Quotes

Earlier this week I picked up a neighbor's 3 month old from daycare and kept the baby until the mother got home from work. When I walked in the door from picking up baby Lexy

Lucy and Samuel: It's a baby! Baby Lexy! Yeah!
Samuel: "Mama, how did you get her...did Mrs. Valerie sell her to you?
Mama: laughing "No, buddy I didn't buy her I'm just helping Mrs. Valerie out"
Samuel: "So do we get to keep her?"

I love the fresh perspective on life children bring...

The honorable knight

Samuel was supposed to dress up for his school Halloween party yesterday, and as you can guess, he wanted to be a knight. BUT there was one small glitch - weapons are not allowed at school and even a foam sword counts as a weapon. After an emotional conversation about not being able to take his sword to school, Samuel said, "Mama, if I can't take my sword to school, I'll just be a cowboy." He never asked to take his pop gun to school but when he got home he took off the cowboy outfit and found his sword. I told his teacher about his declaration and decision to be a cowboy instead of a knight and she said it sounded like he was being an honorable knight - no honorable knight would show up to the party without his sword!

Update

I know this is a generic self-pic but I wanted to include it because it is one of the few of us I have in the last year and it showed my thyroidectomy scar. Several people have asked me about my cancer treatment and I thought I would give a quick update.

I have gone through my 6 month post surgery work ups and everything is fine. There is no sign of spread for the thyroid cancer and I will continue every 6-9 months with scans and every 3 months for blood tests for the next year. I think my medication (synthroid) is FINALLY regulated to the proper levels and I finally am getting used to taking medication every day. The incision has not healed as well as most (the doctors blame it on me being a redhead with "difficult" skin). It is beginning to feel better but still looks fresh/red 8 months later. There isn't much I can do about the appearance but let it remind me that I am still alive and can talk. It is also a good conversation piece for all of the patients I take care of during the week - it helps them connect to me in a "human" way.

Thanks for all of your prayers, concern and love. I appreciate all of the support we have had during this process and I'm grateful to the LORD for the great outcome of it all!

Crinkle Nose Smile

Nothing sweeter (or more mischievous!)

Art

Samuel drew this picture last week of a knight with a sword fighting a fire breathing dragon - I was impressed.

Post #401

For the past four years I have shared our lives on this blog (October 2005 - October 2009) and blogger tells me this is post #401. WOW! I am so glad I have these memories and I'm able to share with family and friends the everyday happenings of our lives - the trivial and the more momentous - I'm thankful for them all. I thought about this especially as we head into my favorite time of the year - Thanksgiving. I love it - pumpkin lattes, pumpkin muffins, fall colors, long sleeves and sweatshirts without sweating, cozy on the couch with a blanket and some coffee (oh, wait, I like that all year), time with family and friends without the hype and remembering the reasons to be thankful to the Lord in so many ways. "Oh, give thanks to the Lord for He is good, His love endures forever" Ps. 106:1

Speaking of fall - Samuel has learned some "fall" songs at school. I have included a video of one of my favorites (especially because we have a beloved scarecrow in our backyard) Lucy loves to dance too.

"Scarecrow, dancing in the cornfield, scarecrow keeping all the birds away..."

My little Robin Hood

Mama: "Samuel do you have a clean pair of socks in your drawer"
Samuel's response in a serious British accent "I'm a afraid not, mommy"

Full of joy!

I love 'um!


I've been better this week about the blogging or so it seems (ACTUALLY, I made all of the posts on Sunday when I was resting from my busy week and post dated them for a different day of the week so that Papa could enjoy a new pic every day----I love the post date feature!) Nursing school has taken up more time than usual the last two weeks and will continue to do so until Christmas break - I won't tell you how little sleep I'm getting or how much I am reading (or supposed to be reading) but I will say that I am enjoying the experiences in clinicals (the 2 days a week I work in the hospital) and can't wait to get out and get paid to do this work and have more time to spend with my family...I miss them and enjoy any minute I get to play and enjoy life with these two cuties!

More Characters

We are so grateful to have wonderful neighbors. Mrs. Jessica watches Lucy and Samuel for me while I'm at school. She has two boys Jordan and Connor who my kids love to spend time with. Last Friday they came over and played for while - I had to share this pic of them after they got in the dress up box.

Congratulations!

Elliott Forrest Warren was born this afternoon...check out the info at Sarah's blog. Congratulations Sarah and Jerel! Love you and can't wait to meet Elliott in person.

