Meme Monday

So I'm barely getting this in on Monday this week, but it counts, right? (I'm at the beach. Be glad I made it at all.) Tee-hee

This week, let's play it traditional and do thankfuls. Give me a list of 5 things for which you are thankful. :)

1.) My beautiful, healthy, hysterical baby girl

2.) My intelligent, good-hearted husband

3.) The rest of my amazing family (parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws, and MUNNER) - They are all so supportive, loving, and fun.

4.) That I was born into a family that taught me about God from day one, rather than having to struggle with his existence later in life. Even when I have struggles in my faith, they are never questioning God's existence. That is an ever-fixed fact in my soul.

5.) That even though I don't love my job (or even like it an inkling some days), I do HAVE a job that doesn't include anything disgusting and still pays the bills.

Happy Thanksgiving, all!

L&S,

Leslie

At some point in the not so distant past, Munner gave me these two singing bears. They are pretty stinking adorable, but not NEARLY as adorable as Tucker playing with them. When she first discovered them, she watched them hypnotically like 6 times in a row - just wide-mouthed staring, trying to figure them out. Then suddenly, she broke out some new dance moves. The hip movement rivals one of those hula girls you can suction on your dashboard, and I have no idea where (or why) she learned the one hand up thing, but that's persisting in dancing these days. Now the bears are the first thing we find when we come into the living room (after breakfast or after daycare).

She has, of course, finally figured out how to turn these kinds of toys on by herself. (She hadn't quite gotten it with the ghost over Halloween, but she's got it down pat now.) I told Drew we're going to be SO SICK of "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" before Christmas is over ('cause she'll play that sucker 20 times in a row without batting an eye), but we both decided that if this kind of dancing keeps up, it will be well worth it. :)

L&S,

Leslie

Autumn Beauty

This week's I Heart Faces theme is "Autumn Beauty". I read the theme a few weeks ago (looking ahead like the cheater I am - ha!) and knew INSTANTLY which picture I would use. When we went to the pumpkin patch, the minute I saw this picture on my camera, I knew it was a winner. The most amazing part is the coloring - I didn't do a single touch-up to the vivid colors. Tucker had so much fun analyzing all of the pumpkins, but she became so content when we sat her on one. She just sat there looking around, taking it all in. So sweet - such wonderful memories!

For more Autumn amazingness, go to and have a looksie.

L&S,

Leslie

Meme Monday

Five Questions

Today it's some get to know you questions - nothing so personal you don't want to put it out in cyberspace, I promise. :) Answer the questions in my comments, and then post the questions on your own blog to learn more about your blog readers. :) Just number your answers to coincide with the question's number. :)

Let's talk dreams:

1.) What's your DREAM day (the activities, not the date)?

2.) What's your DREAM way to make a living (doesn't have to be a REAL job - just if you could make a living doing anything at all, what would that be)?

3.) Do you remember your DREAMS? If so, are they normal or crazy?

4.) Tell me a DREAM you remember.

5.) What's the DREAM item on your Christmas list this year (the thing you REALLY want, not necessarily the thing within anyone's budget)?

Have fun!!!

L&S,

Leslie

Tell Me Something Good....

Alright, blogworld. It's confession time. I am going to share with you one of my deepest, darkest, best-hidden secrets.

I.

Love.

Christmas.

Now, this may not seem to be that big of a confession. In fact, most of you have probably seen me during the holidays and realized that I'm a fan. But I don't just love Christmas like the normal Joe Schmo on the street loves Christmas. Heck, I don't even love Christmas like your basic Christmas-enthusiast. I'm a FREAK when it comes to Christmas.

I can not get enough Christmas. If I could buy a new Christmas decoration every single day from the time they put them out in the stores (this year it was in late July that I first saw them) until the after-Christmas sales were done, I would STILL not have all the lovely things that I want to decorate my home (and the homes of others if I ran out of room).

And don't even get me STARTED on gift-buying. I LOVE finding the perfect gift (or 10 of them) for each person on my list. My budget is the only thing limiting my gift-buying excitement.

