He Found It!!!

I had virtually given up hope.
Josh bought me beautiful diamond earrings for Mother's Day. Simple studs with a beautiful shine. I wore them all the time.
When I wasn't wearing them, they were on his dresser (since I don't have one). Not a good idea.
I found one on the floor (this was a couple months ago now) but the other was nowhere to be seen.
We took a flashlight up and looked around the carpet. We didn't vacuum anywhere near the dresser. But nothing.
I didn't tell people because it was just too sad to tell them that I'd lost one of my earrings. I considered asking for a replacement for Christmas, but that would have been a significant chunk of my present and it still would have been sad. So I wasn't sure what to do.

This morning we changed our summer clothes over to winter clothes (*sniff*) and when he was putting away all his summer socks, he found it, hiding in his sock drawer!!!

So my weekend was just made much, much sweeter.

********

Josh had a good birthday yesterday. We tried to go bowling but got there after the open bowl times ended and the leagues were about to start, but we had fun anyways. He's 28, which is 2 years older than I was when we met. (and I'm 7 years older than he was when we met!!)

Letchworth Pictures

The girls need to take a nap but haven't started sleeping yet (they had a short one this morning but that certainly wasn't enough) so I have arms free to type, for once. So here is yet another post!

Monday we went to Letchworth State Park to see the beautiful fall colors. Our timing was perfect, and the weather couldn't have been better. 79, sunny and full of beautiful colors.

ready and rarin' to go.

Me and the girls

Someone was kind enough to stop and take a family picture for us.

Josh and his girls (well, two of the three)

I asked Josh to make sure I gave him the camera so there were actually a few with me in them. He was great about remembering!

Here's me trying to be artistic.

And here's Jasmine imitating Mommy.


And being a lot cuter about it.

The girls got tired of being in the wagon.

Teaching Bekah about grass.

Yumm! Can I eat it?

Jasmine loved the playground!

We don't get many pictures of these two together.

Jasmine wanted Josh to try everything she tried!

Bekah liked the slide, too!

Midweek already

I can't believe it. Josh's birthday is this Saturday. That means it's really fall, and that it's almost November. Where did 2007 go??

I can't remember if I wrote about this here, but I'm working at saving up for an amazing camera. I'm halfway there, hoping to have the money by Thanksgiving in case there are any good Black Friday sales. Unfortunately I'm just about done with all the stuff Josh gave me, so I'm getting more scrapbooking done today. (I do have a book cover to make, but the title and concept are still up in the air so I need to wait)
First off, here's my pie chart of my progress. I'll keep adding more wedges (I've already added one since I posted it here)


And here's a layout that took me a long time because I couldn't figure out what it needed. I finally got it, after getting some help from my scrapping friends :)


And a page using one of the pictures that we had taken professionally:



And two pages from our trip to Letchworth State Park Monday. This first one is what Jasmine told us about the trip when we were driving home. She knows we like her to tell us what we saw and did, so we didn't even have to ask!



And Bekah trying desperately to eat the grass:

The Newest Jasmine Mystery

Can anyone figure out what she's quoting (or saying, for that matter)? It's the same every time, so I'm guessing she's quoting something, but nothing comes to mind.
(her favorite movies are Mary Poppins, Cinderella and Veggie Tales, in case that helps)

Pictures Time

First off, here are long-awaited pictures of the fence and our (free!) swingset. Aren't they wonderful? The swingset is much redder now because Josh stained it. It looks fantastic!
Of course I still hate going outside, and the fact that Bekah doesn't know what to do out there doesn't exactly push me to take them...but it's there for when Josh takes them!



We finally got the old TV out to the curb (the garbagemen didn't think they could move it, though, so we posted a freebie announcement to Craigslist and it was gone in 20 minutes. One man managed to get it on his truck, so the garbagemen obviously weren't as motivated!)
That freed up space on that wall, so I decided to bring all of Jasmine's kitchen stuff together and make a little kitchen for her in the living room. She spent the rest of the afternoon eating "lunch": soup, chips, pasta and coffee!

And here's a picture of my girls this afternoon. Aren't they adorable??

Pictures, as promised

It was a year ago today that we had the freak "Columbus Day Storm." 22 inches of snow falling on trees, still covered in leaves. The destruction is still apparent in some of the suburbs, and some of the trees in this area are limbless and sad.
A year ago tomorrow was our car accident that totalled our car and gave us the "joy" of an afternoon in the ER while they made sure we were fine and ignoring the health of Bekah. (don't get me started on that). Thankfully we were all fine, once our sternums (sterna?) healed from the seatbelts doing their job.

On to happier stuff.


Who knew there was a waterfall in Williamsville???








Obviously not from the photo shoot ;) Bekah's discovered the joys of tunnels!


And standing, her favorite thing to do. No videos of her walking yet...hopefully in the next week or two we'll catch her doing it.

Please keep her in your prayers. She has a head cold (a low-grade fever and runny nose) and is very sad. It's heartbreaking. She slept very little last night (and Jasmine woke up crying 3-4 times, so I'm running on caffeine today) and is sitting in my lap, whimpering. I feel so bad for her!

