Things and Stuff

Here are some things that have been happening lately:

Lainey started crawling a couple weeks ago!!! We are so excited! She is now 13 months but since this started a couple weeks ago I am marking this down as she started crawling at 12 months. This has been a long time coming. Lots of hard work from Lainey, her therapists, and Greg and me. So proud of this little one. Now she can crawl over to Cambry and try to take her toys :) She can also pull up to high knees. Now we are working on teaching pulling to stand up.

We have all taken turns being sick around here. For a good couple of weeks we all had colds off and on that we seemed to keep passing back and forth. Then there were a couple days where my voice dissappeared. Then Lainey got pink eye, and then she got croup. Poor thing. Now she has had lingering congestion for a week and a half. Illness just seems to be abundant in the winterish months. 

We are starting a new study in our Bible study group called Experiencing God. I am excited about this.

Cambry is in love with Frozen. Last year when it swept the nation Cambry was still too young to want to sit and watch a whole movie and was more interested in Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. But now she pretty much watches the movie (parts of it) daily and requests Elsa braids and talks about Anna throughout the day.

We had family pictures taken a few weeks ago so I need to post those soon!

We also had Cambry's birthday party this past weekend so I need to write a post about that. I did not do a good job of taking pictures, so I really only have a few.

I can't believe Thanksgiving is tomorrow and Christmas is so close! I think I have only bought a couple Christmas gift so far. But I do have Christmas cards already so at least I am on top of something.

I am looking forward to December and all the fun parties and events that are coming up!

Before 8AM

A local photographer, Karen Jacot, came over recently to take photographs of our morning. She is doing a "Before AM"  series, where she shows the beauty of the every day details through pictures. Many of the Houston Mom Blog contributors participated in this. I jumped at the chance to have free pictures taken. I love how all of them turned out. I have written several day-in-the-life posts before on this blog because I want to look back and remember those little details. So of course I was excited to have my morning documented. I will denitiely treasure these pictures because it shows how precious this season of life is. I wrote a post for HMB with these pictures, but I had to limit how many pictures I put up. So here are some more pictures...

My alarm goes off around 5:30-5:45 am so I can do my quiet time before the girls wake up. That is always my goal, although sometimes it is SO hard to make myself get up. This past week I was so bad about hitting snooze and sleeping in. When I do get up, I make coffee first thing.

Sometimes if the girls are sleeping in late I have time to start getting ready. This particular morning they were sleeping in way later than usual so I did my make up and hair before they even got up. Most of the time I do my makeup in the play room while Cambry plays and Lainey tries to eat all of my makeup. We were getting ready to go to Divine Design this day. It is pretty much my one day of the week to do my hair nice and dress cute.

This was not just for show. I actually do try to make the bed every day :)

I love Lainey's bed head when she wakes up. This girl has some great volume.

Lainey cried when I tried to put her down in the playroom so I brought her with me to get Cambry out of bed. Sweet little thing still calls for me to come get her in the morning even though she could get right out herself.

Cambry loves for Lainey and I to go hide and she comes to find us. Lainey used to be the best hiding partner, but lately has been super curious and grabby and mobile so now she usually gives us away.

Usually the only way I can cook is to let Lainey unload all of the tupperware from the cabinet.

We usually eat eggs, "pancakes" (egg+banana+cinnamon), oatmeal, or a frozen waffle with jelly for breakfast. Bacon or sausage optional.

I read out of the One Year Devotions for Preschoolers book. Cambry usually asks for story after story. It is a sweet little book with short daily readings that are great for her age.

Cambry is the sweetest big sister to Lainey (most of the time). I love it when she wants to help take care of Lainey. Even if it does make a huge mess :)

The tip toes kill me. Too precious.

And there is our morning! I love seeing all the details in pictures. When I am in the midst of things, everything just feels so ordinary and routine. But I love that the pictures reveal how everything is special and fleeting. Karen was so sweet to come over and take these pictures of us!!

Family Reunion Pictures

I am finally getting around to blogging about our Mattern Family Reunion that happened almost a month ago. Greg's cousin Briana took all these great pictures and was so sweet to send them to us. If you are in the San Antonio area you should definitely check her out her website. (All photographs below were taken by Briana).

It is amazing to see how big this family is, and how it grows every year. And it is a miracle that everyone has a free weekend to all get together!

It is also a miracle that the kids are looking at the camera in this picture.

Halloween 2014

A couple days before Halloween our small group got together for dinner and social time. The kids wore their costumes and exchanged candy. They all looked so cute. Top row: Mary, Elsa, Football, Football player, Sophia, Doc McStuffins, Knight. Bottom row: Angel, Bee, Fairy.

Halloween fell on a Friday this year and the weather was beautiful. The girls wore their cute Halloween outfits from Nana so I had to take a picture. Then we went to the park for a picnic lunch.

Greg got home from work in the afternoon a little earlier than normal. We got the kids in their costumes to head to First Fest, our church's fall festival. Cambry went as Mary for Halloween because she refers to herself as Mary all the time and one of her baby doll's name is Jesus. She will say things like "remember that time I was pregnant and baby Jesus was in my tummy?". So we dressed her up as Mary. She even chose this over Minnie Mouse. I thought she looked like the sweetest thing ever.

Lainey dressed up as an angel. I actually bought this costume at a resale shop before I had even decided on Cambry's costume. So it kind of worked out perfectly that their costumes went together. I declared Lainey as Gabriel even though Greg likes to point out that Gabriel was a man-angel. But how cute is she???

First fest was so much fun. It was our first year to go and I was amazed at how much stuff they had. So many fun things for the kids to do! Cambry's favorite thing was the trampoline jumping. We were surprised that she even wanted to do it because she tends to be on the very cautious side when it comes to things like this. But we were proud of her for being brave and she really loved it. She also did a pony ride, petting zoo, we rode a little train, she did several bounce houses, and collected lots of candy. I loved seeing all of the kids' costumes there. 

We drove through CFA on the way home, stopped by a couple of neighbor's houses, then called it a night. Happy Halloween!