Pumpkin Guts

"I'm not sure about this mom, but whatever you say...."

Her body language above says it all when I showed her the inside of our pumpkin. Despite her confusion and unfamiliarity with pumpkin innards, she blindly dug right in....

"This is so wrong..."

Bring on the magic green scoopers!!! These handy dandy tools turned her from hesitant to large and in charge....

"Ok, I'm going in!"

"It appears that we have some gooey substance right here"

While she was busy poking at the stringy stuff, I was picking out the seeds. Now those seemed to interest her quite a bit....

"Hey, where did those come from?"

Not so sure about these seeds thingys.....

But it didn't take long until she was diving in for her own seeds....

"So slimy!"

I forgot to mention that they don't taste good straight out of a gooey pumpkin....

After her taste test she peaced out on the pumpkin cleaning business and chased dogs while I finished the job....

Thanks to my willing and adventurous partner, we popped dinner in the oven thirty minutes later. What would I do without my little pumpkin??

Hallie's Funny Farm

This probably seems like a silly thing to write about but it gives me a nice chuckle everytime I see her pull her farm animals out of the barn. This is just one of the random funny things that I want to remember.....

Hallie has a farm. She loves to play with it (and so does Emmi). Well, that was until the farming accident. It was tragic. Her farm is still in operation but it doesn't look pretty.....

The sheep without a brain

The farmer lost his arms

The goat lost a head

Horse faired well & only lost his hoof...but he wonders where his friend the pig disappeared to

But wouldn't ya know it, Hallie's favorite farm contributor was spared in the attack....

Still mooing

Hallie does her best to keep her animal friends in good spirits and gives them all equal attention....

"I need a new farmer at least, mom. How's he gonna drive the tractor?"

Whirlwind of a Week

Are we sure it's only Wednesday? Holy unexpected week! If you had asked me on Sunday morning if I thought we'd be making on offer on a house this week I would have peed my pants laughing so hard. If you have been keeping up with our family adventures then you are more than aware of my grim outlook and less than good attitude about this whole housing ordeal since we left Mustang. After moving two times in less than eight months I was beginning to transition into toxic stress mode. After we moved into this "level two" rent house from the cave I fully expected to be here for a year or more. I imagined a frustratingly long drawn out search for less than desirable homes and eventually having to say "ok fine, I guess I like that house enough to live there." I guess life has given me a big wake up call this week. "HELLO ASHLEY!!!! NOT EVERYTHING HAS TO BE DIFFICULT!" Well it's about time life!! ;)

As I mentioned in a previous post, we took a family drive this past Sunday to look at houses. Riley suggests this every now and then and I usually roll my eyes behind his back and go along for the ride just because I enjoy the family time. I can't even begin to count how many Sundays we have spent driving around town and even outside of town to search for houses. The easy way would be to do an internet search or even get a real estate brochure for the month. Nope, we literally just drive around town, every inch of it searching for For Sale signs. Sunday we finally found the For Sale sign we've been dreaming of finding. That night Riley made a call to our realtor to ask about the details. It seemed too good to be true. At the risk of sounding corny, I really believe that this was meant to be. The For Sale sign had just been placed in the yard but the seller was not allowing viewers yet and the listing had not been made official yet because they still had to get some things squared away. Somehow we managed to get a showing before anyone else. I made sure to get home in time on Monday to meet Riley for a viewing with our realtor, Vicky. Hallie came along too of course....after all, she makes the decisions after here. From the moment I pulled into the circle drive I knew I was right where I wanted to be. Hallie had a funny way of showing her interest in the home. Poor baby was dealing with some big monster teethers breaking through and all she wanted to do was cuddle at home. But she was a good sport as we walked through the house several times. I already had the furniture laid our in my head and the paint colors picked out before we even moved onto the bedrooms. This. Was. The. One. We fell even more in love after walking out onto the back patio. It wrapped around the back of the house and had me dreaming of cookouts and seating areas and pots and plants and hammocks....oh my!!! This is the house I've been picturing in my mind forever....I just never thought I'd actually be able to check all of my wants off of my checklist. You may be wondering what Riley was thinking this whole time. Well it's safe to say that his mind was on the garage and the big open space out back and the driveway that goes to the back of the house. I didn't want to leave but we needed to get Hallie home and ready for her bed....the girl was dunzo! But before we left I stood there outside the house picturing our family for years down the road and I asked the realtor, "how often does a house like this pop up in Woodward for this good of a deal?" Her answer: "never, honey." Had it not been for Riley's Sunday house hunting idea we would have probably never even known about our house. Our house. Our house. I love saying that.

