random pockets of chaos

{super} dad part two

2012-01-30T05:54:00.000-06:00

the super dad

as introduced here....and did i mention that he can bake a mean batch of chocolate brownie cookies???

he's passing this knowledge down to our son so that one day chandler can carry the super dad torch!

my taste buds say "thank you".....the lbs on the ole bathroom scale, on the other hand, are not quite so happy. i have no willpower....especially when it comes to just-out-of-the-oven cookies baked by my two favorite fellas!!

top eleven things i've learned this year {so far}

2012-01-25T06:23:00.000-06:00

i did a top ten things i've learned list (it's at the bottom of the linked post) after my first day teaching at an elementary school. so, i thought i'd update with another one after 1.5 years there. apparently i could do these forever because i always seem to be learning something new every day ;)

so here goes. top eleven things i've learned this year so far:

1. i can go all super incognito ninja spy just by straightening my hair or wearing my glasses. they have NO clue who i am on those days. i had a 5th grader stop me in the halls and ask if i was a sub the first day i straightened my hair. and she was serious!

2. referring to myself in the 3rd person becomes second nature with kindergarteners. and even then they STILL can't remember my name! i can't tell you how many times during the course of a story time i use the phrase, "mrs. shoaf is.....{looking to see who is following directions} {so proud of mrs. ________'s class} {waiting for everyone to get in their 1-2-3}.

3. you can remove a tiny bell from a child's nose without panicking. even when that child is your very own and that bell is WAY up there! (i looked and looked for a post chronicalling this experience. apparently i never wrote one. rest assured that a nasal passage vs. foreign object post is in the works even if the event occurred last year! there's no way i'm not recording that event for posterity.)

4. you can look at a child who is throwing a full-on tantrum on the floor of the library and have the patience to say to them, "when you are done and are ready to get off a floor that has been walked on by MANY people today, let me know," and then walk away calmly.

5. almost catch the library on fire with a mouse pad and a projector and not let on to the 4th grade class that you are teaching that you are DYING inside of total embarassment (and trying not to panic at the same time because you know where the fire extinguisher is but you're not entirely sure you want your very first time using a fire extinguisher to be in front of 25 ten-year-olds who will TOTALLY judge you on your fire extinguisher form!)

6. you realize that anyone over the age of 8 is SOOOOOO old. like, really old. and that i can still smile and not throttle the kid who just looked at me and said, "my mom is 28. you must be REALLY old mrs. shoaf!" **for the record, i'm only 32. i want to find that kid when they turn 32 and remind them of that statement ;)

7. when you find a book for a student that they really really wanted, their eyes truly do light up. it's the coolest feeling :)

8. i can and have totally fooled everyone into believing that i know that i'm doing with technology (unless, of course, i'm trying to burn down the school with a mouse pad and a projector!). oh, your internet screen is zoomed in too much? you need the a.r. quiz icon added to your desktop? shooooooot, i got that!

9. if my volunteers ever quit on me, i may have to retire early. if anyone thinks they can't make a difference in someone's life by volunteering at their child's school.....allow me to correct your thinking. mondays and thursdays would not be survivable for me without my fabulous volunteers. life.changing.

10. i am TOTALLY capable of knowing that my principal has walked up to the story time room door (mainly because all my kindergarteners got all wide-eyed and sat up really straight!) and continue the lesson without throwing up from nerves. she wasn't there for observation THIS time.....but i didn't know that until i got to a stopping point and could talk to her.

11. scented smiley face stickers are WAY cooler than regular smiley face stickers. and even if you give 18 kindergarten or 1st grade students the exact same scent....they will all smell their stickers and give you 18 completely different answers for what they smell like. really??? you think the strawberry stickers smell like popcorn??? hmmmmm...... ;)

whoever thinks that teachers do all the teaching and students do all the learning....well, they are just plain wrong. i have been educated by these kids, i tell ya!

oh yeah....i found this on pinterest...if anyone knows where i can find it for reals, i TOTALLY want it for my library! i get asked questions like that one the regular. or my other fave is, "i want the same book that __________________ has. do you have it?" ummmmmm, i'm pretty darn good at knowing lots of randoms stuff, but we have 700+ kids at our school and i do NOT keep a mental check-out list going on. i'm going to need a title of said book if you want a shot at actually getting it!! ;)

apple classic 5k

2012-01-23T08:33:00.000-06:00

time: 35.52.

hammock bay

walton education foundation apple classic 5k

this past weekends race was not a great one for me. let's just say that i ran a 5.5k ;)

sometimes it REALLY pays to listen when the race coordinators are explaining the turnaround points.

aside from adding some extra length to my run, the race was still fun! the weather held out....but the humidity didn't make gasping for breath any easier. and the temps were MUCH more desirable than last weekend. only in northwest florida can you run a race one weekend in 20 degree weather....and run another one the following weekend in 65+ degree weather. gotta love it.

and west defuniak elementary was well represented:

i love how i don't look NEAR as pale as i actually am right now (that's me sporting the numero uno...too bad that wasn't my final race position!) since i was all red and wheezy when we took this picture.

i'm thinking about doing another race next month to try and redeem myself from this weekend. we'll see how that works out for me.

oh yeah....and the OFFICIAL results from last week's run:

time: 33:14 avg pace per mile: 10:43 117th out of 259 runners. 13th in my age group

what's in a {name}?

2012-01-19T17:55:00.000-06:00

**i was looking back through my old posts trying to find one i wanted to link to in a different one i'm writing and i stumbled across this one. don't know why i never published it!

i remember growing up, i always wondered what i would end up naming my children. thank goodness that i scrapped several of my first faves from way back when....i won't list off those names just in case they are anyone's current faves though ;)

when i found out that i was pregnant with hannah, the first thing that popped into my head was, "i have to name this child!" it felt like a huge responsibility. i mean, you don't want to saddle a child with a name that will get them trash-canned on the first day of school.....or give them initials that will spell out a less-than-desirable word. i remember the "friends" episode when ross and his ex-wife were trying to come up with a name for their baby. things like "helen geller" came up. and then ross and rachel trying to decide on a name for their baby..... and they each got to have a veto when names like "sandrine" came up.

i always knew that i wanted my children to have family names. i am named after both of my grandmothers and i always loved having that connection to two great women in my life. i knew that i wanted my children to have something similar. so, here is the long and short of how my three little angels received their monikers and what they were ALMOST named!

hannah kayden:

hannah and me: may 22, 2005

we found out that hannah was a girl when i was about 16 weeks pregnant with her. this gave us ample time to decide on a name (and i didn't even have to use up any brain power on a boy name!). my grandmother's maiden name was "hanus" which in polish roughly translates to "descendant of john". we decided on "hannah" in honor of grandma pat, as well as austin, whose first name is actually "john". my grandmother passed away when i was 5 months pregnant with hannah, but i remember her telling me that she had a dream one night that i had a curly haired little girl (and this was before my ultrasound!). i love that hannah is named after her :)

hannah's middle name mainly came about because i loved the idea of being able to call her "hannah kay". i knew that she was going to have a really common name and i figured that if she was in a class with 20 other "hannah's" she could always go by "hannah kay"! i saw the name "kayden" and loved it. we had a vote one night at family night and "kayden" won the vote.....even still, we weren't totally sure until we saw her that she would definitely be a "hannah kay" (side note: every single instance of the name "kayden" that i've heard or seen has been a boy....but i can't figure out why because it's such a pretty name!)

names she almost got:

hannah gabrielle, hannah riley, hannah katherine (i REALLY wanted a "katie" but looking at her now, i can't imagine calling her that!)

chandler austin:

chandler and my mother: september 13, 2007

chandler's name was a little more obvious with the family connection. my mom's maiden name was "chandler" and i always knew that if i had a little boy, that's what i wanted to name him. i was in a sort of "race" with my brother and sister to have a son first so that i could get the name....fortunately, i won ;) i wasn't sure if austin was going to go for the name, so i kept a list on the fridge and wrote every boy name that caught my attention. i would cross off names as austin vetoed them, but "chandler" always made the cut.

just like with hannah, chan's middle name wasn't for sure decided until he was born. we had several different family names on the table. i was always leaning towards "chandler austin" and envisioned calling him "chas" for short (side note: i have never called my boy "chas" ever....and couldn't imagine calling him that now! i swore he'd never be "chan"....but just guess what we call him 95% of the time?!?!). and the look on my mother's face when we told her what we were naming our son after he was born? absolutely priceless.

names he almost got:

chandler dean, chandler glen

ava paulina:

ava and my mother-in-law: september 19, 2009

ava's name was a struggle. we didn't know if we were having a boy or a girl during this pregnancy....we chose for it to be a delivery room surprise. for the first time, austin and i were forced to create a girl name list AND a boy name list! if she had been a boy, her name would have been "brantley thomas". "brantley" after austin's sister, brandy lee, and "thomas" after his great-uncle tom. honestly, i was so convinced that she was going to be a boy that i really had a hard time coming up with girl names. (in my defense, i ended up with puppps syndrome in which the odds of having a boy are something like 70%). just like with the other two kiddos, we knew for sure that if it was a girl her name would be "ava" but the middle name was throwing us for a loop. austin wanted to give her my middle name but i wanted to give her something in honor of austin's mom. i remember talking about it on the way to the hospital and trying to figure out what the final girl name would be. i wanted her to have a palindrome like "hannah" and that is where "ava" came from. i am just word nerdy like that ;)

we decided on "paulina" in honor of my mother-in-law, paula. it is oddly fitting for ava girl because she really IS a "little paula". hannah and chandler were both born with dark black eyes and brown hair.....ava was born with gray eyes and blondish-reddish hair. now, with her blue eyes and blonde hair she looks JUST like her grandma for whom she is named!

names she almost got:

ava pauline, ava pauletta, ava lisette

brantley robert, brantley thomas

so, there you have it. way more information about the names of my children than you probably ever wanted.

see. alison. run.

2012-01-17T09:58:00.000-06:00

this past saturday brought about the 2nd annual new year's resolution 5k for the northwest florida ballet company. i ran (well, "ran" is a relative term here....but for blogging purposes, let's just say i ran!) in this race last year...marking it as my very first 5k to actually sign up for and run in.

i was WAY more prepared for this year's race. and i had a goal. i wanted to go for 2 miles before stopping to walk at all (upon re-reading last year's post, apparently i ran 2 miles before stopping then too. i think i MIGHT have lied last year because there is NO WAY i ran nonstop for 2 miles then!!).....and i wanted to beat my time of 34 minutes from last january.

the race was in fort walton, which is an hour away from where i live. AND it was 20 degrees when i left the house. that may not sound too bad to some folks who would love to see 20 degrees right now, but for us wimpy floridians, 20 degrees usually means we are staying inside all day, huddled around a cozy fire. the mere mention of actually going out VOLUNTARILY and to run 3.1 miles got some pretty good laughs and a few "you're crazy"s!!

but, my mom and i loaded up the kiddos and headed down bright and early. once we got there, i attempted to attach my number to my shirt....which was made more difficult by the fact that i couldn't feel my fingers. i chose to wear my march for misty shirt in honor of a friend who passed away after losing her battle with cancer. the 5k that was organized in support of her back in 2010 was the first 5k that i had ever done (i TOTALLY walked that one!) and was the first time i had ever even entertained the idea of getting my butt in shape enough to one day run a race.

my mom had her ipad handy....which afforded me to have spectacular shots like this:

let's just say that the only stretches i know are the ones they made us do when i played basketball in high school. this is probably a huge no-no stretch....so if there's anyone out there who is "in the know" for running techniques...don't laugh at me!!

it was pretty cool to see how many people were running this year. the crowd was much larger than last year's race! they requested for the fast runners to be in the front....which means that i parked my jogging behind right in the middle...juuuuust in front of the walkers ;)

once we all got situated....they let us ready, set, go. mom caught this picture of me at the beginning of the race. notice that i'm smiling. understand that about 4 minutes after this picture was taken, i was no longer smiling. the smiles got in the way of my gasping for oxygen!!

and here was my cheering section! i have to admit....you get a little surge of adrenaline when you know that your precious children are watching.

and while their mommy was pounding the pavement and praying that a life-flight trip wouldn't be necessary by the end of the race....the trio got to have a little fun (i'd guaranteed my mom that they'd get to have AT LEAST 30 minutes before they'd see me approaching the finish line!). there were several characters from the ballet on hand....which made hannah extremely happy. chan, on the other hand, would have nothing to do with the nutcracker!

they returned to the race course just in time to see me ~~drag myself~~ run towards the finish line. i don't know my official time yet, but the time clock was at 33 minutes when i crossed the line. AND, i made it to my 2 mile marker. in fact, i hit about 2.2 miles before stopping long enough to grab a cup of water and then keep on going. i stopped again and walked the hill at about 2.6 miles....and then kicked it back up again for the final stretch.

next saturday i'll be running in the apple classic 5k in hammock bay and i'm shooting for a little better on my time AND no stopping til at least 2.5 miles.

oh yeah...the upside of taking the kids? fabulous cheering section! the downside? they have no concept of how jelly-legged i was...therefore they didn't see ANY reason why we shouldn't walk down to the piers for a little while after the race! guess who got their way on that one?

that's okay though....i hit up starbucks on the way home and that white chocolate mocha made everything alllllllllll better ;)

standing up for {amelia}

2012-01-14T13:49:00.001-06:00

i rarely post on the weekends. but today is different. you see, i have a heart. and it's hard to read about people being heartless. cruel, even. and it's even harder to read about heartless, cruel people doing heartless, cruel things to innocent children.

imagine that your precious child needed medical attention. not just for a scrape or a broken bone....serious attention necessary to continue to live. and then imagine a doctor looking you right in your face and telling you that your child is not worth saving because she is mentally retarded. and because she's mentally retarded, she has no quality of life and therefore shouldn't be wasting the medical team's precious time.

i cannot even fathom what my reaction to that would be....but it is actually happening to THIS mom. the children's hospital of philadelphia is wrong on this. terribly and horribly wrong. the family plans to find a donor within their own ranks....they don't even want to go on the donor list. all they want is someone to perform the surgery. and CHOPS is refusing. and highlighted on the refusal are the words "mentally retarded". for no other reason. if you'd like to help change the future of a little girl....go HERE and sign the petition. i know that i did. it only takes a moment of your time.....your short moment might help create a lifetime of moments for amelia. she is a beautiful gift from God and she deserves the chance to live just like any of my children. being mentally retarded does NOT preclude someone from life.

{super} dad!

2012-01-09T16:58:00.000-06:00

my family is blessed. i have a husband who works hard every day. and then finds the time to do the grocery shopping so i can uphold my new years' resolution to stay out of walmart (which i think he has ulterior motives on that one. it's not just about my desire to stay out of that insidious store. i'm pretty sure it's also about his desire to see the credit card bill cut in half! apparently i stink at sticking to grocery lists and bargain shopping!)

after braving the lunchtime walmart crowds, he still has the energy to come home and run our four-year-old son up and down the driveway for a couple of hours just because chandler decided he wanted to learn to ride his bike without training wheels. apparently hannah achieving this feat caused a little sibling rivalry to rear its head! no matter that he's 2.5 years younger than her ;)

and to cap off his day, our he-man cuts and grinds all of the deer burger that we'll need to feed these massive kiddo appetites for the year! (and he did it with an audience, no less. i can imagine that three sets of eyes watching your every move and three mouths asking a million questions can make any activity more difficult).

and i think that the kitchen cleanin' he did the other night deserves mention as well...because that sure did make my day!

we don't say it as much as we should, but this superdad deserves our thanks each and every day. and hugs....LOTS of hugs :)

and just because it was cute....here's a picture of hannah "helping" ava ride her bike around the yard while austin was working with chan:

mama gots a new pair of shoes ;)

2012-01-03T16:45:00.000-06:00

so these were sitting on my front porch today:

yup, black glitter TOMS! oh so cozy with a splash of sass. AND a child in need somewhere in the world got a new pair too. thank you so much to my dear mother for my fabulous Christmas gift. and i love that i got them several days after Christmas....because it makes it feel like the holidays are still upon us. i think next year i am going to request my gifts to be given at various intervals throughout the year!!

also, today i cut my hair. no big deal? howsabout the fact that other than a quick trim 6 months ago, i haven't cut my hair in 2 years!?!? i was honestly nauseous....and truth be told, i chickened out and didn't get it cut quite as short as i had intended. i think haircuts are like cold water....i can't just jump in all at once. i have to ease my way in to lessen the shock. maybe next month i'll go in and have her take a bit more. or not ;)

either way, i'm kinda getting used to it. we'll see tomorrow when i actually wash and style it. i may end up looking like a wooki on crack!

