All Mama, All the Time
Over the last few weeks, I've been really blessed by having two girls that have been all about their mama. Robert calls it the "all mama, all the time show" and that's about how it is sometimes. It definitely goes in cycles, and sometimes the girls aren't much more interested in me than anyone else they love, but I've noticed that, the older they get, the more they are all about their mama. And, I, of course, love it! I love feeling like they really need ME in particular, as opposed to just a competant caregiver. I get so many kisses, hugs, and cuddles on a daily basis that it's probably more than some people get in a month (and even well loved people!). And I just plain eat that up! It's s

Halloween
The girls had a great Halloween yesterday, albeit not many actual Halloween festivities. We spent the day, which turned out to be sunny and lovely, at home, and their grandma and grandpa came over to visit. They had a good time with them, and didn't even seem scared of them anymore by the time they left! The girls have been doing a lot better with their stranger anxiety lately, and it was good to see them finally having fun with their grandparents (and even sitting on their grandpa's lap)!Naptime, however, was a debacle. They had gotten up early, so I figured they would be more than ready for nap. As naptime drew closer, we had a nice leisurely lunch, and both girls were in supe

Halloween Eve
One thing that I love about working at Microsoft is that they celebrate Halloween by encouraging their employees to decorate their workspaces and common areas, put out candy, and bring their families by to trick-or-treat. This year, they even had a big haunted house, face painting, and other cool stuff. Unfortunately, that area had a line stretching pretty much as far as the eye could see to get in, so we opted not to take advantage of ALL of the fun times, but we were still able to trick-or-treat with the kiddos this afternoon. Fun family time plus a few hours off work makes a great combination in my book!Since James doesn't take the girls until Sunday, I asked him if he wanted

Holiday Portraits
I was super excited earlier today to see that Aly had blogged our holiday portraits, but tonight I was even more excited to get the email saying that the gallery with ALL of our edited portraits was up.I found so many amazing shots this time that I'm seriously almost tearing up. Aly did such an amazing job of really capturing all of the kids' individual personalities. They seem to leap right off the screen! Plus, they are really just amazing shots! I'm definitely going to have to order the DVD with all of the high-res images because there is no way that I can order just a few prints with this many truly amazing shots to choose from! In fact, it's been really hard for me to write

Frog Says "Bleahhhhhh"
This morning, I got up bright and early to start getting all of us ready for our holiday portraits. Although the portraits appointment wasn't until 10 am, I knew that it was going to take a few hours for all seven of us to get ready. So, I got up at 7, colored my hair in between making breakfast and cuddling with Alice on the couch, and really started kicking things into high gear at 8. From 8 on, I pretty much ran around bathing babies, dressing babies, making sure the big kids were dressed, overseeing diaper bag packing, etc and so forth. We left at 9:45 on the dot and pulled into the Arboretum right on time. Score!My entire goal going into this portrait session was to get ONE