lady bug {emma}

look how cute this little lady bug is...i had so much fun doing her pictures.  her blue eyes just melt me!

pumpkin patch

we went to the best pumpkin patch last weekend with our friends kenny (kookoo as macie calls him...she can say kenny but he's just kookoo to her!), sara, and avery.  we had fun riding the carousel, doing a maze, jumping on an in-ground air bounce, feeding and petting the animals, playing carnival games, roping "cattle", playing on the playground, riding the train, and going on a hayride to the pumpkin field.  i think we will have to go back to this pumpkin patch every year!

labor day

these are the sweet cousins playing together over labor day weekend.  i am so glad that it is finally fall!  i love fall and, as always, am so giddy for the cooler temps, football, and halloween decor!

sweet {luke}

we are so excited that our good friends josh and lisa had their sweet little boy.  he is the most precious little thing.  he was such a trooper and let us pose him all afternoon for pictures.  macie already loves him and is always talking about baby "uke."  we can't wait to watch him grow!

boomer sooner

so happy that it is football season.  yesterday we grilled out at my parent's house and made peach ice cream for dessert.  i also just caved and created a pinterest account.  have you heard of pinterest?  i've tried to have some self control because i knew that if a joined i would waste way too much time...and i was right.  i have already spent multiple hours scrolling through inspiring pictures and pinning them to my boards.  below is a preview of one of the boards i made yesterday.  to see the whole board and others you can follow me at http://pinterest.com/amoodymama/

all better

yes, i have been missing in action for the past month.  it has been a whirlwind of a time!  i don't know what i expected this school year, but like always it has sucked all of my time and energy.  i feel like i am finally getting my head above water again, thank goodness.  to top it all off, the first week of school (aka the busiest work week of the year) our sweet mae mae got strep throat and hand, foot, mouth virus!  how does that happen?!?  luckily cherith was able to stay at our house all week and help us take care of macie.  if you have never known anyone with hand, foot, mouth it is horrible!  her poor little mouth and throat were covered in sores.  she wouldn't eat or hardly drink and ran a fever for a whole week.  we couldn't even get her to take her antibiotics for the strep (it sounds ridiculous that 2 adults couldn't get a toddler to take her meds...but she is quite the fighter).  so, yes, if you look closely at the picture you will see that we had to resort to suppositories to help with the fever and we had to take her back to the doctor to get a shot for the strep.  the malox and glyoxide were supposed to ease the pain of the sores in her mouth, but she wouldn't let us anywhere near her mouth with them.  did i mention that this was the craziest week at work and that macie was up about every 45 minutes every night all that week?  i'm just trying to get a little sympathy :-).  she has gradually recovered so now we can kind of laugh about that week...but it is for sure something that i would never wish upon anyone!

summer

well, our summer is over...despite the scorching heat!  i go back to work tomorrow and macie goes back to daycare.  i haven't done a post in a few weeks because we have had a crazy busy month.  blake started his new job as a superintendent on july 1 and i have been moving out of my classroom and preparing a new office for my new position as a high school counselor.  i am also looking forward to teaching an evening course at snu this fall for math education majors.  one of the highlights of our summer was a little trip to branson back in june.  macie had so much fun!  from having her own little bed in the hotel room to riding roller coasters and eating taffy, she absolutely had a blast.  she also got to visit a butterfly garden and go back that evening for glow in the dark face painting and butterflies at night.  one evening we took her to see the show noah (who she calls 'nonah')... all of the animals were amazing and she is still talking about it.  we also did some shopping while we were there and got daddy to ride a little train with us...twice!  i can't wait to take her on more trips...she was the best little vacationer.