(and i am officially stating for the record that i am horrible at mirror self-portraits. there...it's been said!)

i {resolve}....

2012-01-02T18:09:00.000-06:00

when austin and i had our date night last night, he asked me if i'd made any new year's resolutions. i sort of vaguely threw some comments out....but honestly, i hadn't really thought about it. i mean, i'm constantly working on myself. constantly seeking God's will for my life.....seeking His strenght to make the changes that i know that i need to make. but sometimes? sometimes ya just have to make it official-like.
so i'm putting some resolutions out there. i've written them down (twice now) so maybe that'll hold me a little bit accountable for them. so, here goes:
1. make my words and actions deliberate. i am too fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants. i impulse buy. i say things before i think about them.
2. say "i love you"....and mean it. at her living proof live event beth moore talked about how we too oftern leave out the "i" in "i love you". this goes back to being deliberate in what i say. i need to take ownership for my words. i need to keep in the "i".
3. smile and laugh more. i worry too much. i fret over things that are so way out of my control. matthew 6:34 tells us, "34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."
4. be inhindered in my joy! i hide my emotions....i always have. this year, i want to shed that exterior.
5. stay.out.of.walmart. seriously. it's the devil.
6. use what we have as much as possible. i don't know HOW many times i've opened the pantry and said, "we have NOTHING to eat!". really? a whole cabinet of food and we have nothing to eat? i've been places and seen people who had nothing to eat. and i am NOT one of them.
7. be a positive role model for my children. this means curbing the road rage. this might be harder than i thought!
8. pray multiple times a day. not just once. not just twice. but continuously throughout the day. i can change NOTHING about myself without my Father's help. and let others see me pray. i am so private.....and heaven help me if someone asks me to pray out loud. i need to get over it.
9. give thanks always. to friends. to family. to my God.
10. give back. i am so blessed. no matter how much i complain about this or that....i am blessed beyond measure. i know there are those who desperately need help. austin and i are planning on going back to guatemala this summer.....but there are also those RIGHT HERE who are in need.
10. find a family verse (thank you, jason and alicia!!)
11. breathe before i act. impatience and a bad temper need reining in.
12. keep a prayer journal.

so there it is. maybe i'll check back in later on this year and see how i'm doing. unless, of course, i'm failing miserably. then, i'll just "forget" to revisit this list ;)

a holiday wrap-up!

2012-01-02T17:50:00.000-06:00

well....the holidays are almost officially over. i have to go back to work tomorrow (students don't return until wednesday so MAYBE i'll get some vital things crossed off of my work to-do list!). it's back to reality.....as if staying home with all three kids, cleaning, cooking, etc etc (well, maybe not so much COOKING. lol) is a vacation ;)
in honor of the end of my time off....i give you a Christmas holiday recap of events:
my nephew andrew was christened on wednesday, december 21st.

my lovely compadre pat and i scooted to destin for some serious Christmas list shopping and some sushi....i introduced her to a little-known sushi place that is fab-u-lous! it's my little secret so that they don't lose their quaint atmosphere. ;)
austin and i attended my dear friend letha's 30th birthday party....complete with borrowed bridesmaids dress. letha requested the theme.....but i have never really kept any of my bridesmaids dresses (mainly because 2 of them were maternity and i am SO not going there!!). i borrowed the pink dress from my cousin-in-law....and it turned out that dress was the one megan actually wore in letha's wedding. i loved that :)

the kids went to baytowne with my cousin and aunt to see the lantern parade and apparently engage in death defying stunts. i'm reconsidering my aunt as a chaperone ;)

Christmas Eve with my family! chaos, food, puppet shows, and megan's new "finger pom pom" gloves (which i love and i think i need for all those college football games i don't get to go to!).

Christmas Eve with austin's family.....complete with wedding anniversary celebration, delicious food, and funny hats. hey....it's ALWAYS funny hat day on the farm! and topped off with some good old fashioned baby snugglin'

Christmas morning at our house......the kiddos set out the cookies and milk for the man in red, hung the santa key on the front door, and then commenced sugar plums dancing in their heads as they snoozed. they each had a new bean bag chair topped with goodies awaiting them when they woke up! note for next year....don't give ava her big gift first. once she saw her new bicycle, the other presents ceased to exist!

Christmas morning at grandma and pa's.....this was andrew's first go-round so he got the traditional red boot :) bat man caves, little people doll houses, and art supplies aplenty merited squeals of joy all around. i think i was most excited about my new pasta pot with a strainer lid. i think that's a sign that i'm getting "old". oh....and BOTH of the deathly hallows harry potter movies.

we took the annual nixon great-grandchildren picture.....i think we'll be needed bigger stairs next year! this is actually missing three kiddos. amabel was napping and karleigh & nicholas weren't there this year.

Christmas night at mia's house.....after church, lunch, and naps, we headed to mia's for her annual soup and sandwich supper (after HUGE lunches, soup and sandwiches are usually all we can manage!) where american girl dolls, bitty babies, and a baseball pitching machine took center stage. i got an antique locket watch necklace and a shiny new pair of black glitter TOMS and austin got a bass pro gift card to put towards a new pair of sunglasses and a new football.

my friend beth and i were able to score some baby-sitters and slip down to destin for some pedicures and a little panera bread lunch (if you haven't ever had their blue cheese and steak salad....OH.MY.WORD. i'm obsessed!) with a side of girl time.
new years eve brought nick and beth with their kids, a bag of oysters, and a camp fire. perfection. i ALMOST made it to midnight too. many thanks for a couple of my friends who texted me NYE wishes just as i hit dreamland ;)

the icing on the holiday cake? the hubs and i got to steal away on sunday afternoon to go buy our Christmas gifts. one new watch and pair of sunglasses later, we hit up a movie (sherlock holmes. i HIGHLY recommend it!) and some hot wings before heading home.
and thus ends this year's holiday. it's been a good one....filled with kids, friends, and some serious house re-organizing.

nothing says {happy new year}.....

2011-12-31T15:58:00.000-06:00

...quite like a dump truck in your front yard. of course, if that dump truck is unloading a big ole pile of dirt and you are anywhere between 2 & 90 years old....is there really anything more fun?!?!

we will be having our good friends, nick and beth, over tonight with their three kiddos so we figured the best baby-sitter in the world would be a dirt pile. it may be the only way we can have a conversation longer than 2 seconds. maybe. ;)

of course, the trio had to test out the pile to make sure that it was up to standard. judging by their hands, feet, and rear ends.....i think the dirt passed with flying colors:

let's just say that a midday bathing was definitely in order for all three before naps!! and my shower now needs a good scrubbing.

so here's to dirt piles, "king of the mountain", muddy toes, and saying goodbye to 2011!

and she's off!

2011-12-31T15:39:00.000-06:00

hannah woke up this morning with a mission: to ride her bicycle without training wheels. and this time, she MEANT it. i did the whole, "uh huh. okay. we'll see" bit when she said she wanted her daddy to take off the training wheels. you see....we've been down this road before. a couple of times. and it hasn't been pretty. but this time was different.

when i left the house to run some errands, she was imploring her father to turn her bike into a two-wheeler. 2 hours later, i received a text from austin telling me that my girl was riding her bike! i couldn't wait to get home and see for myself.

i have to admit that i was very surprised at how well she did! i figured that she'd wobble along for a few feet and that would be her "riding a bike" experience. but no...my girl rode like she was channeling lance armstrong ;)

austin got her started with her pedals in the right position.....

and after a quick little wobble to the right.....

she was off!! .........

and she never looked back. :)

so it's official....the training wheels are off for good! and a little side note here: hannah asked me NOT to take her picture documenting this momentous occasion because she had been playing on the dirt pile and she wanted to wait until she was cleaned up**. i love that little priss pot :)

**too bad for her i'm a TERRIBLE listener. hehehehe

{sixty-eight} years

2011-12-30T15:28:00.000-06:00

Christmas Eve is special for obvious reasons.....but to our family, it has an extra special meaning. austin's granny and grandadddy celebrate their wedding anniversary on Christmas Eve. every year, after we finish up at my family's Christmas gathering we head over to my in-law's home to celebrate the marriage of two of the most amazing people i know.

