Pumpkin Carving / Painting

We did our yearly pumpkin carving and painting this past Sunday.  The girls love to paint their small pumpkins, in fact I think they like that better than anything else.  Mark carved the pumpkin and boy is it a happy, happy pumpkin!  Hayden pulled all the yucky, yuck stuff out and the seeds.  Gracie refused to stick her hands in the yucky, yuck stuff!  Then they painted their pumpkins with rainbows, flowers and all sorts of girly stuff.  I laughed and told them all that there certainly wasn't anything scary about our Halloween decorations!  So I tried to paint another pumpkin with spiders, bats and witches on it, but lets just say that I am no artist!  Actually, they made fun of my pumpkin and laughed at it!  That's okay though, it was all about memories and having fun.  I am sure that next year Colt Man will show them how to decorate a pumpkin!

Gracie ready to paint her pumpkin

Hayden getting all the yucky, yuck stuff out!

Catching Up Again!

Well, once again I have gotten very behind on my blogging.  So here is a quick review of the past two weeks at the Stancil house! 

Gracie had Fall pictures at school.  I thought this was the perfect dress for the picture and I also have a picture of Hayden at 4 wearing the same dress for school pictures!!!  Isn't she a beauty?

Here is Colt Man!  He thought he was something else by stealing Mommy's chair when I got up!

Hayden's Senior Madison came to her soccer game two weeks ago.  Hayden was so excited that she came to watch her play that she scored one goal!  She also received a gift from Madison after the game with silly socks, cup, and candy!  Madison is a great Senior and really makes Hayden feel so special!

I had to take Hayden's class to lunch last week so that Ms. Power could have a teacher luncheon.  Hayden

loves it when I come to school to do things like this.  Although I don't think she was such a fan of that tomato soup(yuck,yuck,yuck) and grilled cheese sandwich!  Can't say I blame her!  This is her friend Oliva, they are so cute together and were having some very interesting conversations!

We went to the fair in Monroe last Saturday.  We will not do that again.  Now we know what kind of people attend that fair.  Next year we will go to Social Circle Fair!  Anyways, the girls had a blast and Hayden won her first prize all by herself.  She can really throw darts, so watch out!  She was so proud of herself and she named her panda....Pandy!!!  Imagine that.

After the fair, Hayden had a Halloween/Birthday party for one of her friends at school.  She wanted to be Belle this year.  So I bought a little bitty curling iron so that she could have spiral curls to look just like Belle.  She wanted to know if we could dye her hair brown, we told her absolutely not...that people pay lots of money to have hair the color of hers!!!  That is also my Tiara from our wedding that she is proudly wearing.  Funny how little things like that make her so happy!  She is absolutely beautiful and I love this smile in this picture.

Well after all my hard work on the perfect hair, she took it down to have silly hair at the Halloween party.  She still looks beautiful though!!!

My Aunt Beth found some my Great Grandmother's old hats and brought them to the girls to wear during their dress up and tea parties.  The girls didn't want to try them on in front of everybody but Colton did.  Look at that silly Colt Man!!!

Well, after lots of painting, putting in ceilings, building porches, roofing and trimming.  The playhouse is done.  Mark and Pop started on the porch on Saturday.  They got everything done but the roof.  So Mark finished every thing else on Sunday.  I finished painting all the trim and the porch and then we moved them in.  This is the new Futon cover for their playhouse.  They love it! 

TA DA!!!!  Isn't it the cutest thing ever.  It makes me want to live in it!  They are so proud of their playhouse and so are we!  Thanks Mimi and Pop.  We love you!

It's Painted!

Mark and I worked on the playhouse all afternoon yesterday.  I painted the front of the playhouse and trimmed it in white.  There is still a little bit to paint on the sides to finish the trim but I was getting tired and it was time for a break.  It looks great!  Mark put the ceilings in and trimmed the inside and ran out of boards right at the end.  So we only have a little bit and we are at the end.  The girls should be ready move some of their stuff in to play with by next weekend. 

Once he was finished, he helped me paint the doors and touched up some stuff.  Then we had to clean up, which was definitely not the best part, because my husband can make a really, really big mess!!!!  Now it is ready for the porch.  I can't wait to see what it looks like when the porch is done.  I am so excited!

Mommy's Birthday

I had an amazing birthday this year.  My girls made me cards that were so sweet.  Chris and Art gave me a new couch, that I have been wanting for a while.  Mark surprised me with the matching love seat and then my Mema and Pop surprised me with he matching recliner.  Yay!!!  I LOVE IT!  It looks amazing in our living room.  Kim and Artie gave me two new charms for my Pandora bracelet, one was a little cupcake that is so cute.  Oh and a bottle of wine, and one of my favorite kinds.  Grandmama and Linda gave me tulip bulbs and daffodil bulb to plant, I can't wait to plant them and watch them grow.  We also had a birthday dinner Saturday night, and I requested fried shrimp, french fries and crab legs.  It was very yummy and then we had birthday cake, which had 33 candles on it.  It looked like it was on fire!!!  The best part was when my little man sang Happy Birthday to me!  There was also either chocolate or vanilla ice cream!  Am I a lucky girl or what?  I am so thankful for my wonderful family.  They always know how to make me feel so special.  Thanks again to everyone for the amazing gifts.  I love all of you so much! 

