Trimming, Tedious, and Tantrums

This house and household are keeping Joe and I pretty busy most of the time. Saturday Mama Sue came and played with the girls while Joe and I worked in and around the house. Ava is now saying "Ma Sue" just like Cate did when she was about this age. Cate was thrilled with the Halloween cupcakes Mama Sue brought and would not let anyone eat the last one because it was for "my Daddy"-- little did she know he had eaten his fair share already.

My goal for our yard is to make it as unappealing to a family of snakes as possible. Joe and I cleared more brush and hacked away at the thicket. We can't just cut a limb or a small tree and drag it out of our small forest. We have to clip the 15 briars attached to it first. My arms look like the kitten (which we still have) used them as a scratching post. We can tell there has been progress made in the back and will hopefully be able to plant a few pretty trees soon.

We have also started pulling wallpaper down in the laundry room. It only covers one small wall in there, but it is taking for-ev-er! We have tried everything from vinegar to a product from Lowe's, but nothing is working very well. I did manage to tear a rather large hole in the wall. Thank goodness there's only one other room with wallpaper in it and it's a bathroom.






Ms. Ava has learned to pitch a fit, and boy can she throw one. We attempted to have a nice family meal with my cousins Robert and Alyson on Sunday and Ava screamed and carried on until she had to be carried out. She tried a similar stunt at supper at home that night and after a swat on the leg decided to sit in her chair and act like a human being. Mornings have not been her thing lately either. This is a picture of her getting ready for school last week. I got her dressed and she then went and got these sunglasses. She put them on, sat back down in my lap and did not want to be moved or spoken to. Joe and I began snickering and she looked at me over the top of those glasses with a very stern glare.



Ava has begun speaking in full sentences this week. Our favorites: "I love Mama." "I love Daddy." "I sit in my chair." "I get clothes on." She recognizes the color blue, we think, but it's hard to tell because she calls most everything blue. She can count to six and tries to sing along with some of the songs in the car.

Cate is very wound up about Halloween and getting to dress up. She almost destroyed her costume- it has had a few surgeries already. She's been scaring us, sort of. She will walk up to one of us and say, "I'm about to scare you." She then walks off a few steps, turns around, and says, "Boo. We don't scare too bad." Joe was settling her in bed a few nights ago and was scratching her back. "Daddy, wouldn't it be great if you scratched Ava's back? Joe replied, "Yeah, it would." Cate then said, "She's probably not old enough to appreciate it though. That was on Olivia."

They are pretty sweet most of the time and always keep us entertained.

It's seldom that the girls are dressed in anything but pajamas (half the time they don't even have those on), that I thought I'd get a few pictures before school one morning. Cate cooperated. Ava did not.





And we can't forget our first child- Tucker, lying in the sunshine with a much beloved sock.