trick-or-sweet!!

the lady bugs were poised, the house was decorated, the cookie haunted house was candied up and the crew (us, Grannie, Mike & Connie, and the Lister fam) was ready to hit the streets. we started at coach bekkis house and made a couple good loops. i loved watching them all scamper up sidewalks--after reminding them of yard courtesy and hoping caden would only ring the doorbell once or twice. they all found a rhythm and caden's manners were awesome--at each door he said "trick or treat PLEASE" and then finished with "thank you very much, have a happy halloween". and after every door he had to run back to us and say, "Look mommy (or daddy or grannie etc) I got MORE candy". it was just a pure delight. Raylee's repeated phrases were, "I skay-oed" (scared) and "I want my mommy-- no my mommy". we all tried to carry her but my back is pretty sore right now. My absolute favorite part was coming home and having to PRY the candy buckets from their clinched grasps and have the youngest 3 burst into a lovely loud symphony of screams and crying. thats when i laughingly yelled over them, "HAPPY HALLOWEEN"!

SCOUT-ing for pumpkins--get it???

time to go to the pumpkin patch. this years group was my fab 4, grannie annie, audrey and baby SCOUT. it is so fun to see how the kids attack pumpkin picking from year to year. caden wanted to count them all. brady had to pose on the hay mountain, kendra had to precisely choose the perfect one, and raylee just wanted to pick up and drop about 30 of them and say cheese for the camera with each one. scout was perfectly happy playin in the wagon and us parents (and grandparent) were just smilin a big halloween smile watching em all.

my beloved couples costume party

once we busted out the dry ice and kicked out the kids we were anxious for our friends' arrival in their hilarious & AWESOME costumes. we enjoyed supremely DELICIOUS food--everyone pitched in and produced well. our friends are so wonderful--i even took a quick moment to TRY to express my sentiment to them but they mocked me and told me to get on with the costume contest results. which are: "how'd you come up with that" award to Audrey as mike from monsters inc. the "they are TOO funny" award to Mike & Melanie as Napoleon Dynamite & Pedro. the "ahh they're so cute" award (3 way tie) to Dave & Cindy as pirates AND Jared & I as ninja/geisha girl AND Darrin & Holly as Phantom and Christine. and finally the "they SO deserve the trophy award went to Turtle (Marcus) and Dani as Gene Simmons and the KISS groupie. My dear goodness it was such a fun nite. i will always remember that in the mad rush of last minute cleaning and painting my face, i paused and thought that i was so grateful for the wonderful people that surround jared and i; and i couldn't wait to just hang out with them and enjoy their company. i couldn't have asked for anything more--well we did miss the 8 couples who couldn't make it but thankfully we'll do all this again next halloween.

picture day 2009--why do i stress out???

why do i care so much about how my well my kids photograph at school? i think it stems with my obesession with hair and how my first child has amazing hair to get all gussied up. then moving down to cadens heart-melting-smile and brady's light-in his-eyes i guess i just want that bottled up and in a 8x10 format. raylee had to be part of it all and notice cadens is not in here. his bus comes so early i was too rushed to get my own picture of him before he headed off. im predicting my expectations won't be met for perfection but at least i know how cute they really are--to me at least.

kids being festive at the kidfest!

thank you community for having a very fun filled FREE event. everytype of jumphouse, clowns, free t-shirts, carnival row, good grub, a cool kids band, lots of hands on stuff and handouts for the kiddos--they loved it. kendra brought her favorite fellow gymnast and we just had a wonderful time--as you will now see.