss a certain topic. A mentor was seated at each table during dinner and conversational questions were drawn from a bowl about our particular "topic" for the night. We all really enjoyed this night. It was so neat and we have really never done anything like this before. We are all looking forward to our next gathering!

This past weekend was filled with activity after activity and I have many cute pics to share. I ran my first half-marathon (13.1 miles) on Saturday and look forward to sharing more details in the days to come...

Class Reunion & Pumpkin Patch

Saturday night was my 10 year class reunion. It was...okay. Don't really care to go back to a 20 year reunion. Since I live in Russellville, I pretty much already keep up with a lot of people that I graduated with. And with facebook, I keep up with those who moved away. The reunion was slightly awkward and I'm just not one to mingle all night with a huge crowd. Soo...I participated and went, but it was just okay!

I ordered the kids these super cute pumkin outfits to get some pictures in. I decided that it was just not worth it this year to drive to Greenbriar to a real pumpkin patch. The kids are too little, too close together, and too hard to manage on my own. I can only imagine what it would have been like.

Soo...we took advantage of the First United Methodist Church's Pumpkin Patch right here is Russellville. We were only there about 15 minutes, but it was long enough for the kids to roam and pick up baby pumpkins and take them to places that they didn't belong and long enough for me to get stressed out about getting some "great" pics!

I did think we got some good pics, but boy is it hard to get the two of them to cooperate at the same time!

Daddy's lil' punkin!

true personality.

Momma's lil' punkin!

Happy Patchin'!