From that point it went something like this....we talked and talked and talked about it, drove by it a billion times, made an offer on Tuesday night, drove by it five more times during my day off with Hallie, got a counteroffer on Wednesday morning and it was a done deal mid afternoon. Ok, can we rewind please? That all seemed way too easy. Did that really just happen? We looked at one house? It might sink in when we walk through the door with the keys in our hands for the first time. I could go on and on about why this is the house but most importantly.....it is a family house. It is a place that we can grow into and fill up with more squealing children, they can have plenty of room to play and be safe, and it's a great neighborhood for our kids to grow up in. Say hello to our soon-to-be home......

Casa de Fanning

Honey, I'm home!

I'm on cloud nine making lists in my head and planning for the future, Riley is in business and budgeting mode and Hallie remains in teething mode. Speaking of little miss teether, she has been unimpressed with life this week so far. Unimpressed with mama, dada, Gman, Papa and Nanny. Monday was a blur...I really can't remember anything besides looking at the house. Tuesday started out a bit unusual....I had to work that morning to play catch up while Nanny came over to the house to play with Hal. Her body language said it all that morning as she ate breakfast. Not even Nanny could bring a smile to her squishy face.....

Bummed out

Sometimes I wonder how such adult postures and expressions can come out of such a little body. I felt bad laughing at her but Nanny and I were so entertained. That afternoon Gman surprised us when he called as he was pulling his truck into town to pick up a load. I broke a cardinal rule and woke up a sleeping baby so that she could see her Gman. Turns out that she still wasn't impressed. It took a good thirty minute trip to Sonic and a swing by the dream house to drag one smile out of the teething tot. After we left Gman I needed to do some quick shopping for some church clothes for fall and luckily the babe obliged and sat contently in front of the mirror in the dressing room. She's a good critic....

"Are you really going to wear that mom?"

Riley was busy reffing his last football game that evening so Hal and I spent a very cooped up evening battling a fever and some supreme grumpiness. Pinterest was on the top of my mind as I rocked Hallie to sleep that night. The house wasn’t even ours yet and I had already moved in in my head. Wednesday was a very exciting morning and afternoon. Problem is, Hallie was still not on board. Still teething and not happy. Work flew by so fast because I was so anxious about getting a phone call about the seller’s decision. Riley called to tell me the counteroffer and he insisted counter offering again which I was game for…either way, WE WERE GETTING THAT HOUSE! I went through the rest of the afternoon trying to focus. You can see just how well that went....I had a 4:30 meeting at the clinic that I barely made it to because of this little issue…..

Gas is important.

Ssssh. Don’t tell Riley. If I had been in town it wouldn’t have been a big deal….but I was out on the road in between Woodward and Seiling which offers no gasoline for dumb blonde drivers. I got back just in the nick of time and actually made it to my meeting on time. Right as it began I got a text from Riley that said “It’s ours!!” My focus was a little off after that point as I’d moved from paint colors and furniture to re-staining the cabinets and picking out window treatments. Lord help me!

I'm sure I'll be sharing every last detail of our journey into our home home. Wanna know the very best part about the timing off this????

WE WILL HAVE A HOME BY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!

Hallie was still not on the party train this evening. This has been a very tough week for our growing girl...growing teeth that is. Papa was able to see her state of mind tonight when he stopped by. No smiles from this girl. She's managed to give all grandparents and parents alike the cold shoulder this week. Go ahead and break through little teethers and leave my baby alone!

