Boo to You!

We had a great Halloween this year! The girls really had a blast dressing up, going to the Fall Festival at church, but their favorite was handing out candy to kids going through our neighborhood. We started the day off by going out to breakfast, then heading home to paint pumpkins. Audrey wanted no help at all with her painting and completely covered herself in it! Ella's pumpkins were all painted perfectly as rainbows--she's such a girly girl!

Rainbow pumpkins of course!
Audrey was little Miss Independent with this project!

Sweet but oh so messy~

We headed to our church's Fall Festival and let the girls play games, eat candy, jump in the bounce houses, eat more candy, eat popcorn...you get the picture. I think they both ate their way through the church! By the time we finished there, we swung by to see Garrett and then headed home to hand out some candy and trick or treat at a few neighbor's houses.

Our sweet fairy princess!

Don't you love all the tulle!

Sweet sisters

Ready to buzz right out for more candy!

Family shot from Fall Festival!

Playing in the ball pit!

Pin the tail on the donkey!

Ella LOVED being in charge of the candy bowl and could not wait for kids to come up to our door. At one point, she started crying because she couldn't see any kids coming and she told me "I just really want to give out candy." She would scream down the street "Please come get our candy, kids! " Audrey was only interested in eating more candy herself and when she tried to dip her hand in the candy bowl, Ella scolded her and said "Audrey, this candy it not for us. It is for kids that don't have their own candy."--We're really working on teaching about a servant's heart around here. :)

Ready for the trick or treaters!

We headed to a few houses on our street, but Ella kept her eye on our house and ended up running back home when she saw a group of kids coming up to our door--she didn't want to miss out on passing it out! By 9:00 we decided to turn off the front porch light and brought the kids in for a snack of pretzels to try to neutralize all the candy they had eaten! Being way past bedtime at this point, Audrey's meltdown started up and screams of "candy bar, candy bar, cannndyyyy barrrrr" lasted for the next hour. John and I couldn't help but just laugh!
The meltdown begins!

We had so much fun and Ella has already started talking about what she wants to be next year -a bumble bee!

A girl and her bike

Over the past few weeks, Ella has been talking about taking her training wheels off her bike. She will rattle off a list of people from school that have told her that the got to take theirs off -- Nothing like a little peer pressure to motivate ya! Ella is wanting to ride her bike ALL the time now because I told her that in order for the training wheels to come off, she's got to practice a lot and get her legs really strong! She prefers John to come out and "watch her" because she knows that means he'll let her get in the street with him to practice her turns. She is doing a great job, but it makes me sad to think our little girl is getting so big!

Losing Pa

Last Thursday, only about 5 weeks since his initial diagnosis, my sweet grandfather entered heaven. It has been one of the hardest things I have ever experienced as I grieve the loss of a man who exemplifies so much of the person I want to be. He lived an incredible life of 81 years with 62 of those being married to my precious grandmother. He was kind and compassionate, strong and determined. His standards and beliefs never changed despite the world's views around him. He exemplified what it means to be a servant, always putting God and others before yourself. He lived a simple life, never needing the things that the world says makes you a success. I am so sad that my children will never really get to know the man he was and learn from him the way I did. I will do my best to tell them the fantastic stories of my childhood that he played such a great part in and will try to live my life more like his and less like I normally do. Our hearts are heavy because we lost someone so precious and unique that day, but boy did heaven get a great one! Our comfort is that he is officially "cancer free" now and he is finally home with so many of his friends and family. Despite the sadness, I still can say that God is so good. His plan is perfect and great in every single thing.

How Are You Mommy?

Audrey is so funny! I really wonder sometimes where she comes up with some of these things. She has started this new thing where she just randomly will come into a room and say "How are you Mommy?" I'll answer her either "good, great, or fine" and then ask her "How are you Audrey?" Her response is always "I'm good Mommy." Yesterday she probably asked me twenty times how our was and I laughed every single time!

Introducing Fairy Princess Ella

Today was costume day at school, so Ella got to wear her new fairy princess outfit for the first time. It was a dreary, rainy morning but our little girl was our ray of sunshine!

Happy 4th Birthday Ella!!