this year, granny and grandaddy celebrated their 68th anniversary. in a day and age where people are married for 72 days; 18 days; mere hours (thanks kim, sinead, and britney for being such great role models for the institution of marriage) it's encouraging to have people close to us who have been married longer then most people have lived. it's encouraging to have them as our standard for what a marriage should be. 68 years, 3 children, 4 grand-children, and 11 great-grandchildren later....they are still going strong.

~~~quick story behind the hard hat picture.....my nephew, andrew, was baptized just before Christmas. on her way to the church, granny misstepped on the curb and fell down. she hit her head pretty hard on the pavement and ended up with a sizeable goose egg. when the paramedics checked on her she told them that she was okay. grandaddy piped in and said, "yeah....she's a tough old bird". apparently a good sense of humor is necessary to put up with each other for that long! lol either way, we decided we needed to fit her with a little noggin' protection from now on!~~~

so here's to 68 years of wedded bliss to granny and grandaddy!! i pray that one day austin and i will be in their shoes :) and i just looked it up.....70 years is the platinum anniversary. but if you make it to 100 years of marriage....TEN CARAT DIAMOND!! i now have a goal.

extreme {gingerbread} home makeover

2011-12-28T16:20:00.000-06:00

just before we ran out of days before Christmas hit, i managed to get it together enough to let the kiddos decorate a gingerbread house. hannah and i had purchased the kit a few weeks ago, but it took awhile for me to aqcuire the mental fortitude that it took to squelch my ocd down enough to be hands-off on this project. ;)

once the kids were aproned up....they were ready to go! that is, until i realized that the kit we bought didn't come with pre-made icing like the nifty little deal we had the last time we did a gingerbread house. THIS kit provided a bunch of powdery substance and some not-so-great instructions for turning it basically into toothpaste (which i'm looking into actually using for next year. already in a squeezy tube AND it would add a minty aroma to the house!). so , the trio cooled their heels for about 20 minutes while i got all betty crocker up on some gingerbread icing.

at least i didn't have to make the candy from scratch....that woulda been a deal breaker. although we DID supplement the meager kit supply with some extra smarties and licorice sticks we had in our personal candy stores.

i have to admit that i DID set up the gingerbread house for them to decorate. i managed to squelch my ocd.....but i didn't kill it. allow me to just say that if you took a t-square to this house, it woulda passed with flying colors ;)

and for SOME reason, we kept running low on decorating candy. hmmmmmm.....i wonder:

although i have to admit that ava wasn't the only culprit. the other two were just a little sneakier about their candy consumption. let's just say those extra smarties and twizzlers came in handy!

my little trio decorated their hearts out (and for the record....the mess on the counter behind them came from the 8437 steps it took to whip up the icing. i will say this....we were NOT going to run outta icing. that package made enough to pretty much turn our actual house into a gingerbread home if we so chose!)

and here are the proud little gingerbread home contractors. they personally guarantee that it is up to code and safe for any and all gingerbread families looking for a cozy abode! (do you see what ava considers to be a photo-worthy smile these days? no....she is not in pain. she is saying, "cheese". we're working on it!)

and lo and behold....the final product:

isn't it bea-u-tiful? i might have some home designers on my hands....that is, if there is a market for TOTALLY eclectic, over-the-top, candy-obsessed designers!

it's a family tradition (or just mine....whatever!)

2011-12-23T11:17:00.000-06:00

(yes, i realize this is my 3rd post today....but i'm running out of time before i get bombarded with Christmas posts!!!)
let's talk about traditions for a hot Christmas second. (and i can say "hot Christmas" because today is the first day the temps have dipped below 60.) i know that people enjoy their trees, wreaths, caroling, and family. yadda yadda yadda. but MY favorite tradition involves this:

yep. a Christmas clock. make no mistake....that is not MY Christmas clock (although it is currently residing on MY kitchen wall....but we'll get to that part in a minute. hold your horses!)

you see, my mom has had this clock for a long time. it's a cute clock. all Christmas-y and whatnot. and it says "joyeux noel" on it...which makes her happy since she's a self-professed francophile (which isn't as bad as it sounds. it's just someone obsessed with all things french. she even speaks french rather well...and is thoroughly embarassed {and rightly so} of my purposeful tendency to butcher the language {favorite phrases in french include, but are not limited to: "my grandmother is on fire", "the monkey drives the bus", and "the dog barks at midnight") and also to learn spanish! it's a good thing she has to love me.)

the issue is this: the clock plays "jingle bells" every hour on the hour. which drives.me.nuts. so, it all began several years ago with my sneaking into the kitchen and turning the clock off. it would usually take her a while to realize that it was off. she'd chastise me and return the clock to its musical glory.

then, one day i stole the clock. like RIGHT off of her wall (there might have even been ransom notes involved). and then i wrapped it and gifted it to her for Christmas. i loved the look on her face when her unwrapped present started singing.

and thus the tradition was born. i'd hide her clock somewhere in her house....or take it away completely....send her pictures of her clock being held hostage. good times!

this year, i have stolen her clock and hung it in my own kitchen. she's picking my kids up today to take them to her house to bake cookies. with any luck, she'll get them at the top of the hour and have her own "m.i.a." clock serenade her from my kitchen :)

doncha just LOVE the holidays???

southern snow!

2011-12-23T08:23:00.000-06:00

all of the Christmas cards have been stamped, sealed, and sent out. whew! once again, i didn't order enough this year...one of these days i'm going to learn how to count.

i have used shutterfly the last couple of years for our cards and i have never been disappointed. they ship them out REALLY fast too, which is great for a habitual procrastinator such as myself. (although this year i had the pics done in october and the cards ordered on cyber monday!).

did i mention that it was close to 90 degrees when we took those pics too? my kiddos were total troopers in their turtleneck sweaters and whatnot. i was breaking a sweat and i was wearing a t-shirt. and here we are mere days before actual Christmas and it's still topping 70 degrees out. any wonder why cotton is the only "snow" we get in the deep south?
that being said, i LOVED our cards! i posted a few pics from the shoot in the cotton field a while back and here's the final product:

Stationery card

View the entire collection of cards.

a {flurry} of activity

2011-12-23T08:04:00.001-06:00

in the week prior to Christmas break, hannah had a ton of fun activities going on. she is quite the busy little bee ;) her ballet school, which normally does not allow for parents to watch the classes (which i now know why that is.....my girl could barely concentrate on her lesson when i got to observe the class!), had two different parent observation days. hannah's mia went to the first one, but i got to go to the second day.

it was so much fun watching hannah go through all of her ballet routines and exercises. i remember so many of those same positions from when i took ballet a looooooong time ago. especially the dreaded "frog" position. (i never could get that one down!!!)

once the girls finished up with their routine workout, ms. jennifer let them do a free dance. she would play music and then they'd have to freeze when she stopped it. boy howdy, was hannah ever in her element during that!

then, on the friday before break, it was a total whirlwind of activity. any teacher knows the dread that strikes our educator hearts when you have the perfect storm of a half day, pajama day, AND Christmas party day all at the same time (oh, AND the end of the semester too!). but, we soldiered on!

hannah and i donned our fabulous pjs....and may i just say how great it is to wear pajamas to work. you just can't get too stressed out when you're wearing comfy fleece ;) and the reason they got to have a pajama day was because our kiddos met the half year goal of more than 9000 box tops!

also, i MIGHT have shirked my library duties for the day (like anyone was leaving their classroom parties to come down and read!) and scooted on down to hannah's class party. they had yummy breakfast goodies to help sugar them up for the rest of the day (i'm quite sure mrs. bailey was glad her kids were all going home by lunch!!).

and here are the girls in hannah's class: emma, hannah, ashlyn, jamiah, and taylor (missing payton and trinity!). hannah has a great group of little girls in her class...they are all super sweet and ashlyn kept telling me how cute she thinks hannah is.

and then, it was time to open presents. mrs. bailey enjoyed torturing the kids by making them wait until she counted to three before opening their gifts. (hey, teachers have to have SOME perks to the job! making kids squirm and wait for presents is one of them.)

once she FINALLY called out "three"....the paper went a-flyin and squeals rang out! i'm thinking that hkay MIGHT have liked her new "my little pony".

the kids spent the next hour playing with their new toys, running off the sugar highs, and generally being merry.

and i even snagged a pic of hannah with mrs. bailey (shhhhh....don't tell her teacher that i posted it!!)

after all that, we were ready to officially start our Christmas vacation. it was a crazy fun day, but i can't say i was sad to hear those school doors close behind me as we left for 2.5 weeks of family, fun, and a liiiiiiittle bit of relaxation.

making a {joyful} noise!

2011-12-21T12:46:00.000-06:00

chandler's preschool had their Christmas program last friday. my boy has already proven at last year's graduation ceremony that he was totally cool with being on stage. once again, he did not disappoint!

here he is, singing his little heart out: (he's smack dab in the middle of the picture. red and blue striped polo shirt!)

and the dance motions? pshhhh....no problem there. he did 'em with gusto! although, somewhere in the middle of the performance he apparently became enamored with a little girl behind him (he was standing in front of the k4 group....so i guess he likes the "older" women! ).

the kids did an amazing job, singing at the top of their lungs, and truly making a joyful noise. it was a blessing the behold!! how can you not get into the Christmas spirit when there are a hundred children singing "FEAR NOT!" at 19583 decibels?!?!

Bravo to my sweet chandler for a job well done :) i know that God has to be smiling when the voices of children singing Jesus's praises reach His ears in Heaven. and the parents in the church were smiling as well because those kids were just plain cute up there.

what saturdays are supposed to be about...

2011-12-18T14:32:00.000-06:00

this past saturday (***and i don't mean yesterday. once again, i am gloriously behind on posting!) was fabulous. perfection. austin and i found a little hidden gem of a playground (SO not sharing where it is!!!) that's close to our house. nestled back off of the beaten path, it was perfect to take the kids to. they had the run of the place! we played all morning long (and by "we"....i mean that austin and i were totally on the swings and slides too!).

the playground equipment was really nice (probably since no one has ever used it before...hehheehe)...hannah and chandler had a blast talking to each other through the "telephone" pipe,

ava played a little tune for us on the "piano",

and they slid on poles and slides to their hearts contents.

afterwards, we hit up pizza hut for lunch.....and then, even though it was COLD (and by "cold"....i mean 50 degrees. we floridians are winter wimps. we know it.), we still hit up the old tastee freez for some delicious milkshakes. (can you say "hot fudge peanut butter"??? yuuuuuuuummy!)

after naps, we decorated the Christmas tree (finally). i pretty much let the kids have at it. which may have resulted in most of the ornaments being placed on one branch, stocking being worn as boots, and possible a couple of ornaments not surviving the event. but, they had a blast and the tree is decorated!

i canNOT imagine how any of the ornaments got broken!

and then took a ride around the lakeyard to see the Christmas lights. every year the town of defuniak goes nuts over the Christmas Reflections lights around the lakeyard. apparently it's become somewhat of a "must see" in our area. people are driving across state lines to come see the lights. they are do a beautiful job.....you drive around a full mile of the lakeyard (second roundest in the world. ahem....we've gotta have our claim to fame somewhere!!)

isn't our little public library the cutest thing ever???

the chautauqua building all lit up.....this is where all my high school proms were. such a gorgeous building!

and here's the church where austin and i got married! the lakeyard holds alot of memories for us :)

this was chandler's favorite display.

and lest we forget:

here's hoping everyone has a blessed CHRISTMAS season filled with family, fun, and faith!

remember all those photo shoots i talked about??

2011-12-09T06:00:00.000-06:00

i can FINALLY say that i'm finished up with all of them! my hat is off to career photographers. photo shoots consume me.....i can't help but obsess over the pictures, the edits, the final product.

i had the chance to do four completely different shoots in four different settings....with four TOTALLY different lighting situations. i did kinsleigh's two year pictures in medium light on the train tracks downtown, madison's senior portraits in bright afternoon sun and sunset's low light in a football stadium, watercolor, and the beach, andrew's newborn shots in the shade of my mother-in-law's front porch on a cloudy afternoon day, and erica's wedding pictures at the lakeyard in low afternoon light complicated by rain.

i found that i decidely have alot to learn in low light situations. i had to work VERY hard to get my camera to shoot how i wanted it to when i didn't have the natural light that i like. but i also learned that bright sunlight has its complications too!

i also learned how to make storyboards (via the coffe shop blog! she has tons of great photoshop actions and storyboard templates) which was really fun. madison's senior portrait package included 5 storyboards and i was really happy with how they turned out:

don't think for one second that i didn't hit pinterest HARD for some wedding picture ideas! it's alot harder to do posed shots than it is to just snap away at kids running around! i learned that i'm not great at "directing" people....but it was a good learning experience. here's hoping that i get more comfortable with setting up shots!

miss kinsleigh is actually a repeat client....i did her 9 month pictures last year. she had WAY more sass in her this time around...i loved it!! and i learned another valuable lesson here....18 month olds are surprisingly unwilling to hold onto balloons. so, i clipped them to the back of her skirt to keep them from flying away. i also learned that i'm pretty adept at photoshopping out a big ole plastic clip from the back of a little girl's skirt ;)

"why can't i reach those darn things? oh yeah...because they are attached to my backside!"

and then.....there was one of my favorite shoots. my brand-spankin'-new nephew....mr. andrew. isn't he just a dollface???? be still my baby-lovin' heart!

my sister-in-law and her hubs were engaged at a lake in germany...and apparently there were some ducks present at the blessed event. so, they have this affinity for quackers.....andrew's big sister, amabel, was also photographed in duck-wear. couldn't you just die from that feathered little butt???

oh how i wanted to do some baby posing....you know, like this:

and this:

but, apparently there's a technique to that because it was NOT happening. so we settled for some precious sleeping baby poses and left it at that. andrew was not cool with my trying to stuff him into a barrel (i padded it with blankets....it was like a little nest!)....or any other fun little deal like that. pshhh.

so, i'm back to my normal life of mild-mannered librarian, housekeeper, chauffeur, chef, childcare director, and wife (some more successfully than others!) and photographer is back in the "hobby" category. at least for a little bit ;)

i AM {living proof}

2011-12-05T11:15:00.002-06:00

this past weekend was the epitome of a fab girl's weekend....there was shopping, starbucks, marble slab creamery, and beth moore. it was perfect.....and i had two of my favorite girls in the world with me (and one of my favorite little boys-to-be rode along in letha's belly! i hope he didn't mind all the girl talk...).

can you tell which of us is the pregnant letha? wait...don't answer that. she's the super skinnny one in the orange sweater. she's 6 months along. let's all hate her together for a moment.

i wish i could regale you with tails of boot-fabulous finds, but alas i was brutally rebuffed in that department. i couldn't find a single pair of black boots for less than $150 and homegirl over here is NOT paying that much!! that being said, my spirits were lifted with some smaller purchases for the kiddos.

we ate at the cutest little restaurant at seville square....dharma blue. de.lic.ious! i was seriously concerned that i wasn't going to make it to the civic center for beth moore's opening session. i soldiered through the totally uncomfortable waistband of my jeans cutting off my circulation...and boy howdy am i glad that i did!! beth moore did what beth moore does....she got the Spirit moving in a crowd of 4200+ women (and a few brave men!) like nothing i have ever seen. ahhhhhmazing! she is such an inspirational speaker! we were there for 2.5 hours for the first session and i swear, i could have stayed all night listening to her.

but, we had to return to the hotel to get some shut-eye (made a liiiiiittle more difficult by snorey mcsnoreperson next door. i just prayed there was no one trying to sleep in the room with whoever it was because they were about to bring the walls down with the snore decibles!). after some mandatory starbucks the next morning.....we headed back to the civic center for sessions 2 and 3.

we studied the entire book of Philemon (and by "entire", i mean 25 whole verses ;) ) and it's just amazing how a letter from Paul written to Philemon over 2000 years ago can still teach us today.

the praise team was amazing with the worship music....lead by the uber talented travis cottrell (and yes, i purchased his cd while there so i can belt out some tunes in the car. the kids are SO excited...i can just tell!).

this was her last living proof live event of 2011.....and i just KNOW that pensacola was her favorite stop on the tour ;) we laughed, we cried, we sang our hearts out, we prayed, and we learned. it was everything i hoped that it would be and more. it's been 3 years since i saw beth moore live in jacksonville....i sure hope it's not that long before i get to see her live again. she's just spirit renewing!

the perks of being the big sister

2011-11-29T17:13:00.000-06:00

exhibit #496 that hannah can make chandler do anything just because she's the big sister:

hannah: "walk the plank, chandler!"

chandler: "why?"
hannah: "because it's cool."
chandler: "o-tay!"
and then he did it
and now she's telling him that the lyrics to a song they heard earlier today is "potato carrot corn city" and he's totally singing it.