Captain Samuel

Samuel also loves pirates - see his 4th birthday party. He really liked them after I read parts of Treasure Island to him (we have a very abridged version from CFA). AND he likes the veggie tales movie, The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything

Here he is... talking about "you scurvy dogs"




Some more about playing --
This past Sunday Samuel, Lucy and I stayed home from church because our neighbor who watches them has swine flu (we hope you feel better Mrs. Jessica) and we wanted to make sure the children weren't running fevers before we started the week. SO - we played all morning. I played animals with Lucy and she even nursed them back to health after the Daddy elephant got hurt. It is so interesting to see the difference in how the two children play. I started out playing with Lucy. She had a baby penguin, a baby elephant, a cow and a Mama elephant. The baby penguin and baby elephant were best friends. The conversation between them went something like "Oh, baby elephant, you are my best friend.", "Baby penguin, I love you", "Let's go to the store and get something to make a picnic", "Yippee, yeah" "I want to swing and play at the park"

Then Samuel woke up and came to join the playing. Here are some of the things Samuel said. "So which animal is the bad guy?" "OK, you come with me animals, the king has invited you to a picnic at the castle but we have to cross the big stream that has BIG, HUGE snapping croccodiles on it that like to eat baby animals!" "There is an army attacking the castle and their king doesn't like animals but don't be afraid I will protect you!"

OK - Lucy is not a super girlie girl but there is definitely a difference in how the two of them play with the same thing. Lucy is much sweeter and can seem to play all afternoon without a "bad guy", a "sword" or a "something scary". Samuel on the other hand is all boy - what fun is playing without something to defeat? Why would anyone want to play without a sword?

We did play space ship with a ship made from sheets and Samuel's workbench (the vicegrip was the steering wheel) and Lucy was the space ship's cook. Samuel said he had an alien friend who was sick and we needed to send him a message in a bottle. He said he wanted to draw his alien friend a picture to cheer him up and send him some chicken noodle soup. He sent the old plastic syrup bottle sailing through space until the alien postal service picked it up and delivered it to his friend. Later the space ship became a pirate ship sailing the seven seas. We played and played until lunch and then it was time for me to read "Penny de poo" (AKA Winnie the Pooh) to Lucy before nap and for Samuel to go to his room to listen to a book on tape about a dragon named Boris and a cat named Elmer. I love days like this when I get to just play with my children, see their minds at work and enjoy being with them - no agenda but our imaginations. I'm grateful for this time whenever I get it.

A little movie of Sir Samuel

Sir Samuel

I took Samuel last week to an appointment to meet his new speech therapist and she asked him what he was interested in. Of course, he immediately said, "knights" and went on to explain that he really liked swords and bow and arrows too. She was a little surprised and said that she had never met a boy who said knights were his favorite thing to play with. Samuel then pulled a book about castles out of his bag and showed her what he was talking about. As for the castle playing you can see some of that below - as for speech - he starts therapy 2 days a week starting tomorrow. He is very excited because he gets to ride the school bus from his preschool to the school and back again before he gets picked up at lunch!

Samuel's new decor

By now you know that Samuel LOVES knights, castles, dragons, swords, etc. and pirates. I wanted to put a castle on his wall for a while but was trying to make it out of the blue foam board that you use as insulation on the outside of the house - not sure what it is called. Finally, one day I decided to just paint it on the wall - and 2 hours later - Ta-Da! Here it is. Samuel is a little disappointed he can't get in the castle but he likes it. I would like to add some archers to the top of the castle (Samuel wants them to have cross bows NOT long bows but I'm not sure of my cross bow making skills!). Here is Sir Samuel

I had this piece of fabric from when I thought I would recover the pink lamp shade I had in Samuel's nursery in Indiana - that never happened - so I thought I could use the fabric to make a banner. I needed something to put a sword and shield on and I saw this idea on a bulletin board at Jeremy's school and got to work. I still need to put it on a dowel and hang it properly. The sword - made from tin foil was a big hit.

Across the room is where I hang his papers from school and church. He has so may papers each day and wants to put them up - I had to come up with and idea that would keep them organized and keep me from taping or thumb- tacking them to the wall. (My good friend Laurie has something like this at the top of her stairs for her children's recent artwork and I love the idea) I just got the wire and hooks from Home Depot and hung two wires above his shelf. It works well when I take the time to rotate the pictures.

Sunday afternoon fun in the sun

look at the knees to those pants - they seem to disappear quickly!
Samuel (with sword by his side) and Lucy drawing two pirate ships with cannons

Shadows

We played out side today and enjoyed the sunshine, cool breeze and time together. The children enjoyed watching their shadows and really liked making them dance!

