Happy Halloween!

Well the costumes are well worn...we had Awana's Wednesday night, Carter's preschool costume parade Thursday, Halloween party at church Thursday night and Sydney had a girl scout Halloween party Friday night! Not to mention that Carter has worn his costume(s) around the house about every day this week! And now it's finally time to trick-or-treat!!







Carter has a stash of costumes that he loves to wear around the house. We've had a spiderman and batman costume from last year and this year I found a different looking batman at a yard sale for a buck. But after our Halloween party, we were in Walmart one day and Carter was begging for a pirate costume to be like daddy! Kevin already had the wig so I ended up getting it and he puts it on every chance he gets!

I took Sydney and Carter to church to trick or treat...Allie was ready for bed so Kevin stayed home with her. This is the first year we've had trick-or-treating at church and it wasn't what I was expecting. It was dark and the rooms were decorated with skeletons, strobe lights, spider webs, and scary looking people! Last year, Sydney would have DIED in there! But she has definitely come a long way...none of it scared her! Carter loved it too...none of it scares big tough men like Carter, ha!! We hit a few more houses on the way home then called it a night! It has definitely been a busy Halloween week! :)

found another one!

this was taken right at 5 months...she loves grabbing that foot!!



She'll be 6 months on Saturday!

I really need some more hours in the day to go through all these pictures!!

A nice surprise...

I popped a memory card in the computer tonight and found some pictures I had forgotten about! Always a nice surprise!!

Here is Carter one chilly morning earlier this month...he put his sweatshirt on and went to work in the dirt! I remember seeing him outside of the kitchen window so I grabbed my camera and walked outside to snap a few pictures of him. He loves being out there with his tractors! :)


That afternoon, Kevin was outside working on the crazy wisteria bush in the front yard. Carter was watching every move he made!


Allie hung out there for awhile too in the stroller!




And this was taken on the 12th...Carter brought home an edible fire truck he made at preschool! As soon as he got in the car to come home he was DYING to eat it! But I made him wait until I could at least get a picture of it first! And then it was GONE! ha ha!!

He actually stayed for ARCH that day...I picked him up at 3pm (which gave me a long break during the day!!) He had been playing outside and got soooo hot and sweaty! ;)

my little pumpkin...

"are you kidding me?"



"ok, this isn't so bad!"

Princess on Ice!

On a whim Wednesday night I decided to order tickets to Princess on Ice in Roanoake for Saturday! I remember seeing an ad for it when I was there for the E-Women's conference and on tv too.

ready to go!


So Sydney, Allie and I headed to the civic center for the 1pm show. Got to the side door and the lady checked my bag and said I couldn't take my big camera inside. Grrrr...so I had to walk back to the car and put that up and go back again. This time I went to a different entrance and the lady never even looked in my bag! So frustrating! So we get in there and everyone has their dslr cameras like mine taking pictures...grrrrrr. I wanted to take some princess pictures for Sydney...

Anyway, the show was soooooooooo cute! We loved it!! It was basically a quick version of each princess story. It was the soundtrack of the movies playing so it was the same voices but the people were skating and lip syncing or whatever. Mickey, Minnie, Pluto and Tinkerbell were there too and Sydney was so excited! The princesses we saw were, Jasmine, Snow White, Belle, Sleeping Beauty, Mulan, Ariel and Cinderella.

During intermission...Allie fell asleep during the first part of the show!


We had seats on the side and up about 6 rows & they were pretty good because we were kinda looking down on them. Sydney just grinned the whole time and clapped
and just loved every minute of it! So glad we went!

About the best I could do with the point & shoot!


We were not about to spend $20 for a stuffed animal so we settled for a picture instead! I like pictures better anyway!


So I will be on the lookout for these kind of shows in the future...so fun!

out on the town...

Julie and I headed up to VT Thursday night to see Jack's Mannequin play. I like their music but had never seen them in concert. It was awesome...so glad I went! We got home about 1:30am...that is waaaaay past my bedtime ;)


We watched the show from the side of the stage...Jay told us the music would sound better from out front but once they started playing we never went to our seats. It was fun watching from the side!














this just cracks me up!






Can't wait till the next show!!

dodgeball

Carey got some people together from church to be in a dodgeball tournament at Staunton River high school tonight. Kevin and I hadn't played since, ohhhhh, elementary school so we thought that sounded pretty fun!