something tells me that ava's going to be a little harder to convince on this stuff. i can hear it now:

hannah: "walk the plank, ava!"
ava: "you walk the plank. what a stupid thing to say to me"

thanksgiving holiday {2011}

2011-11-28T06:10:00.000-06:00

this year the school district gifted us with a whole week off for thanksgiving holidays. can you say, "YES!!!" it's been chock full though....not a whole lotta down time. although i DID score a baby-sitter for tuesday and hit up a zumba class and some Christmas shopping at target.

some of our other activities this week:

took hannah and her friend, taylor, to see "the nutcracker ballet" at the mattie kelly arts center. this is hannah's 3rd or 4th time seeing the show....but it was taylor's 1st time so it was really fun to see her enjoying it.

and can you say, "thank goodness" for the angry birds app on my nook?? we were in our seats for about 30 minutes before the curtain rose. it kept the girls occupied and happy :)

and taylor was a hoot....they started up the music for a couple of minutes before the curtain went up. she looked at me totally serious and said, "mrs. shoaf....they turned on the music but they forgot the show!!". and during the nutcracker prince's solo, hannah asked me, "mama...where are his pants??". guess she didn't remember what the standard ballet uniform is for guys!

image from www.thetutulady.com

chandler got to go see "seussical the musical" with my mom that same day. my cousin, shala, was one of the performers. he absolutely LOVED it!!

i spent vast amounts of time cleaning....going through closets, drawers, under beds, and culling the toy herd to make room for the onslaught that is coming december 25th. i even facebooked (under austin's name...i'm still not back on ye olde FB. and still loving the freedom thankyouverymuch!) several items and got a little $ to put towards Christmas gifts. booyah!

then, on the official day o'turkey, austin and i went up to the church and volunteered for the community thanksgiving dinner. we stayed at the church kitchen and did prep work and boxed up to-go plates. this was my first year getting to participate...austin's done it a couple of times now. i think they said that we served about 300 dinners (i might be wrong on that...but either way, it was a LOT!) to people in the community who might not have had thanksgiving otherwise.

then, we headed over to austin's aunt linda's house for the shoaf family festivities. complete with chocolate pie, of course. i had to remember to pace myself since we had my mom's family thanksgiving later for supper. after a quick nap, we headed to the chandler family gathering. i think there were about 40+ people at my mom's house! it was total chaos (which, with my family, it's total chaos with 4 people!). afterwards, we all fell into a turkey-induced coma.

once i emerged from tryptophan land, i plunged headfirst into making a metric ton of cinnamon rolls. our usual sunday morning ritual normally included homemade cinnamon rolls, but we ran out a while back and i've flat been too lazy to make more. that is, until austin came home one day with STORE BOUGHT. really!?!?! that was the kick in the pants i needed to get baking.

fresh dough....i wish i'd taken a picture
of it when it was taking over my fridge!

the ooey-gooey filling. don't even think
for  one second that i didn't "accidentally"
   eat some of it ;)

  the infamous cinnamon log roll. i
seriously wish that i could just bake this
whole and call it a day!

just look at that cinnamon roll goodness!
i put an extra dollop of cinnamon on the
tops.  you know, since 8,947 calories
aren't enough.

and now we have 14 pans of homemade
cinnamon rolls ready to go. which makes
my sunday mornings a LOT easier!


and finally, on saturday i got to head to the hometown Christmas craft fair to do a zumba expo. SO much fun! although i do have to admit that i threw on a hat and some shades so that i didn't hear, "HEY MRS SHOAF!" a billion and one times. i AM a local celebrity ya know ;)

this is an "after" pic....i was hoping to be able to steal some photos from the m.creu facebook page so y'all could see my stellar dance skrillz but they aren't posted yet!

so, there it is. thanksgiving in a not-so-much nutshell. alls i know is that monday is going to be HAAAAAARD to wake up for. only three more weeks until Christmas break though :)

i could get used to this....

2011-11-21T07:11:00.000-06:00

every year our school's PTA does a cookie dough sale fund raiser. there are a ton of incentives for the kids to hawk their wares to any and all family/community members. the main "prize" that the kids go after is a limo ride to lunch. they have to sell 18 items to garner this opportunity. now just allow me to say that hannah won this prize last year.....so at 5 years old she got her first limo ride. wanna know how old i was when i got MY first limo ride?? twenty.four.years.old. and it was for my wedding. let's just say i was jealous of my kindergartener!

but anyhow....once she'd been bitten by the limo bug, she was ALL about selling 18 items again this year to snag the prize. so of course she did. i'd have tons of pictures to show you of this repeat momentous occassion, but take ONE guess who's camera battery was so dead that it wouldn't even flicker on at all??? uhhh....yeah. i borrowed a friend's camera to snap some pics but i have no idea when i'll get those from her!

i was heading out to take pictures of hannah loading up in the limo when the sponsor teacher asked if i would chaperone that group of kids to pizza hut to be dropped off and then ride back to the school in the limo to pick up the next group. can you say, "YES!". on the way there, it was looooouuuud. 15 1st and 3rd graders playing some serious justin bieber tunes, dancing, yelling, and turning every knob and pushing every button they could see in that limo. i know the driver wsa cringing something fierce.

but the ride back??? oh, y'all. the ride back was amazing. just me in my big ole limo:

and don't you know i called austin first thing....."hey hon. guess...just GUESS what i'm doing right now?!?!" hehehehehe it was quiet....i could stretch out.....it was nice. oh yes, i could DEFINITELY get used to this!

and so we survived soccer!

2011-11-19T08:44:00.000-06:00

hannah recently had her final soccer game of the season (and by "recently"...i mean a couple of weeks ago. i am NOTHING if not punctual!). if the opening ceremonies were quick, the closing ceremonies were lightning fast. not that we had issue with that...it was one of those freakish cold snaps that weekend.

each team got to go up and receive a medal from coach blaine, who was the director of the league.

how fun is that?!?!? some teams doled out trophies, but our team chose not to do that since the kids were already getting a medal.

and then the final matchup began. we probably would have tied up with the team except for the fact that they put a goalie in front of our goal (totally against the rules....but the "official" was the brother or cousin or something of the other team's coach. not that i'm saying that had ANYTHING to do with the overlooked rule breaking. and not to say that i might have really REALLY wanted to go all "soccer mom" on both of them!). but, the most important part is the kids had fun. AND they scored a couple of goals which made them all screechy and jumpy and excited!

hannah even rocked her ear muffs and gloves during the game. you can tell that she's a florida girl through and through because although it WAS a tad chilly, it was definitely not winter-wear weather!

when all was said and done....she decided that she really loved playing soccer and absolutely wants to do it again next year. yea!!!

p.s. i just have to share this while i'm thinking about it because otherwise i'll never have it written down forever and ever amen. the other day, hannah was doing something and austin said to her, "you have got to stop. you're making my ears bleed!". then, austin looked over to find chandler peering into his ears. chandler looked at austin and said, "daddy...there is no blood in your ears!". that child cracks me up :)

christmas card photo shoot {2011}

2011-11-19T08:05:00.000-06:00

first of all, may i just say how much i'm loving the creativity of my blog post titles lately? sheesh. right now i'm lucky to even be posting anything at all, let alone something with a catchy moniker ;)

a few weeks ago i took the kids out to a friend's gorgeous cotton field to do some Christmas card pictures. i was hoping to get them printed before thanksgiving, but alas, that is not to be so. but at least i got the pictures taken so i'm not having to panic over photo shoot, editing, building the card. all that is finished....i'm just waiting to hit the "order" button!

anyhoo, the kids did a great job for me. even though it was SO not cold enough for sweaters (that's florida for you. thanksgiving this year is going to be darn near tropical!) they hung in there until i got the shots i wanted.

these are not all of the shots that will be on the card....and not all the shots here are actually going to be on the card (does that statement make sense at all???). i didn't want to spoil the surprise for grandmas!

(can i just say that chandler's face in this picture cracks me up???)

(look at that little ava face.....doing things her own way as usual!)

i can't wait to see the final product :)

it's been a roller coaster! {literally AND figuratively}

2011-11-14T17:30:00.000-06:00

whew! here lately, the mantra has been, "strap in and hang on"! our schedule has been maxed out. happily, there is an end in sight....you know, sometime around march of 2036 ;)
hannah had her BIG sheep show and her final soccer game of the season. chandler took on the bubonic plague (and won!). and i have done FOUR photo shoots this month. jimminy cricket!!

so with thanksgiving and Christmas festivities looming ahead, i had better catch the ole bloggeroo up before things start to bottle-neck.
hannah and austin went up to dothan for the national peanut festival. apparently it's QUITE the big deal in the sheep showing world.

hannah did a spectacular job....until her sheep decided to go all crazy wild on her. she kept her eyes on the judges, moved around the sheep when she was supposed to, and smiled her beautiful little smile. she woulda had that championship in the bag if the judging had been 3 minutes instead of 5! as it ended, she was awarded 6th place for showmanship. her cousins, jared, was the only one in his showmanship class so he won 1st place and a big belt buckle. since he'd won a buckle a few years ago, he gave hannah this one. she is SO proud of that thing! austin swapped it out with the one on her belt. she looks like a real sheep wrangler now :)

then, she went in for round 2....where the actual sheep is judged. her lamb won 9th place.

overall, she had a GREAT time, which was the most important part. and then? THEN the real ful began. they "parked" the sheep and hit the carnival rides. this weren't no reg'u'lar backwoods carny....this was the REAL DEAL. a huge selection of crazy rollercoasters and scramblers and ups-n-downs. plus, the biggest double ferris wheel ever! austin reported that hannah yelled, "that was AWESOME!!" after every single ride. they rode rides for about 5 hours and didn't get home til well after midnight. needless to say, large amounts of fun were had. hopefully next year chandler and i will get to join in on the festivities :)

halloween {2011}

2011-11-07T06:04:00.000-06:00

this year's halloween was so much fun! during our coldwater camping weekend, we went camper-treating. all of the kids in the campground dress up and go from camper to camper where folks are handing out oodles of candy. some of the campers go ALL out!

this year, chandler chose to be captain america (of which there were THREE...lol! here's grayton, maston, and chandler)

hannah chose to be the queen of hearts and ava was alice in wonderland (i'd say she chose it...but let's face it, i chose it! i'd like to think she was happy with the choice though!)

once we got a group pic of most of the kids in their costumes, the fun began!

ava figured out the whole trick-or-treating thing pretty quickly....and suckers were her candy of choice. she's dig through until she found one, squeal in delight, show it to the people, and then tuck it in her candy bag. her antics never failed to bring on the laughter from everyone watching her! the funniest one was when she parked herself right in front of the candy bowl....made herself right at home ;)

the kids LOVED the "fishing" trailer! wyman and his wife do this every year, but they had to miss last year. the children were thrilled to see them return!

there was even a man who dressed up and did a whole comedy type show when trick-or-treaters arrived. not sure if any "liquid spirits" were involved, but it was funny nonetheless!

my trio got pah-lenty of candy goodies and a crowd favorite: vampire teeth! chandler wore his the rest of the night ;) the sugar high hit hard and fast....and honestly, it's still going!

yes, that is ava eating candy straight out of austin's hand. i suppose she felt that the seconds it took to get it from his hand to her mouth was time wasted ;)

now, a full week later....there is still piles of candy in my home. which also translates into piles of candy being consumed by not only the kids, but also me. ;) hope everyone had a happy halloween this year!!!

random bits of updatey-ness

2011-11-05T07:33:00.000-05:00

ava and chandler went to the doctor last week for their well-child visit. it was a disaster, but not because of my kiddos. thus, i didn't get that handy little form that tells all of their growth percentages. sooo....we shall be relying upon my memory. which has not proven to be overly reliable but it's the best we have at the moment.

ava is 33" tall and that put her in the 50th percentile. i was surprised by that since she seems so much taller than i remember chandler and hannah being at 2. i didn't remember what her weight was, but i remember that she was in the 40th percentile for weight. she passed all of her developmental checkpoints with flying colors!! she's mildly interested in potty training, but not enough to seriously persue it. maybe around Christmas break we'll try and get the potty thing going. austin better hope that she potty trains because once i have ava girl outta diapers, any chance of my wanting another baby will pretty much disappear ;) she's throwing down on TONS of new words and it's pretty funny to listen to her version of phrases. she tries to say everything she hears! our current fave (and her very first sentence....which doesn't surprise me!) is "ah dowit" which loosely translates into "i do it!". little miss independent! she's in love with yo gabba gabba, bouncing, and gummies. when we were camping, she started calling my step-dad's horse "dubby dubby" (his real name is K.W.). so she'd go around the stables saying, "me ride dubby dubby?".

chandler clocked in at 3'5" tall, which puts him in the 60th percentile. again, i was surprised since he seems to be shorter than most of his friends (well, except dylan and forrest!). his weight was at 43 pounds, so that was in the 75th percentile. my hopes for a tall child have been renewed :) he's going to preschool 3 days a week and can already write "chan"! he knows most of his letters, can count to ten forwards and backwards, and has been getting stickers for good behavior (especially during their library time. SUCH a proud moment for media specialist mama over here!) almost every day. he still looks forward to grandma's house on thursdays and fridays though. i'm thinking full-week kindergarten is going to be hard on him. he met all of his developmental milestones and the only thing we have to monitor is his speech. he's still not saying "Ls" or "Rs" yet but doc said he should pick up those sounds within the next year. he is ALL boy and his buddies dylan, forrest, and grayton are like oxygen to him ;) and just for the record...this kid is THE toughest sick child in the world. stomach bug hit and he took it like a champ. flu hit him this week and you wouldn't have any clue that he was running a 102 temp if you didn't look at his eyes.

hannah won't go in for her well-child visit until june, so no real updates on that. BUT, she just got her first report card for 1st grade. all A's! she even got an E in music, which she was excited about since that's been her favorite class. she's not a fan of the increased amount of homework this year (and neither am i!) but she's been taking care of business. hannah's only about 10 points away from her AR shirt for reading this year. she LOVES mrs. bailey and she's in a really good class. my girl's been busy this year....ballet on tuesdays, sheep showing (her final show is saturday at the peanut festival), soccer (last game on saturday!), and a social calendar that would rival most up-and-coming debutantes. she gets upset with me when i call her "mo" (short for "molasses")....but i swear that child never gets in a hurry.

coldwater camping {2011}

2011-11-03T08:21:00.001-05:00

for the past three years we have done halloween at coldwater. there's camping, horseback riding, hay rides, s'mores, and camper-to-camper trick-or-treating. and best of all??? i don't have to cook one.single.meal. oh yes! the kids absolutely love it over there. chandler rides his bike until his legs just won't peddle anymore, hannah goes on any trail ride she can find a horse for, and ava wreaks havoc in a whole new setting.

because of all the activities, i'm going to break this down into two posts. that way i don't end up doing my signature 4539 page blog post!
this year it was actually warm enough on the first day there for the kids to play in the creek. and THIS year hannah and chandler were big enough to brave the rope swing! with the help of some of the "big girls"....my kiddos were flying through the air a la george of the jungle.

while my two daredevils were rope swinging, ava was playing with sand, rocks, and sticks. what can i say.....the kid's low maintenance sometimes ;)

not only was there some diaper swellin' going on due to mom-of-the-year over here forgetting swim diapers....but apparently some streaking was in order. we got a TON of double-takes and laughs over this girl. i swear that i am going to put this in her wedding slideshow one day!! she refused to put on a towel. should i be worried?!?!?

my friend kim went all martha stewart on us and did crafts with the kids. they painted mason jars (apparently this was supposed to be easier than the kids carving pumpkins....but when all was said and done, i'm betting kim would have rather them wield knives than paint brushes!) to look like pumpkins and we lit them up that night.

the best part about coldwater is that the kids can pretty much run around and play freely. aside from a couple of scares when hannah got a little too independent, you really don't have to worry about them running around the campground. football, bikes, scooters, and even glow sticks at night....the kids had free reign!

fyi: green light is chandler, blue light is little cole, red is hannah, and left green light is emma!

for my next post, we shall be discussing the absolute cuteness of my kids dressed up for halloween. you won't wanna miss this one ;)

a "miss alaneius" word parade

2011-11-01T08:53:00.000-05:00

while i'm attempting to dig through a hundred thousand pictures from this year's halloween shenanigans, i thought i'd go ahead and share some pictures from hannah's vocabulary parade. the literacy team at our school decided to go all "miss alaneius" on folks this year and let the kids dress up as a word they've chosen. it turned out to be a VERY fun activity for everyone!

each student in the school chose a word, defined it, used it in a sentence, and drew a picture to represent that word. then, they all created costumes which we all paraded for the parents today. (really...it was just a sneaky way to get around that pesky no-halloween dress up rule!!)

hannah, of course, chose the word "accessorize". and boy did she! my girl had on about 60 accessories for her parade costume. bracelets, rings, necklaces, scarves, tiara, gloves....you name it!

