48-40 We won!

The two teams with the biggest rivarly was last night in our home town and it's a big deal. The weather was great and not the least bit cold. The girls and I went up early around 5:30 and ate hamburgers, baked beans and chips. They hold a tailgate party before hand to raise money for the booster clubs for both schools. The game started at 7. My friend Jenny and her two boys joined us and of course Justin, Laura and Barrett. They threw little footballs, t-shirts and the kids tried so hard to catch them. The game was so much fun. It was back and forth all night which made it so exciting, the crowd was loud and crazy! Some of you don't know that my husband coaches for the high school, he is the offensive coordinator. He really does enjoy this job, it is quite stressful and time consuming and I used to really get upset at him being gone so much with meetings on the weekends practice every night and watching film long after we have all gone to bed. Over the years I have come to accept it a little better and the girls and I are finding that we love to attend the home games. He used to coach baseball too so I can be thankful he cut back to just ONE sport. Although now he does help coach our girls softball teams but that is a wonderful way for all of us to spend time together.

The Box

The box was on my front porch yesterday when the girls and I arrived home from school.... We took it inside and Emily decided she should open it so away she went.... inside, the cutest hand stamped desk set. A pencil box that can hold all sorts of stuff on my scrapbooking table, complete with a wooden letter "K" on the front. This included a "bouquet" of pencils and a metal ruler. The tinest little clips with ribbons were attached to the sides.

Then a wonderful Red book with my name stamped on the front and tucked inside, a few fall recipes which I can't wait to try. The caramel corn sounds delish. I've always been afraid to make caramel corn because I would think the pan would be a nightmare to clean afterwards. Am I right about this??? I think I will try this though! The book also included a great ribbon bookmark that Kylie had her eye on.

Last but not least a mini clipboard with sticky notes and a beautiful glittery flower at the bottom.

Oh yeah her card was hand stamped too. Kira included that one of her favorite things about fall is buying school supplies.... ME too! I go down the supply isles every time I'm in a store, you never know what kind of treasure there will be there to alter or play with. When I was a child I always wanted new pens and notebooks.... Thanks so much Kira for the wonderful gift. Hope you enjoy yours too. Thanks Laura for the Fall Favorite things swap it was lots of fun.

a practice run....

Emily was so crazy once she put those teeth in I didn't even know who she was!!!

We went the spooks parade in our town last night... the kids had a great time getting dressed up and going downtown. My mom came over to go with us and we met up with Justin and Laura and biker baby Barrett. Emily was a vampire and Kylie was an E.R. Dr. How fun!

The weather was beautiful last night. They did the judging first and then we jumped into the parade and walked over to the bank where they were serving hot chocolate and goodie bags.

Kylie of course had to hold all the babies, it was so fun to see all the creative costumes that everyone comes up with. This was our first time to dress up this week, we still have to dress for school on Friday and then again for trick-or-treating on Friday night. We should be pretty good at it by then.

Initials

Sunday evening the girls were late getting ready for bed so they jumped in the shower together, they washed their hair and sang and played and then I went in to hurry them along and THIS is what I found! They have bath tub crayons and they wrote their initials on all one thousand nine hundred and ninety nine tiles.... well maybe not quit that many, BUT. When I got there they were boosting each other up so they could reach all the way up.... ugggg!

They were having a great time and it was all for daddy, when he pulled the shower curtain back to take a shower in the morning he would be soooooo surprised!

So it's Tuesday morning and I just saw it AGAIN, guess I'll go get out the scrubbin' bubbles and see what I can do. The shower tiles really needed a good cleaning anyway the girls just gave me a little more of a reason to get going..... I thought it was cute and wanted to share.

Happy Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary to my little brother Justin and his beautiful wife, Laura. Today is their 6th anniversary. They are a great couple, they live in the cutest little house and they have the cutest little boy...... they have so much to celebrate. I know today they will remember how blessed they are. We all love them very much!

When Justin married Laura I gained the sister I never had and we have just gotten closer over the years. We have really enjoyed getting to know each other.

Happy Anniversary Justin and Laura.....

