{Story Photos}

I'm really enjoying all of these beautiful fall colors on the trees. We've had a relatively mild autumn and so we are soaking up as much time as we can outdoors. I saw something like this on pinterest.com and thought it was such a cute idea to do for yearly photos.


xoxo

{I Have An Extra $36.00 In My Pocket}

Well, we made it. We did it. It was no small feet. But we are done. We are official...(well until Mr. & Mrs. Holmes require Depends) this Holmes family is diaper/ pull up free. Can I get a Hallelujah?

Two days before Porter's 4th birthday, he gave US the best un-birthday present ever!
Hand shake, high five, tator, chest pump.
Boy, you are rock'n it in your "pocket" undies. :)

{First Dentist Appointment}

{Smart As A Whip}

Several weeks ago Caleb came down with the flu. The next morning Caleb woke up came downstairs and felt like drinking something other then water. So I poured him some ginger ale to drink.

With a mouth full of cereal Porter said, I want some pop too.
I replied, Oh honey.. this pop is for people that are sick."

Porter looked at Caleb and then at me and without missing a beat, he performed the loudest sneeze.... smart 3 year old.



Did you know that you can burn 770 calories if you jump rope for an hour? Wow. Impressed. Whenever I run, I always enjoy looking at my Garmin to see my calorie burn. But I must admit, it's not quite as impressive as the potential burn of jump'n er rope. Intrigued, I wondered how long could I last?

So I turned on Regis & Kelly and started 'er up. Exhausted I stopped at 30 minutes then did some yoga and called it a cross training day. Impressed by my half hour of jumping and going no where skills I let my mom know about my accomplishment. I bragged to my dad and my husband. I told my sister. In fact I even called a girlfriend to toot my own horn. I was a proud peacock.

This morning however, I dropped to the floor (involuntary) while getting out of bed. My calf's are solid rocks and burn with each step. It's lunch time and I've tried to stretch the heck out of them all morning. This proud peacock who isn't so smart has turned into an 87 year old slow moving grandma. This activity fit for a 9 year old should be worked up slowwwwwwly and come with a caution label.

xoxo

Geritol Beauty Clinic

NY Stock Exchange eat your heart out. Purchasing fun bath toys has more then tripled our investment in the Holmes household. My kids can play for hours in a bath (okay not really, but yes, close). I love to hear them squeal and play and I also love that I'm able to get few things done without children under foot.

Most of you know that we are temporarily staying at my parents home until our move down south. This morning I announced to Porter that it was bath time. YES!, was his response. After what seemed like 3,500 seconds, I coerced then bribed then dragged got him out of the tub... the water was not even a desirable bath temperature and he was still happy as a clam.

I began drying him with a towel when all of a sudden he looked at his hands. Excited, he shouted "Mom! I've got wrinkles... just like grandma!"

Could everyday be bath day!?

{Semantics}

Caleb and I had a dentist appointment this morning. After wards, I took Caleb to school, checked him into the office and then walked him down the hall to his class. I watched him go into his class then turned on my heel and started my walk back down the hallway when his teacher opened the classroom door chuckling.



"Mrs. Holmes", he said. "I want to tell you what Caleb just said."

Holding my breath I'm think okay give it to me..

The teacher said Caleb bounced into class and said, "Hi Mr.(teachers name), I'm late because I had a disappointment." (Dentist Appt.)
..............................................................................................................................................................

This afternoon I asked Porter if he needed to go pee-pee in the potty. He nodded his head. So up he went. He sat for a minute, played with the toilet paper roll, touched the flusher, swung his legs, looked up at the ceiling and then said, "Mom, my pee pee's broken, it's not working.

xoxo

{Pockets}

have become a new phenomenon around our home. No, I'm not talking about those throw in the microwave Hot Pockets or the miniature dress up lose all of the accessories if you're not careful Polly Pockets.

I'm talking about your regular run of the mill pockets. The simple invention that allows you to hold your car keys, spare change... and well collect lint. When is the last time you used your pockets? Think hard. Can you remember?

I can. It was today.

And yesterday.

And the day before that.

In fact it has been every day this week.

It started on Monday during our day trip to the Woodland Park Zoo. Mommy introduced it, but has sense wished she hadn't. It sounded like such a brilliant idea at the time. And it went something like this.

Me being the standard infinite wise mother that I am prepared for our day trip to the zoo with sandwich style zip lock baggies each containing a snack. This is also the first day trip in which Damon and I agreed that our boys were probably old enough to do without the stroller. So I packed light. Since we have two boys, I would have normally packed separate snack baggies for each lovely son so as to discourage fighting. But this trip I beamed, we will be promoting sharing.

And after a little while of walking around my 2 1/2 year old asked for a snack. And when one asks for a snack there's this magical phenomenon thing that happens. It's called the "Me Too" syndrome. The six year old would like something too.

Notta problem. I'm prepared. "I've got some pretzels, fishies or fruit snacks. What would you guys like?"

My oldest says, "I'd like some pretzels please." "Me Too." says my youngest. (Right on cue.)

(and here comes sharing lesson number 101)...

Sharing Lesson number 101 was preached suburbly. :) (We've got one bag of pretzels. There's two of you. So you'll have to share with one another.. yadda yadda yadda. Okay?)

Lesson number 101 was received with four stars. No complaints. And no whining.

What!?

There was no complaining and no whining and you're only giving it four stars? Yeah, I know. I know! I should have been content and happy with four stars, but I wanted five.

You see the Woodland Park Zoo is a large zoo. And we decided to visit it during the off season which equals shorter operating hours. And ahem, we'd like our money's worth. And, this sharing thing was starting to slow the pack down... We were getting a little behind in our animal viewing schedule. It's because boys.. my boys can be slightly territorial especially when it comes to uh, food. Despite the plethora of pretzels to be had, neither son wanted to stray too far from the bag. And the turtle of the pack was holding the snack baggie. So mom in her infinite wisdom to her demise introduced the concept of pockets to speed us along in hopes to upgrade our journey to 5 stars.

Me: "Porter (our youngest) here honey... let's get some pretzels and put them in your pocket."

Porter: "My pock-ete"?

Me: "Yes, honey your pocket."

Porter: "Where's my pock-ete?"

Me: "Here bud. It's right here."

Porter smiling from ear to ear: "Oh, there's my pockete."

We visited the penguins, we saw a baby gorilla (so cute!), we saw tigers, lions, eagles, snow leapords, flamingos... and you know what ended up being the second coolest thing that Porter discovered on our trip to the zoo? (Top prize was a black push button which emitted a wolf howling .)

Not the animals. But, Pock-etes.

He asked to be dressed in them on Tuesday. He asked for them on Wednesday. And when I didn't have him in an outfit with a pocket, I had to put a hooded sweatshirt on over his shirt so that he could have a pock-ete.

I'll I want to do is put on sweat pants. La-la-la to pocket talk :)

Here's a few from our outing...

Ritualistic

Every afternoon I get to snuggle with this guy for a story before nap time. I'm so lucky.

Porter is in charge of choosing the story. And out of the thousands of books that we have and despite whether or not I place this story in the very back of the stack.... Porter chooses this story every time. Um, I'm beginning to think it's a favorite. :)

Aren't snuggles and story time just the best..

Have a great day!

A Staple Around Our House

Anybody: "Porter, did you go poo-poo?"

Just like clockwork and without any hesitation...this question gets answered 99.9% of the time like this (regardless of what's in the pants)....

Porter: (w/ a slight southern drawl) "Nah, just wet."