Happy Advent!

Happy Advent, friends!  We have been slowly getting into the rhythm of the season this week, pulling out the Christmas china, working on Advent crafts, making some treats in the kitchen, and rocking our Christmas pajamas:)  We've yet to do any major decorating (read: tree), but it's kind of nice to take things slow; both of the little munchkins seem to appreciate a relaxed pace in general, as does their mama!  

Ev and Honey made some reindeer cookies yesterday...cute and delicious:)

Three days worth of Advent crafts from Luke's account of the Christmas story.  Can you guess who these three folks are?  Zechariah on the far left, Gabriel in the middle, and Mary on the right.  Yep, we're crafty around here:)  (If any of you are looking for a fun daily Advent devotional and craft with little ones, I highly recommend Truth in the Tinsel, an ebook we're using.)

And some pre-bedtime shenanigans in the Christmas pajamas:)

Of course, the dressing-up never stops.  Here, Angelina Ballerina is pausing in the midst of her performance to make sure her audience is paying attention.

With a kitchen helper like this one, it's hard not to have fun cooking:)

Happy weekend, friends!  Go slow and enjoy this season....

And Then There Were Four.

Greetings, friends!  We've had some major goings-on around here since I last posted:  our sweet Doodlebug turned THREE, we enjoyed pumpkins and leaves and costumes and all things October, and  we welcomed a fourth precious little one to our household!  James Cummings Berry was born nearly five weeks ago, on October 16, and we think he is awesome:)

 Big sister has been really sweet with this guy so far, even though he can't participate in her fashion shows or dance parties:)  She helpfully tells him to "chill" or to use his inside voice when he fusses, and frequently asks to snuggle (aka smother) him. 

 Speaking of snuggling, he is my little snuggle buddy most of each day, and I love it!  Whether in my arms or in the Moby or the Ergo, he stays cozy while we try to keep up with Ev.

 Like his big sister before him, little man went on his first hike in Percy Warner Park at two weeks or so.  We start 'em out young around here, folks.

An October retrospective and birthday bonanza recap coming up next, so stay tuned!

On Apples, Attire, and Arrangements

I've probably mentioned before that Evelyn Orr Berry loves her some Frances books (PLEASE go read them if you have not yet done so).  Frances, the main character who very much reminds us of our girl at times, loves to make up poems and songs, and at one point tries to sing herself to sleep with an alphabet tune that begins, "A is for apple pie, B is for bear,...."  We frequently read/sing/hear that particular ditty around here, so I figured an alphabet-song-inspired blog post all about some of our recent 'A' activities was in order.

In late August, despite the extraordinarily warm temperatures, I decided one morning that what we most needed to do was go apple-picking.  Crazy?  Maybe.  But we had the orchard to ourselves and ended up bagging a vast quantity of delicious Gala apples, which then turned into a series of snacks, applesauces, pies, and other delights.  We even discovered an Amish country store on the drive home and stopped briefly for gummy butterflies (Ev's choice) and mini chess pies (Honey's choice).  All in all, an excellent outing:

After strolling to find the perfect row, we settled down to picking.  It turns out that there is a technique to this:  grab, twist, and yank off gently.  Ev demonstrates below:

Also, not to worry if you need to pick some apples that are out of reach.  Just grab your handy-dandy pitchfork-like tool and use the same grab-twist-yank method:

Yay for apple-picking and apples!  It was a good way to look forward to fall in the waning days of summer.  And speaking of waning days of summer, Little Miss Priss certainly out-did herself this summer in terms of the number of mornings she ran downstairs to "get beautiful" and emerged wearing some variation of this outfit:

 The shoes were sometimes ballet slippers or tap shoes, and the shirt varied, but the tutu was a constant.

Also, when your mama won't give you any nail polish, the next best thing is to use markers, obviously.

It sure is funny how girlie this little one seems to be with very little encouragement from her parents! 

And now on to the arranging.  Evelyn may well have some sort of organizing/arranging career in her future, as one of her most favorite activities is to organize and arrange whatever sorts of objects are in her path.  This seems to be a fairly common toddler behavior, but some days, I think she takes it above and beyond:

Note that each Playmobil creature is occupying its own rug square above.  What are they all doing?  Not exactly sure.  

 In this scenario, the Playmobil friends are all obviously riding on rafts made from Peter Rabbit books.

Me:  "What's going on with the friends here?"

Ev:  "Baby Jesus is in the manger.  With Mary and Joseph.  And the animals are looking at them."

 Egg carton + gumdrops/beans/buttons/whatever = instant happiness

 Have you made towers out of as many of your pantry goods as possible lately?  This never fails to delight Ev's heart:)

Happy Friday, friends!

Last Summer Hurrahs!

Can you believe that we are already a few days into October?  Before we are truly settled into fall around here, I'll throw out a few final miscellaneous pictures from our summer adventures....

There was some piano-playing (and all sorts of other fun activities) with Carter...

...some storytime fun at the library with Sam and Baby Ellen...

...a week of art camp at Cheekwood with Honey (aren't all the creations beautiful?)...

...a quick Black Mountain visit with cousins (and godfather Mark), involving stops at our favorite ice cream and coffee places...

...and lots of block-building, puddle-hopping, hiking, splashing, and tea parties, too!

 We also spent a fun weekend at Rock Island in the company of the family of one of Dave's best friends from Sewanee.  Ev got to go kayaking, swim in a (very cold) river, and help celebrate a first birthday:)

Beach in Review

What an amazingly beautiful day in Nashville today!  After a couple weeks of hot and humid summer weather, it finally looks and feels and smells like September.  And though we love some fall around here (especially my fair-skinned, heat-averse husband and daughter), I am not quite ready to let go of summer for good:)  In that spirit, how about some beach pictures?

These are from the annual Cummings family beach vacation, in which the Cummings parentals and their three daughters and families load up for a week or two on St. George Island in Florida, a place dear to all of our hearts.  Of course, some of the best parts of a roadtrip are the fun stops along the way, so we made the most of those, with a picnic lunch at "the rocket rest area" (near Huntsville), ice cream and playground time at Peach Park (near Montgomery), an overnight stay at the Best Western in Dothan, and lunch on the water, complete with fun coloring pages and rows of docked boats to explore, at the Dockside Cafe in Port St. Joe, not too far from St. George itself:

Everyone was so glad to get out of the car at our hotel in Dothan that a round of parking-lot hopping ensued. 

And then we made it to St. George Island!  We had two weeks of glorious time spent swimming in the pool and the ocean, sunning and reading and playing on the beach, and cooking and eating delicious beach meals together.  Not every moment was perfectly blissful, what with two toddlers, an infant, and a crew of extended family in close quarters, but sunshine, sea breezes, and ocean views can brighten up almost any situation:)

Our girl LOVED her some pool time.  We spent most mornings hanging out here, generally with the turtle float (which Ev named E.E.) in tow.

And the beach itself was pretty fun, too!  

We spent lots of time eating together...sometimes at Eddy Teach's (the local raw bar), but more often than not, on the beach.  

We also had some fun celebrations, both for D's birthday and for the 4th of July!  I love this picture of three cousins in their best July 4th gear:)

Farewell until next summer, St. George!  I'll be dreaming of a scene like this come January:)