Mimi, Hayden, Gracie and myself started painting the playhouse yesterday.  We picked a blue and it looks perfect.  The girls had so much fun helping.  They had paint every where, even in their hair, up their noses and all over their hands.  It didn't matter though, they had so much fun.  Hayden did an excellent job and Gracie pretty much stayed in one spot.  The only part left to do, is the front and then paint the trim white.  I can't wait to see the finished product and start moving these little girls into their new playhouse! 

It was a great weekend!!!

Gracie's First Date (with Dad of course)

Gracie had her first official date Tuesday night, and as you all know she isn't truly allowed to date until she is somewhere around 30 yrs old........so she had her date with Daddy!   It was Date with Dad at Preschool last night.  She picked out her own outfit, it was perfect and purple!  She was so excited, it is all she has talked about for the last week.  I think Mark was pretty excited too!  She wanted to go in the Red truck on her date, which I think is so funny.   She thinks it is a treat to ride in the red truck with just Daddy.  I guess because she is always with Mommy in my car.  Mark said that the whole class was extrememly shy, especially our little Pootie!  Basically it was a date to show Dad what they do at school all day.  Mark said they were all to shy to sing their songs and talk a whole lot, but it was still fun and interesting.  I think it is so neat that they do these things in Preschool now.  I wish they had done these things when I was in Preschool.  Mark has now taken both of his girls on their first date.  One thing for sure, he always has the sweetest and prettiest dates!  I know that they will always cherish these memories!

Croup Strikes Again

Well the croup has struck our house again.  Hayden has been fighting it off for about 2 weeks now and every time we think it is better it gets worse again.  However, last night we put Colton down for bed at 9pm and he woke me up at 12am crying and barking.  He sounded horrible and he was having a really hard time breathing.  So I immediately woke Mark up and started steaming up the bathroom in hopes that the moisture would help him breathe better.  Then we realized that he was scared and couldn't figure out what was going on and he was still having a hard time breathing.  It is so scary watching and listening to your child struggle to breathe.  We called Aunt Kim and she met Mark and Colton at the ER for a breathing treatment.  Mark said that when they got in the truck and he got some of the cool air, his breathing did get a lot better.  It was very hard watching my baby leave for the hospital without me but we do have two other little angels that were sleeping soundly.  I think I text and called Mark every few minutes for updates!  I knew he was in the best of hands!   Little Man got his breathing treatment, shot and a prescription for a steroid.  Aunt Kim and Mark both said that he was so good last night.  It was a long night at our house, Colton couldn't get comfortable and stay asleep and I was worried and checking on him every few minutes.  He is much better today and we are all hoping for a good night sleep tonight!

Well, when I woke Hayden up for school this morning she was barking really bad again too.  So we stopped by Aunt Kim's office on the way to school and now she too is on a steroid.  Hoping all the croup leaves our house and stays away for a long time!  Thanks to Aunt Kim for always taking such good care of all of us.  We appreciate it so much and love you very much!  

4 Year Checkup

Gracie had her 4 year check up on Friday.  That is the biggest check up!  I remembered that much from when Hayden had hers.  Well, I really prepared Gracie for this check up because sometimes my happy girl gets all upset and won't do anything but cry.  So I told her that she had to have 2 shots and she had to do the vision test and the hearing test.  We talked about it everyday even on the day of.  Even on the way to the appointment on Friday.  I will honestly say that I wasn't sure which way it would go but she kept telling me that she was going to be a big girl because she still wanted to be able to go to school.  Maybe I might have told her that if she didn't go for her 4 year check up and get her shots she would not be allowed to go back to school. 

She was such a BIG girl.  She did everything they asked her to do without any hesitation.  She even heard one of the beeps for the hearing test before the nurse was ready.  She had to clap the nurses hand each time she heard the beep.  She got all the beeps in both ears.  So now I know that she must have what we call selective hearing sometimes.   Then it was time for the vision test.  I covered one eye, while she told the nurse what all the symbols were...like hearts, stars, flags and so on.  She has 20/20 vision in both eyes!  Yay!  She weighed 34lbs and was 41 1/2 inches tall.  Which is 45th percentile for weight, which is a huge milestone because she has always been like 20th percentile in the past. She was 85th percentile for height, which she has always been.   She was even good when Dr. Beeber came in to check her.  She sat there so still and did everything he told her.  After looking at her worksheet that we had to complete with things like....can your child stand on one foot and balance for 5 seconds?  Can your child draw a circle?  Does your child know their first and last name?  Needless to say I was impressed with some of her answers and even on some of the things she could do.  We looked pretty silly in the waiting room in front of other families doing this but we had to be precise.  Dr. Beeber said that she is a very intelligent little girl, in fact he even used the word genius!  Now talk about a proud Mommy.  He wanted to know if we had considered teaching her a second language or start her on a musical instrument to challenge her with other things.  I told him that she would start Spanish at school next year and that she is in ballet/tap classes right now.  I also told him that I thought Hayden had really helped us teach Gracie so many things because she also wants to keep up and be just like Hayden.   Hayden is a great little teacher!  

The only time Gracie got upset was when the shots came through the door, it took all my strength to hold her down.  She was scaredl! She never really cried just got a little teary eyed.   She was truly a big girl.   I was so proud of her!  Of course, after all of this I rewarded her with a toy!