Our Persisting Memories

Sophia is looking at her Daddy's leg and says "Oh no, daddy has owies, what happened daddy, what happened?" I go over to his leg to see what she is talking about and realize it is freckles she is looking at. She tells me "Look, owies. Daddy has owies." So when I am done LMAO I explain to her that they are "freckles." Here is the problem with that though. She has a beanie baby leopard named "Freckles." So when I tell her they are freckles she exclaims "Oh! Daddy is a tiger!" Gotta love the logic! :)

Sophia has diarrhea. She made a peculiar noise... that did not come from her mouth. She then exclaimed, "I have Bubble Toots!!"

Popi (as my children refer to my father) has always had a way with gift giving during Christmas time. In years past, while still living in the Atchley home, he would concoct and carry out elaborate scavenger hunts, puzzles, and tricks while presenting his children with gifts. These puzzles ranged from the esoteric clue that led to an obscure passage in a familiar book, to literally hacking into his lightly secured linux server in order to retrieve a command list and open a file containing another clue. Every Christmas you would find Dad scheming, plotting, writing, and setting up these elaborate hunts. This year he couldn't control the venue, and at 29 years old my preferences for gifts are either too expensive, or so specific as to be almost impossible to locate without 2 overseas contacts and a divining rod ("Yes, I would like you to get me the German HDMI stripper sold through a grey market front on ebay." "I've always wanted magnetic throwing stars ....

With the new year on the way, I've decided to take my contributions to our family blog in a different direction. For one, you're likely to find far fewer political posts. I've pounded out and refined my political stance enough that it seems silly to continue to say the same things over and over.

55711|400 Grandma Atchley got Sophia a fairy outfit for Christmas. As soon as she opened it she HAD to put it on. Just this last month she discovered the Tinkerbell movie, and also really loves it and is attached to it and all things Tinkerbell now. So the fairy costume was a perfect fit for the phase she is in right now. The only time she hasn't worn the dress is to bed or when we go out somewhere. Otherwise, that dress is on her--period!! The first night of having it I convinced her to not sleep with the wings because she would bend them, a reasonable argument she agreed with. So she slept with just the dress over her PJ's. By the time the second night came around she had ripped the dress in 2 places and now our parental argument was that she could not sleep with the dress because we didn't want it to rip more. She was still fussing and whining a bit over that, and so BJ in a firm, but gentle voice tells her she cannot sleep with the dress or the wings due to the...

I truly do love the girls' room. It has so many colors, and fun, bright colors too. I have worked very hard on it, since I was pregnant with Sophia, to make it the room it is today. Here are the pics. of her new bunk bed with new polka dot sheets, and Phoebe's name board that I finally finished. I also made Sophia's, but hers has painted on dots whereas Phoebe's has buttons. 55536|380 55542|380 55512|380 55518|380 55524|380 55530|380

55458 As I have mentioned in previous posts, Sophia gets super attached to things. One week it is a beany baby, the next her Lightning McQueen stuffed car, and so on. Ever since visiting her Nana earlier this week it has been "bug". All it is is a black head band with black and orange pipe cleaners twirled together with black fuzzballs on the end, but she LOVES it. She wears it all day and they have been to the grocery store, Granny's house for work, and to bed. She sleeps with it on her head and I have peeked in on her sometimes to find it across her face while she is sound asleep. Luckily, I convinced her to leave it home today so we could go to church "bug" free. So far since being home from church she hasn't asked for it, but I have a feeling "BUG!" will return!

Friday morning on my way to work I had to go a different way because I had an errand to run before driving to Carrollton. **I must make this statement before going any further with my story: I am not a dog person. I was raised with cats and prefer them, but dogs are animals too and overall, I care for animals. I have noticed over this past year so many dogs wandering our neighborhood. Some with collars, some without, but either way it has irritated me to no end seeing all these dogs roaming the streets! They could end up being a danger to our community with so many kids running around and all the cars too. I have tried to help before by calling the dogs over to me (the smaller and more friendly looking ones) while in my driveway or at the park. None have ever come to me so I have never ultimately been able to help even one of these dogs. I figure the shelter is better than the streets, right?! So I am sometimes left with wonder at what happens to these dogs----did they ever ge...

The update has been completed. Wordpress 2.7 seems to be working nicely.

The site will be a little wishy washy for the next hour or so while I'm pushing through some updates.

24864|360 Phoebe has a bad habit of taking her delicate, sweet hands and doing horrible damage. She will grab at your face or neck, but mostly the neck, and squeeze, twist, or pull at your skin. For anyone who this has happened to (mostly me) then you would know it hurts--really, really bad. Typically she will grab my neck and of course my immediate response, and pretty much only response is, "Ow!" and then repeated multiple times until I can unhinge her hands from my poor skin. I am also in the process of teaching Phoebe various body parts, like mouth, nose, hands, feet, etc. However, without any prompting from me she grabs her neck and says "ow." I have told her 'neck' many times, but for now it is still "ow." For the sake of my neck I hope not.....

BJ tells me when he gets in the car today after church that when he went to go pick Sophia up from nursery that she was standing in the corner. He said she was PUT in the corner for "putting another child in a choke hold, taking toys multiple times from multiple kids, and hit a child." My first reaction was shock and disappointment with her, but then it turned into an attitude of not being so surprised when I think about what we have been going through at home...... --she sasses back at me now --she tries to hit at me randomly, and even kick at me too --every day she finds a way to kick, push, body bump, or hit Phoebe and the punishments for those actions don't seem to matter anymore --she doesn't LISTEN even though I know she HEARS us and we have to ask several times for her to do, or not do something --she has been throwing toys too, sometimes out of anger and sometimes just because I am exhausted with her and don't know what to do and hope this will pass soon...

54582 We had a lovely Thanksgiving day aside from all the sickness. I was able to see cousins I have not seen in many, many years. While our feast was being prepared most of us took a break outside to try and fish in my Aunt's pond. She has quite a bit of property with her home that includes the pond, an old barn, and old chicken coop. It was fun exploring the barn with the kids. We didn't have any luck catching fish but it was nice sitting around the water visiting with family. We also too various family photos and attempted one big family shot.....all I can say is at least we got everyone together. Friday was a very long and busy day. My cousin, Michael, arranged a private tour for our family at the New Orleans WWII Museum. They had so many neat things there and I really liked the set up of the museum. The kids struggled since there was not much for them to see or do, but they survived well enough. I left with a 'map bag' as a souvenir, but I mostly wanted i...

Heather is working on a longer post about the various activities and fun things we did over our Thanksgiving vacation. We have plenty of pictures of all the fun moments we had. After reading some of her draft, I realize that we have pictures to illustrate pretty much every fun moment we spent with family. There won't be enough room in her post to show all of these pictures so I'll try and share some highlights. 54984|640 55117|640 55369|640

We got together as a family and were able to get some outdoor portraits done. I brought my camera, lights, tripod, etc etc and got a few good shots of the family there. 54768|640 54762|640 54702|640 54774|640 Just fyi, I wasn't the primary picture taker. Unknown to me There were at least 4 Nikon DSLRs there. These were all informal and taken quickly. Setup was two sb-28s on radio triggers bounced in to umbrellas to camera left