Muffins

Well the pumpkin streusel muffins are in the oven and they smell sooooo good! Tomorrow morning Laura and I are getting together for some blogging and girl time. So I'm bringing the muffins and she is making us Chai tea, which will be perfect for a cold morning. I hope they turn out as good as they smell, I'll let you all know and post the recipe here if we love them.

While I'm here I thought I'd show off a little altered altoids tin which is just one of the things that I made for my fall favorite things swap, It's headed your way Kira. I filled it with a little surprise. The other tin is also an altoids tin and in it I made a little album with the tiny pictures I get when I place my photo order with Shutterfly. I think these are so fun and it's a neat way to use the little pictures.

Cold Feet

My girls both have a birthday in November, Kylie will be 10 and Emily will be 7. They are growing up so fast.... I was especially feeling this last night after Kylie came in around 2 a.m. and said mom can I snuggle with you? My feet are cold. Well I never turn them away so I flew back the covers and let her in. Kylie doesn't do this much anymore as she has gotten older. We snuggled for awhile and I was back asleep and then Emily comes to the bedside and taps me, Momma can I lay with you? Now Emily she comes in at least twice a week with this request. I scoot over a bit more and let her in too. It is a little crowded but we have a king size bed, thank goodness. After Emily arrived I lay there between my two beautiful girls and thought about their upcoming birthdays and how wonderful I think they are. Our legs were tangled up and if I bent my legs a little our feet would touch.
I love the smell of their hair and skin and I was taking it all in, tears were rolling down my checks by now. I traced their little shoulders and rubbed their backs. The nightlight from their room was shining in so I could make out their little profiles. There is something so beautiful about sleeping children, their innocence is glowing. They sleep so soundly, I hold their little hands in mine and kiss them. Finally I drifted off to sleep.....


When I was pregnant for the first time I said "my children will never sleep in MY bed." But, within a few days of nursing and getting up I brought Kylie to bed with me and I was done for.
We would snuggle up and she would nurse and then off to sleep we would go. I was in love.....
When Emily was born I did get Kylie into a big bed and she did great and so it went with Emily too. Now they are in their sweet little room across the hall in their bunk beds, they go to bed great at night and they get up with no problem in the mornings.... but it's those wee hours of the morning when they sneak into my room that I will cherish forever because I know all too soon they won't come in to snuggle with me at night and I will miss it with all my heart. I love you girls.....

Kylie and Emily getting along for a moment.
Helping Barrett be a big boy!
Walking thru the nature path....
Barrett is 9 months old!

Tuesday already?

I know, it's tuesday, where does the time go? Friday was wonderful. My mom came over and she noticed a few garage sales down the street so the first thing we did was walk to them and find a few goodies. The girls loved it, they brought me a tin to alter with scrapbooking paper and stuff, they know their momma. We love garage sales you can usually find the best stuff. Laura and Barrett showed up shortly after and we packed up some sandwiches and headed out to Cumbernauld, it's a nursing home with beautiful landscaping, it has a pond and rocks and a bridge. This is where we decided to take some pictures. The trees really haven't gotten the fall colors we were looking for but we had a great time anyway. After that we headed to island park and ate our lunch on a blanket in the sun.... it was wonderful. Then we walked on the nature trail for a while until Barrett couldn't take it anymore and was ready for his afternoon nap. This was a great way to end the week.
Today I will go help out in Emily's 1st grade classroom for awhile, which I love to do. It's always different, some days I read with the kids, some days I will help them on the computers and other times I help the teacher with the things she needs done. I have always volunteered in the girls classroom. It's nice to know their friends as well as their teachers. Kylie is in 4th grade this year and I have been on a field trip with them. I'll be sad when they leave elementary school, it's so comfortable right now.
We had our last soccer games last night, My friends from high school, Tina, her two children and Lisa came over before the game and I feed them supper we had salad, chili and cinnamon rolls. The kids had games on 3 different fields so we spent the time there walking around to watch all the games. It was perfect soccer weather, we just needed a light jacket. It was so nice to see them and spend a little time together.
Looks like I ended up with lots to say today....

Days like these......

