M-M-M-M

Happy Halloween from the M-n-M-n-M's. Myra posted the cute studio pics here.

Here are some from this weekend and tonight. Enjoy.

3 little girls (Maizie, Morgandy, Mia). So sweet you could just eat them.


The orange one.


The bag (aka Dad) is holding the M-n-M.


The Yellow (aka Maize) M-n-M loves the orange one.

Thankful for Armpits

Yesterday, as we were getting ready to go to the Fall Festival, Jason picked Maizie up and said "I'm so glad God gave you armpits. It makes it easy to pick you up." I can't say I've ever been thankful for armpits, but it was a reminder that even the stinky things in life are blessings.

Today I'm thankful for all of the days that Maizie has given me good, long naps. She went on strike today and was wide-eyed and bushy-tailed from 9:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Who slipped her the uppers?

Just some thoughts for today.

Rock the Vote 2007

I need your help! I have a frame in my house with candid 5 x 7 pics of Maizie at birth, 3 mos, 6 mos, 9 mos, and a spot for one at 12 mos. She's just so darned cute, I can't decide between these three. I know she's not smiling in any of them but her 9 month shot has a huge cheesy grin, so these will work just fine. Let me know what you think!


Option 1 (aka Little Orphan Maizie)

Option 2 (aka cute as a pumpkin)

Option 3 (aka Treehugger)

The Big One

It was a happy day for my sweet little girl.

It was a day filled with....

Festivities...

Friends... (Maizie and Morgandy started hugging each other today!)

Food... (she wasn't as dramatic a cake-eater as I had hoped, but the cake wasn't around for long.)

And bed-head.

What a difference a year makes. Our lives have been completely turned upside-down (in a good way, I promise) by the gift we received from God last year. She amazes us each and every day and I can't wait to see what else is in store for us in the coming years as we watch her grow.

It's the thoughts that count

Jason will be disappointed, but Oprah taught me something last week. She had someone on who wrote this book and the whole thing was very new age-y and "i am my own god"-ish and so I was only half listening. But one thing stuck out to me. This auther said that whether we like it our not, we all have our own mantras--things we repeat to ourselves over and over--and that the majority of the time our mantras are negative and how much better we would live if we could repeat positive things to ourselves.

The next morning, I woke up to the cries of my daughter and I was exhausted. I stayed in bed for a good 10 minutes before getting up and I thought to myself, "I am a horrible mom." Then I got her up, changed her, plopped her in the high chair with some banana chunks and returned to my bedroom to check email. While checking email, I thought, "I am a horrible mom." DING DING. Holy cow! That is my "mantra" lately! Not good. I prayed right then about something that I could replace it with and I decided on "Thank you, God, for this moment." So far, I'm finding it much more peaceful to live in a thankful state of mind than a self-critical state of mind.

It has gotten me thinking about how important it is to control my thoughts. To further drive the point home, this week in Care Group we were studying Phil. 4--you know the part about "whatever is good, praiseworthy, etc, think about such things" and the book I'm reading (Having a Mary Spirit) just got to a chapter about the war within our minds. Here's a tidbit from that: "When we speak normally, we speak at a rate of about 120 words a minute....but when we self-talk we talk at a rate of about 1,300 a minute...and roughly 70 percent of that talk is negative." I love it when God sends "themes" into my life and it's clear what He wants me to focus on. Just thought I'd share my latest thoughts about thoughts...

The Latest

Some cute pictures from our latest adventures.


Maizie and Grandmamma at the George family reunion. I think she would want me to let you know that that walker is not hers.


Not too sure about bows yet. That's my girl.


Meeting Baby Olivia. She's a BEAUTIFUL baby and Koby and Irma seem like pros already.


Our eldest daughter in a straight-jacket. She's got a war wound on her head from a run-in with an off-leash dog. We were trying to keep it clean and let it heal, but she kept scratching it. So, it's on with the big plastic collar until it's healed. Poor baby girl.

The girls before their photo shoot. It was quite a challenge getting three nearly-1-year-olds to sit still and smile all at once. I think we may have convinced the photographer never to have children, but we got a really cute shot of them in their Halloween costumes (those pics to come at a later date).

Walking Therapy

My family was all together again this weekend to honor the life of my MawMaw, Jane Bass. Before we knew whether we were having a boy or a girl, I would ask family members which they preferred and, without fail, they all said that it didn't matter, just have a healthy baby, yada yada....except for MawMaw. She told me that I had better give her a great-granddaughter and that she wasn't sure she could really be happy with a great-grandson. I'm sure she was (half) joking, but I was most excited to call her and tell her she had gotten her wish.

To mark the day of MawMaw's memorial service, A-maize-ing Jane, as MawMaw called her, did something truly amazing....check it out.