Through the Looking Glass: Life in the Rufty Lane

Cora-Bleu loves the Christmas tree

I love the ruffle tree skirt that I finally made. I have wanted one for probably 5 years.

Aubree doing pushups

She wanted a picture so she could show Daddy.
This picture also shows our stockings that I finally made and the pallet wood tree I made to hang our 25 Days of Christ ornaments on. We never made it through all 25 days. Next year we will do better.

Brigham: "I drew this because of you. You make me sad"

Me: "Well you make me sad when you don't listen to me"

Brigham: "If you didn't make me do chores then we would both be happy"

The night Cora discovered the Christmas tree. This was the fastest I have ever seen her crawl. I am glad I had my phone close by to catch this moment. That almost never happens. Ha ha

The Sunday after Thanksgiving we drove to Disney World. We took Ally with us and it was so fun! Our first stop was to drop off Cora with Auntie Becky and Uncle Paul at their hotel. They were driving back to Chattanooga that morning and offered to drop her off with Nate and Scarlett since it was on their way. Handing her over to them brought on the tears for me. I felt bad for ditching her so we could go to Disney but I knew she would be so much happier there than riding in a stroller 12+ hours a day.

This is Brigham's car he designed at the test track at Epcot.

Here he is sitting in a Camaro

This is in Morocco at Epcot. This in the only country that we felt like we were actually in another country. It was amazing. The food smelled great too but we didn't try any. We were full from our sandwiches in Norway.

Here is Aubree on one of her favorite rides, The People Mover

This is one of Brigham's favorite things from the trip.

The hour wait was totally worth it.

This is at T-Rex in Downtown Disney. The food is great and the décor is even better. There are animatronic dinosaurs and a wooly mammoth all over the restaurant. They have a meteor shower every 20 minutes. It was so much fun! Aubree was scared to death of the animals.

Brigham and Aubree made thankful turkeys. I love both of them.

Thanksgiving week was Cora's first time sitting in her high chair and also her first time eating meals instead of just drinking bottles.

This is from November 19th. It was about 40 degrees. Brigham said "If I wear pants then no one will see my cowboy boots." I let the kids wear whatever they want after telling them they may be really cold/hot/uncomfortable/etc.

7 Months!

First Krispy Kreme November 8th

Brigham took karate for 4 months. He hated going but always enjoyed it while he was there. I hated bringing him because it was twice a week at 4 which was right in the middle of Cora-Bleu's nap time. He wants to try baseball next. This is one of the many pictures Aubree wanted taken while we waited for karate to finish.

MOvember

Waiting inside the library while Mark waited outside in the cold and rain for 3 hours to vote. Brigham put on a puppet show about why 2 boys can't get married. I laughed during the very short show.

Halloween

Brigham was a spider but changed his mind and wanted to be Batman again. Aubree was a butterfly and wanted daddy to be a big pink flower. Cora was a bumble bee. I pulled her costume out of the attic a few minutes before we left. The bumble bee part seemed surprisingly more snug than when Aubree wore it 2 years before. I figured I remembered wrong and out the door we went. Down the road Mark said "isn't that Reagan's?" I snapped back "no, it is a person costume." Right as I said it, it all made sense. It WAS Reagan's costume! I forgot that we had a costume for her from 5-6 years before. No wonder this thing was tight, the hood had 2 holes (for the ears, duh!), and the hood also just didn't fit quite right. I was disappointed she was stuck wearing an uncomfortable dog costume the rest of the night when we had a warm, cozy, comfortable costume at home.

Play group at Hodges Farm

Apple picking in October. Krystin was determined to get some pink lady apples. Ha

This was one Friday night eating outside at Hwy 55. We eat there most Friday nights which is great!

At the end of September we met up in Gatlinburg with Auntie Becky and Uncle Paul. These are pictures from our hike to waterfall that we stopped to do on our way home. It was a 5 mile round trip hike. Aubree fell asleep on the way back to the van.

This is after she woke up. She has no pants because when she was peeing up at the waterfall, the pee got on her pants.

One more sleeping picture

We waited for the others to hike up to the waterfall and back down. It was too treacherous to carry a baby up to.

After the hike we stopped in Cosby at a restaurant that was at an apple orchard. The food was great. We came out to the van to a flat tire. Awesome. We ended up taking everything out of the van to get the spare tire. A few people stopped to help us in the parking lot and a guy working at the candy shop gave us information about a Walmart close by to get our tire fixed at. We made it to Walmart 15 minutes before they closed and got the tire plugged. We were so grateful for all the help we received which made it possible for us to get there in time.

These guys are watching the tire be repaired.