Our first baby turned 4 today. It really is so hard to believe that time has gone this fast. She is still the same little girl who wants to be held and hugged all the time, which I hope never goes away. She is shy and sweet, while at the same time headstrong and determined. She loves her little sister but has become more possessive of "her" toys. She can't get enough of anything pink or purple and if it is at all related to princesses or fairies, she is sold! She is quite independent and is meticulous in her projects--this girl can color in the lines better than her mommy! She loves dancing, singing, helping mommy cook and climbing the monkey bars. She loves to learn and has lots of "best friends." We really are so blessed that she is our precious little girl!

Here is a shot of her real "Birth -Day" four years ago. I truly thought then that life couldn't get any better.

And now.... How old are we finally? FOUR!!!!

The birthday girl's request - Monkey Bread with squiggly candles on it!

Heading off to school in our birthday shirt!

The end to a perfect day....Dinner at Chick Fil A and a hug from the cow!

Rainbow World

Ella decided about a week before her 4th birthday party that she wanted everything to be rainbow at it. In order to not let her down, I searched the internet to find homemade things I could do to fulfill her dreams of a rainbow world! I found a recipe for rainbow cupcakes...not too hard, just time consuming... and I think they turned out pretty good. (Thanks to Marcy for the hand modeling!)
The big bash was inside this caboose! I filled the inside with rainbow streamers and rainbow balloons and used Skittles to decorate the tables (boy did the kids love those)! Right outside this caboose is a little village of kid size houses that make up a town. There is a fire station, a bank, a train station and a gas station. The kids had a blast running around!

Ella and BFF Madelyn hanging out inside the bank.

This was Ella's joyous expression as everyone sang happy birthday. My poor little shy baby...who would ever think she belonged to ME!!

Audrey wouldn't miss the fun and got right in the middle with all the kids!

Can't believe our first baby is almost 4 years old!

Big Tex

My good friend Beth and I decided to take our kids to the State Fair of Texas. Yes, we may be crazy dragging 4 kids through the crowds, but the weather was perfect and the whole experience was so worth it! We rode the Texas Star (ferris wheel), let the kids explore the petting zoo, checked out the yummy fair food and watched the kids have a blast on the rides. They all did great and made the day one of the highlights of the season!

Howdy Big Tex!

Audrey was not afraid of any of the animals. She would go right up to anything and stick her hand straight in the cage!

Ella liked the cows and the donkeys.

Out of 10 pictures, this was the best one of the kids!

Audrey milking the cow!

They had a hands on farm that taught the kids about growing vegetables, milking cows, picking fruit, etc. The kids had so much fun being real farmhands!

You would have thought Audrey had experienced no joy ever in her life. She could not get enough of this boat ride! All smiles the whole time!

The big kids on the airplanes!

Audrey riding solo on the boats again. She was so happy!

And to end the day, the perfect fair food, cotton candy. Poor Beth had this all over her car by the time we made it back home!

Can't wait til next year!

Aggie Girl

This week was favorite sports team night at AWANAs so Ella and I were showing our love for the Aggies!

Big Orange Pumpkin Farm

Fall is here! The weather is turning cooler, Halloween candy is out, and the pumpkin farms are open! We decided to head out to Celina to the Big Orange Pumpkin Patch on Saturday for some family fun. The girls had a great time and it was so nice for John to get to join in the fun! I never could get the girls to both look at the camera and smile!


Ella feeding her favorite animal--the donkey!

The girls feeding the billy goats.

Ella and Audrey on the train - (Notice the chokehold)

Audrey having a blast in the bouncehouse!

All smiles!

Going down the big slide

Oh the choices as to what pumpkin to pick.

Our pumpkin with her pumpkin!

Countdown to Halloween

I got all the Halloween decorations out the last week of September and ordered this countdown calendar to get the girls excited about the holiday. It has a pocket for each day of October to hold some candy. I thought it would be something cute and fun for the girls, so I hung it up during nap time on the 1st to surprise them.

And then, this was Audrey's first response to the calendar and within a few minutes, five pieces were already gone.

So now the calendar looks like this for all but a few minutes of each day when we remove the chip clips to actually get the candy out for the day. Oh well...