I love days like these, the girls were out of school yesterday and today, my mom was off work. We all got together Thurs. and made our little albums to put our pumpkin patch pictures in. I make a small album to hold these memories every year. The time flew by yesterday. My sister-in-law Laura and little Barrett came over and we ran and got sonic for lunch. Today we are planning to get together again, the weather is beautiful and we are gonna go take some pictures of the kids, we are hoping to find some trees with changing leaves. We don't really need a reason to take pics of the kids but my nephew Barrett will be 9 months old on Saturday so we HAVE to take pictures for that.
We have been super lazy these last 2 mornings. The girls come in and snuggle with me and we watch cartoons for a while. I love when they are home.....
Hope to post more tonight or tomorrow with our photo shoot and whatever other adventures we find today.

Bubbles

It's a rainy dreary day today and I was thinking about last week when we made bubbles and shared them with my grandparents.... It was a beautiful day and we mixed up our bubbles and went for a visit. Emily was really getting into it. My grandparents live here in town and we don't get out to see them nearly enough since school has started and soccer games and homework fill our evenings. These pictures make me happy......

Bubble Formula

2/3 cup dishwashing soap

2 cups warm water

1/4 cup white corn syrup

Combine and shake.

For best results, let mix settle

for 4 hours before using.

WOW! What a weekend...

It all started on Friday evening my brother came in from out of town so the family got together for pizza at my mom and dad's house. We carved pumpkins and had a great time. The girls and I got home around 11pm. As we were getting home Todd was also just coming in from coaching an out of town football game. I thought this was really unusual because after a football game the coaches have to talk it all over and analyze the game, needless to say he is never home this early on Friday nights.... SO to make a long story short around 1:30am Todd and I called his dad to come over and stay with the girls and we headed out to the ER. Todd was diagnosed with kidney stones on top of a few other health issues he has been dealing with over the past few months, we were a little worried. We got back home around 5:30am only to have to have Kylie at the soccer field by 7:45am. My parents were there and they took the girls home after the game so Todd and I could go back home and get some rest.

I put a roast in the crock pot and made chocolate crunch dessert, a family favorite, and then laid down for a while to rest. I never really could go to sleep so around 2 I headed out with the crock pot to my parents home for our 3rd annual fall family dinner. We started this tradition and it has really been alot of fun. We spend the day together and eat and then we build a fire in the backyard and sit around and talk and drink spiced cider. Having my family all together is so much fun. My brother lives out of town but everyone else is right here near me in our hometown and I couldn't be more happy about that.

We caught this cute little frog and I had to take his picture there are lots of them they tuck themselves up in the grooves of the siding on the house.

The girls and I left and got home around 11pm.

Today we got up and went to say goodbye to Jeff so he could head back home he had about a 3 hour drive. We spent the rest of the day resting and reading and hanging out.

We went to my nephews 7th birthday party at an indoor swimming pool here in town and the girls had a great time. My mom called and invited me to the movies. We went to see "Nights in Rodanthe." If you haven't seen it yet be sure to take a kleenex. I had no idea~

I think I'm ready to go crawl in bed for a good nights sleep, I usually don't stay up this late ever..... I've been running on a lot less sleep this weekend than I'm used too.

I think I recaped my weekend and wow what a weekend it was....goodnight.

Fall Favorite Things

Since fall is here and I need to get in the mood for it I signed up for Laura's fall favorite things swap. How fun is that? You get the name of someone else that has signed up and then you get to gather all of your favorite things for fall and send it off to them. Not only that you get goodies in return. Head on over to Laura's blog http://laura-elephantjuice.blogspot.com/to sign up. I think her deadline is Saturday night.

Our Annual Trip

So this is my first post, My lovely sis-in-law Laura http://laura-elephantjuice.blogspot.com/ finally got me talked into a blog and I'm actually at her house now with my computer, she helped me set it all up.

We went to the pumpkin patch together last night and took lots of pictures. I love the colors of fall and could have stayed there all evening snapping pictures of the kids. The Priest pumpkin patch is a local patch here in our town and I have known this family all my life.... I love visiting them every year picking pumpkins and just breathing in the country air. Last night was so beautiful!