Play Doh

I struggle to find things to keep my girls busy. 

We always have craft time and play time and nap time and TV time and outside time and errand time but

for some reason they always seem to feel like we have nothing to do!

I am always on the look out for ideas

and again I found one on PINTEREST

love that site!

 

flour, salt, water and food coloring

mix

 separate into little balls and add food coloring

then you have homemade play doh!

Miss Belle is not a fan of getting her hands dirty

 but after the Julia showed her you could make little bug creatures she was all game.

I know what your thinking

 a girl that hates dirt but loves bugs

strange

yep that's miss Belle

she's one of a kind

I love her

and the play doh did it's job! the girls were occupied for TWO hours!

and the only reason they stopped playing with it was because it started to dry out and the colors were all mixed up and turned an ugly brown color.

such a sweet family

last weekend I got to hang out with this family

 These kiddos were so sweet and probably one of the top easiest kids to photograph!

smiles all around. love it

 I made a Christmas card for them and I love how it turned out

 Rick and Stacey are such a great couple. it's pretty obvious they love each other :) and that just makes me love my job even more! it's so much fun to capture these memories.

bridge

I just LOVE these three!

 so much fun

 and my favorite little man is growing up so fast.....

 He's two!

Happy birthday JP!

Gabby

I got to spend a super fun afternoon playing photo shoot with this pretty little 5 months old Gabriella.

She's just gorgeous!

 and you know me I had to snap a pic of her little toes.

it's begining to look a lot like

how was your Thanksgiving?

Mine was good!

lots of food!

laughs, love, and memories made

I have so many pictures I need to chatch up on this blog 

BUT

the site says I have reached my limit of pictures for the month!

WHAT?!?

so I figured I will just post a little video 

remember the first one?

a lot has changed in a year huh?!

enjoy! 

make a difference! NOW!

As I was about to bring my Lil' Stella home from the hospital, My cousin Lindsay was on her way to the hospital to give birth to her first born.

this is the moment she had been waiting 9 months for

holding her son  Julien Ray for the first time.

 But that moment was cut short. 

The doctors  diagnosed Little Julian with VATER. which stands for Vertebrate Anus Trechea Esophagus Renal Syndrome. basically he was born with possible loop in his spine a tethered chord, no opening in his anus,  his esophagus was connected to the lung, and he has one functioning kidney. 

He was immediately taken to a children's hospital for surgery.

 He spent 18 days in the hospital recovering but that was only the first of many surgeries and hospital stays.

 The Doctors have high hopes that Julian will be a fully functioning normal little boy by his 2nd birthday. He has already proven his is a fighter and his parents have been there every step of the way to support and give lots of kisses when he needs them.

During the hospital stays Julian's mommy and daddy recieved much needed help from the Ronald Mcdonald house. 

There they are given a room, food, support, and consent updates on how their precious son is doing at times when they are not able to be with him. The cost is ten dollars a day, McDonald's understands the difficulties the many families face while they have a child in the hospital. so that ten dollars is a donation. Lindsay and Ricky have been able to help with the cost by collecting pop tabs!

Here is where you can help Julian and many other families with children that are fighting battles. 

I am asking that on this Thanksgiving everyone take two seconds and remove the pop tabs from the cans of soda or beer you will be enjoying and put them in a box, bag, jar anything! 

I will collect them from you (if your around the cincinnati area) and we will hand deliver them to the Ronald Mcdonald house where Julian's mommy and daddy have been recieving countless help from. 

We have a chance to really make a difference! 

and if you live in a different part of the country you can still collect your pop tabs and turn them into ANY Ronald Mcdonald house to help that location! 

So what do you say? Lets do this!

 Happy thanksgiving! I am grateful for my healthy family and grateful for the chance to make a difference for the families that need the support.

ending Fall

I wanted to share our thankful tree.

we started this last year 

and it's become one of the best parts of the day when we find out what everyone is thankful for.

Miss Belle got to join us this year since she could actually semi understand 

 here are some of my favorite thankful leaves
my husband calls me his trophy wife :)

 Belle always had the funniest random things she was thankful for

 mine

 Belle again

 Julia decided she wanted to group all of her leaves together on the same branch.

 Remember my fall list of things to do? well we completed almost everything so I thought I would share with you what we did

of course some fall crafts:

 Pumpkin waffles:

 Taking lots of walks: (Belle loves her hats)

 Tell scary stories:

 Make new scarfs

 Pick and eat apples

 Go to fall craft festivals

 More walking

 Date night for mommy and daddy

 get out winter clothes

 photo scavenger hunt

 Make Halloween costumes

 Hay ride

 Carve pumpkins

 Soccer games

 

rake leaves

 

Chili contest (really bad picture but I thought it was cool how it shows the motion)

 play in the leaves!

The only other thing left on our fall list of things to do is enjoy thanksgiving dinner.

I am excited that Fall is over because next come my second favorite season of the year! CHRISTMAS!