Oh to be a 4-year-old and be so entertained with leaves! Annie was loving throwing them up in the air around her and Hope. We decided not to let this past Friday be filled with running errands and doing housework and Jon encouraged me to take a break and head to the mountains. No outlet stores, no tourist traps, not even lunch in an overpriced restaurant. We packed PB&Js, bananas, cheesesticks and crackers and headed for Cades Cove. It was so wonderful. Like a healing salve to a wound for me… just to be outside, in the beautiful sunshine and with the people I love more than anyone or anything else! We did the entire Cades Cove loop and stopped to see sorghum being made at the old mill and wandered through a century old Methodist church and farmhouse. We saw several deer, wild turkeys and Annie and Hope both even pet a real live mule! We got some great pictures and I will have to narrow them down to just a few shots but hopefully they will capture the fun we had.
Yes, Hope has been caught eating it… not swallowing it, I caught her in the act, but this time, she wasn’t eating it, just examining it. I love these pics of Hope and Roxy, our 5-year-old, one-eyed Boston Terrier. I love the way Roxy is looking at Hope like, “What in the world are you doing?” and Hope is just slowly and methodically examining the food and then even trying to feed it to Roxy at one point. Just a fun, sweet moment at our house.
This weekend the Teagues became the Ingalls (Pa, Ma, Laura and baby Carrie). My mom bought Annie her bonnet several months ago at the Mast General Store in downtown Knoxville and Annie decided then and there she wanted to be Laura Ingalls and we all needed to dress up to complete the full family look. It really was fun! Our church did a huge outreach event on the night of the 30th complete with old-time carnival games, inflatables, hayride and of course candy! We had a great time! I got so many good pictures that night that I really only snapped a couple on the night of the 31st. The cooler night and rainy weather also kinda put a damper on the picture taking. Annie still braved the rain for a bit and did some neighborhood trick-or-treating with some neighborhood kids. She was LOVING it!
Playing "Tick, Tack, Toss"
Laura Ingalls just taking care of her chores!
Hope quickly discovered what was in Annie's pumpkin and was putting up a fight to get her hands on it!
Hope examining her first lollipop. Does she like it?...
Yes, she definitely likes it!
The first year that Annie and Gabriel have not been in coordinating costumes. They are growing up so fast!
Happy, sugar-high Hope after a Dum-Dum and almost a whole pack of Smarties.
Heading out to cover the neighborhood with friends!
This past weekend was very busy and tiring but such a special, special weekend! Our family packed up and headed to Chattanooga to celebrate Jon’s brother’s wedding! Saturday, October, 24, 2009 Andrew and Susan got married! We are so happy for them as they embark on this new journey and life-long commitment together. Jon even had the privilege of performing the wedding ceremony! I was so proud of him and loved the personal touches he added to the ceremony. It was a very cool fall day and I had Hope on my hip for about two hours straight trying to keep her out of trouble during the picture taking and the wedding itself as it was outside, so I did not get near as many pictures as I would have liked, but the few I did get are very special. Hopefully I will be able to post some of the professional pictures at some point. Annie was the flower girl and after a small meltdown at the rehearsal on Friday, she did walk down the aisle and did a great job! We love you Andrew and Susan and are so happy for you!
Trying to keep the girls out of the cold before the ceremony.
The beautifully decorated bridal table at the pavilion.
Beautiful bridal cake
Groom's cake
Hope with PaPa
Finally we snagged a picture of Susan and Andrew!
While preparing to leave the house the other day, Brinley met us in the kitchen right before we were about to walk out the door. Strange thing was that I had crated Brinley just moments before this… let me not fail to mention that Hope and I were the only humans home. So, out of intrigue, I put Brinley back in her crate and then grabbed the camera… the following video certainly incriminates our 13-month-old daughter, Hope.
I am so in love with these precious girls!
Annie asked this afternoon what we are having for dinner tonight. This is a daily question for her as she is not a big eater and unless it is pizza, chicken nuggets or any kind of fast food, she pretty much dreads dinner time. So, “cheeseburgers on the grill tonight” did not please her (because they are not pancake flat patties like McDonald’s serves). Below is the conversation that followed between Annie and me:
Annie: Oh, mom, I don’t like cheeseburgers on the grill!
Me: Well, that’s what we are having.
Annie: Well, I’m not going to be home for dinner tonight. I am going to a ball with Elisa. (Elisa is her made-up friend. Not an imaginary friend, just a made-up friend she talks about. The only time she talks to Elisa is when she is pretend talking on the phone. Usually, she just talks about what Elisa is doing or where they are going to go together.)
Me: Oh, well, how are you going to get there because I will be busy making dinner and then getting Hope bathed and in bed?
Annie: By taxi.
Me: Oh! Well, how are you going to pay for the taxi?
Annie: Oh, this taxi has a cash register in it and when I need to pay I just take money out of the cash register and give it to the driver.
I love it! An imagination like this sure keeps me entertained.