Then comes the wrapping. For those of you who don't know, I even create a theme for my wrapping each year. All of my presents coordinate in very specific ways and are wrapped painstakingly while I watch all my favorite Christmas shows (which I own on DVD, thank you very much). I'm even thinking of taking my wrapping-coordination one step further this year and making each of my "variations" within my theme represent a specific house to which that present will go - to make the in-car sorting easier as we visit all 10,000 houses in our big Christmas circle. Paper A - Munner's, Paper B - Mama's, Paper C - Cindy and Rick's, Paper D - Ricky and Pam's, etc. Are you jealous of my insanity yet?

Of course, then you must take into account my craftiness that's a little over the top on the average Tuesday. It gets a bit out of control around Christmas. I love to "fake knit" (this is what I call my Knifty Knitter) things for people, scrapbook things for people, and make EVEN MORE decorations for my house. I even hand-make Christmas cards for more than 100 people each year. Poor Drew puts up with all of my crafting as long as I follow the "no glitter" rule and lets himself believe me when I say this is a way of saving money on decorations and presents ~ when we both know the REAL reason I do this is because I LOVE IT. :)

And Christmas music... there are NO WORDS to describe my love of all things in the Christmas music category. And my dear husband actually joins me in this obsession. Our Christmas cd collection is almost as big as the entire rest of our cd collection. We own all the compilations - old standards like Nat, every cd Bath and Body ever put out, basic Carols, wonderful choirs, instrumental, King Singers (listening to that one as I type this for you)... the list goes on and on. I will admit that some of my Christmas music love is the love of mocking the HORRID remakes of Christmas standards. NEWSFLASH: Not every single song needs to be popped-up or Mariah-Carreyed. This is a FACT, not my opinion!!!

And the worst part of my sickness? Even though you'll hear me mock the fact that stores are now putting Christmas stuff out in late July (I swear there was an entire quarter of Hobby Lobby dedicated to Christmas before they even put out the Fall decor), because I DO understand that most people don't share my obsession for this holiday in quite the same way, in reality, it's the first week of November and it is KILLING ME refraining from going into the garage and bringing in the Christmas decoration boxes. I'm already sneaking in Christmas music when no one is around to witness it, making out my present lists for everyone, planning my wrapping theme, and taking stock of the house and where my favorite decorations will go.

Afterall, how can you possibly think that twenty-five days is EVEN CLOSE to enough days to enjoy all my favorite things on Earth? Each one of my decorations has a memory attached that makes me feel like I'm a kid again getting wrapped up in the excitement. Every song makes me think of Christmas Eve in candlelight service and then driving to Munner's to yack it up and have fun with the whole family. All the Christmas smells take me back to waking up at dawn on Christmas morning and "sneaking" into the living room to see what arrived while I slept. The twinkle of every light reminds me of lying on the living room floor with Mama - all the lights out but the tree, looking at the reflection of the tiny lights multiplied ten-fold in her beveled, layered mirror. Christmas is home, love, warmth, joy, family, memories, and best of all, the most blessed birth of a baby that ever happened (and YES, I mean even more amazing than Tucker's - who knew).

So if you come to see me after Halloween, don't be surprised if it takes me a minute to answer the door. I'm just hiding my decorations and muting the Christmas Carols to continue hiding my secret from you.

L&S,

Leslie

Prayer Requests

While I'm on the blog posting Meme Monday (read the blog below this one), I thought I'd use this venue to get some prayer chains going.

Request #1: Tucker is having tubes put in (AGAIN) tomorrow. It's a "minor surgery" but it does invovle general anesthesia, so it's still scary for Mommy. :)

Request #2: For those of you that don't yet know, some dear friends of ours, Scott and Laura Martin, had their twin boys, Joseph and Campbell, last Saturday. They were due Mid February, so they were only 24 weeks (though the dr. said size-wise they were closer to 26 weeks, so that was good). They are both still fighting through and for this we are grateful. Campbell has had 2 surgeries, so please pray for his recovery, healing, and continued development. Joseph has an infection that they think is increasing his heart rate and his bili levels (jaundice). Please pray that the antibiotics heal his infection and for his continued development as well.

