Christmas morning pics

I have SEVERAL more photos to come, but thought I would go ahead and get these on here for your enjoyment. We've had a wonderful holiday and the girls and I are now in Mississippi with family. We had to leave Daddy at home because he had to work (and earn money to pay for Christmas!) - we sure do miss him.

10 on Tuesday

I stole this off Rachel's blog who stole it off another blog....anyway - I thought it was a good idea so here goes...

1. The girls, my father and I are driving 8 hours to Mississippi tomorrow to be with my mom's side of the family. Looking forward to seeing them - NOT looking forward to the drive.

2. I feel bad that we can't take the bikes that Santa brought the girls for Christmas to Mississippi with us - just no room. I'm sure they won't be traumatized, but it would have been fun for them.

3. My hubby and I were planning on getting ourselves a new digital camera as our gift to each other. That has now turned into a new water heater - I can barely contain my excitement.

4. I'll be glad when new TV episodes start airing (i.e. Gilmore Girls, Earl, The Office).

5. My hubby tends to take on rather large home improvement projects when the girls and I are away. I'm a bit scared to see what he takes on this time.

6. I need to hunt down a couple books I haven't read yet to take on my trip tomorrow. I love to read but never take the time to do it anymore. Eight hours in a minivan will definitely encourage me to do some sort of reading.

7. I cooked two rather large holiday meals over the past couple of days and am quite proud of the results. I don't tend to take on such grand endeavors, but we wanted the families to come to our house, so I bit the bullet.

8. I received a gift certificate to a department store where I had been drooling over a certain pair of shoes. I went to the store this morning to purchase the shoes and they were completely gone in the color I wanted. Darn popular shoes!

9. I dread taking the decorations down and secretly hope that will be dear hubby's big project while we're gone (I'm sure he is cringing as he reads this).

10. I had better get off here and finish packing. AUGH!

Hope you all have a Safe & Happy New year!

Just for fun...

We were sitting around our tree looking at the ornaments and the presents and I decided to grab the camera. I haven't taken pics for a couple of days and my trigger finger was getting lazy. I thought this one of Chris and the girls was pretty cute - Anna is on the left/Ashlyn on the right.

It's Christmas Eve!

Stuff Portrait Friday

I'm trying this out for the first time. Very random, but kind of fun. I got this idea from my cousin-in-law (is that right?) Jen and just thought I would try it out. The site she got it from was Random and Odd - another blog. Check it out and play along.

There are three "random and odd" things you are supposed to take pictures of. This week's topics were:

One Ornament - This was the very first ornament I ever received as a baby. From my Grandparents Felten and we have to put the whole set of these up high now as the girls love to play.

One Gift - I love to wrap presents and this is one of my favorites. Just simple brownish-gold paper and an old wire bow I had lying around the house from one of last year's decorations.

Something Stuffed in a Stocking - This lovely engagement ring was in my stocking exactly 6 years ago Christmas Day. Definitely my favorite gift in a stocking (or otherwise).

Noel, Noel.....

...Born is the King of Israel.

That's how the song normally goes - right?

As the girls and I were out running a few errands today that song came on the all-Christmas-songs radio station. We've been listening to that station all month and the girls love it. However, they tend to do their own interpretations of the songs. As is the case with this song. Here was their version.....

"Noel, Noel...Barney's the King of Israel"

Are you kidding me?!? Yes - it is a bit sacrilegious, but they are only 3 and I think God may actually get a little chuckle from this incident. As funny as this whole thing is, I am more upset that my children are inserting "Barney" into their songs considering I have absolutely banned anything Barney from being shown or entering this house. Don't really know why, but the big purple guy just annoys me. Of course, I can't keep them from seeing him at other places so I'm sure they have seen him before.

Maybe I can do some sort of exorcism to get the dino out of their heads....hmmmm....I'll have to think about that one.

4 days til Christmas - oh my!!!

Raisin Bran + 3 year old = Bad, very bad

Anna was up sick last night for about 2 1/2 hours (not as bad as it sounds, she was mostly just awake).

Mommy was VERY tired.

Mommy slept in a bit (til about 7am) because of being up in the middle of the night.

Ashlyn gets up early.

Daddy takes Ashlyn downstairs to fix breakfast as Mommy is still asleep (thank you Daddy).

