Dentist

Last week the girls had their first trip to the dentist.  Our pediatrician said that we needed to have them there before they turned 4, so of course I have waited all year and finally took them.  And they did great!  Audrey was a little leery of the whirling toothbrush thing - though in her defense the hygienist that she had did not do as good of a job as Brooke's did in explaining it and showing it to her before she started. They got a good report from the dentist - no cavities! But apparently they both have a posterior crossbite - though on opposite sides, which the dentist seemed to find very interesting.  And now that the dentist has pointed it out, it is obvious.  But he said that we did not need to worry about it yet, but that at 5 they would probably need a retainer.  Wait.  Five is in just one year.  (Vallie - when you read this, can you ask Trey his opinion?)

So like all good, crazy moms, I took pictures of their first dentist appointment.

Sassy

The girls have been extra sassy lately in their pictures....especially Audrey!  (which I am thrilled with cause for awhile now Brooke has clearly been outshining her in pics, but Audrey has totally stepped up her game!) 

Weekend with Gramma

Over Columbus Day weekend, Gramma Hazel came up for a visit.  We had lots of fun with here - the girls love their grandparents!  We went to frying pan park (but the pics are on my phone which is not helping me now.  the highlight was that there were 3 litters of baby pigs, some as young as only 2 weeks old), had our previously mentioned big races, went to two birthday parties, D and I went to the movies to see Moneyball, and played lots of games.  Very good times indeed!

Play princess dominoes - Audrey's current favorite game.  They are actually quite good at it and are moderately strategic about playing their doubles whenever possible.

Loving on Gramma!

 

Presenting Gramma with some art work that they had made for her before she came.

Birthdays

I love birthdays and I love birthday parties!  So here are a few pics from some birthday parties that the girls have gone to in the last month or so.

 

 Here is a picture from Mason's birthday.  Could Audrey look happier to be next to him??

Also from Mason's birthday on the train ride.  They are sitting next to their friend Xander.  This was the day of FSU's big game against OU - back when we still thought that our team was going to be good....thus explaining their (and our) outfits

 The girls got into the swing of it at Kermit's party as they were trying to break open the rocket pinata.

 Patiently awaiting the cake at Delaney's party while sitting with their friend Abby.  Before each party we all discuss whether we think that there is going to be cupcakes or cake. It is the great debate and the winners are always very excited to point out that they were right and the others wrong. For the record it went cake, cupcakes, cake, and cake for these parties here.

Eating their fancy princess (though the girls had both taken off their outfits by the second picture and you can't really see that they were Snow White and Cinderella in the first one) lunch and then singing happy birthday to Abby.

The girls have their birthday in less than 3 weeks!  We are getting excited! They are going to have a revival of their House of Bounce party from last year.  Though they still call it Bounce of House.

Flashback

Somehow I missed posting about my girls trip in September.  My former college roomie Stacy, 2 of her high school friends, and I (or as Stacy likes to put it: 1 bride and 3 bridesmaids) met up in Tampa for a relaxing beach weekend.  We had so much fun! Though I just could not get over how hot it was - both the pool and the ocean were warmer than any up here during the entire summer - even at the end of September!

Here are a few pics of our weekend:

 

Getting our toes done - so ticklish!

 Lunch of champions - Publix subs! And yes we made a worker take our picture - in the grocery store.

 Delicious beverages - well mine was certainly delicious!

 Working on our model action shots - Sadly Stacy lost a leg in the process

How relaxing to just float around in the pool - without kids!

Not too bad for 35+ gals 

 

 

Stacy and Kerry montage- apparently I surprised myself on the last picture!

Spooky House

The girls have been all into Halloween and they have wanted us to make our house in to a "Spooky House."  So we have been busy little bees making spooky crafts.  Unfortunately our house doesn't really look spooky - it looks more like an explosion of construction paper.  But here is a sampling of our work.

Handprint spiders - the big ones are mine and Gramma Hazel. 

Three little pumpkins sitting on a fence.  A witch (cut out by the girls) flew by and said "Ha Ha Ha.  I will take you home and make a pumpkin pie"  Apparently this is a song that they sing at school. And there are lots more of those pumpkins around the house!

Our footprint ghosts - lots of these hanging around as well!

The girls showing off their bats and candy corn - though they both went on record that candy corn is "not spooky mom!"

Another shot of the bats - I was so proud of myself for using toothpicks to keep the wings up (Martha Stewart I am not, but not a bad solution!)

Our salt dough ghosts - which the girls have loved playing with around the house.

Little pumpkins that the decorated at their friend Delaney's birthday party - after playing a game of find the pumpkin. So cute

Annual Halloween Photo Shoot

 

Audrey our little bunny

Brooke our darling ladybug

So cute!!

Running Running

The title of this post suggests that it will be all about Darren, but I am tricky!  This is primarily about me and the girls.  On October 8, the girls and I had our "big race."  Which for me was my second ever 5k and for the girls it was called a "pumpkin dash."  I had been training basically since the last one back in April (or maybe it was May) but my training - which really only consisted of me running twice a week - was frequently interrupted by vacations or heat and humidity.  I have determined that I really need the temps to be between 50 and 70 for my optimal running.  Not a huge window.  Which is one of the reasons that I have joined a gym. again.  I have been once so far.

Back to my story.  I am super slow but am very proud of myself with my new time.  I ran it in 34 minutes - over 3 minutes faster than last time!  (which D did the math and that averages out to a 10:59 pace - at least it starts with a 10!) 

The pumpkin dash was basically a disaster - poorly organized and very very very short.  too short.  We clearly had built it up WAY too much for the girls.  They had even practiced by going to the track with D and running around it once. So they were up for at least a quarter mile.  It was so much shorter than that.  However, they did have fun wearing their bibs. And I did take a ton of pictures!

And since no running post would be complete without at least a shout out to the real runner in our family - D ran another half marathon a couple of weeks ago.  And he set ANOTHER pr.  He is so fast!  He ran this one in 1 hour 23 minutes which averages out to a 6:21 pace.  His marathon is coming up in less than two weeks on October 30. And of course he is planning to set another PR.  Here's hoping that all our colds go away and the weather stays nice so that can happen!

Giving the girls a high five as I am approaching the finish line.  Thanks to Gramma Hazel for taking the pics and watching the girls while I ran

Pre-race with their friends Kiera in the top picture and Kasey in the bottom picture

Grey Squirrel

Here are the girls doing a show.  They are singing Grey Squirrel.  (A song from preschool that I posted on here last year.  It is of Brooke singing and she does Grey Squirrel after Jesus Loves Me. It is CRAZY how much older they seem this year!  So I am going to now try to link to that post so you can see for yourself: Grey Squirrel)

Hilarious!!

Today in the car (on the way to Target, of course) we were working on our vocabulary and it ended up as something so funny:

Me: Raise your hand if you are a genius.
All 3 of us raised our hands
Me: Audrey, what does being a genius mean?
Audrey: smart

Me: Raise your hand if you are hilarious.
All 3 of us raised our hands
Me: Brooke, what does hilarious mean?
Brooke: very funny

Me: Raise your hand if you are humongous.
No one raised their hand
Brooke: Mom, raise your hand.  You are humongous! 
Audrey: Yeah mom.  You are giant.

Though my ego may be bruised, at least they know what humongous means!

Totally unrelated picture - Me and D at our first Redskins game