The boys are currently at different hospitals (making a hard situation even harder for Mom and Dad) and Mom and Dad are trying to get back to work so they can use their maternity/paternity leave in January when the boys are hopefully able to come home from the hospital. This family could use your CONTINUEd prayer. They have MONTHS of difficult times ahead, so if you could add them to your church's long-term prayer lists and to your OWN PERSONAL long-term prayer list, it will be prayer-time well-spent. :)

L&S,

Leslie

**Don't forget to participate in Meme Mondays below!**

Meme Monday

Ok, blogiverse, here we go! Are you ready to join in? I hope you're as excited as I am. This first one should be easy AND fun! :)

Today will be (surprise, surprise) about MUSIC!!! Here's the game:

1.) Lucy in the sky with diamonds....

2.) DIAMONDS are a girl's best friend...

3.) GIRLS just wanna have fun...

Do you see the game yet? I've posted three lines from songs. Number 2 has a word from number 1. Number 3 has a word from number 2. For your post, you should use a word from the song line (doesn't have to be a title, but should be a recognizable line) in the post above yours. So the first poster will use a word from MY #3, and the next person will use a line from the first poster's song and on and on. Get it? (You just have to do ONE song. I did three just to get the ball rolling.) Feel free to post more than once, be creative, and HAVE FUN!!!

L&S,

Leslie

Fair Warning

Hello my faithful blog readers (aka - my family and a random friend here and there)!!!

First of all, I am saddened by the fact that most of my blog friends have COMPLETELY STOPPED blogging. I check with hope everyday, and am very rarely thrown a bone. :( I tried encouraging some blog-activity by challenging some of you to a color tag and not a single one of you did it. :( (One said she would do soon and had a good reason, another at least told me it wasn't his thing, but the rest of you just ignored my fun. ) So sad. :(

Because of this, I have decided to step-up my blogging efforts! I am challenging myself to do more WRITING (along with my pics and vids), but I am also challenging myself to try and get the conversation going again, but getting you guys involved!!! This means that at least once a week, I will WRITE SOMETHING (who knows what) and I am implementing "Meme Mondays".

Now the actual definition of "meme" is long and scientific, but on the internet, it basically means "viral" or "immitated". It's something that SPREADS. Sometimes it refers to articles or videos that are spread rapidly, but in my case, it will be ACTIVITIES that will spread amongst us (and maybe beyond us). It might be a question (or series of questions), a game, or something else kookie and fun that I find. You can participate in the Meme in my comments section OR you can participate by doing your part of the Meme on your own blog if you have one. For those of you grandparents who are basically "blog stalkers" (reading but not writing), YOU, TOO, can participate. You can create your own account on blogger WITHOUT creating a blog - so you can sign in weekly and participate, or you can even participate in the comments without an account by clicking "anonymous" - and just signing your name at the bottom of your comment. The most important thing is THAT you participate, not HOW you participate!

I wanted to give you all FAIR WARNING. I expect you to come find me on Monday and I expect your full participation - ALL OF YOU! :)

L&S,

Leslie

"The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers...."

Tucker spontaneously decided to bounce along with her Tigger doll tonight! SOOOOO FUNNY!!!!!

In this one, about halfway through, she realizes she can't possibly keep up with Tigger, so she decides to use her hands. EVEN FUNNIER!!!!

*We were doing bedtime, so the only camera I had with me was my cell phone, hence the sketchy quality. Ah well!*

L&S,

Leslie

I Heart Faces - Balloons!

It is, once again, time for I Heart Faces. This week's theme is "Balloons". I instantly thought of this day at Munner's 80th birthday party. Nan tied balloons to Tucker's ankles (is anyone who knows Nan really surprised by this?!?) and Tucker was, surprisingly amused, not tortured. ha! There was a great shot of Tucker's face, but you couldn't really see much of the balloons. I decided on this one because I love how you can see her reflection in the balloons. :)

L&S,

Leslie