We got crabs!!!

This is Lobsta, our fire shrimp!

Kinda hard to see this guy, I named him Arnold cause he's very buff and looks like he works out a lot. We just added him tonight.

No really, they live in our basement now! Along w/ some snails and a couple shrimp [one named affectionately "Lobsta" in honor of my hubby's heritage! :) ] My sweet hunny has been wanting a salt water tank for as long as I've known him so here we go. Pooh on the crappy housing market we're going ahead w/ our own ocean reef in our basement. The first night we got our crawly things we found ourselves , all three of us watching for almost an hour, literally noses against the glass. A little sad I know, we don't get out much! It's a facinating process. We're growing live rock and waiting anxiously to see what's gonna grow next! We are all turning into Ocean science nerds. Love it!

Pic your party GOP girl!!!

ok I swear we didn't prompt her choice of clothing for yesterday's big vote. Well, I take that back she and I wore matching red shirts and jeans to actually cast our ballots but that night, she was all about insisting on the red vs. blue sock combo. And randomly through the stressful evening she would swap the red on hands to blue on feet and dance about with singing to cheer up her mommy and daddy. She kept coming up and whispering in my ear "Mommy, what's wrong"?? It was so sweet. We popped a big bowl of popcorn and the 3 of us crawled into bed watching the numbers roll in until 10:30 when the electoral college was looking pretty clear we put our little light bulb of cheer to bed. Oh well, it'll be 4 long years but I'm hopeful someone in DC will make a good move for change. I'm already working on letters to Mark Warner and Bob Goodlate to make sure it's the right change!!

Happy Halloween!

"Mommy I wan dance!!"

Well she wasn't quite sure what hit her but she had a blast this year and came away asking for more candy! The week started out with a County library kids party that was just adorable. She got to do her very first 'trick or treating' from the reference section to the periodicals and she was all about it! Next we did some daytime visiting to family again on Friday and she loved any excuse to don her too too again and go see her Grammie. That night I had to work but Bri took her to our churches "Trunk or Treat" and let her hang out with her good buddy Jordyn and see some familiar faces in not so familiar outfits. No pictures of that night, but we got some good Princess Bit pictures anyway to mark Halloween '08!

Lilly time

Abigail could not have been more excited about sharing her room with a friend!

This was the screaming contest invented by mine truely, let me tell you it was a delight to listen to these two out scream each other!!!

every now and then poor Lilly would just collapse and rest like this, first it freaked me and the Bit out but we figured it out , we had just worn her baby butt out!!!

Lilly's first successful 'peddi' we were so proud!!!

Well just some more fun photos of my sweet girl and one of her best buddies little Lilly. My friend Madeline at work had an early appointment so I got to watch these two girls in action for a blast of a morning. Here's some proof!

craft time

Well we've been killing time these days getting into all kinds of mischief. Little miss priss has proven herself very talented w/ the stickers and glue department. She loves to get messy and paint lovely nemo pictures to show her daddy as soon as he comes home. Mommy got a little crazy w/ the Halloween crafts and couldn't resist her "pink thinking cap" that she puts on now for the occassion. Such a sweet little cowgirl.

Six years and growing strong

Well 6 years it's been since Brian and I started this journey together and what a ride it's been!!! There's no one in the whole world I can imagine sharing these moments with more than him. A truely special guy with a crazy quirky side that never leaves me bored. Always able to produce the unexpected and make me smile...how could I not want to spend the rest of my life with this man!? Six years in and we are so much more in love every day that goes by. We have grand plans to travel the world (of course...once we sell our house!) eat lots of sweet goodies together and spitting out some more sweet children are a few of the many things on our marital ta-do-list! I love all of our memories together through the years. From taking our first magical cruise together, lazy days w/ Tuggle and Estella and sooooo much stuff in that tiny appartment, buying our first home w/ the bedroom tub! and sleeping on the floor for 6 weeks cause a bed wouldn't fit, surviving deployment and remembering the sweetest 3 am reunion in the city where it all started, our very abrupt decision to start trying for a family ( I still laugh thinking how you sat up to chuck my pills in the garbage can), to having our first daughter together and what an experience that was and still is! To just sharing the day to day ups and downs together. Jobs, 'pooh pooh payee', fish tanks and just hanging out in our tree house here watching the seasons change. Some bitter sweet but always we've made it through knowing our SNL date nights w/ chocolate chip cookies and milk to get back to always kept us perservering. He keeps the mundane exciting and and he always carrys a smile through the hard times. We love God together and are growing closer to Him and each other as we navigate this crazy life. The only other person in the world who can be as entertained for as long as I can just watching our daughter eat a meal or play with a 'baww'. The only one who appreciates her as much as me, who adores her as much as me. I'm so thankful for that, we have that in common too. I guess you were right hunny, we do have a few things in common. :) I must say I am loving every minute of it with my sweet hubby!! Happy anniversary baby!!

The proof is in the Sue...I mean Shoe

Had to run down and grab the camera this morning, yeah she slept w/ them on.

Yeah, that's right, she is for absolute certain her Aunti Sue's niece. This isn't the first time by any means but it's just the first time I took time to photograph it. She is sooooo a shoe woman already. Ya know, I never really got it but certain women (my sister Sue is one) who are born w/ a deep love and yearning for shoes. You pick the shoes then the outfit based on the shoes. Some times I'll tell Abigail to go get dressed and she strips down to her birthday suit but she'll have on a nice pair of strappy shoes and she announces.."all weady". From the time she started walking and could get to her dresser she loves to dig around her bottom drawer where I keep shoes and try on the prissiest pair in there. Recently her Mi-Mi pulled out a pair of red sparkly mary janes that took literally days to remove from her feet (yes, we did remove them for bath time at least). The funny thing is they are about 2 sizes too small and her toes absolutely curl inside of them and she doesn't care. Beauty is pain I guess. I mean, I'm more of the 'keep a pair of comfy sneakers for 10 yrs' kind of girl so she didn't get it from me. When Brian finally was able to pry them off her stinky feet for a bath her toes were all red and squished w/ lines and scratches from being too small. She didn't care, she slept in them for nap and bedtime and was sooooo happy to show them off. I still let her scoot around the house in them, we have to insist now on removal at bedtime though. I don't want her feet to look like those Chinese woman who contort their feet to fit in those awful high heeled shoes. But genetics are funny. Somewhere we have a very similar picture of my sister, couldn't be older then 5 or 6 sitting on the side of a bed w/ her shiny new mary janes and her pajamas on. My mom tells the story that it wasn't worth the battle and it was just too cute so she allowed her to go to bed w/ them on. The shoe blood runs deep in their veins I reckon. We'll just have to send her shopping w/ Sue on her frequent flyer shoe cards when she's older.