Pennies for thought

How many of you have tons of pennies without anything to do with them? Well, I have a whole jar full. If I added them all up I am sure I would only have about $5.00, but I have discovered a great new use for pennies rather than cashing them in. I have found that they work great as payment or bribery for kids. For example, Brielle has two jobs in the morning: 1. Get dressed 2. Make her bed. Well everyday I find myself constantly telling her to do these things and it is a battle. So, I decided to use my pennies. She gets paid one penny for each chore, but if she doesn't complete both, she doesn't get anything. So far it is working better than I could have imagined. She gets so excited to put two pennies in her bank everyday, and personally I feel she is doing me a favor by taking the pennies. This might not work so well if she actually new how much a penny is worth, but as for now she thinks she is rich. I hope one day she will find the intrinsic value of getting chores done, but for a three year old, pennies seem to do the trick!

Doug's new do

After you get past the tears from laughter, I have to explain this picture. I was getting ready for the day and Doug came into the bathroom to give me a big hug. As he was hugging me my hair fell over his head and we decided it was a picture we couldn't miss. He quickly grabbed the camera and we posed in the mirror. So if any of you were wondering what my sexy bald husband would look like with a full head of dark hair, here it is! This is one for the generations.

Here Comes #3

We just wanted to share our exciting news that we are expecting a baby!!! I am about 4 months along and due on Doug's birthday, May 4th! We are thrilled. It is a little sooner than we had anticipated, but we can't wait. My belly is getting more round by the day and I think that my body just gave out this third time around because it knew just what to do. We get to find out what we are having in about 4 more weeks so we will let everyone know via this blog site! Brielle is so excited to be a big sister again, and she is convinced that we are having a girl. Benson has no clue and I think it will be quite the shocker for this mama's boy! We are so happy to continue our little Rose family and we will keep the updates coming.

Our Community Helpers Preschool

We had preschool at our house this week and our topic was community helpers. I chose to focus on Firefighters and what they do for our community. We did our regular preschool routine where we talk about the letter and number of the day and then we moved on to talking about firefighters. The kids were so excited. I made fire engine cookies out of graham crackers, frosting, oreos, twix bars and raisins and let the kids eat them while I read them a few stories about firefighters. I had also taken each of their pictures dressed up in a firefighter costume and we made a special thank you poster for the fire station in our area. After they finished their snack, we loaded up in the van and went on a field trip to the fire station. The firefighters took us on a tour of the station, and then showed us all the parts of the fire truck. I had never been to the fire station before and thought it was fascinating. The kids even got to sit inside the fire truck. I forgot my camera of course, and it probably wouldn't have worked anyway, but the kids had a blast. I have decided that it really doesn't take a lot for three and four year old kids to have fun, you just have to make the time.

Super Why

Last weekend Brielle was invited to her friend Draven's costume birthday party. I couldn't think of anything for her to dress up as and was planning on borrowing something from a friend, but the morning of the party she informed me that she wanted to be a cartoon character named "Super Why". Now if any of you have ever watched PBS you will know just who I am talking about. She loves this cartoon. I like it too. It is educational and entertaining. Anyway, she is always pretending that she is Super Why and even wants us to call her that instead of Brielle. So Saturday morning I spent the time before the party putting this costume together. It is not exactly what Super Why looks like, but it was close enough, and she loved it! She was even more excited when she went to the party, and some of the people there knew who she was.

Happy Halloween

Our Halloween this year was great. Brielle absolutely loved dressing up as a princess. I am not really sure why she was so excited, because she dresses up in that costume everyday, but nonetheless she was thrilled. Benson on the other hand was not too excited to be dressed up as her ferocious dragon. As you can see from the picture, he was a over Halloween before it began. That night we went over to our friends the Smartts house for a little dinner and some good old trick or treating fun. The guys took the kids out trick or treating while my friend Laura and I stayed behind to pass out candy. The kids loved being out getting all the candy they could imagine. Benson stayed in the stroller the whole time and was perfectly content to watch the kids race door to door. Brielle was so sweet about it too, she took Benson's bag for him and asked each person if she could get some candy for her brother. She was really funny. Doug told me that every door they went to Brielle would have to stop and chat with whomever came to the door. The two little boys, Liam and Tipton were getting a little frustrated with her because they wanted to hit as many houses as possible, but Brielle just wanted to talk about the people's houses or Halloween decorations! She is such a social butterfly. We had a fun night and I am still enjoying all the candy the kids conveniently forget about.

Happy Birthday to Benson!

I know it has been forever since I have blogged, but sometimes life is life right? Things have been pretty busy around our house and now I am just going to update the fun stuff. On October 19th we found out that Doug passed the Tennessee Bar Exam!! Yeah! It was a great relief. Now the key is to find the right job for the future. We also celebrated Bensons ONE YEAR birthday on October 20th! I can't belive that my baby is one year old. He is the cutest thing ever. He walks everywhere and is into everything. He has had four bloody lips in the past three weeks, and is such a boy. We love him! These pictures were taken at the little birthday party we had. My mother in-law Lyda and my sister in-law Kim were out visiting just in time to celebrate with us. It was so fun. I only made a little cake this year for Benson to dig into, and I chose Thomas because all boys should love trains right? I know it is not professional, but it is the best this ex-cookie decorator could do. He had a great time getting really messy and I think Brielle loved it just as much as he did.