A warm-welcomed weekend

Ever have one of those weeks that you don't even have to worry about forgetting because it flew by so fast anyways as you were trying to hold onto your pants? Whew! This past week was a doozy that knocked my socks off....I could not have been more ready for the weekend. At least that's what I thought as I dragged myself out of bed Friday morning for a ridiculous day of work. It measured up to my expectations too....horrible, terrible, no good for nothin' kinda day. As I drove from town to town with my mind spinning I kept imagining myself posting up on the big brown chair in my favorite sweatpants and watching a good movie. We had watched Horrible Bosses earlier in the week and I was less than impressed. Now I think it may have been my sour attitude that kept me from laughing because the rest of the fam seemed to be big fans of it. Movie, pizza and sweatpants?? Not so much. Instead I got last minute dinner plans with a physician prospect and some other employees of the hospital. I really like Riley's coworkers but I really dislike last minute plans and schmoozy dinners. Even better was the fact that I walked in the door to a sweet baby who just wanted nothing more than to play with her momma, Riley was walking out the door to head to dinner, Nanny was being the saint she always is and feeding Hallie her dinner since it was already 6:00, the babysitter and her brother had already arrived, I realized I had absolutely no idea what I was going to wear and couldn't remember how Riley was dressed.....at that moment I needed a drink, a room with padded walls and a box of Kleenex. Luckily we did find a babysitter last minute. Riley's boss's daughter, Maddie, took us up on the babysitting offer and brought brother Daniel with her for moral support. I hear the three of them had a fine time....Daniel kept the chair warm watching cartoons while Maddie and Hallie played with her toys. Dinner flew by and I was able to finally sit down and take a deep breath....being able to chat it up with my friend Kelly made things all better. After dinner I arrived home to find a wide awake Hallie who knew what she was doing and had waited on her momma to get home for some playtime. She was so happy playing with Maddie in her room but came flying around the corner when she heard my voice. Oh how I had missed that girl all day. I sound pathetic not being able to be away from her for that long but golly gee, she makes me smile. After Riley put baby girl to bed I took off for a late night walk with Kelly. We had a great time talking, the weather was perfect and we only peed our pants twice....a chihuahua and a German Shepherd can be thanked for scaring the pants off of us in the dark. Riley was so pleased with my desire to do paperwork all evening while he relaxed. Wait, did I say desire? Ok, I meant necessity. Holy paperwork! I have never been so far behind in my life. I like the feeling of having everything completed and up-to-date when the weekend starts and I was giving it my best attempt to catch up so that I could have a clean slate on Saturday morning. Well wishful thinking because I went to bed with the same huge pile staring at me. Sleep. Yes, we needed sleep.

Saturday morning was full of cartoons and playtime with Hallie while Riley went to get some work done at his office. What is happening to us???? Since when do we do work on the weekends???? You can probably sense that I'm not a fan of this business at all! We must change this ASAP! Monday-Friday. Period. Hallie and I had a peaceful Walmart shopping trip. Yes, you just saw peaceful and Walmart together in the same sentence. Turns out the best time to shop is around 8:30 on a Saturday morning. Hallie couldn't have been in a better mood and was a great shopping buddy. She was a bit ticked off though when we walked over to get some "nanas".

"This is so not cool..."

She made sure to pick up her favorite items from the shelves as she rode by...

 

"We need some of this!"

Back at home we revved up the motor in her pink convertible with the top down....

She's got the driving thing down

"I promise I'll be home before midnight mom"

My silly goose

I tagged Riley in as I hurried out the door to start my drive to Enid for a day of bridal fun. Us girls had a perfect afternoon at The Bridal Shop...you can read all about it here. I didn't make any extra stops while in Enid because I was ready to get home to my babies and my dad was out of town for the day anyway. Riley and Hallie didn't miss me a bit though as they had a day filled with farm time and fun. I hear that she had a blast hanging out the window of the farm truck hollering loudly at the cows and banging on the side of the truck. Once they came closer to see what the ruckus was she freaked out and pulled herself back in the truck. Riley tells me that she was practicing her best "mooing" along with her big brown friends. We spent Saturday evening doing some of this and a little bit of that...and of course some playing. This is what it looks like when you combine playing with cooking..... 

Exhausted after she helped me "organize" the measuring cup drawer

Had to stop for a "nana" snack

While I finished up dinner I was thoroughly entertained by Hallie's incessant banging on the door to the garage and yelling "dada" repeatedly. The look on her face everytime she sees Riley is just priceless. Especially when he's doing something she considers fun. Revving up the ol' Stang = fun.....

This picture is the epitome of how she feels about him

On top of the world

Can time please slow down? Those pictures make me just as sad as they make me happy. She's turning into a little lady right before our eyes. That same little daddy's girl, tomboy, mustang drivin' chick transformed into a pretty lady in animal print the very next morning. I could not wait to dress her up in her new tutu and bow from great aunt Alta....

In love with this tutu!