I'm from the government, and I'm here to help

Hi again. It's Josh.

I just have to say something about the Bass Pro idiocy that's going on around here. For those in Rochester, Bass Pro is Buffalo's equivalent of the Fast Ferry. For those of you not in Rochester or Buffalo, just think of the stupidest thing your local government has done in the last 5-10 years.

Why does anyone fall for the idea that giving away $35,000,000.00 of the taxpayers money to a fishing store will radically turn our local and regional economy around? Is there anyone who really believes this notion that "if we build it, they will come" from miles around, driving all day and all night, make a weekend vacation of some sort out of it, just to buy fishing lures? And that these people will bring in massive amounts of additional revenue to local businesses? (Because, as everyone knows, people who shop at Bass Pro are filthy stinking rich, and they always pump endless supplies of cash into the pockets store owners wherever they go.) And for those of you who think I'm exaggerating, I'm not. That's really their reasoning. Scary, huh?

I think I've come to the realization that absolutely nothing good can be accomplished in government right now. If conservatives and liberals, moderates and independents, socialists and libertarians can't all come together and force their politicians to end corporate welfare like this, then what hope have we? Half the country hates corporations, half the country hates welfare, and at least half of it hates both! But still, massive give-outs like this are commonplace. So commonplace in fact, that I've probably bored many of you by even discussing it.

Oh well. At least we have an elite group of some of the nicest, smartest, most moral, least controversial people we've ever had running for president this time. So maybe things aren't so bad!

Bekah News

I can't believe I haven't posted yet about this.
Rebekah took her first steps this past weekend!
On Saturday she took a step to Josh. Sunday she stepped to me and then later to Josh again.

You should have seen the look on her face! She knew this was a big deal and she wanted us to know how excited she was. It was priceless!

We'll try to get videos as soon as she starts going more than a step at a time (i.e. when we're more likely to know it's about to happen and get the camera ready!).

If someone reminds me (if you leave a comment it shows up in my inbox in case I forget to come back here and check), I'll try to go through the pictures the professional photographer took last weekend and get some up here. Oh, and maybe pictures of our beautiful fence. They're sitting on the computer, waiting.....

I blogged!!

I updated the Beginning Digital Scrapbooking blog so feel free to check it out!

Josh took the morning off and we went to the Pumpkin Farm. What fun! Jasmine talked about it all the way there, and this year it took her about 2 minutes before she felt comfortable (compared to 20 minutes last year).

Bekah liked them too!


Posing for us.


My punkin amongst the pumpkins :)

and with daddy :)

Jasmine had fun on the little wooden train. She wasn't uncomfortable when a busload of daycare kids showed up; she just did her own thing, not ignoring them but not necessarily playing with them, either.

And we let her choose her own pumpkin. This isn't the one she ultimately chose, but she was pretty excited about it for a minute!

I'm excited to have new pictures to scrap, as usual.

Rebekah's Dedication

(or: The Bonnet Almost Made Us Late)

I spent a bunch of time Saturday night, looking for Bekah's bonnet. Didn't find it. We were all set for Sunday morning, having our clothes all set out and the timing of everything planned.

But instead of taking the time to do my hair, I spent far too much time scouring the house, looking for her bonnet.

I had brought in the diaper bag last weekend and washed all the clothes that were in it or had ended up in the car. (spare clothes in case of emergencies) But no bonnet in the baskets. Or Jasmine's toy baskets. Or in the diaper bag.

I gave up. We headed out with barely enough time. I was buckling Jasmine into her carseat, and saw their bag of toys, and thought, "hmm. I should check there, too, just in case." Guess what was in there???

We got to the end of our street and realized that we hadn't brought water for Jasmine. So we turned around and grabbed that.

We arrived at church 2 minutes before the service started. *phew*

I pulled the camera out of the diaper bag and hoped someone could take pictures for us. When we were up front I saw it in Phillip's hands, so I didn't think about it again.

Until I sat back down and he informed me it was "full." HUH??

Oh. The memory card was sitting in the computer from the last time we loaded pictures. Rats.

Tim (my brother-in-law) got a few pictures on his cell phone, but they were small and not terribly clear. But at least we had something!

Amy took pictures at the party afterwards, and sent them to us as soon as we left. So all the pictures in the layout at the bottom of this post were from the two of them.

I had a strange realization. I stood up on the platform next to my husband, each of us holding one of our daughters. And I realized: this is my family! Yes, my parents and siblings will always be family too, but first and foremost, Josh, Jasmine and Rebekah are my family.


Anyways, it was a fun time with family, a neat time to dedicate Rebekah to the Lord, and a nice day overall.

For anyone who hasn't already heard me tell the story: she wore the same dress Jasmine wore for her dedication, and that Vivian wore at hers. So, not only is it beautiful, it's a special family tradition now!

Okay, here's the page I made of the day.

(click on it to see it in the gallery with the credits)