i chose the word "equestrian", mainly because we were unpacking from our camping/trail riding weekend the night before and i saw that i pretty much had all the stuff ;)

i wish that i could share a bunch more of the pictures from the parade because there were some kids who went ALL out! it was amazing to see what words they'd chosen and the costumes they came up with! but i'm sure that would probably violate several privacy laws or something.

i have to say that one of the ones i got the biggest laugh out of..... a friend's daughter chose the word "obnoxious" and she dressed up as a florida state fan! hehehehehe! you just have to love southern college football rivalries!

if you ever get the chance to read the book, it's really cute. and if you have the opportunity to talk your child's school into doing something similar....it's totally worth it! kids loved it!!

ahhhhhh......serenity now

2011-10-27T17:32:00.001-05:00

my sister and i have birthdays that are 4 days apart. i never really realized how difficult that is for the parent (i only ever griped about how unfair it was for ME!!) until ava and chandler came along with 6 day apart birthdays. but i digress.

earlier this month, i celebrated 32 years on this here earth....and my sister hit the big 3-0. our mom gifted us with baby-sitting services AND a spa day. can we just take a moment to absorb how incredible my mother is???? thank you.

here's the long and short of it. i have had a couple of massages and pedicures (and thanks to my best friend, carrie....i got a massage AND a pedicure for my 30th bday!! ummm yeah, she rocks!) but i've never really had like a total indulgent spa day. we were both a little giddy by the time we got there. serenity by the sea is the spa in thesan destin hilton....and as soon as we walked in, ashley and i were pretty sure they were going to escort us right out. it was niiiiiiiice, y'all!

i was laughing so hard taking this picture because ashley kept flipping out trying to decide whether she was supposed to look at the camera or herself in the mirror. "where do i smile!?!?!" total spazz!

they gave us lockers for our stuff, handed us fluffy robes and slippers and invited us to refresh ourselves in the lounge area as we awaited our attendant. SERIOUSLY?? holy cow. i kinda broke one of the rules and kept my cell phone with me since mom wanted pics. i'm such a rebel ;)

our spa package included a 50 minute massage, a 30 minute facial, and a pedicure. and may i just say that the pedicure was WAY overdue??? if you have a weak consitution, you may want to avert your eyes for the following display of grossly neglected toes:

yeah, i know. that is just wrong on many different levels. but don't worry, they are sparkly and shiny new now:

my legs were like jelly after the most amazing massage ever. the facial was fabulous and i can't believe that it's taken me 32 years to get one. and the pedicure?? let's just say my toes aren't scaring small children anymore.

we managed to keep from getting kicked out (although i'm sure we raised a few eyebrows in the lounge area while trying to operate the dried fruits and nuts dispenser, giggling uncontrollably, and sighing in relaxation!) which i logged in as a "win"!

ashley partaking in the "squirrel food" they had available. i don't eat anything that's been dried out....except beef jerky ;)

afterwards, we went to panera bread for lunch, hit up barnes & noble so i could splurge on a nook color, and shopped at old navy. i could DEFINITELY get used to that sort of pampering schedule (which i'm sure was austin's fear as he watched me leave that morning!)!!

getting shutter-happy

2011-10-25T06:30:00.001-05:00

i went through a total photography dry spell here recently. poor betsy was beginning to feel neglected....i think she was beginning to feel like one of my human children had take her place ;) but then, THEN i hit a total upswing in my shutter clicking time.

it all started when an ACTUAL photographer friend (like, one who gets paid bajoodles of dollars to take people's pics. and she's right fabulous at it too!) emailed me and asked if i'd take her family pics since it's awful difficult to be IN the pics and BEHIND the lens at the same time (or so they say. i've never really tried the whole "in front of the camera" part. thus the 962,000 pics of everyone else in my life and the 0.4 pics of me!). once i stopped dry heaving from nerves, i told her i would TOTALLY do it. i mean, she already had everything ready to go.....all i had to do was push the shutter button on her way-cool camera. and to sweeten the deal? she's going to do some family pics of us.....so one day there might actually be some with me IN them ;) (you can check out her blog the photoging mama for uber helpful photography tips and ideas! she's one of those fabulous people who takes great joy from teaching others how to be awesome like her!)

so i headed down to watercolor (beautiful spot for pics! i did THESE there last year) and sure enough she had the spot scoped out, the camera set up, and her beautiful family in attendance. true to her word, all i really had to do was click away. here's one of hers and my favorites from the shoot:

i really think she's getting the raw end of the deal by giving me free pics.....but i know that I'M happy with it ;)

later on, after her shoot was done.....kansas and i went on a total texting convo where we decided to do some newborns in a cotton field shoot. she provided the expertise, i scouted out some cotton fields (what with my "farm livin" connections!), we both provided wee babes and a few days later i got to take the following pics:

this is baby caleb. he's 10 weeks old and just chubby cheeked and gorgeous!

and this is karley. she's 6 weeks and still has that sweet new baby smell ;)

after we finished up, i got really jealous of the cotton field pics, so i took my own kiddos out this afternoon and shot a ton of pics for our Christmas cards (i'll post those once i've finished obsessively editing them). now, poor betsy lou is probably wishing that i'd head back into a photography slump again....i've wore that poor camera slap out! but she'd best get used to it. november is going to bring three, count 'em, THREE photo shoots. color me excited (and WAY nervous!)

the county fair

2011-10-24T06:20:00.000-05:00

the county fair was in town last week. we had to drive by the fairgrounds every day to get home....so every single day i heard, "mommy, when are WE going to the fair??". and of course we had decided to wait until friday to take the kids. that means a whole week of lamenting their unfair lot in life for having to wait FIVE WHOLE DAYS to go to the fair!
but it was well worth the wait. the shoaf kids were well represented this year. all three submitted pumpkins, hannah and chandler had some artwork from school, and then hannah showed a sheep in the lamb show.

ava got a participation ribbon for her "elmo and dorothy" pumpkin, chandler won first place for his "pirate" pumpkin, and hannah got a participation ribbin for her "queen of hearts" pumpkin:

hannah won second place for her school art:

chandler's art was on display with his preschool class. they didn't get ribbons and i didn't have my camera on me by the time i realized he had a picture on display! i'll have to remember next year that the preschool submits their stuff!

and then....the big sheep show. chandler was supposed to be the one to show a sheep, but halfway through his "training" he decided that he didn't want to do it. he said it made him "nehw-vous" (nervous). he chose to let hannah show the sheep in his place. and honestly? i think it's a good thing he did! the sheep still kept its name that chandler gave it though....."lightning bolt"!

before the show, chandler and ava participated in a little haystack hunt. there were tons of little prizes hidden in a big haystack and the kids had so much fun digging through and uncovering treasures. chandler found a pair of those goofy glasses that have a nose and mustache attached (he and ava cracked each other up modeling those!) and ava found a plastic snake.

and then, once the fun and games were done...it was time to get down to some serious sheep showing business. hannah changed into her "uniform" of REAL cowgirl boots (with silver tipped toes. oh yes!), black wranglers (her very first pair), white button down shirt, and a brand new sparkly pink belt with a buckle near as big as she is. yee. haw. ;)

that's her best friend, taylor....she spent the night with us that night so she got to get in on some of the sheep show action!

hannah did a great job wrangling that wild lamb for the show....but everytime she tried to set the lamb up, it would buck and then run away. my girl got pretty frustrated with the lamb (which eventually got a good laugh out of the audience when hannah crossed her arms and stomped her foot at the lamb! it must have worked though because it behaved afte that!).

she got 3rd place in showmanship, the lamb got 3rd place, and then they all got 1st place ribbons for the costume contest.

hannah was, of course, the queen of hearts and the lamb was the queen of hearts card. and i have to hand it to my sweet girl....when the "competition" fell over and her costume hat and glasses fell apart, hannah tried her best to hang on to lightning bolt AND help the other girl pick up all of her stuff.

after everything was over we headed out to the rides. i had forgotten my germ-x in the car but after watching ava attempt to like the handle pole on the merry-go-round, i'm thinking germ-x wasn't going to be much help. we made the rounds through each ride and the kids had a blast! at this point, i was tired of hauling around my camera so pictures are non-existent ;)

i sure hope my words are fat-free....

2011-10-12T06:18:00.000-05:00

...because i've had to eat ALOT of them in my day. anyone who has kids knows that eating your words just becomes a daily ritual. like all those times when you were growing up and you said, "if i ever have kids, i'll let them ________________ any time they want to". yeah. right. in the case of my children, ava has made me eat more words in her short lifetime than i ever thought imaginable.

for instance:

*after chandler was born, i SWORE i'd never have another september baby. it was just too flippin' hot! wanna take a wild guess as to ava's month of birth? i'll give you a hint: it starts with "sept", ends with "ember" and it comes right after freakishly hot august.

*i swore since the beginning of time that i'd never have a natural childbirth. guess that's all well and good....unless, of course, your baby doesn't cooperate and decides to arrive before the nurses can even get your IV fluids hooked up, let alone call in an epidural.

*i always said that if my child was pitching a righteous fit in a store, i'd pretty much leave immediately. but let's face it....if i make it to the grocery store, i'm GONNA get my shopping done and if that means bribing my kid with a sucker so that the lights don't shatter from the pure decibels she's manufacturing with her lungs, then that's what i'll do. and i'll thank you for not judging ;)

and now, most recently added to my "word eating" buffet: yo gabba gabba. yep. the freaky-weird cartoon that has characters no one really can identify and who sings songs that are corny, strange, and have i said freaky-weird yet?? i have maintained for quite a while that yo gabba gabba weirds me out. like, totally. guess real quick-like what show is ava's mostest favoritest of all time? yep. yo. gabba. gabba. which she calls "gabby". i even have an episode or two dvr'ed for emergency situations.

many thanks, google images, for this photo of strange, otherworldly creatures

heaven help me. i hope my words are good and tasty because i have a feeling that when it comes to kids, i'm going to get me a bellyful before it's all said and done. can i GET an amen?? ;)

sea lion kisses and dragonfly snacks

2011-10-10T16:38:00.000-05:00

hannah's friend, laney, had her 7th birthday party at gulf world. can i just take a moment to say, "coolest birthday party EVER!" and not just because laney's parents didn't have to clean their house before and after a party....but because the kids LOVED it!

i had been promising chandler that i'd take him to gulf world....he's been dying to go ever since hannah went on her kindergarten field trip. and i MEANT to take them this summer....but apparently 10 weeks isn't long enough to fit in a trip to panama city ;)

anyhoodles, the kids had an absolute blast. we started off the par-tay at the dolphin tank where three bottle-nose dolphins put on quite a show. i think we could have left after one of the dolphins leapt out of the water and smacked a buoy with her tail and chandler would have been completely happy. everything after that moment was just icing on the cake.

when we went on hannah's field trip last year, she was dying to get her picture taken with the sea lions and the dolphins. but because we were with 100 other 5 and 6 year olds, that just wasn't going to happen. but THIS time....she fulfilled that dream :)

chandler was too short for the dolphin encounter because they have to be able to reach over the wall....but hannah got to shake flippers with "luna" the dolphin. i asked her what the dolphin felt like and she said, "slimy"!

after pizza and cake (nothing but the most nutritious for the birthday party!) some of the trainers brought out a couple of birds for the kids to see up close and personal. they were even allowed to pet one of them. and then we visited the sting ray tank....you could always tell when one of them touched one of the sting rays because the squeals could be heard a mile away!

we ended the festivities at the sea lion show. afterwards....both hannah and chandler got to meet "duke" the sea lion! chandler opted for a noggin kiss while hannah insisted on a lip to lip kiss. the gulf world photographer didn't catch that one....but i did!! hannah jerked away before the other photog had a chance to snap her picture. she kept going, "ewwwww! he smells like fish!!" so, she decided to change her pose to a noggin kiss too. but apparently that didn't cover duke's fishy-tosis enough for her...a little nose plugging was necessary ;) the photographer almost couldn't take the picture because she was laughing so hard. and i MIGHT have told hannah that boys smell like fish too....so maybe she won't let any boys kiss her until she's 40!!

just look at duke....who woulda guessed his breath could wreak such havoc!!

one other things that was cool....while we were at the alligator exhibit, a dragon fly landed on the birthday girl's daddy's chin. the thing was HUGE and it just stayed there! little finley grabbed at it and was laughing her head off.....

...and then she tried to eat it. hysterical :)

so it was an adventurous return trip to gulf world. i'd seriously consider it as a birthday venue for us if it wasn't an hour away. although that might prove to be less of a task than having to vacuum my whole house before birthday parties ;)

when ballerinas play soccer

2011-10-05T06:07:00.000-05:00

my little ballerina has temporarily gone jock. she very well might be her momma's girl! i did ballet for years....and then made a switch to sports in 8th grade. hannah's getting a little bit of an earlier start. except she's keeping ballet at the same time (something i SO with i had done!! might have helped me with my pesky coordination/walking into walls issue!).

her first game was this past saturday. my girl proudly sported her yellow and green columbus "crew" uniform. i think she likes the socks and shin guards the best ;) it was a whirlwind of a morning.....opening ceremonies, team pictures, and of course....eye black.

the team we played against was WAY better than us....but our kids looked alot tougher. grrrrrr.

hannah took some time to pose with her best friend, taylor (a.k.a. "the enemy" for this particular saturday....although neither of them seemed to grasp the fact they were competitors that day!~)

then, it was g.a.m.e. time. they huddled up (notice the short kid in sweatshirt and jeans?? yeah, chandler thought he was part of the team. he even sat on the bench.....not matter how many times i pulled him over to where we were sitting, if i looked away and then looked back...he was on the bench again! i kept thinking of that old jim carrey movie line in ace ventura: "put me in coach! i KNOW i can do it!")

hannah's team got creamed! (which we sorta knew would happen since they scrimmaged against this team the previous tuesday. i swear that one of those kids is a beckham!) the "score" was something like 7-0. BUT, of the two times that her team almost scored....hannah was one of the ones to almost get the ball in the net. sure, it was purely by accident....but if she'd scored no one would have cared if she meant to kick the ball in that direction. even though her team never scored....i don't think she ever stopped smiling. my girl had a BLAST out there! and she looked so graceful when she ran...like a little ballerina. her ballet teacher would have been proud ;)

and honestly? even though they didn't win....our kids showed class, sportsmanship, and character. and c'mon....they were CLEARLY the cutest ones out there!! and in the end...they all got a capri sun and an oatmeal cream pie.....and i think we can ALL agree that's more important that a "W" in the record books :)

the season only lasts for 6 weeks....so we're one game down and 5 more to go. we are BOUND to win sometime....and when we do, i hope they still think the capri suns and oatmeal cream pies are the best part of the deal.

i'm off now to go find me a vuvuzela so we can feel like we're at the world cup ;)

birth.day par.tay!

2011-10-03T06:05:00.001-05:00

so it was brought to my attention that i never posted on chandler and ava's birthday party. don't know how in the world i overlooked that...considering it was the shindig of the century!

once again, my mother-in-law outdid herself on the cakes. chandler's was a mulit-layer superhero masterpiece and ava's was a custom design as a "bubble elmo" cake. nothing like a two-fer birthday party. i think paula slept maybe 10 minutes the night before. but they turned out fabulous so i'm glad she was willing to sacrifice her zzzzz's to get them done :)

they were both so stinkin' cute in their birthday hats and shirts. it was a little cooler than usual so everyone had some blue lips going on after being on the waterslide. i think chan and ava both appreciated getting to put on dry shirts for a little while! they ALSO appreciated getting to sneak cake icing and not getting into trouble for it (it WAS their party and they could steal icing if they wanted to!)

we sang "happy birthday" to the two of them and then they got to blow out their own candles:

and then every kids favorite birthday event.....present opening!! ava almost quit after getting her "pack pack"...but we finally convinced her to go in for the others. i think she was glad she did....since she got herself some pretty cool toys! and chandler....the boy is super-hero ready now. he got a full "captain america" costume, every action figure known to man, and some new john deere boots. woot!

the most amusing gift was ava's sit-n-spin. i think my girl needs a bit of a tutorial from big brother on how to operate it. she's learning though ;)

and a HUGE thank you to my mom for, once again, putting together some super awesome gift bags for the invitees! the elmo hats and super hero gear were a big hit!

so, the kiddos had a blast at their birthday party. sugar highs for all!!

another year bites the dust...

2011-10-02T10:21:00.000-05:00

i am 32 today. may we have a moment of silence in memory of my youth. ;)

as the great truvy says in the movie "steel magnolias".....

"hunny, time marches on. and eventually you'll realize it's marching across your face!"

thanks for the picture, google images!

the spice of life ain't for everyone!

2011-09-29T09:41:00.000-05:00

my kiddos are about as different as three kids can be. in every way. and their tastebuds aren't any exception. i have found it pretty amusing to see what each one will eat and what each will absolutely not touch with a ten-foot pole.

