It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

The girls were recently modeling their Christmas dresses. It looks like the holiday is rushing in at warp speed. For the first year EVER, I'm going into Christmas week with my shopping not finished & NOTHING has been wrapped yet!!

However, I REFUSE to become overwhelmed by it all. I like to enjoy the feeling of Christmas, smell cookies fresh from the oven, visit with friends......what gets done, gets done. What doesn't..doesn't.......

Hope you can enjoy the holiday season......

Tropical Thanksgiving

We spent a lovely, long, Thanksgiving holiday in the Florida Keys last week. The weather was great 70-80.....
We toured a dolphin training facility & the girls loved seeing the dolphins up close, especially the 4 day old baby.

The sunsets were great, food was wonderful, beaches...sandy & warm.

Hope everyone else had a delightful holiday......

A Florida Iguana

A mama & her baby

Waiting for the beautiful Fl Key sunset

Last evening at the beach

A fun spot in Key West

A Thanksgiving Day Swim.....

Ladies & Gentlemen....I do believe we have a candidate for the Christmas card photo submission......


WE are THANKFUL!!!!

Just Because

I never posted the Halloween costume pictures.....

Lindsi stuck true to her wish to be Hannah Montana....Jami changed her mind from a witch to Snow White at the last minute.......







And, here we are with Thanksgiving just around the corner. Jami's class had their Thanksgiving dinner this past week. It was all very good & entertaining......I do wish I could keep Jami from calling the Indians...."Aliens"..though....
As in One Little...Two Little, Three Little Aliens........

Gift Ideas

Stefanie has asked for great gift ideas.

Since I have little eyes that read my blog, I can't go into detail of what is actually coming to our house this year, but I can tell you about a GREAT gift idea for the 10 & up crowd.

We have a couple of Michael P Keaton wannabees in our family. This is the perfect site for them:

WWW.KIVA.ORG

For as little as $25, you can become a dream maker. This is a company that allows you to make loans to people in need. You read profiles of very small businesses & you decide who you want to loan to & how much you want to give. You can break the profiles down into countries (mostly 3rd world), people (men, woman, families), type of busines (textiles, farming, merchant).

KIVA has a 98% return on their loans. You pick the person you are going to help & then they send you updated reports on their progress. In the loan bio, it tells how quickly they expect to repay the loan. You can fund all or part of a loan request. The best part is, you can keep your account growing & loan the money out time after time.

It not only teaches kids about the power of money, but gives them a great feeling of helping & of being in control, by allowing them to choose whom they help.

I'm not affiliated with KIVA, but I have purchased gift certificates from them for the past several years. And, it doesn't add clutter to the toy room which is a HUGE Plus in my books!!

Pumpkins, Jack-O-Lanterns, and a Little Trick or Treat

Falling behind on my blog.

Last Friday there was no school, so we carved our pumpkins. Hot weather here means the pumpkins last about 48 hours after being carved. We had to throw them out by Monday!!!

Warm October day....so NOT a day for getting into the season....Record breaking October heat!




Not sure if you can tell that this is Snow white & a Cinderella Castle...no ordinary pumpkins at our house...lol!


A few more pumpkin patch pics.....





Hopefully, some trick or treat pics to follow shortly!!

A Gavin-ism

Related to me by my sister this weekend.

Her 7 yr old son stated to her recently, "Wow! Have you noticed how well Lindsi's speech has gotten lately? But, her hearing is still pretty bad!".........

Thanks for noticing Gavin........=)

Love,
Aunt Debby

Pumpkin Patch with Family & Friends

On Sunday we were working at the Pumpkin Patch. Just about everyone in town stops by at some point. It's a great place to see old friends. The first person I saw was a cousin who now lives in SC..surprise! Then my sister & her family stopped by on their way home from a camping trip:

Cousins are so much fun!!!







The rest of the afternoon was a great visit with Mei Mei. The girls, well, Lindsi, my big sister extraordinaire, just loved being around Mei Mei. Lindsi especially, would love to be the big sister to a tribe. Jami is happy with our family as it is. Since Jami is my baby, it's hard to see how grown up she is becoming. Then you take pictures like this & see how much difference 1 year makes.




I can't help but think how richly blessed both Kris & I are by these girls.....

After lots of visiting, the girls picked out a couple of pumpkins for school & for home.

Not this batch....pretty though, right??

We're taking home this load!



The day pretty much ended like this for all of us....only Jami beat us to it.

Fall is here & a Trip to a little zoo

Finally fall has come to Central FL. After record breaking Oct temps in the 90's last week, we have new record breaking temps, nights in the 40's this week. Ahhh....

Off with the A/C, on with the heat...lol.....

On Sat we went to a birthday party held at a local college zoo. We unexpectedly got to meet HER(who was there for a completely different reason), Wow! what a pleasant surprise!

The birthday party was fun, the zoo educational, even when the guide got bit by the snake she was showing the kids. I was IMPRESSED! If I'd ever been holding the snake (which, you'd have to pay me alot to do), & it bit me, I'm quite sure I would have dropped it.......sadly to say, even among the the crowd of 3-7 yr olds. That's why I'm not a zoo guide....=)


It looks like Lindsi didn't want to touch the turtle, but I caught her just as she finished petting it & pulled her hand away.

Surprisingly, Jami pet everything they had to offer.....

Lindsi took all the zoo animal pictures.....



A fun day

I'm Growing Some.....

Last week Lindsi had her 7 yr old check up. She measured in at 51+ inches tall, 87% on the US charts. That's down from her previous height percentage of 95%...but I could see that where she used to be one of the tallest kids in her class, a few of them have caught up to her now, so I wasn't surprised.. She weighed in at 58 lbs..about 75% for weight. She is long & lean...nearly all muscle.

This summer, I started to notice that Lindsi's chest area was changing. She noticed it too, as she proudly announced to her Grandpa one day..."Look, Grandpa...I'm growing some"...My dad innocently answered..."What are you growing?"......She proudly puffed out her chest & answered "Boobs!".....Which took my poor dad a moment to recover from....And she was more than excited to find in her cousins hand me down clothing bag, a few stretchy girl bras. She wore them for about a week & then put them in the bottom of her drawer.

I was mildly concerned. But, she was showing no other signs of growing up, so I didn't know what to make of her new, no longer exactly flat, chest shape.

So, I asked her Ped to take a look. She did.....hmmmmm..."Does Lindsi play sports?" she asked. I told her that she danced twice a week & swims a great deal.....
Her Dr turned to me & said....."What I see are some mighty nice, pectoral muscles. Great definition....but no onset of puberty." I think I said.."GREAT!"

I've been laughing at myself ever since. I was truly relieved that she was not entering puberty early & instead she's just got a great toned & muscular frame, including some great pecs that I'm sure are the envy of a few.

No School Monday

Monday was a teacher workday...no school for the girls. I took the day off & we went down to visit the FL Aquarium. We have zoo passes & in Sept they have reciprocal member agreements, so the trip to the Aquarium was free......Love That.

It's a very nice Aquarium. On a Monday, schoolday for that area, it was not crowded at all, which was a HUGE plus.





The other big attraction at the Aquarium is the outdoor Splash Pad. We spent about 2 hrs having a fun time out there....