Daddy gives Ashlyn Raisin Bran for breakfast.

Ashlyn is still trying to master the whole #2 bathroom session.

NOT a pretty situation for Mommy (or Ashlyn for that matter) later in the morning (I won't gross you out with the details, but will let your imaginations wander).

Daddy isn't allowed to give Raisin Bran to the girls anymore.

Frosty the Snow....Cupcake?

Well - I had to make cupcakes again for the girls' preschool classes, so I decided to get "fancy" again. I looked up some cute ideas for winter/Christmas cupcakes on the internet and found one I thought I could pull off. It worked. I think they turned out pretty good if I do say so myself. And they really weren't that hard (thank goodness). Now I just hope Anna can get over her sickness so she can go to class tomorrow. She will be heartbroken if she can't.

7 days til Christmas!!!! Oh my!

Another Breakfast With Santa Pic

Just thought I would post another picture from POTATO's Breakfast with Santa last Saturday morning. This was a cute one - our girls are such hams! Ashlyn is on the left and Anna is on the right.

And Chris and I spent his lunch hour looking at digital cameras - which will be our Christmas present to each other this year. I can't wait to get it and start taking more pics to put on this site and to use for scrapbooking purposes.

Hometown Shout Out!

Okay - I realize how lame it is for me to title this post using the words "Shout out", but I'm trying to be "hip" & "cool" - yeah, right.

Anyway, this is a picture I snagged off my hometown newspaper's website. My hometown is Maysville, Kentucky - not too far from Cincinnati, Ohio. A smaller town, but I'm quite fond of it. They had snow last week and someone took this lovely photo of the decorated downtown streets. This town holds a lot of memories and I always love going back to visit.

Our big claims to fame: George Clooney (yep - I've seen him in person and literally lost the ability to speak), Rosemary Clooney (before my time, but I LOVE White Christmas), Miss America Heather French (went to high school with her - very sweet girl) and me - of course.

Breakfast with Santa

Our POTATO crew had Breakfast with Santa this morning. This is a yearly tradition and we had a wonderful time. We have been talking about it all week in the hopes that Ashlyn would concede to getting on Santa's lap (as she wanted nothing to do with him last year) - it worked. She really enjoyed it and actually ended up giving Santa a big hug before the event was over.

One funny note - a friend (also with twin girls) sat with us and brought her friend to help. She said her friend wanted to have twins too. We both gave each other a knowing glance and I told her, "There is no better birth control than coming to one of our POTATO events". So true....of course - I wouldn't trade our critters for the world.

A little more artwork

So we got our hair cut this week and actually had to go back because they were so fidgity the first time that the hairstylist couldn't get a straight line going. Anyway, you can see a bit of their hairstyle as well as their lovely watercolor paintings we did yesterday. Ashlyn is in pink and Anna is in blue.

Chalkboard creations

If you've been to our house, you have seen the great chalkboards/bulletin boards Chris put up for the girls in our kitchen. They are used on a daily basis and hold many of the girls' art projects.

The pics below showcase some of the girls' chalk drawings. Anna (left) has drawn a few different sleds and some "4"s and Ashlyn (right) has drawn a lovely multi-legged spider . The pictures change everyday and Ashlyn has actually been on a kick of drawing pics of Daddy. I'll have to get one of those posted on here soon as that is hysterical.

I love Christmastime!

I LOVE decorating for the holidays. I love turning on cheesy Christmas music, fixing a big cup of hot chocolate and decorating the tree & house. I'm also a sucker for gift-wrapping. Not sure why I like to wrap presents - I'm sure it has something to do with my tragic upbringing as an only child (just kidding mom and dad). Anyway, we actually did our decorating a couple days before Thanksgiving as we were going to be out of town that day.

We bought a new tree this year - finally. Our old tree was actually one brought to this country on the Nina (or the Pinta - can't remember which) and then passed on throughout time - finally ending up at Chris' Dad's & Stepmom's house. They graciously gave it to us and we - being the tightwads that we are - were more than happy to take it off their hands. This is one of the those trees where you have to attach each branch individually cutting up your hands and arms in the process. I literally never put the thing up without cutting myself - lovely way to start the holiday - a blood sacrifice to the Christmas tree.