for instance.....chandler loves meat. any and all meat. ava won't eat meat at all. (although she HAS eaten a bite or two of ham here and there. and she partook in a couple nibbles of salmon last night). hannah loves jelly. chandler cannot abide by the sight of jelly. pbj's are NOT on his preferred menu.

but the funniest foodie difference in my kids? hot sauce.

hannah: cannot handle anything spicier than ketchup. she rarely puts up with bbq sauce. refular ole salt is her favorite garnish and most of the time i have to scrape off any season salt or pepper from her food. the child can detect a single speck of pepper in a mountain of food.

chandler: drowns his meat in lousiana hot sauce. i don't even know how he tastes the actual food. i think he does it purely for the fact that hannah hates it! he always looks at her and says, "are you suuuuure you don't want any hot sauce??". he also seems pretty proud to eat his food "yike daddy". i'm also pretty sure he doesn't have any taste buds left....they've all been dissolved by the hot sauce!

ava: is just stubborn with it. we got some hot wings the other night for dinner. when we opened the to-go box, they'd put some garlic bread in the box with the wings. i never considered the fact that bread soaks up liquids...so i gave her some, not realizing the bottom of the bread was coated in hot wing sauce. ava took a bite, gagged, cried, spit out the bread. then too another bite (that's right...she went back in for another try!). she gagged, cried, swallowed the bread, and drank some of her tea. i didn't realize what was going on until she was halfway through her first piece of bread. when i figured out the problem i took the bread away. she screamed at me, lunging for the bread. so i gave it back to her. she took another bite, gagged, cried, swallowed it, took a drink of tea, and repeated until the bread was gone. AND THEN ASKED FOR MORE BREAD! sheesh.

i always thought that there were really only two options when it came to opinions on stuff.....either you like it or you don't. but ava girl has presented me with a third option. the "i hate it but doggonit i'm gonna eat it anyway" option!

these three kiddos are definitely their own separate personalities....in every single way :)

dusting off my camera

2011-09-26T05:54:00.000-05:00

i've been slacking lately on taking any pics with my beloved canon, ole betsy louise. but then, my sister-in-law came a-calling with my 18-month-old niece in tow. so i dusted b-lou off and got all shutter happy with her! since i don't have her momma's permission to splash baby girl's face all over the internets...i'll just show you a few of the more anonymous shots i got.
is there anything cuter than a baby in a bucket??? i humbly submit that there is NOT!:

unless, of course, there are baby toes inside of big ole shoes. this is one of my faves of her little feet in her daddy's military issue boots:

and here are some examples of the majority of the pics i got.....her running away from the camera!

afterwards, i decided to snap a few shots of hannah since she was up early from naps and i haven't gotten any of her lately!

doncha just love the band-aid in this one??? so typical of us....all dressed up with our toy story band-aid accessories ;)

also, now that i have my brand spankin' new computer up and running, my photoshop program (which i FINALLY reloaded!) is doing some amazing new tricks that my old laptop couldn't pull off. i am loving it!! i need to practice up since i have my cousin's senior portraits and a friend's family portrait session coming up in october, AND austin's cousin's wedding in november. let the nervous freaking out begin......NOW!

let the 2's begin!

2011-09-19T06:06:00.000-05:00

so, because my laptop's motherboard is fried (or, since we're in the south....i suppose that it's DEEP fried!) i lost my photoshop program. soooooo, i can't create a little 2-year-old favorites picture for ava like i did for chandler. thus, i'll have to just do it old skool.

two-year-old favorites

tv shows: yo gabba gabba, mickey mouse playhouse

movies: toy story (she calls jessi and woody her "eeee haws"!)

food: cookies, corn on the cob, fish crackers

toys: elmo, her back pack, books, anything that makes music

she loves to: dance, bounce, blow bubbles, anything to do with water,

climb, run, sit on the dogs

words: bubble, ball, ay-ya (hannah), yamma (grandma), and tootie (cookie)

happy 2nd birthday to my little ava-mayhem :)

birthday craftiness

2011-09-15T06:03:00.000-05:00

for chan and ava-girl's birthday party, i was pretty low key in the crafts department. but i still managed to make their birthday hats and their invitations!

here are the finished products on ava's elmo-esque hat and chandler's superhero hat (i have a sneaking suspicion that this might be the last year chandler allows me to put a crafty hat on his noggin!):

and then, i hit up the photoshop to create their invites....because, seriously, where else am i going to find a bubble elmo invitation???? ***and i'm having to snag these picture files from the email that i sent out to everyone in the family with it as an attachment because my computer died and took all of my picture files with it. lesson in backing up my files....consider it learned. at least i only lost from april until now. which still makes me want to cry a lot....but it's better than losing EVERYTHING!

and the best part??? i emailed invites this year so we saved some trees in the process! yeah, i'm sure emailing birthday invitations is probably tacky....but i've never professed to be emily post! besides, by the time their birthday shirts came in, i took their pictures, and then created the invitations, had them printed out, and then mailed them....everyone would have gotten their invites about 2 days AFTER the party! and then i would have had a sad 2 and 4 year old to contend with....i'd rather be tacky ;)

chandler's big day

2011-09-14T08:26:00.000-05:00

so apparently turning four didn't make my boy any sweeter.....or more "okay" with having a camera in his face ;)

but he had a great birthday yesterday! woke up to breakfast of his choice (pop tart. we have HIGHLY refined tastes around here!)

and a little birthday surprise gift. he and ava got their actual birthday present back in may when we gave them all their big waterslide....but i just couldn't let him (and her on monday!) go on their actual birthday without a little something to open up!

yep....that would be a THOR sheild and sword. i'm not sure why i thought it was a good idea for a gift, but it made him smile and so far he hasn't injured anyone with it. so far.....

he got to wear his birthday boy shirt to school today......and austin took him a mcdonald's lunch. he and chandler went down to the lakeyard to have a little picnic (apparently with a flock of ducks in attendance!). chandler LOVED having his daddy come to his school to eat lunch with him.

and then, grandma made him a gigantic cookie cake for dessert:

his mia and hannah also stopped on the way home from hkay's ballet class and got him a little happy birthday cookie too. sugar highs for everyone!!!

so, he had a great day.....and he canNOT wait for his birthday party on saturday :)

happy birthday to the buster man!

2011-09-13T08:42:00.002-05:00

today is my boy's 4th birthday. four.years.old.

it doesn't seem like he should already be four....yet it also seems like he's always been here.

to my tractor ridin', dirt-lovin', bacon eatin', rowdy-boy, chan chan the buster man....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

where i'm reminded that i AM human...

2011-09-12T08:52:00.000-05:00

....and embarrassingly so. last wednesday (okay....LAST, last wednesday....as in 2 weeks ago. i might be running behind!), i was in a funk. like, pouty face, grey clouds hovering over my head, frown muscles getting a workout kinda funk. i was having a gripe session in my world....party of one. and i was wrangling all three kiddos solo because austin does benevolence at church on wednesdays so my funky mood was just magnified.

just as we got to church, chandler had an accident. then, the kiddos refused to eat, sit, act human during dinner in the fellowship hall. i finally got them to their respective areas and ~~escaped~~ headed to my Bible study. beth moore will, 99.9999999% of the time, lift my spirits and get me back on track. her Bible studies are awesome and her video sessions are always side-splitting funny while at the same time being thought-provoking. but on this particular wednesday, my funk was not to be lifted. i was in my pit and by golly i was gonna stay there.

as i left my Bible study, i gathered up all three kiddos. i was in pack-mule mode. carrying ava and her stuff, my Bible, my study guide materials, and trying to round up hannah and chandler while simultaneously finding my keys that ALWAYS seem to be in the bottom of ava's back pack. so, as i got to my vehicle, i put my Bible and study book on the bumper so i could finally dig the car keys out of what i can only assume was the black hole.

kids get strapped in the car (after that unfortunate "incident" where i left hannah {for like 5 seconds! don't judge!} at church after Bible school i ALWAYS do a head count!) and i am headed to the house. i put the kids to bed, eat a half gallon of ice cream, and i go to sleep.

fast forward to thursday evening. austin comes home and asks if i'm "missing anything". i do a quick inventory. kids? check. keys? check. fully clothed? check. and then it hits me. like a ton of bricks. where's my Bible?? it's not sitting on the baker's rack......

uh oh.

yep. i left my Bible sitting on the bumper of my vehicle. now, let me tell you why living in a small town is so great. TWO separate people found my stuff.....and they returned it all to my church. not so great is that they returned it to our associate pastor who loves more than anything to give me a hard time. this was like a golden opportunity for him....and believe me, he took it!

i was really depressed at the idea of what might have been destroyed out of my Bible. you see, austin bought me this Bible one Christmas. it has all of our birth dates, mine and austin's wedding date, and the dates our our baptisms in it.

different verses of scripture that i have written out:

it also has little notes from hannah.

and mementos from our guatemala trip (can you see the tire marks on the paper??).

when i got my Bible back, i was so glad to see that although my Old Testament is no longer firmly attached, whoever it was that picked up my belongings, they actually picked up EVERYTHING that fell out and put it back in for me. not one single beloved item was missing. and i know a lady who fixes Bibles for a living, so she'll be getting a call from me very soon.

so what did i learn? instead of steaming in my pity and funk.....i should have just taken a breath and asked for the help that i needed. instead of thinking that i could do it all on my own....i should have just realized that i only have two arms. i should have stopped and let go of controlling everything. God REALLY used His Word to open my eyes this time. i just hope the next lesson doesn't have to be quite so literal.

isn't labor day supposed to be a vacation???

2011-09-07T16:16:00.000-05:00

our labor day weekend....well, it was laborious. but not in a productive "i feel great about all i've accomplished" kind of way. more in a "can i just go to sleep until this has all passed?" kind of way!

things started out innocently enough. dinner with some friends on friday night.....fairly lazy saturday. and then? then sunday hit. sunday morning was met with a sick, throwing up ava. so i packed up chan, hkay, and austin off to church and settled into the recliner with a pitiful baby girl. and i prayed that whatever she had...wouldn't get shared with everyone else. (side note: don't know WHAT she had, but it was over in a couple of hours and no one else came down with it. i am suspicious that her ailment stemmed from a certain amount of soapy bathwater she consumed the night before. hope she learned her lesson!)

we also had some squirrelly weather from the outer bands of tropical storm lee. but nothing more than what a good rainstorm would normally drop on us.

then......monday hit. and in true MONDAY fashion....it was not a good day. but i was determined to make the best of it. since it was gray and nasty looking outside:

and the wind was howling pretty good (that little tree in the foreground? it's normally straight up and down!!):

we entertained ourselves by building a fort in the living room. the kids LOVED that they could get from hkay and chan's bedroom to the playroom without coming out of the fort. and the also loved that they had the tunnel exit leading to the kitchen. i can confirm that a princess tea party MIGHT have taken place inside the fort....against chandler's wishes ;)

but soon.....things started happening. the wind picked up. the rain came down harder. small parts of trees became lawn ornamentation.

and before we knew it....we were without power. for ELEVEN hours. multiply that by three small children and it definitely felt like 33 hours! the entire town was out of power. it was so serious that WALMART closed. yeah....THAT kinda serious! so, we were forced to "unplug". austin took a nap on the front porch swing.....i sat in a lawn chair on the porch and read 1.5 books. the kiddos played in the porch sandbox. and we "roughed it". dinner was by candlelight (at least til my father-in-law got the generator going) and was cooked on what can only be referred to as a bunsen burner! pa and austin hooked the water pump up to the generator so we could at least have water.

and hannah had to finish up her homework the "old fashioned" way. by candle and flashlight:

the kiddos even read their night time story vie battery-powered lamps. we slid the windows open and let the breeze cool the house.

around midnight we had a power truck in our yard.....and about 20 minutes later the a/c clicked on. although it was nice to be forced into a simpler life for a little while....i was SO GLAD to have my air back on! i am so grateful to those men and women who were out working all night to make sure i was able to take a hot shower, have lights, and a working fridge the next morning.

so this labor day? not my favorite. but, it made me look forward to being at work a whole lot more ;)

too much sassiness for words!

2011-09-05T09:38:00.001-05:00

so i shall present it to you in videographic and photographic form.

see, hannah's greatest desire at this moment is to be the fanciest girl in history. and by golly, i think she's got a pretty darn good shot at it. i give to you exhibit a:

you see.....this particular outfit brought out the EXTRA fancy and sassy in this girl. i have it on good authority that when she wore this to school, even her walk became sassy. seriously. one of my good friends is a 1st grade teacher and she reported to me that hannah was walking down the hallway with a little *ahem* hip swing going on. karen whispered to my girl that she needed to walk in line correctly. hannah looked at her and said, "mrs. karen....i'm walking like the BIG girls do!". karen attempted (unsuccessfully) to squash a giggle....and told hannah that she is a little girl and she needs to walk like one. hannah, hand on her hip (we're working on getting that particular motion outta her repertoire!), said, "mrs. karen....i AM six, you know!". now karen is having to hold back full on belly laughs. she finally convinces the "fanciest girl in the world" to walk normally.

when i asked hannah about it later, she gave me a re-enactment of the whole event. because i am, on occasion, a good little blogger....i whipped out my cell phone to record the event for your viewing pleasure.

i give to you our movie titled, "how the big girl's walk" (and i normally don't enunciate my words quite like this.....i AM southern, you know! but i had a righteous head cold going on and unless i really overstated my words, you would not have been able to understand 94% of what i said. for instance, when i was doing small groups for reading that day, they were doing a spelling portion. i called out the word "mat" and every.single.one of them wrote "bat"!! good grief.)

and just for extra good measure.....here's chandler's and ava's versions too!

my kids are hysterical sometimes... (and p.s. ONE day my video's won't be sideways. i have to remember to stop turning my cell phone to the side.)

the seventh day

2011-08-29T09:44:00.000-05:00

*kiddos snuggled up in our bed, watching some cartoons

*homemade cinnamon rolls baking in the oven

*sunday school Bible study preparations

*relaxing naps on the couch after church

*getting re-energized for the week....physically, emotionally, and spiritually

oh, how i love me some sundays!!

if you keep making those faces......

2011-08-22T09:41:00.000-05:00

...you're gonna get stuck that way!! ;)

just a little montage of the funny faces the kiddos throw down on from time to time:

and buh-lieve me when i say that chandler is fully capable of some seriously goofy face-making. but this was all he deemed me worthy of on this particular occasion:

my kids are such goobers!! ppsssst.....they get it from their daddy ;)

adventures in ava-land

2011-08-18T06:11:00.000-05:00

ava is a night wanderer. as in, we never have a clue where in her room we are going to find her when we go do our nightly "checks" on the kiddos before going to bed ourselves. her personal favorite seems to be RIGHT behind her bedroom door. i don't know if you have ever tried to open a door that has 26-ish lbs of sleeping toddler behind it, but it ain't easy i tell ya!

a close second seems to be in front of her dresser. this doesn't seem too surprising since that's where her book basket is....and homegirl LOVES to "read" her some books. (she IS my kid!!) but every now and then, she stretches her wandering ways and we find her in more interesting locales. like the closet (only once....i left it cracked open and i guess that was all the invitation she needed) or cuddled up next to her rocking horse.

but the other night took the cake. i went in to check on her....and she was nowhere to be found. you know that second or two where your heart races and you think that maybe your child's been abducted by aliens or something??? that moment before your brain kicks in and you realize that the windows are locked, her door was shut, AND the front door is shut and locked...not to mention the fact that you never heard anything open up....and the fact that ava goes everywhere at 90 mph with her voicebox blaring so there's NO WAY she snuck by anyone?? yeah...that finally passed and i realized that she HAD to be in her room somewhere.... it was a scavenger hunt.

and then, i found her. and i laughed. and i ran and got her daddy so he could come see. and then i got the camera and took pictures. because it was hilarious!

do you see this?? that is a kid who is under a bed with PURPOSE. that's not a child who rolled outta bed and then rolled somewhat underneath. that is a child who MEANT to get under that bed. and who CHOSE to sleep there rather than in the comfort of her own mattress.

so, as i type this, i wonder....where will i find my sweet little gremlin tonight?!?!?! ;)

snippets.....

2011-08-15T06:13:00.000-05:00

last week was fairly calm for it being the first week back at school. the kiddos all had a great week and i'm pretty happy with how the library is shaping up for this school year! i survived all of my story time groups and i have to say that i am pretty darn impressed with how much my 1st graders remembered from last year.

they all threw on their "hips and lips" as soon as they walked in the library door, the remembered to sit in their 1-2-3's, and they were able to remember all of the parts of a book that discussed every week last year. my kindergarten group???? THEY were a different story!! i'd forgotten what it was like to have to completely train a group of kids on library behavior! but i have to admit that they seem like a great bunch....and i think that we are going to have a super fun year in story time :)

