It was Inevitable

This post is a while in coming. Lily now wants to be fully involved with her spoon feeding. Oh yea. Doesn't she look pleased with herself?
Check out the mess highlighted below. Notice the hair, the freshly cleaned high chair and that tray. Our general routine at this point is to start with two spoons. I get food on one and head toward her mouth she grabs on as soon as the spoon is within range and I help her guide it into her mouth. She will hold that spoon for dear life until I load and position the next one. At that point she drops the first one or she is distracted enough by the new spoon full of yumminess that I am able to coax it out of her kung foo grip. This is then repeated until all the food is gone. In order to get the spoon from the last bite I call in reinforcement finger foods. I strategically drop cheerios or puffs in the least messy place while I wipe her face hands and tray. She gets annoyed, but is then distracted by the second barrage of cheerios/puffs. I still usually end up with a shirt that should be changed(if I'm not going somewhere I usually just wear the food all day-sad, I know). After all that I try to eat some of my own food. Maybe I should come up with a better system.

Pretty Cool

Bet you didn't see this when you were trick or treating last night!

We went to our church's "Trunk or Treat" event last night. It was well done as usual. There were some really good trunks. One was all decked out like a 70s prom, there was a very well done Wizard of Oz trunk, the barn one, an elaborate Cinderella's Castle complete with Cinderella and Prince Charming and those a just a few of the great ones. Jay's favorite was a lifted truck with HUGE wheels where the people sat in the bed and sent the candy down through PVC tubes. We didn't even get to all the trunks, but the kids did get a turn in the moon bounce. TJ even came up to trunk or treat with us. That was special. The kids were excited to have him with us. I feel a little bad for him though because he mostly just totted Ryan's tools around. We were so glad to see him though:-)

Zach's costume was a BIG hit. It seemed like every person we passed said, "Look! It's Sponge Bob." One woman giving out candy even asked who his mom was then told me his costume was very clever. There was an older kid who was like, "Sponge Bob! Cool! I wish I could be Sponge Bob." There were some Green Bay fans who called him a cheese head, but that is a complement in their language. Ryan got recognized by all the kids his age and their moms. One of the kids thought his tools were great and spent several minutes going through them asking their names.

Happy Halloween from the Periwinkle Family

I put the kids in their costumes this morning for a test run to see if I needed to make any last minute changes. They were so cute I couldn't resist taking a few pictures and sharing. So, without further ado...I give you Sweet Pea and Handy Manny.

She will be wearing green "Sleep Pea" jammies underneath.

Thanks to Grandpa and grandma for making the tools!

I'll post a picture of Zach when he tries on his costume for the final fitting. He is at school now.

Zach wasn't still long enough for me to get a picture of him alone. As soon as I was done the ones with Ryan he had his costume off and he was organizing his loot.

Yep, He's Three

This is how Ryan dressed himself to go out yesterday. Granted we were going to a costume party at gymnastics, but the boots, the backpack, my hat and the flashlight might have been a bit of overkill. We got a couple giggles at Michaels and Target where we went before gymnastics. Eh, why not. He had fun:-)

Beautiful

Recently I've been doing some thinking about make-up. This is something I contemplate every now and then. In high school I wore make-up every day and curled my hair. In college I decided that people should like me for who I really am and decided that make-up was a mask to hid behind(plus I like to just roll out of bed and head to class). Then I was in Erin's wedding and she found this great make up person that made me realize that make-up can be used to just enhance your 'natural beauty'. I also found that buying better make-up made for a better look. So I bought some good make-up and started wearing it. Then I got married and had kids. This leaves little time for make-up and I only wear make-up when I have extra time(ha!) or when I get dressed up. Every now and then something will make me realize that I look better with make-up and I decide that I should wear it more. This time my thoughts were sparked by a couple things. I was putting together a portrait collage and I thought about the pictures I was picking of me were all ones where I had make-up on. Now I don't wear any form of make-up at least 99% of the time. I don't like to have my picture taken when I don't have make-up on, so there are not that many of me in my normal state of being. So I started thinking about how I should wear make-up more. The next day I read this post and I thought 'Well, Erin looks fine without makeup.' Then I think of the pictures of me with make up and looking in the mirror every day and again make-up seems like a good idea. After all I do want to be attractive to my husband and look like I have it a little bit together to the rest of the world. Then today I saw one of these videos posted in Jackaroo World. This prompted me to look on YouTube for myself. I found some more videos that made me realize there is a way bigger picture. They made me think of Lily and how she will think of herself when she grows up. Then they made me think of Ryan and what he will think of himself and how he will look at girls. They made me realize I need to be making sure every day that my kids know they are beautiful and wonderful and to learn to embrace things that make other people different than them. This message from Dove hits me so hard that I joined YouTube just so I could post these videos in hopes that more people will post them and more people will see them and they might make more kids out there(and grown ups too) realize that they are beautiful. Thanks to Dove for their Campaign for Real Beauty. So for me, maybe I will wear make-up more often because I feel prettier with it on, but I will also know that my husband loves me for way more than how I look with make-up on.

dove 'little girls'

This is an important message. Kudos to Dove for starting the campaign for real beauty!

dove film

These girls make me sad. Unfortunately I think they are not in the minority.

dove evolution

This is incredible.