So we bit the bullet and bought a new one. We shopped around (of course - remember - we are tight wads) and ended up actually getting our tree from Big Lots! LOVE Big Lots! We got a great pre-lit tree with multiple light flashing settings for MUCH less than the other stores were charging. And the great thing is that it only took me about 5 minutes to put the tree together - amazing! It would have taken me at least an hour to get the old one together.

So here is a picture of our decorated tree and an ornament we got for our family this year. Hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

I'm addicted to slide shows.

Just one more for now...these are pics from this past weekend. We took the girls to the little pond at the entrance of our subdivision to do some "fishing" with the rods Papaw & Mamaw got them.

Slide show from the Zoo

Just thought I would try out this feature again. Gives you a bunch more pics without taking up too much room. Enjoy.

Warm weather = Zoo!

I can't believe the weather has been so nice. It is the end of November and 70 degrees outside - crazy!

We decided to go to the zoo yesterday because it was so nice and we didn't think it would be too crowded - that is an understatement. There was only one other car in the parking lot when we got there and I swear we were the only people in the zoo for the first 45 minutes. It was kinda eerie actually, but I loved that it wasn't crowded and the girls could run around all they wanted.

This pic is the girls acting like monkeys swinging through the bamboo trees. They had a great time.

Go Buckeyes!

My wonderful husband took me to Asheville, NC this past weekend for my birthday. We had a wonderful time and part of that time was spent watching the Ohio State vs. Michigan game on Saturday along with an entire restaurant full of Ohio State alumni and fans. It was a riot and we had a great time. Since we are so glad the Buckeyes won, I am posting this pic of my hubby along with Brutus - the Buckeyes' mascot - taken outside the bar & grill where we watched the game. I'll post more about our weekend soon.

Another crazy weekend...

One of these days all four of us will be well. Seems like we have just had one illness after another and that didn't change this weekend.

Friday night Chris and I went to see the Broadway Series' The Lion King. It was wonderful by the way. Anyway, Nana stayed with the girls and just before we left I felt Ashlyn's head and she was quite warm. She has had LOTS of drainage lately and I assumed she was just coming down with a sinus infection. We gave her some medicine to help with her fever and cough and then left for the evening. When we got back Ashlyn was still up and just didn't feel good. I think she and I only had about 1-2 hours sleep that night and I decided to take her into the dr. the next morning. To make an already long story shorter - Ashlyn has strep throat. Poor baby.

So we packed up Anna and Daddy and sent them to Nana's for 24 hours (Ashlyn wouldn't be catching after 24 hours on the antibiotic). Ashlyn spent the next 24 hours resting and I spent the next 24 hours sanitizing EVERYTHING. This house has never been this clean.

Thankfully, Ash is feeling better and Anna hasn't shown any signs of strep.

These pics were taken Friday morning when Ash was still feeling pretty good. The girls were helping Daddy rake leaves. Well - Anna was helping rake leaves and Ash was pretending she was busy by pulling off the berries from the holly trees - that's my girl!

Party girls!

This is what happens when you party too hard on a school night.....

Buckeyes Rule!

My husband has become quite the chocolatier. He has also decorated some amazing cakes in his past as well. In fact, I think this might have been his "calling". Now if we could just find a wealthy relative or friend to fund this endeavor....(any volunteers?).

Anyway, Chris' office was having a potluck last week and he signed up to bring a dessert. Since he is from the Buckeye state and is a HUGE fan of THE Ohio State University football team (the Buckeyes), he decided to make the candies known by the same name and made to look just like the nut-like buckeyes. For those of you who don't know, buckeye candy is made with peanut butter and chocolate - yum!

Now Chris had never made these before, but found a recipe on the internet and decided to go for it. The girls and I were at church choir practice and he had them almost done by the time we got home. Here was the final result. I'm so proud.

Story Time

Our local library has a wonderful storytime and we try to go every Wednesday. Miss Sandy does a great job and the girls love it. We've been going to the Mt. Juliet Library since they were little so it has become a bit of a weekly tradition. I have never taken my camera, but this week they were encouraging the kids to dress up since it was the day after Halloween, so I thought I would bring it along. This is a pic of the whole group after Miss Sandy had read the story of the Square Pumpkin. Anna and Ashlyn are on the far right side. Not all the kids dressed up, but several did.