I was expecting to get there and it would be a laid back type thing....wrong!! We met with head dude and it took him over 5 minutes to explain all the rules!!! You had to stay in the lines of the volleyball court, run to mid court to get the ball, run back to another line before you could throw the ball, could not step out of bounds, could reach over the line to grab a ball, if you couldn't reach a ball off to the side you had to run out the back of the court and around to get it, face shots count (!), 3 minutes to play, winner is best 2 out of 3 and on and on...oh my!

So we got to watch a few games before it was our turn. Very interesting...

Here we are before the big game!


So for the first game, I ran up to get a ball and threw it once. Another ball game at my head and I caught it but stepped out of bounds and was out. I played about 30 seconds. Boo. Kevin was running backwards as a ball was coming at him. It hit him and he fell back on his butt then rolled over backwards from all the momentum. The crowd all went "OHHHHHHHHHH!!" SOOOO FUNNY! We all slowly got knocked out and eventually lost.

Melissa and Robert planning an attack! ;)



Next game, I was smart and got in the middle of the court so I wouldn't step out of bounds. It was a slow start so I was kinda hanging around and stepped out the back line and got called out. I thought we could go out the back line but that's only if you were going for a ball. Double BOO!! Again, we all slowly got called out, that redneck ref was calling out everyone who stepped out of bounds. grrrr...
Anyway, we lost again.

Carey took it very serious!


So after all 6 minutes we played, we headed out for Mexican. That was probably the best part of the night! Especially since I only played for about 45 seconds! ha!!

Sydney's field trip

Today Sydney's class (and the other 1st grade classes) took a field trip to Drumheller's Orchard. She has been looking forward to today and was pretty excited that I got to go with her!



We rode the bus to the orchard...it's been a looooong time since I've been on a school bus! As soon as we got there a John Deere tractor was waiting to take us on a hayride! Carter would have loved that!



We rode through the apple orchard out to a pumpkin patch and got to walk around and pick out a pumpkin to bring home. Sydney searched far and wide and finally found the perfect one!



We came back and took a quick tour through the huge refrigerators. Then they each got a bag and got to pick out some apples to bring home! Sydney got some golden and red delicious...yummmm!



Then we trucked out in the apple orchard and learned how the bees pollinate the trees to make the apples. She showed the kids the proper way to pick an apple; thumb on the bottom, forefinger on the top, so you don't bruise it. She picked one and rubbed it on her pants and showed us how the natural wax makes apples so shiny. Each of the kids got to pick an apple off the tree to eat...they were so good!



After that, it was time for lunch then they got to play for a bit too. Sydney and her friend Caty caught up with some girls from the other class! They were all in kindergarten together last year and are in girl scouts too :)





Then we hopped back on the bus and headed back to Forest. It was fun being with Sydney for the day...we got back to school around 2 and I just brought her home! She had a pretty cool day!

Nuts about you!!

Allie is nuts about me these days! She gets really mad when I try to put her down to get stuff done. It's funny and annoying at the same time! :p

The other day I was getting ready to fix dinner so I put her in the exersaucer. She screamed and screamed and finally Sydney got to talking to her kept her entertained. But if Allie caught a glimpse of me she would frown up and start wailing again! So when I got the chance I went and picked her up and she stopped crying and looked at me and gave me a big ol' toothless grin.

I have used the carrier some inside just to "hold" her while my hands are free but I don't want to be doing that all day long! Hopefully she'll get over it soon!



Carter doesn't mind holding her!!

Happy fall!

After church today we headed to Bedford to eat lunch. It was a chilly fall-like day and Kevin wanted to go to a little country store and get some vegetable soup. He went there last year to get some apple trees and brought some soup home and it was soooo good! And it really hit the spot today too! They had homemade peach ice cream too and we got that for dessert...mmmmmmm!

They liked walking around looking at the pumpkins...Carter is too cool!

extraordinary women's conference

Today I got a chance to get away for awhile and go to the e-women's conference in Roanoke. It was an early morning...I got up at 5am and met Robin at 6:15 in Bedford so we could ride together. But, it ended up being a really great day! My favorite speakers were Sheri Rose Shepard and Karen Kingsbury. We even got to meet Karen and she signed the book "Hold You a Little Longer" for me. Charles Billingsley sang and he is actually really good...I've never heard him in person before. I'm sure we'll be going back next year!