Riley caught the hunting bug about two weeks ago and left early Sunday morning to set up camp in a deer stand with his bow. Hallie and I were up early and had a very productive Sunday morning. A yummy scrambled egg breakfast (I've finally convinced her that they are yummy!), a trip to the office to get a few work tasks done and we were off to church. God reminded me yet again of his supreme awesomeness and provided the perfect sermon for the end of a very trying week. I left church refreshed and full of pep to take on the day. Hallie was full of the same pep so we put our pep to good use and did some baking in between watching cartoons.....

"Mom, you finish the recipe without me....my show is almost to the best part."

The little stinker seemed genuinely interested in this cute little show called "Olivia"....

"Need any help in there? Ok, good, I'm kinda into this show"

Our baking was complete, lunch was fed and we were itching for some outdoor fun. How do you make a momma, a baby and a dog happy all at once??? A walk, of course. Hallie seems to enjoy our walks with Emmi much better than walks sans "dah" (that is Hallie's version of the word dog, if you were wondering). She likes to be involved in the walking process which makes me wish she was big enough to hand over the reins to her....after all, Emmi comes close to driving me batty with her need to wrap her leash in the stroller wheel every couple minutes. Here's Hallie trying to do her best with "walking" her friend....

"I got this mom....you can let go now"

Hallie was on the lookout for her dad as we had some "nakey time" on the back porch. And by "we" I mean Hallie. A bad case of diaper rash is the fastest ticket to a diaperless afternoon outdoors....

"Ya think they arrest babies for indecent exposure?"

My naked hitchhiker ended up running out of gas and pushing her car backwards. Somehow she managed to do this while wrapped in the dog leash....

Little smarty no pants was trying her best to hook the leash onto Emmi's collar to take her for a walk. Riley helped a bit with the leash hooking and we watched and almost died laughing as she tried her best to control her wild doggy....

"Ok Em, we are both going to need to do some untangling before we get started here..."

"Why are you not taking this seriously? I am a foot taller than you, ya know!?"

"Is this a joke?"

Offended by Emmi's unwillingness to participate she stepped outside of the box and into her car....

"Let's try this....."

"Ya ready back there???"

She gave us plenty of laughs that afternoon. But soon laughs turned into yawns. Riley and Hallie rested their pretty heads while I took a nice run on the cemetery hills and did some blogging. Ah, finally some relaxation. After the two happy nappers woke up well rested, we did some impromptu house hunting around town. It wasn't like our usual hunts where we head back home completely discouraged. Yesterday we spotted a house new to the market that had some potential. I'd call this hunt a success. ;) We headed straight from our surprisingly pleasant hour long car ride over to Nanny and Papa's for a fish fry with Luke, Katie and Carmen. The weather was beautiful and perfect for the babes to be outdoors. The backyard is Hallie's domain and she isn't afraid to explore every bit of it....

Nanny's girl

With a little bit of help of course....

She's got this figured out

The exploring was over and it was high time she try out her mini folding chair. The "tot spot"....

You know the best part about stacking blocks with Nanny??

Dumping them out, of course

"When can we dump them out again?"

Aunt Kylie stopped by to love on her nieces before she headed back to Stillwater for the week. We were blessed by the cooking talents of Luke...it's always a good night when he's behind the grill...or the frying station in this case.....

The fish fryer

The french fries, fish and hush puppies mysteriously vanished as he fried away. It all smelled so good we all couldn't resist sneaking some food.

Heart attack hush puppies = so worth it!

Miss Carmen Jo was a happy girl hanging out in her favorite position.....

Facing out to see what's going on

On mommy's shoulder

Dinner was oh so delicious and dessert was just as good. Hallie sat in her chair on the floor beside us and fed her variety of foods to the dog. My little fruit lover ended up being satisfied by a can of peaches after turning her nose up at fish and macaroni salad. With full bellies we were unexpectedly entertained by a piano duet from Hallie and Papa. Funny thing was, she looked like she really knew what she was doing.

"I should think about getting a tip jar soon"

The musically talented tot was sawing logs shortly after we got home Sunday night. Riley and I decided on an early bedtime too...must've been the fried food coma we were in. Oh yeah and the chocolate cake and pumpkin dessert on top of that! Good thing we got an extra hour of sleep because Monday proved to be a beast of a day. I have a good feeling that this next weekend will also receive a very warm welcome from the Fanning crew by the time it gets here! Hallie went to bed tonight with a slight fever most likely from teething. Either that or she literally played so much at daycare that it made her sick. I want to finish this post on a good note though so here it goes: we looked at a house tonight with our realtor and I think I'm in love.