Halloween Fun

We are back from trick-or-treating. We brought home quite a haul and were able to keep the candy eating to a minimum - 20 pieces isn't too much before bedtime right? The girls had a great time and I've attached a few pics for your enjoyment.

Before you even ask I will explain the costumes. Ashlyn is - apparently - a witch. In her words, "an angry witch Mommy"! Anna's costume will need to be clarified. I will do that with the exact verbiage of our original discussion of Halloween costumes a few weeks ago...

Mommy: Anna, what do you want to dress up as for Halloween?
Anna (with no hesitation): A prince!
Mommy: You want to be a princess?
Anna (looking at me like I'm the dumbest person on the planet): No Mommy - a prince - like Prince Charming.
Mommy: Ok Anna - you're going to be a prince.

Now who am I to tell my adorable daughter that she can't be a prince. Sure, it is not the typical Halloween costume for a little girl, but telling her she couldn't be a prince would be like me telling her she couldn't be President of the United States when she grows up. Ok - that's a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point.

So Anna went as a prince (in a costume I made by the way) and Ashlyn went as an angry witch. Fun was had by all and the girls are now racing around the living room on a chocolate high. I think I'm going to stick them on the treadmill til they wear out.

Boo!

So - I don't consider myself Martha Stewart by any stretch of the imagination, but I am pretty proud of myself this morning. It is - of course - Halloween and the girls' preschool is having a party this afternoon. I signed up to bring a snack and the pic is what I am bringing. I found a sample of these cupcakes in the Family Fun magazine (great mag by the way) and they turned out pretty good if I do say so myself. At least the girls think they are pretty "cool".

I'll have pics of the girls in their costumes later on tonight or tomorrow morning. Hope everyone has a great Halloween.

P.S. Today is also the anniversary of my husband's and my first date - how sweet (and eerie).

Scary...

I always forget about these quizzes until I see them on my cousin's site. This one was pretty appropriate considering Halloween is just around the corner. But I'll never tell you which ones I checked off on the quiz - hee hee hee.

You Are 28% Evil

A bit of evil lurks in your heart, but you hide it well. In some ways, you are the most dangerous kind of evil.

How Evil Are You?

Chug-a-chug-a CHOO CHOO

The girls went on their first train trip this morning. The Music City Star just started running a few months ago and a small group of us moms got our preschoolers together for a trip to downtown Nashville. The train left Mt. Juliet at 7:50am and arrived at the downtown riverfront station at 8:10. We then got right back on the train at 8:30 and returned to Mt. Juliet at about 9am. It was fun and all the kids had a great time. Here are a few pictures. The first one is Anna, the second is Ashlyn and the third is all the kiddies line up at the station.

A bit about last week

We had a busy week last week, so thought I would post a few pics from our exciting adventures.

On Wednesday we went to the dentist for the girls' official first cleaning. They did great! We had been talking about it for a couple weeks and had even pretended to be dentist so I was hoping that would help the whole situation. It did. I couldn't have asked them to do any better. Here are a couple pics of them with the dental hygienist - who also happened to be an identical twin. Anna is in purple and Ashlyn is in red and white.



Next we went on the girls' first field trip through their pre-school. I don't think it actually constitutes a field trip since most of the mothers drove their own kids, but we'll just call it that. One of Ashlyn's class friends - Dylan - rode with us because his mom was at work during that time and they all had a blast. Here's a pic of Ashlyn's entire class - take note of who takes center stage... And here's a pic of Dylan, Anna & Ashlyn (in that order) with their pumpkins.

Unfortunately, it started raining on us before we could have the big picnic so we had to cut the day short, but the kids had a great time anyway and the girls and I had our own picnic inside when we got home.

Pumpkins, Pumpkins and More Pumpkins

We had a good time at Walden Farm in Smyrna, TN. We took SEVERAL pictures, so I have made another slide show. Be sure to check out that site at www.riggsslides.blogspot.com. Unfortunately, the rest of our weekend was spent trying to feel better. Anna has a bad ear infection and Ashlyn & I are trying to get over these sinus problems - lovely.

We have to get better though because we have another pumpkin farm to visit on Thursday with the girls' preschool classes - their first field trip - wow! I'll be driving them, but it is still such a "big girl" activity to go on a field trip. Where has the time gone?!?