One week ago today, Sept. 18 was Jon’s 30th birthday. I wanted to do something really fun, special and unexpected for him so about two months ago I began planning his surprise. Jon has a life-goal attending a game at every one of our country’s Major League Ballparks. He has already been to several so my list to choose from was not long, especially those that were not on the West Coast. I decided on The Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati, OH. It is just a four hour drive from Knoxville and so I began planning our two-night getaway. I lined up hotel reservations, tickets to the game (on his birthday night), childcare for our girls (a huge thank you is due to my in-laws from driving to Knoxville and babysitting, dog sitting and house sitting for us for the entire weekend!), and even dinner reservations for the first night in Cinci.
Jon’s co-workers were a major help in clearing his schedule on Thursday afternoon and then even setting up a fake 3-hour meeting that what he thought “tied him up” for the entire afternoon. I showed up at his office with the car ready and bags packed and informed him that he was not having a 3-hour meeting but instead we were leaving town! He was completely and totally surprised! It was so, so fun! We had a great time seeing the sights of Cinci, eating some great food and of course, attending a ballgame! I love you babe! Happy 30th birthday!
Outside Montgomery Inn at the Boathouse, where we ate dinner
Greenup Cafe. Where we ate breakfast both mornings. Probably the highlight of the trip for me.
Inside the Greenup Cafe. So cool!
At the game. I made it through the entire game without being bored! I ate a hot dog, curly fries and some of Jon's peanuts. Yum, Yum!
One-day-old
One-year-old
Jon and I were as shocked as everyone else to see our 9lb. 7 oz. baby girl with a head full of dark hair! Now our beautiful second daughter, Hope Katherine, is in the 50% in weight and height and has a head full of light blonde hair! Love it! We had a great first birthday party with Hope and both sets of her grandparents, as well as some other family members. We ate spaghetti for dinner (Hope’s favorite) and then watched her plunge into her monkey cake and eat until I was afraid she would wake up in the middle of the night throwing up cake and icing! She loved it!
I was happy for Hope to destroy the birthday cake I spent hours baking and decorating!
Ready for a bath!
The ride-on toy was one of her bday gifts. She LOVES it!
I am thinking it has been over a month since I last wrote and not due to our lives being boring… quite the opposite! Hope did start full-out crawling although she prefers to stick one leg out and push off with one foot and then the other knee. She gets around regardless of how she does it. She also made her first attempt at the stairs. She made it up the first three before she fell back (yes, I was there behind her to catch her). She has only gone back over to the staircase one other time since then. I am wondering if she might have some of big sister’s cautious tendencies… or she is just so laid back that she doesn’t care. She tried the stairs once, figured there was nothing so great about them and therefore hasn’t adventured back over to try to master them.
Annie has been playing hard. She loves to play with Hope, still loves to dress-up, help me in the kitchen, dance, sing the list goes on. One evening she and I were in the playroom upstairs watching something on TV and I left the room for about 5 minutes to put some laundry away that I had just finished folding. When I came back in the room I found her completely crashed on the couch. This has never happened in the history of Annie Teague… she does not fall asleep much of anywhere except for the occasional car ride after an exhausting day or her bed of course. I was shocked! So sweet!
I bought our second Knoxville Zoo membership a few weeks ago and we have already been twice. It is a really great zoo and they have a special exhibit right now called “Wee Play Zoo”. Annie especially loves playing “Vet Doctor” as she calls it. She really does have such a caring spirit. Maybe she will be a doctor or nurse of some kind one day!
We can’t leave out the first day of preschool this school year. The four-year-old class is much more structured than her class last year and Annie is thriving in it! She loves all the activities they do and came home the first day last week telling me how when her teacher “rings the bell, all eyes are to be on her and we put our hand in the air.” Is she a little mini-me rule-follower or what? She has loved meeting new friends and looks forward to Tuesdays and Thursdays each week.
Hope is still eating pretty much anything I put in front of her. Unfortunately she has pushed away some green beans lately, but I guess one food out of pretty much anything else isn’t too bad. One of her new favorites is spaghetti. Let me assure you she goes straight to the bathtub after a spaghetti dinner for sure!
And finally, after many phone conversations, two trips to LaFollette, TN (a one hour drive from our house), several helpful and generous friends, a borrowed trailer, hours of tear-down and reassembly and a good chunk o’ change, we are now the proud owners of a wooden playset! I love Craigslist and have purchased and sold several things through this wonderful website. A few nights ago I jumped on looking at dining tables and randomly decided to type in “wooden playset”. A guy had just listed his one-year-old playset that day and was asking less than 1/3 of his purchase price from Lowes. I showed it to Jon and he decided to call and the rest is history. We really are excited about this. Annie has been playing on it by herself for hours the past couple of days, and that in itself is a blessing. I can see her playing on it from all of my downstairs windows and love the thought of being able to have playdates here on pretty days and not have to clean my house before people come over! We are so thankful!