Lucy's new room

i
It's not a new room but I did decide to put something on the wall. I realized I have never decorated the children's rooms because we haven't been anywhere long enough - no cute nursery, no decorations. I decided to just use what I have to decorate and try and work around the peach walls (the house we are renting has some brightly colored walls). First, I went to Michaels and used my 50% off coupon to buy the canvases to paint on - I ended up spending $5! I wanted to keep the bug/garden theme since Lucy likes butterflies and bunnies (or any animal). As you can see I painted her name, what you can't see is that I wrote Bible verses around the letters that deal with 'Light' - which is what Lucy means. Then I wanted to include her middle name and I wrote one of my favorite verses "May the God of HOPE fill you will all joy and peace as you trust in HIM" Romans 15:13 along the bottom. On the bottom you can see the flower garden wall stickers I found at the dollar tree (total $2). AND thanks to grandma Lucy has some butterflies hanging from the ceiling that can flutter and dance!

I wanted to use the pony quilt Aunt Erin gave Lucy (and the colors match the peach) so we put that on the other wall over her new shelves. She likes that each cubby has something different - Mr.Potato head, Little people, Little People Animals, Little People accessories like tables and chairs, doctor kit, books, and what every girl needs - a treasure basket for her hoop-te-do's (AKA paper towel holders) and other random things that is evidence that the phrase "one man's trash is another man's treasure" is true. Lucy loves her room and I like that we can keep it much cleaner with the shelves. We still have her tall book shelf in the corner to hold all of the children's books we have - the children LOVE to read and we always want to encourage that desire!

There is a little peak at Lucy's new room and tomorrow I'll let you see the decorating I got into in Samuel's room...

U2

On October 6, Jeremy and I went to the U2 concert at the Georgia Dome - it was an amazing concert and we enjoyed the night out together. Grandpa Noonan got us the tickets for our birthday back in July and offered to hang out with L and S for the evening for us. Here is a picture of the stage set up and us at the concert - THANKS again Jack!

Rain, Rain

As many of you may know - there was major flooding in Atlanta the end of September and while we didn't get any damaging floods, we did get the rain. It actually rained for days and days and continues to rain more than usual. Well, that doesn't stop us from playing outside (as long as there is not lightning). I just let them head outside and play and they love it - and why not?

quotes

Samuel, after eating some Reese's ice cream Daddy bought -
"Mama, can I have some of that BUMPY Road ice cream next time?"

a request

OK, I haven't been very good about updating pictures lately AND I got a message on my answering machine from Papa last night letting me know - that things need to change. Papa loves his grandkids and wants to see more of them (He can drive over and see baby Wyatt but has to rely on technology to see the other two more often). As you may know this blog is primarily a place where grandparents and greatgrandparents - along with family and friends can read about the adventures of our family - I will do my best Papa to keep you updated!

Cousins

Look at how much they've grown!

This past weekend cousin Tori and Jordyn came to visit. Uncle Kenny will be stationed in northern California for the next three years after spending the last three years in Germany - we are glad they will be in the US - we are hoping to get to see Aunt Jackie and the rest of them again soon when we visit (we can return Uncle Kenny's ice packs to him!)

We had a great weekend with the Noonan and Bellard families (we missed Uncle Jonathan and Aunt Stephanie) but Matrix and Zipper - the dogs - were a big hit with Lucy and Samuel. We were so glad to get to see everybody and had a wonderful time!

Baby Wyatt

Our evening routine involves reading to the children several books while they eat their snacks, sometimes we sing a few songs and then we pray before they get one more book in their beds and a kiss goodnight. We have started letting everyone pray each night and Lucy prays every night for Baby Wyatt. Last night she forgot to pray for Baby Wyatt and she made us all pray again so she could include baby Wyatt. He is growing up so fast and is such a cutie. Here are some pics I found on Grandma's camera that we enjoyed looking at - especially since they also include some of their favorite things - Papa's tractor, General and bath time!


"oopps, I got caught trying to take off with the butter churn!"

Grandma was here!

This past Friday and Saturday, grandma took a short trip up to spend the day with the children and take them to Callaway Gardens. Papa stayed home (we missed you Papa) but Grandma braved the trip by herself with both of the children and it looks like they had wonderful time at the butterfly garden, flower gardens and a craft show along the way... here are some pics finally...

Samuel at the butterfly garden

"Smile for the camera!"
"Lucy, please look at Grandma so she will stop taking pictures of us!"

The cute nephew

OK - can't get pics to post of Samuel, Lucy and Grandma's trip to Callaway Gardens this past weekend or some cute pics I found on Grandma's camera of my nephew Wyatt. I promised Papa I would post some pics soon - so I'll keep trying but until then you can check out the cute "chunky monkey", Baby Wyatt at Erin's blog. Hope you enjoy!