The girls will be all "pumpkined" out by the end of this month.

Nutty weekend

We've had a bit of a nutty weekend. Anna started on Friday not feeling very good (cough, allergy-symptoms). Unfortunately, we were supposed to go to Gentry's Pumpkin Farm on Saturday morning with our friends, Amy & Nathan. This has become a bit of a tradition and the girls have such a good time. Anyway, after much internal struggle we decided Chris would take Ashlyn to the pumpkin farm and Anna would stay with me at home. Sounds a bit mean to send one away while the other one was sick, but I really needed Ashlyn out of the house if I wanted to keep Anna calm at all. When they are together there is no "down time" and that is what poor little Anna needed. Anna actually wasn't too traumatized by Ashlyn & Daddy leaving so that made it easier on all of us.

My parents came later on Saturday for a quick visit. They had been in Hopkinsville for a Disaster Relief/Kentucky Changers meetings and hadn't seen their grandkids for a little while. We had a nice visit, but Ashlyn got sick Saturday evening. Their cough was more annoying to them than anything else and they (nor I) got much sleep this weekend, but we are all feeling better now. Yeah!

So here is a pic of Ashlyn at the pumpkin farm. She had a good time. And Anna will get to go to another pumpkin farm this weekend as the POTATO fall event is Saturday, so she won't be pumpkin deprived this Halloween season.

The Fountain of Youth

We had a BIG day yesterday. A POTATO friend invited us to go along with her and some other friends and their kids to Centennial Park and Bi-Centennial Park near downtown Nashville. Both are wonderful parks and I can safely say I have not taken full advantage of them. We have visited Centennial Park several times to feed the MANY ducks and geese, but I had not taken the girls to Bi-Centennial Park to play in the fountain area at all - Bad Mommy!

Anyway, we had a wonderful time. We started at Centennial Park feeding the ducks and geese in record time - amazing how quickly 8-9 kids go through a truckload of bread. I'm sure those birds had some queasy tummies by the time we left. We then went over to that park's playground area which is very nice. We then picnic-ed near the playground area and then loaded up the kiddies to go over to Bi-Centennial's Park to play in the fountains. Oh - did I mention it was 90 degrees in Nashville yesterday?

It sounds a bit odd to let your kids play in a fountain, but Bi-Centennial Park's fountain area is different. You'll see in the photos.

Daddy and Miss Amy brought their lunches to the park and watched the festivities as they were so close. It took the girls a while to realize their Daddy was there - funny.

Here are a few pics of our day. Just click on them to make the bigger. The first one gives you an idea of what the fountain area looks like. The second is Ashlyn getting her back wet and the third is Anna playing in the grated area where you can walk around.

New picture format

Hello all - I have found a new way to display some of our photos in a slideshow format. I know there may be a few of you that won't be able to view those photos in that format, so I will still be posting pics here, but I made another Blog that will contain the slideshows. I will provide a link to that site each time a put pictures on here and there. Here's the website if you would like to save it as a favorite now.

www.riggsslides.blogspot.com

In fact, I have already placed two slideshows on that site. I put one on there of more pictures of the girls playing with the worms and the other one is of our trip to Mamaw & Papaw Riggs' house in McMinnville yesterday. The girls had a great time and went fishing at the lake on the property. It is gorgeous up there. Here are a couple pics from yesterday for those that aren't able to view the slideshows.










So, check out the new blog and let me know what you think.

Worms, worms, worms

My girls have been "helping" me pull the numerous weeds in our flower beds. They remembered that in the spring when I was planting flowers that I showed them the worms I found. So - of course - they wanted to see some more worms.

Ashlyn loved the worms and was creating her own little worm family - brother, sister, mommy, daddy - very cute. Anna was more than happy to sit back and watch Ashlyn, but was not happy with me because I couldn't find her any "clean" worms. Yes - Anna is her Daddy all over. I tried to explain that worms live in the dirt which is why they are dirty, but that wasn't going to fly with her. She wanted me to give them a bath before even thinking of handing them to her. She did finally hold a couple worms, but not for long.

Here are a few pictures of our afternoon with the worms. The first is Ashlyn (rt) explaining to Anna (lt) that it is okay that the worms are dirty. The second is Anna holding her worm up, and the third is Ashlyn holding her "Big Daddy" worm up.