Guess Who This is

If you watch tv in our house, tonight is a very special night. In honor of this show, take a look at this and figure out who is singing.

:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3A0G6axSS4

Shade

If anyone is in need of cute, modest, extra long shirts or basics, check out Shade Clothing. I've been selling Shade on the side as something fun to do since January, and right now there are great sales on summer stuff and the fall stuff just came out ... enter my code PAX61898 for 10% off your first online order. Or if you want to see samples of the clothes, just email me sarah.paxton@shadeclothing.net. www.shadeclothing.com

End of Summer Sprint

We have been doing a lot outside lately, trying to get in as much playtime as possible without wearing 5 layers against the cold. Every year the cold strikes during a different month. Last year it was around Halloween, sometimes it's December. Sometimes there's a foot of snow by Thanksgiving. One can never tell. I am also cold-blooded so I get so cold I just can't move and would rather die than go outside in the wind chill.

Fall is slowly approaching. There are a few leaves on our driveway and front lawn already. I went through the girls summer clothes and put away all the outfits I was dead tired of or too stained to look at for one more washing. I also put away the baby shoes since there is no baby in the near future. Violets feet are growing slower than Avas did though, so I can still cram her foot into cute size 3 shoes.

Ava has figured out a good way to get a "tubba." She goes outside and starts dumping sand on her and Violet's head. Violet then does it to Ava. It's a game to them. Of course, I am stuck and have to give Ava a bath. Here's what she's been doing lately.

Laying down on her back. For a girl that hates to get her head wet, this is a huge step. She has to have a towel to wipe any water away that gets in her eyes.

At the library with a little statue. We walked there and each girl got to check out two books on their library card. Everyone was surprisingly well behaved and Ava stayed very close to me the whole time (even though there were kids running around everywhere). Violet emptied out two small shelves of cardboard books and then got excited when she saw big rows of books. She tried to run away from us to start throwing books off the shelves, but we laughed and picked her up.

I've started going back to the gym after taking the whole summer off (who wants to be cooped up in a gym in the summer?) After the gym the girls were hungry and we don't have any food here, so I got them ice cream. The idea was to get them the literally quarter-sized cones from McDonalds, but as I went through the drive-thru they handed me normal size. I was freaking out inside when they told me they just put less in the cones. Yeah right! Apparently you can only get them when you eat in. I almost considered giving them back or throwing them away. But oh well, Ava was in Violet's new car seat so there would be less mess in the new car seat. I took this picture of Violet COVERED in ice cream. She was tired, stickey, hungry, and mad about her runny nose. You can see Ava in the background eating her cone. We had to stop at the park on the way home to eat outside, which of course meant playing more. They also ate 8 chicken nuggets between the two of them. Crazy!! I didn't have any .. the rest of the 10 piece got dropped and went in the trash. I wasn't going to eat nuggets after going to the gym. That would have been too sinful.

Pictures of the girls

Today it was raining outside and the girls were playing. I wanted to get some candid pictures of them, but as soon as they see me with my phone or camera, they come running. So this is as good as it gets. I've been a little light on the family pictures lately. I think it's because everything happens so fast. They do one thing for about two minutes, and before I get the chance, the cute moment is gone. Today I tried to get Ava to say election terms like, "George W. Bush" "John McCain" and "Barack Obama." She could say them all except Obama, she said Barack ok, but by the time she got to Obama, she was so tired she just said "Grandma" which sounds like "Gama."

Pop trivia

For all of you celebrity gossip nerds, I thought I would come up with a little pop quiz for you. Most of these are off the top of my head .. so enjoy. The first to respond correctly to all my questions can pick any topic and I will blog 500 words about it.

1. Who is LC?
2. What is Oprah's first show this year going to feature?
3. Name the latest female reality tv star to get sentenced to jail for DUI
4. Name all members of the Britney Spears family.
5. Who are the two people Mariah Carey married?
6. Who is Paris Hilton dating?
7. How many Pitt-Jolie kids are there?
8. What cause does Hayden Panittiere (sp?) love?
9. When Britney went to Mexico earlier in the year, what famous male movie star did she hang out with?
10. Name your three favorite reality tv shows.

Go Highlanders!

Tonight we went on a date night with the kids to an Adams High School football game. They were playing another school in our city, Stoney Creek (there are 3 HS total in our city). Of course Adams blew them out of the water and when we left the score was 48 to 15. Being that Adams is my alma matter it was a blast from the past to enjoy a friday night football game. The kids had a good time. Here they are sitting between bleachers. Violet enjoyed scraping gum off the cement and trying to eat it.

What's cooking

For those of you that are dying to know what our kitchen now looks like, here it is! It's not done, but I couldn't resist posting my pics, even if it is cluttered. We have to still put a dishwasher next to the sink (it is above to the left, where the giant fridge used to be) and hang more of the doors. I'm also thinking about putting a bar in on the left wall with stools once the dishwasher is gone. The walls are Behr's Corriander seed (a warm green) and the cabinets are cottage white. All trim and doors are now standard white. We put in new molding around the bottom and had to special order our crown molding because they no longer keep what we want in stock.

What it looked like before:
http://paxventures.blogspot.com/2008/08/everything-but-kitchen-sink.html
http://paxventures.blogspot.com/2008/07/quotes.html

I have some better "before" pictures but they're on my memory card which is currently on the fritz. Until Tyler fixes it you'll have to deal with my camera photos. After 3 years we figured we had better do something about the kitchen! It looks SO much bigger. I don't even know whose kitchen this is!