wednesday mornings

townsend loves trucks. as soon as he realized that the loud rumblings on wednesday mornings were from a truck, we were out there every wednesday to watch. he would just stand and wave to the guys getting our recycling. it was usually the same couple of guys and they were nice enough to wave back as they went around our cul-de-sac. made me sad last wednesday knowing we wouldn't be there to wave any longer. guess we'll have to make new friends in denver. :)

busy busy

we have been busy getting ready to move to denver in a few days. actually we will go to gran and pawpaws house for christmas first. i keep talking to townsend about our new house and the long drive to try to help as much as possible with the transition. i'm sure he and possibly ellory notice all the boxes everywhere and all their toys slowly disappearing. now when i say we are getting ready to go to our new house, townsend says, "pawpaw." "yes, we will see pawpaw and then we are driving to our new house."
we are very blessed that townsend and ellory will be able to go to the preschool on monday morning while the moving van packs us up. that meant i didn't have to say goodbye to everyone on thursday when i picked them up. but i had to say goodbye to a few friends who won't be there on monday. i think i will lose it on monday as we drive away from alpharetta.
back to the kids though. last week we took marin in to the doctor and she had another ear infection. more antibiotics. she's definitely better but i hate that she keeps getting sick and has to take these drugs. she's still cruising around the furniture and now will take a couple of steps holding onto one of my hands.
ellory had her final evaluation by the physical therapist last week. she is impressed with how far she has come being that she has only been walking for 3 months. she gave us some things to work on to continue building muscle in her legs and abdominal area. and ellory actually seemed to enjoy her time at the session. she didn't cling to me the whole time!
townsend is sounding more and more like a little boy. speaking in longer phrases and sentences. understanding speech more and more. part of me loves it and part of me is sad that he is not my little baby boy so much. he still cracks us up at what he does after we close the door to his room for a nap or bedtime. this week we have found him sitting in bed with his entire collection of socks gathered around him. also, apparently he gets out of bed-which he is NOT supposed to do-and goes to his shelf, picks up a book and slides it under his door into the hall. we also think he has a mental checklist that he goes through after he lays down. whale? blankie? baby whale? monkey? duckie? towel? random sticker that i got at preschool and was on my shirt? wait! where's that sticker? "sticker! sticker! sticker!" fortunately i had not thrown the sticker away and when i heard him yelling i went and found it. i didn't even say a word to him. i just went in, put the sticker on his pajamas, he said night night and i was back out the door.

a day of firsts

so today mommy went and had her hair highlighted for the very first time. i had seen some pictures from 10 years ago and noticed that my hair was a lot lighter back then. these days it just seemed dark and dull with little gray strands sticking out all over. so i finally did it. i was a bit scared that i would come out platinum blonde but not so. in fact, as he was drying it i thought, " it looks like my hair used to look!" or course it's not THAT natural but i really like it. unfortunately it costs about a million dollars to highlight so i don't know that it will make it onto our new limited budget. :) i would take a picture but i don't think it would show up that well in a photo. in fact, when i got home norton said he couldn't tell i had done anything. it just shows up better in different lights.
so that was a good first.
marin had a first while i was at the salon. she woke up crying from her nap and when norton went in to get her she had thrown up all over herself and her bed. now she has spit up milk before but this was her entire lunch-peaches and carrots-and they looked just like they did on her tray before she ate them. i guess she just swallowed them whole. poor thing. and she has a runny nose too. this little one just can't seem to get completely well this season. i need to spray more lysol i guess.
so that was not a good first.

ready for our trip!

we ordered a dvd player for the van for our trip out to denver. i wondered how the kids would take to wearing the headphones but they were mesmerized by the video so i don't think it will be a problem! now we just have to stock up on elmo videos. (and barney and thomas the train)

daddy has to keep the kids in hokie gear! we watched them win their conference yesterday. townsend and ellory are actually pretty good at yelling, "go hokies!" they also raise their arms for a touchdown and will yell, "go baby!" when the guy is running with the ball. we love our football. :) and yes, that's marin, not a random baby boy, in the first pics. i guess i could always tape a big bow on her head. :)

random pics

ellory loves her "eyes." and now that it is finally getting cold here we got out the fleece hats and gloves. she's all ready for denver!

cuteness

townsend has decided that he wants to help with the dishes now. he loves to put his hands in the water and get all wet. what i usually do is hand him the rinsed dishes and let him put them in the drying rack. yesterday he was doing his job and then he sneezed all over the drying dishes. nice.


we are very glad that townsend and ellory love to read. i really hope that habit continues since norton and i are readers. and of course we hope that marin will love to read also. i guess from the picture it would seem that ellory isn't too interested in books but don't let the picture fool you. she loves, loves, loves to have books read to her. and she is so cute when she puts a doll on her lap and reads to it. sometimes she reads and turns the book around to show the pictures to everyone, just like a teacher. :)
on another note-if i can learn how to put video on here i will post the video of dinner tonight. townsend asked for a napkin and so of course ellory did too. then while she was eating she started wiping her mouth after every bite of food. it was soooo cute. norton and i started complimenting her on her good manners and then townsend started doing it too.