Spectacular

Ben built this block city by himself today. I didn't help at all. When John came home he said, "Ben that's awesome." Ben replied, "It's spectacular." Spectacular was the word on the day on Sesame Street recently.

This tower he's building looks iffy, but it did not fall.

Mollie is spectacular too. She rolled from her stomach to her back for the first time today. She's been going from back to stomach for a while now. I don't have a picture. I put her down on her stomach, went to the kitchen, and when I returned she was on her back.

Turkey Day

Turkey day became steak day at our house. Tuesday Mollie started "barking" again. She was up for several hours in the night coughing. Thankfully, it wasn't a croup cough and she was able to get her breath. I took her to the pediatrician Wednesday and she called it croup anyway. Although the doctor said it was okay to travel for Thanksgiving, she advised that it was contagious. Our plan had been to have lunch with Nana and Grandaddy and while John went to the camp with Grandaddy, Ben, Mollie, and I would go to Jena. Since we didn't want to get Nana, Rylee, Aubrey, and Olivia sick, we decided it would be best to stay home. Even though we didn't eat any turkey, Ben did color and glue a paper turkey.

Since we weren't going to Jena, Mama decided to come to us. That made Thanksgiving a special time for us. While she was here, I helped her get a lot of her Christmas shopping done online and by making a 4:30 a.m. run to Wal-Mart on Black Friday.

Mollie still has a wet cough and is very, very snotty. When she sneezes, it looks like a gross joke. She's still happy and playing, though. The playmat is her favorite place. She squeals at the toys. Mollie has found her voice and it is LOUD!

Fashion First

Mollie wore blue jeans for the first time yesterday. She also wore a hair bow, which is unusual since I have a hard time getting them in. She needed the bow with the blue jeans, though. Although her shoes were pink polka dotted and her jacket lined in pink, she didn't look obviously female in jeans.

Sleepover

Fran, MV, and Janey spent Wednesday night with us. Ben was very excited to have them spend the night. Ben and MV are trying out the futon where Fran slept. All the kids actually slept well Wednesday night which is unusual when they are out of their usual beds. MV was a big girl who could be quiet enough to sleep in Mollie's room.

Reading Curious George with John.

Making muffins for breakfast.

A patriotic parade marching to Yankee Doodle.

A Bumbo seat works as a booster seat in a pinch. That was John's good idea.

Bathing Mollie.

Watching Sesame Street.

We had their Christmas picture taken together on Thursday. It always takes forever. Ben obviously got bored. He was taking his pants off.

A Mess

You end up a slimy mess when you suck your thumb while eating cereal. Mollie probably needed the comfort of her thumb to calm her nerves since her brother was right beside her trying to build a "sandcastle" out of bowls.

Painting Cookies

While we were eating our cutout Halloween cookies, John told me about how they would paint Thanksgiving cookies when they were little. It turns out Thanksgiving cookie cutters aren't very common. Wal-Mart already has a whole shelf of Christmas cookie cutters out. I ended up ordering some on Ebay.

Ben requested that I take a picture of "why we are doing this." Before we started cutting out the cookies, I showed him pictures in this book about the first Thanksgiving (it was too text heavy for a two-year old) and explained what each of the cookie cutters were.

We used a mix of cornstarch, water, and food coloring and painted the cookies before we baked them. There are several different types of cookie paint, but this seemed like the easiest and didn't require much patience since he didn't have to wait for the cookies to bake or cool or for the paint to dry.

We made pilgrims, . . .
Indians, turkeys, and cornacopias.

Playing Outside

The weather has been warm this week, but we've been busy and haven't played outside until today. We made up for being inside all week by staying outside a couple of hours.

Mollie hanging out in the shade while Ben played in the dirt.

Murray learned about soccer on Sesame Street today so Ben needed to play soccer too.

M is for . . .

Mary Varner AND Mollie. This was MV's shirt when she was a lot smaller.

Zoo Trip

Ben and I went on a church trip to the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans today. Mollie stayed home with Mama and MawMaw Wilma. John went hunting.

We went on two big buses. We watched Toy Story 3. That is the saddest movie. Hopefully nobody noticed that I cried. I had my sunglasses on.

There were lots of small animals to touch. This is some type of rodent.

Climbing with friends at the petting zoo.

The goats climbed, too.

A group from First Pres watching the sea lions swim by. We all had matching shirts.

Ben was so excited when a sea lion would pass.

The two brown lumps right at Ben's eye level are rhinos.

We fed the ducks and turtles. I didn't get a picture of Ben's favorite animal, though. I didn't realize he was so excited about the raccoons until he told everyone who asked that they were his favorite.

Flu Shots

Cat isn't going to get the flu this year. He got about 50 flu shots last night. His heart, ears, and reflexes are healthy, too. I bought Ben a $1 doctor's kit at Dollar General yesterday. It was a well spent dollar.

Playing with Daddy

John and Ben are "at the beach playing in the band." Ben is laying on a towel since they are at the beach. Notice they both have hymnals. Ben won't let you sing songs from the hymnal, though. You have to play along to his "travelling music," the Praise Baby CD that he listened to in the car on the way to Florida a few weeks ago. He's addicted to it.

Since Mollie's been sick and it's been raining, we've had to stay inside this week. This tent belonged to Zac when he was little. Mama sent it home with us a couple of months ago and I've been saving it for a rainy day. Ben spent most of Tuesday morning preparing to camp. It seems he needed an amazing amount of stuff to camp. I went to hang up some clothes that were the dryer and start another load and when I returned, it was like Hoarders: Gone Camping.

Doesn't everyone take a Yankee Doodle hat camping?