Fall in Iowa

We took a long weekend last week and traveled to West Branch. It was a great weekend with the Scott Family. The kids got in some bonding time with Grandma & Grandpa Scott and with their cousin's, Ryan, Adam & Evan. One of the highlights of the weekend was the O'Neil annual cider party. They have LOTS of apple trees, a great cider press and lots of willing neighbors to help (while drinking, of course). Jan, was kind enough to take come pictures of our family.
Here is the best of the group. Here is Miss Eleanor. She LOVED spending time with her boy cousins. Cousin, Ryan, who turned 13 while we were there is followed around by Eleanor on every visit. She thinks he is the greatest thing! And he is.
(Look at the dress....Doesn't every girl need an apple dress for a cider party?)
Here is Lucy Jane. Potty training is going really well. She is now on a big girl swing and loves to go HIGH!
Jimmy is getting so big and so much fun. He loved being outside!
Here is one of the fun pictures.
All done...

TGFM Holiday Launch

Here are my listings that are up on eBay right now for The Girlfriends Manor Christmas Launch.
To take a look search "TGFM" on eBay.

Sorry...the pictures are not the best. My models were not in the mood to cooperate today.

Dear God....

Parenting can be tough at times. This past week have brought about some big changes in our household. We moved Eleanor to a new preschool this year. She LOVED her preschool last year, but we wanted to open enroll our kids to a larger district, so we moved her to a new preschool.

She was doing great things at this new preschool. She had just finished all of her red reading drawers and was learning some math. But, when I picked her up in the car each day, she was different. She was not the bubbly, crazy girl I picked up from preschool every week last year. She never said much and there were frequent tears. She missed her 'little' preschool.

Last week, I volunteered in her preschool and was able to observe her for the day. I was most sad when her teacher commented that she had never heard Ella 'giggle that much'. I know that last year Ella was always giggling, laughing and smiling at preschool. It broke my heart that she was not as happy. It hurt me even more that we had taken her from a place she loved because of a decision David and I made.

David and I did some research on the schools, visited one of the elementary schools and talked to both sets of preschool teachers. We also talked with Ella to see what she wanted. She was sad to leave her new teacher, who was WONDERFUL, but she wanted to go back to her 'little' preschool.

Today was her first day back at preschool and she was laughing the whole way home. This was a huge decision for David and I to make the first time around. It was even harder and bigger this time. We pray we made the right choice and our kiddos are happy!

Now off to start worrying about her riding the bus to school next year...

What have we been up to...

Jimmy is over his ear infection, but fell OUT of the bathtub last week. He has his first black eye. He is OK and his war wounds have already healed!
Lucy has to be gated at bedtime now. Our overly-social child feels the need to join us at all hours!

Eleanor is modeling the girls' new Christmas dresses. I need to figure out something for their arms!

It was candy....now a $50,000 bear

It was only a few short months ago that Eleanor only needed a piece of candy, to model for me. These days, the bribes are much more $$$. Today it was the $50,000 Hannah Montana bear that she saw on a commercial. Something about Hannah Montana, Build-A-Bear, a computer and $50,000. Thank you Disney Channel for your wonderful marketing to my young children!!!

Here are some of my new customs that will go to etsy and eBay later this week. It was going to be an outdoor photo session, but the wind was blowing about 40 mph....so we brought the pictures inside!

I think this will be my eBay custom outfit.

The face of a double ear infection

Poor Jimmy has a double ear infection! He doesn't look like it in the first picture, but he does. He is very cuddly right now. I can't believe how big he is getting.
Day 1 of medicine.

Day 2 of medicine.

Halloween is just around the corner...

The girls have both decided to be Hannah Montana for Halloween. Eleanor, has wanted to for some time. Then when we were at Claires this week and the Hannah wigs were ONE for $20 or TWO for $10 (I obviously bought TWO) Lucy decided she wanted to be Hannah too. This is after lunch when the girls tried their wigs on. My mom and I were almost wetting our pants we were laughing so hard. Lucy resembles ET, when he puts the blond wig on in the movie. And Eleanor was flipping the hair around like it was real.
I have their outfits almost complete, but have NO CLUE what Mr. Jimmy should be. Any suggestions?