hannah is in love with 1st grade and i think that she's going to be juuuust fine. my goal for this year is to let her grow up and be more independent at school. in other words, i'm going to work very hard to stay outta her business during school hours. it's going to be harder than i thought....especially since i eat lunch with her teacher ;)

and chandler....he has decided that pre-k 3 is going to be doable. he had a great monday-wednesday....and he was THRILLED to get to go to grandma's house for thursday and friday. he got a special surprise on wednesday when his mia picked him up from school and they got to have a day together. he was over the moon about it!

ava girl had a great week with grandma....but i think she was secretly glad to have chan with her at the end of the week. i think my baby girl thrives on chaos and having a sparring partner is near a necessity for her ;)

while our week was pretty tame, i managed to create a little havoc of my very own on saturday. i make no secret of the fact that i am scatterbrained, at best, during the school year. we got invited to go swimming with some friends of ours saturday morning. but lemme back up a bit.....

i got a wild hair on thursday and decided to make some dinner rolls from scratch. now, i'm not exactly betty baker over here. i mean, i make a pretty darn good meat loaf and i've FINALLY figured out my cinnamon roll recipe...but otherwise, i just plain don't have the mental fortitude for baking. but, we didn't have any rolls and i wanted some. so, i made the dough, rolled them up, and baked half of them. the recipe makes 24 rolls....we don't need that many. so i put half the dough in the fridge. it will keep for about 24 hours. well, i forgot about the dough until saturday morning. i didn't want it to go bad, so i popped them in the oven so they would cook before we left for the pool. 'cept here's the kicker....i never took them out of the oven.

here's what my rolls SHOULD look like:

here's what they'll look like after 1.5 hours in the over:

see the difference?

on the bright side....the house didn't burn down AND we now have projectiles in case anyone sinister attempts to approach the house. i'm not kidding y'all...the rocks david used on goliath have NOTHING on these bad boys!!

in other news: we signed hannah up for soccer on saturday. i'm not sure how this is going to go for my princess ballerina. she's already asking about ways to "fancy" up her uniform. i wonder if bedazzling her shin guards will be against the rules??? i can't wait to see how it turns out!! unfortunately, chandler missed the cutoff date by 13 days.....so we'll have to wait til next year to get him in. i KNOW that he'll love it! dirt, kicking stuff, and running. riiiiight up his alley :)

S is for SCHOOL!

2011-08-09T16:50:00.000-05:00

the kiddos headed back to school yesterday....hannah to the big, bad first grade and chandler to the k3 preschool class. i can't believe august is already here...and i can NOT believe my kids are one grade closer to graduation (yeah, overly dramatic....but that's where my head is right now).

of course it was inhumanely humid on the first day of school, so all of my shots are cloudy due to my not having a good 2 hours to acclimate my camera lens to what can only be described as "pea soup" weather. so, don't judge me (or my precious betsy louise) on the following pictures. mmmkay?

here are chan and han in all of their first day of school glory:

naturally, hkay was bedecked in her signature colors of purple and pink. wouldn't have it any other way! and chan? he was cool with whatever...so long as he got to wear his light up fire shoes ;)

we dropped off chandler at school first. he has not been exactly what i'd call "excited" about school this year. i told him he would get to play with his friends and his response was, "i don't need to play with my friends. i wanna go to grandma's house!". luckily, he's backed off on that a little and has decided he DOES want to play with his friends:

his first day went well.....he got a good report when i picked him up in the afternoon. and he has decided that he likes his teacher a "little bit....but not too much"!! he's such a stinker!!

hannah took on first grade like a total rockstar! she actually allowed me to walk with her to her classroom and take her picture. although i was held back to ONE shot outside of her classroom door! she IS in first grade now, you know. she can't be having some overbearing mother following her around with a camera ;)

she had a SPECTACULAR day and absolutely loves her new teacher, mrs. bailey! although the first thing she wanted to do in the afternoon was scoot down to mrs. dickey's class (her kindergarten teacher) and tlel her all about her first day.

and ava girl? she had grandma all to herself....which apparently is not something she's accustomed to. she cried for mama, for daddy, and looked for brother and sister throughout the day. (she was MUCH more okay with it today though!).

so, the 2011-2012 school year has begun. i sure hope it's as great (academically) as last year....and i SURE hope it's better health-wise than last year!!!

back to reality....

2011-08-05T17:23:00.000-05:00

this week, reality has gotten ALL up in my face and said, "ready or not, here i am!"

in other words, i had to go back to work.

we've been working furiously to get ready for school......clothes shopping, haircuts for everyone, school supplies, all that jazz. AND, since my girl is heading to the 1st grade , we decided to let her have some big girl fun....so hannah got her very first pedicure :)

toes "before"

she perused the various colors....looking for JUST the right one. first, she settled on purple. then, at the last minute, she changed her mind to velvet red. i was a liiiiiittle worried about such a "grown up" color....but with her rainbow jewels added, it looked really cute on her!

and she absolutely loved the experience! the colored lights in the water, the bubbles, and having her toenail polish actually being just on her toenails and NOT all over her feet (*ahem*....so maybe i'm not the BEST at painting toes...but it's not all MY fault. she has really tiny toenails!).

she also got her very first haircut. that's right. my 6 year old has never had a haircut!! actually, it was a trim....but we'll call it a haircut ;) leia took about 2 inches off....and it's really SO much healthier and shinier now! she was a little upset that she didn't get to sit in the haircut chair, but her hair was too long and leia couldn't cut it from the chair!!

then, on monday, i had to actually wake up before the sun :( vacation's over folks! the kids have been having a blast at grandma's house all week while momma's been working her tail off in the library. we had open house thursday night and hannah got to see her new classroom and meet her new teacher. i think we are REALLY going to like having mrs. bailey this year! she's a tough teacher...but she loves her kids and she expects great things from them.

and the library? it's coming along. actually....it's darn near completely ready. just a few little things to take care of on monday (which is okay since i won't technically open until tuesday anyhow. just a couple of story times on monday). i didn't change a ton of things, decoration-wise. although i DID add this:

to the story time room. isn't she fabulous??? the funny thing is....i really don't sit down when i'm reading to the kiddos. i generally stand up the entire time so they can all see. BUT, i am still loving my stool. which is a good thing since i took me the better part of FOUR DAYS to paint the thing ;)

hopefully i'll remember to take my camera to work on monday and i'll snap a few pics of the rest of the library. it's WDE's 50th anniversary as a school this year, so we are going to have a TON of fun and exciting activities in the media center...and all throughout the school. i'm really looking forward to this new year. mainly because i kind of, sort of, in a way have a CLUE what i'm doing this time around!!! i still cringe at the thought of my first week last year. man was i clueless about elementary school. but this year starts anew and i cannot wait!! (well....at least i think i can't. check with me again after next week. lol)

in other news this week....hannah lost a tooth on wednesday :) so, she got a second tooth fairy visit...complete with note and two shiny quarters! also, ava girl is working on some new words. her current faves: "ah duh" (all done), "yamma" (grandma), "bahk bahk" (back pack. it sounds like a duck when she says this one!), and "puh pul" (purple). very exciting times around the shoaf household!!

little miss twinkle toes

2011-08-01T06:22:00.000-05:00

hannah capped off her summer with a week of ballet camp. this is her second year at camp....and she loved it just as much, if not more, this year!! the resident ballet company photographer was asking my mother when hkay would be in 3rd grade because he thinks that she NEEDS to be in the ballet academy (we'll cross that bridge when we get to it). she just absolutely loves everything there is to love about dancing.

and y'all...she is good at it. i mean, even at just 6 years old....when she marches, her knees are high, her head is held tall, and her hands are right on her hips:

and when she does her "plie leaps"...well, i think this picture just speaks for itself.

and her curtsy??? seriously, it is perfection! just as graceful and beautiful as any "real" ballerinas. and no, i am not just saying this because she is mine. it's absolutely true :)

she had a week of ballet crafts, dress-up, and lessons....and it all culminated into their annual friday end-of-camp performance. they got to choose their own costumes (shocker...hannah picked purple!) and do a little routine for the parents. it was seriously cute and you could tell the girls all had a great time. her actual lessons begin this coming week and she is thrilled to be a "blue girl" this year, which means she's in the class with the blue leotards. this is a BIG deal....to her.

a few more pictures from her day:

as always....a special thank you to her mia for a wonderful birthday present! ballet camp is such a fun experience for her and she LOVES it :)

sole sister

2011-07-27T06:43:00.000-05:00

i'm SURE that it was difficult to look past the absolute fabulosity that were my perfectly pedicured toes to notice the sandals on my feet when i showed you my beach pictures.....but allow me to tell you about my new ssekos for a hot minute.

first of all, my husband is to blame for my purchasing yet another pair of shoes....he did, after all, point me in the direction of the blog that had the button that took me to the sseko website. i mean, he sent me there to read a post about mission work....which i DID read....and then my eyes hit a picture of shoes and i was THERE ;)

lemme tell you about these shoes. first of all, they are super cute. you can tie the ribbons pretty much a bajillion different ways. AND, they sell a ton of different colored ribbons (i say "ribbon" but really it's a cotton strip. but ribbon sounds prettier!) so you can have a veritable endless set of possibilities. there are youtube videos with tutorials on the different styles and tying techniques....which is great for someone like me who looks at a strip of cotton and the sole of a shoe like a monkey doing a math problem.

but the very best part about these shoes??? they help Ugandan women earn money to go to college. basically, there is a 9 month gap between secondary school and university. a time period where students are supposed to work and earn money to pay for further education. the problem is that in Ugandan society, it's difficult for women to get work. so, the sseko company hires ONLY women to work during that 9 month gap. their website explains it SO much better than i ever could....and it also gives you a short story about each of the girls currently working there.

at first, i balked a little at the price (don't even ask me the last time i spent $50 on a pair of shoes!)...but when i thought about all of the different ways i can wear them and the different colors i can use, i basically got about 20 pairs of shoes in one. and i am TOTALLY okay with spending $2 on a pair of shoes (yes, that was some impromptu math going on there) :)

so if you are interested in helping others.....AND you want a rockin' set of sandals, hit up www.ssekodesigns.com. tell 'em alison sent you (it won't do anything at all for you since they have no clue who i am...but it'll sound cool!).

i also just ordered my first pair of TOMS, but that's another shoe for another post. letcha know when they come in!!

***this was, in no way, a paid endorsement of sseko sandals. i got nothing at all in return for this glowing review. in fact, i think i had to pay extra in shipping when i ordered my own pair!! they have no idea i even wrote this.....and would probably be embarrassed by my bumbling post about their product. amen and AMEN! p.s....if sseko WANTED to send me a free set of the blue/white striped cotton straps, i'd not refuse them ;)

beach bums

2011-07-25T06:40:00.000-05:00

“Our memories of the ocean will linger on, long after our footprints in the sand are gone.”

--Anonymous

last week was our now annual beach vacation. i don't think i can adequately express to you the love i hold for our beaches....and how blessed i feel to live close enough to go anytime i want to. i grew up on the beaches of south walton and i love being able to take my children to the same places i used to go. but our week long beach vacation??? exquisite. joyful. relaxing (well, as relaxing as it can be with three kids!). wonderful.

this year's vacation was a little different from the last one. this year, it was ALL about the beach! we didn't eat out, we didn't go to any movies, and we didn't go off in search of activities. we woke up each morning, ate breakfast...and then hit the beach. it.was.perfect!!

we discovered a little "creek" that ran into the gulf....and it proved to be the best little area for the kids to play. hannah and chandler had the waves of the gulf and ava was able to play in the calmer waters of the "creek". and austin and i could sit in between and watch them all at once!! they found seashells, sand dollars, tadpoles, dug holes, built castles, and ran until their little legs gave out. there were some seriously good naps being take during our beach vacay ;)

and yours truly only forgot to put sunscreen on ONE time....which is a record! and i managed to keep from frying myself until the last day (we aren't going to count baking my stomach on the first day because no one saw that....and with no witnesses, there is no crime!) so i'm going to call this week a sunscreen success ;)

on wednesday, austin's birthday momentarily infringed upon the vacation frivolity.....juuuuust kidding! (on the infringement part....not the birthday part. the birthday actually happened!). his family came down to eat dinner with us at the house and then we all, including his 90+ year old grandparents, went down on the beach to enjoy the sunset. it was pretty fun having four generations enjoying the beauty of a beach sunset together! AND, the kids caught a sand crab....which to them was just a super bonus!

on thursday i met up with a friend of mine for lunch and a pedicure (doncha just LOVE a baby-sitter who is willing to drive 30 minutes straight from volleyball practice just so i can get my toes done???!?). don't those phalanges look AWESOME??? that would be "cajun shrimp" nail color courtesy of O.P.I. i felt i needed a "beach themed" nail color....but i totally can't pull of a turquoise so i had to go with the name of the polish ;)

on our final night, austin took the elder two kiddos to the beach for some night time sand crab hunting. and of course he had to take freakish looking flashlight photography of them, thereby causing my angels to look like netherworld creatures. i still think they're cute though :)

and now we are home....back to reality. there is no ocean breeze. there are no more morning walks on the beach, listening to the crash of the waves. there is no beach house deck sittin'. BUT, that being said....there truly is no place like home and i am GLAD to be back here!

we straightened her out!

2011-07-15T14:23:00.000-05:00

today, when my eyes popped open....it was gloomy out. overcast. sprinkling rain. looked like an indoor day to me. but i get as stir crazy when i'm stuck inside as the kiddos do....so i was looking for a project. my gaze fell upon my girl's curly head of hair and i decided that i wanted to see what it would look like straight. so, we pulled out the ole hair dryer and straightener.......

and my hannah kay went from this:

to this:

how crazy is that??? she absolutely LOVES her new look. in fact, we had to make a trip to town (in the rain) so that she could show it off to her mia. and the surprising part? it really didn't take all that long to do. in fact, she has requested to be able to wear her hair straight to school some.

don't get me wrong....i love my girls curly hair. i prayed that if i had baby girls, they'd be curly-headed just like their momma! but it's fun to sport a new "do" every now and then. and i think she feels like an undercover spy or something.....she kept going on and on about how nobody would recognize her. maybe she's working on a mild-mannered alter ego with the curls...and then *bam* she becomes Wonder Girl! (and by "bam", i mean 15 minutes later!)

so here's to rainy mornings and hair straighteners for entertainment value ;)

well now, that's pinteresting!

2011-07-14T09:18:00.001-05:00

so i caved. i caved real good. i've wrangled an invite to pinterest.com and now have no less than 8 lovely boards to pin fun and interesting things to. i fought the good fight.....but last week, the phrase "now WHERE did i see that really cool/fun/crafty/fabulous/wonderful idea at on the internet???" was uttered one too many times.

so i did what any tech savvy gal would do. i went to the facebook and begged a pinterest invite from anyone who would deem me worthy of one! (because homegirl was NOT gonna wait on any ole waiting list like a commoner!)

i set up my account this morning and have proudly pinned two items already. is it any surprise that they are both food related??? ;)

Source: eighteen25.blogspot.com via Alison on Pinterest

Source: kevinandamanda.com via Alison on Pinterest

let the pinning games begin, my friends!!

in other news....i won a giveaway on the beautiful life....unscripted blog today. i'll share the details and pics of me with my winning prize once i receive it. i'm a little gun shy on announcing a "win" because the last giveaway i "won"....i never got my prize from the girl. i was sad because it was a totally cute item that i was excited to see on ava's little blonde head. i have faith that my prize WILL arrive this time though!!

you know how sometimes they say you have to "try and try again"??

2011-07-13T08:54:00.000-05:00

i'm thinking that's going to be the moral of the story here. you see, i read a blog post by summer over at THE CROSBIE CREW about how to make ice cream in a bag. when i taught at WCDC, our math teacher there did this for an activity on measurements, so i've seen it actually done. after naps yesterday, i gathered up all of the necessary items (kids included!) and we headed out onto the porch to prepare our ice cream treats!

first, i poured the milk into the bags for them....mainly because i'm not entirely crazy, but also because i know without a shadow of a doubt that the odds of milks going all over the porch if i let them do it was pretty much somewhere around 196% gonna happen!

but i DID let them scoop in their own sugar:

and rock salt:

and then we added ice, sealed up the bags, and started shakin' like a polaroid picture!

well, the kiddos shook the bag for somewhere around 3 seconds....and then their "arms were tiiiiiiiiiiired" so i shook them for the remaining 6 hours. ;)

in the end....did we have ice cream worthy of rivaling the local tastee freeze??? ummmmm, nope. but we DID have some delicious sugary milk that the kids were MORE than happy to slurp right up! i'm guessing that i went wrong with the amount of ice i put in the bags. you see, my ice maker went on strike yesterday so we had to make do with the paltry numbers that were in there from when my ice maker still loved me. also...it was a million degrees outside so it didn't take long before i was shaking a bag full of really cold water instead of ice!

so, we learned that my kids are NOT fans of manual labor...even if there is ice cream at the end of their endeavors, that ice is ESSENTIAL to a good bag of ice cream, and that my kids will basically eat or drink anything as long as there is sugar in it ;)

so, it didn't work this time, but we will try, try again!

2011-07-11T08:06:00.000-05:00

so today, not only will i be doing this:

here today:

but i'm also guest posting over at living by loving! c'mon over and sit a spell :) and while you're there....why don't you fall in love with allyce and her blog. i know that i did!

4th of july: mommy's world

2011-07-08T16:50:00.000-05:00

can i just say that although i am totally capable of turning the 4th of july into a complete stress-ball event....how in the world can i not love a holiday that makes my kids look like this:

now, given my druthers....the fourth of july would be held sometime in november (i'm sure anyone above the mason-dixon line would prefer it to stay right where it is!) because it was hot, hot, HOT. and mother of the year over here forgot to bring my precious lovelies any fluids for the parade.

can you just SEE the beads of sweat (*ahem* i mean....weren't we GLISTENING!) coming up:

but luckily for me, freeze pops and water bottles were handed out by parade folks who had more sense than me! so the kiddos' parched throats got some much needed relief.....and don't think for one second that i didn't score a water bottle for yours truly as well!!

and my favorite part??? the fireworks of course! it was pretty hard to take pictures AND hold my hands over ava's ears at the same time.....but somehow i managed ;) this one was my favorite picture out of the bunch....mainly because it's one of the only ones that ended up being in focus at all. apparently cameras have a hard time focusing with a one-year-old bouncing around!!

and for a little peek into "daddy's world":

doesn't he make a lovely little perch for ava girl :) good thing daddy's got some strong shoulders because this is a favorite seat among the kiddos!

4th of july: ava's world

2011-07-07T07:49:00.000-05:00

so ava decided to start off her patriotic celebration by showing off that she can do this:

yep.....that's my 21-month-old climbing to the top of the waterslide by herself. sheesh. she has NO fear!

and then, she'd just slide right down and do it all over again:

but before long, it began to wear her out. she took a gooooooood nap that day!

and then, it was off to the parade!:

ava girl claimed her spot on the curb....with a great view and plenty of space in front for candy gathering:

and by some miracle, she both allowed me to put a bow on her head AND didn't rip it off 3 seconds later!! score a win in mommy's book!:

i'm going to have to work on her parade candy gathering technique though. after she got the first bag of skittles...she bailed on the parade and chowed down:

and can i just call attention to the RIDICULOUSLY cute rufflebutts i found for her??? yeah, i know she'll roll her eyes and hate me one day for making her wear these, but i find them adorable! and lucky her....i bought them in 2T so she'll probably be able to wear them again next year!!:

daddy risked life and limb (well, maybe not THAT dramatic....he just risked getting sucker in his hair and eyes!) so that ava could get a good view of the firetrucks:

and i don't know who the absolute geniuses were who were handing out icy pops instead of candy....but may God bless them for it!! i don't know who was better.....the icy pop people or southwide baptist church with their water bottles they handed out. it was h.o.t. out there, people.....and mother of the year over here forgot to pack any drinks! so needless to say, i was indebted to those folks for providing my kiddos with some much needed hydration!

and then, to the fireworks. we've never had much luck with ava girl and fireworks. this is her being a camera hog and jumping into a picture i was trying to take of hannah!:

after the first couple of fireworks scared her....she decided they were pretty-pretty and enjoyed the rest of the show! she still wasn't a total fan of the grand finale......but at least she wasn't the kid who was screaming his head off somewhere around us!!!!

so happy birthday america.....love, ava!

4th of july: hannah's world

2011-07-06T08:18:00.000-05:00

hannah-girl is also a pretty big fan of the fourth of july.....sparklers, red/white/blue everywhere (so basically everything is color coordinated....SO fun in her world!), and horses on parade. and my girl LOVES her a good "birthday party"!

not much makes her happier than a day in the sun, swimming in the pool with her family!:

and zebras ;)

it didn't take long before she wanted to ramp up the interest on the slide.....why not take a zebra float down with ya? makes perfect sense:

and being "little mother" to cousin amabel:

nothing like pure joy to celebrate american's birthday!:

and then, on to the parade.....

as if the patriotic colors weren't fancy enough.....she wanted to throw in some super cool shades to up her chances at being the "fanciest girl in history". i think her odds are good!

waving to our friendly local fire fighters. we were hoping uncle richard would be driving one of the fire trucks this year....but he wasn't. so we had to settle for waving to a stranger like all the common folk have to do ;)

but she DID get a new "fire hydrant hat". which is a good thing since ava sat on her other one!

and then....the fireworks! hannah oo'd and aah'd throughout the entire show. and believe me when i say that the lights on her shoes rivaled the fireworks show! i tried to take a picture of her at the lakeyard, but ava jumped into the shot and then everyone complained that my camera flash was blinding them so i was forced to put it away :(

as we were walking down to the lakeyard for the fireworks, we ran into one of austin's friends who was working the police detail for the event. doug had his police lights turned on and hannah just HAD to show him how her shoes looked JUST like police lights when she walked. she and chandler were mesmerized by getting to talk to a REAL policeman!

my girl had an amazing day with family.....AND she got to be a little fancy, so that always makes her smile :)

4th of july: chandler's world

2011-07-05T14:41:00.000-05:00

chandler is ALL about the 4th of july! what's not to love? water......parades.....and fireworks. three of his very favorite things :) of course, since he's the only boy on the shoaf side of the fam (C'MON new baby grandson/nephew/cousin....get here soon! chan needs a partner in crime!) he has to contend with three frilly girls during his 4th adventures.

we started the day off on the blow up slide:

with a little bball to help "man up" the pool area:

some manly water splashing:

and attempting to scare cousin amabel by being a dinosaur (note: amabel is NOT scared of boys pretending to be dinosaurs!):

and then....on to the parade! sirens, candy, and new to this year.....a garbage truck (have i mentioned that my boy is currently OBSESSED with garbage trucks?? needless to say, this was the highlight of his day!)

check out that captain america tshirt! booyah ;)

and he capped it all off with some "vewy tool fiyerwowks!"

when all was said and done, my boy proclaimed that he "wuvs the fowrf of ju-yiye"!

a fish named "buddy"

2011-07-01T14:14:00.000-05:00

so there once was a time that i might have jumped the gun and posted THIS a little prematurely. potty training expectations were high.....i had a mission and i meant to achieve it. unfortunately, a certain three year old boy who was pretty key to the success of said mission was NOT on board. might have been something i should have checked on prior to ;) anymcwhatwasithinking.....the title of "captain underpants" was not to be bestowed upon the lad for some time after taking this first picture.

taken june 2010

that was june 2010. now it is june 2011(in case you haven't noticed!). and i am proud to announce that the chan man has FINALLY achieved full time potty trained status. he is rockin' the big boy underwear during all waking hours and is, for all intents and purposes, accident free.

way back when it all began and i was desperate, i MIGHT have told him that if he'd just fill up his sticker chart, i'd let him have whatever he wanted. fortunately, my boy thinks small....and he decided that he wanted a fish (whew!!!). so today, in celebration of finally placing the last sticker on the chart.....we purchased "buddy" the beta fish.

i'd like to say that "buddy" will have a long and prosperous fishy life with the shoaf family.....but i already forgot to buy him any fish food. so, i'm thinking this is going to end flushingly for our gilled friend. (back off, aspca......i'm going back later today to pick out the best fish food on the market).

chan's happy, i'm happy, and the diaper genie is heaving a sigh of relief at having its workload cut in half. when all of the grandparents are back into town....chandler will also get to have his potty party! two diaper kids down....only one more to go :)

way to "go" chandler.....way to GO!

home sweet home

2011-06-27T07:09:00.002-05:00

i survived. i mean that in the most literal sense of the word. i, alison, took all three kids on a solo parenting road trip whilst austin was "vacationing" in guatemala. (and trust me, after wrangling all three ~~gremlins~~ angels for 6 hours in the car and 5 days in two different cities....i'm starting to think that digging foundation footers for a new seminary in the rain would be a vacation!!). i have no photographic evidence of this total brain shutdown of mine because i begrudgingly gave austin my beloved canon to take with him. i hope he knows just how much this sacrifice shows my love for him. ;)

honestly though....i have to give credit where credit is due. my kids are absolute rockstars at road tripping. seriously. let's just say that on the 6 hour ride home, we stopped ONE TIME. rock. stars. i decided that while austin was gallivanting around foreign nations, i would take the kids to gainesville to see my friend, randa, and then to orlando to visit with my favorite carrie ann and her kiddos (who happen to be my godchildren!).

here are some valuable lessons i learned along the way though:

1. you can never buy enough cheez its snacks. i think we went through two whole boxes.

2. ava can escape from the following: a play pen, most front doors, sliding glass doors, doors that have been dead bolted, padlocked, and chained with kryptonite.

3. my kids can, in fact, survive off of a steady diet of chicken nuggets.

4. you can fit five carseats in the back of the suburban (i DO actually have a picture of this....it will appear below if i decide not to be lazy and pull it off of my email!)

5. even after fitting five carseats into the back of a suburban, you can STILL fit three full sized adults in as well. although i don't recommend it for comfort and/or safety reasons ;)

6. anything you might use to block stairs for normal children will NOT work in thwarting an ava who wishes to go up or down them.

7. i do NOT need to live anywhere with the following stores within striking distance: kohls. target. tjmaxx. belk. old navy. pier 1. ross. a mall. thank you very much and amen.

8. and the final and MOST important lesson learned...courtesy of ava girl: you can, in fact, use toothpaste as a replacement for hair gel. i didn't really ask her WHY she had most of a tube of toothpaste in her hair. we were packed and ready to leave so i just combed it over, snapped her into her carseat, and we hit the road. 8 hours later when we finally got home and they got baths.....it took THREE shampoo-ings before her helmet hair disappeared. so next time you're in a pinch for some hair gel....look no further than your local tube of toothpaste!

but seriously....i think the absolute biggest thing i learned this week is that i CAN travel with my kids! will i do it again one day? sure! in about 2 or 3 years ;)

when it's too hot outside to breathe....

2011-06-20T13:33:00.000-05:00

....why not just add some paint fumes to the mix ;)

i've been on a tear lately. i told austin that it would be dangerous for me to have time on my hands at home all summer. i tend to find stuff to occupy my time (*you know....in order to maintain my track record of NOT vacuuming, dusting, or scrubbing toilets.). so, i've been painting. alot.

here are several before and after shots:

first up....the kids' timeout step/toothbrushing and handwashing step. i love when things are multifunctional!

before:

after: (now it matches their bathroom decor. which makes me smile.)

second: chandler's toddler bed. the lad will be in this bed for at least another year. i'm not entirely sure what got ahold of it, but i'm leaning towards rabid mutant space woodchucks. or ava.

before:

after: doesn't it just look spiffy?? potterybarn and their bajillion dollar blue wooden beds can kiss my hiney!

third: the adirondack chairs. my mom got these for hkay and chandler about 2 years ago from potterybarn. apparently we didn't read the fine print on the whole "if thou leavest thy chairs in thee florida sun to baketh....thy paint shall flee and thy chairs shall looketh like poopeth". (i don't know why pottery barn's fine print reads like the old testament, but just go with it).

hannah's chair "before":

hannah's chair "after": she chose the color "rocker girl" purple. i pretended to be shocked.

chandler's chair "before": (disclaimer.....cute nephew not included in the "that chair needs HELP!" area. disclaimer number 2....chandler's name was, in fact, on his chair too. i just photoshopped it out because allan's name is NOT chandler and i didn't think his mom would want the wrong name smack in the middle of his one year photo shoot!)

chandler's chair "after": he wanted a "G" on his chair, but i eventually convinced him that his name begins with a "C". he kept going...."momma....it is "ch-ch-G"! we'll address the whole letter sounds issue in time for kindergarten ;)

so there ya go so far. on the books for later this summer: a three tiered corner shelf for what will soon become chandler's very own bedroom, the walls on what will soon become chandler's very own bedroom (the current pink color just does NOT go with his bedding!), the fourth and final tractor picture (the other three pieces were done and given to him two Christmas's ago. i am nothing if not TOTALLY punctual with stuff), and possibly the walls in what will be the girl's bedroom. have i mentioned that i'm not really a fan of painting???? whew!

i realize that it's officially summer now but......

2011-06-15T06:56:00.000-05:00

.....this song is too stinkin' cute not to share! as always, it's only about 15 seconds long and taken on my cell phone, but at least the video's not sideways this time! my boy will bust out in song randomly throughout the day and this particular one never ceases to make me grin:

he has another in his repertoire that i haven't been able to catch on video yet, but i'm working on it!

how many times can i do spell check on "silhouette"??

2011-06-13T07:13:00.000-05:00

i have been wanting a silhouette portrait of my kids for about six forevers. i love the way they look. so i did what i always do when i get an idea up in my noggin. i hit up the etsy. i found a gal on there who was hawking her silhouette wares. it didn't have any dimensions on the listing, but the pictures looked beautiful. and for the bargain price of $25. i say bargain....until i convo'ed her and found out that the listing was for a 4x5 picture. that was not exactly what i had in mind. so, i pretty much had decided that i would not be in possession of a silhouette portrait anytime soon.

until, that is, the blog world came to the rescue! i stumbled across a blog post on how to create my very very own silhouette portrait. you can see the original post on simply modern mom's blog HERE.

i made a few adjustments....you know, just cuz that's how i roll ;) and also because i'm too cheap and lazy to go back to the store and pick up stuff that i don't already have!

so, here's a modified-by-me tutorial:

i purchased 3 11x14 canvases from the walmarts. they were surprisingly inexpensive. then, i carefully perused the fabric section for my background choices. i knew which colors i wanted for each kiddo....i just had to find the fabrics that made my heart go pitter-patter. i chose a purple paisley for hannah, a pink bird pattern for ava, and hannah found a perfect red stripe fabric for chandler's:

then i took profile pictures of the kiddos. a solid background would have probably been more ideal, but the spirit moved me to take pictures at that particular moment so i worked with what i got:

i put the pictures through some photoshopping to make them a little more easy to work with. first, i black & whited them (yes, i am fully aware there is a feature on my camera to take them in b&w but whatever!) and then i bumped up the contrast pretty steeply. i wanted the edges of their profiles to be pretty hard so that i could see them really well when i cut them out. then, with no help at all from my ridiculously temperamental printer and a TON of help from my fabulous mom, i printed the pictures out on cardstock. the quality of the picture isn't important, so long as you can see the outline of their little faces. (***side note: i had to go back and reprint hannah and ava because i didn't pay attention to the fact that i was zoomed out a little more in their pictures. so, i recropped and reprinted {thanks again, mom!} so that all of their little noggins would be roughly the same size).

so, their pictures looked like this after cutting out:

then, i put the cutouts face down on black cardstock. i put them face down so that the pencil marks would be on the back of the final cutout and it would be facing the right direction when i put them on the canvas. in the original tutorial, she used a white pencil. i just used a regular ole #2 pencil. it was a little more difficult to see, but i have good overhead lighting in my kitchen so i didn't have too much trouble.

after cutting out the cardstock, i brushed mod podge on the back to adhere it to the fabric (you can get it in the crafting section of walmart!) and then placed it on the fabric covered canvas. now, honestly, if i were to do this again, i'd probably just use my spray adhesive instead of the mod podge. you have to put the MP on really thin or it will soak the cardstock and make it bubble. anyhow....once i put it on the canvas, i piled several books on top of the black cardstock to keep it good and flat until the mod podge dried.

now, according to the original tutorial....at this point you mod podge the front of the black cardstock. i followed the letter of the law and did this, but.....if i were to do it over again, i would have just left it as a natural cardstock. but, since i used mod podge on the back....a little got on the front and i had to MP the front whether or not i wanted to at that point!

when the mod podge dried completely, i framed the picture. here again i ran into a little bit of an issue that i'm not very sure how to combat. picture frames are not exactly made to shove a fabric covered canvas into. i managed to get the clasps on the back of the frame shut using the high technology of a butter knife and elbow grease, but i do have to confess that i ended up cracking the corner of the glass in chandler's frame and i sported a sizeable blister on my thumb and pointer finger for several days.

but, after all was said and done, i LOOOOOOVED the final product:

these are now hanging in the kids' rooms and they just make me smile! i'm not going to do the math....but i'm betting that i saved WAY more money doing it this way. a custom framed 8x10 on etsy is about $50. mine are 11x14 and the most expensive purchase were the frames. boo.yah. ;)