Candy Anyone?

I think we had too much of a good thing this month. I think the final count was five Halloween parties/trick-or-treating. If I never see another piece of candy it will be too soon. Banana has had an absolute blast though. Tonight after trunk or treat she was asking me if we could do it again tomorow. Um, how about no? We need to have a parade or party so we can get rid of some of this candy we are floating in here. It really has been a fantastic fun month though. We love the holidays here, and there were so many fun things to do. We had some fun parties with friends, a couple of trick or treat outings, and a fun party at our dancing classes. I wish I would have taken some pics of the cute girls I teach. They got to do a little costume parade, and Banana showed her independence when she came into my classroom by telling me to get away, this was her party...She does not like to see either of her parents when she is doing her thing...(nursery, dance class, play dates with friends). So here are some fun pics. Enjoy.

Hannah and her buddy C at our friends' awesome Halloween party!


Trick or treating at the mall. It was a madhouse. Luckily we got there right when it started. By the time we were done it was just one gigantic line winding all of the way around the mall. Hubby and I had been talking about getting this shirt for Banana for a while, it says "Chatterbox for President." And at Gap they were giving away stickers instead of candy, and look at the one she got! Her dancing party. The parade was so fun to watch. I'm glad Hubby was there to take some pics because I was teaching. She wasn't too excited to see him following her around either...Too funny. He said that when he took this picture she told him to stop following her.


Look at that beautiful Iowa sunset...Trunk or treating was pretty fun. And it was 60 degrees! The missionaries had a fun fishing tent set up, they are awesome! People really decked out their trunks, and I am mad I didn't get some pics. I think that about covers our Halloween festivities. Have a great night!

A Little Plea

Any volunteers to come and teach this adorable baby girl that it's possible to sleep longer than 40 minutes at a time alone, in her own crib...Me and my sleep deprived self would be forever grateful.

Great News!

Just wanted to let you all know that my awesome hubby passed Part I boards!! Woo-hoo! Love you babe!

Cutest Thing You've Ever Seen

Let the Candy Binge Begin

Here's a little preview of the Halloween festivities around here. We had our first trick or treating at Palmer the other day and already have a bag full of candy! There are two trick or treat parties this weekend we are going to, and a few more next week...all of our candy will be donated to a good cause. Our trunk 'r treat party at the church. I think I just barely threw out the leftover candy from last year, so I thought that it might be a good idea to try and get rid of it on Halloween!

Cinderella and her "CinderPrince"
Finals are upon us again, and so far so good. We are so ready for this tri to be over. It's been a pretty stressful one for both of us, so there will be a collective sigh of relief at our house on Thursday :)
Just a question...At what age did your kids pick up on sarcasm? Miss H has it down. And has too many one liners for me to remember. I've been trying to write them all down, but I can't keep up. The other day she informed me that I was being so 'noying. Actually our conversation went like this:
Me: Miss H, please don't throw that book.
Me (again):Miss H please.
Hannah: Seriously mom, you are being so 'noying,,,
Me: Silence, then uncontrollable laughter.

And yet another hiarious moment:
I was running up the stairs from the laundry room because I could hear screaming children, and made it almost to the top, lost my footing and face planted into the stairs.
I hear Miss H come running yelling to see if I'm ok...She gets to where I am, sees me sprawled across the stairway, and says, "Oh mommy, this is so terrible. It's just too terrible..."
I loved it! She has such a sensitive heart, which comes out every once awhile amid the sarcasm.
Good luck to all of our friends out there going through finals! And especially to their wives!

Warning: Picture Overload

This post is mainly going to be about playing catch up with our pictures. We have had a fun month with lots of fun family time! We started it all off by going to the pumpkin patch. It's the same one we went to last year, and Miss H LOVED it! I loved it this year too. I had a much more enjoyable time this year, seeing as last year I had a bad case of morning sickness. I love this time of year. Probably my favorite as far as weather, and it kicks off the holiday season, which if you know me and my family we love! Miss H has had a blast making all of her cute Halloween crafts, and playing outside in this gorgeous weather. Who ever heard of 80 degrees in October...in Iowa? Dad is busy getting ready for finals and it is so exciting to say we are HALFWAY DONE!! Only one more tri until he starts clinic, and we will be on our way! Woo-hoo!

The hay ride was great!
Miss H picked out the tiniest pumpkin she could find!! There was no convincing her to get a big one. That was fine with us! Less to carry around...
It wasn't really a "corn" maze this year. It was actually a "sorghum" maze, but it was the perfect height for Miss H and I. No claustrophobia this year!!
Pumpkin painting!

She had a good time playing with all of the seeds. That was my fave part as well when I was a little kid!
Dad busted out some serious tools to tackle this pumpkin! Our kitchen has horrible lighting, so our magic fix...his head lamp.
Cinderella's castle. We thought it was fitting because Miss H is being Cinderella for Halloween. And we're always homesick for Disney World...

One of my favorite projects! She calls them her silly spiders and their names are Daddy and Grandpa...not sure if there is some sort of hidden meaning :)

Her "silly" ghost. Everything is silly as far as Halloween is considered. I think it helps her to not be freaked out by everything if we just call it silly. (Ignore the post dancing/tumbling class hair...if we had a shot of mine it would have looked the same!)
And finally..."Boyfriend Chris" came over for dessert the other night, and he got roped into playing this game with Miss H. She thought it was great to be tossed back and forth across the room...I'm sure the grandma's are having heart attacks right now! I'm pretty sure they probably worked off the dessert they just ate!

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

Tickets: $60
Parking: $5
Souvenir: $20
Snacks: $6

The look on Miss H's face when she saw Mickey: Priceless!

We bought tickets ages ago for Playhouse Disney Live! on Tour, and the day finally came. We decided to not tell Miss H until the day before, and it's a good thing. That's all she talked about for the next day. At first she was a little confused because she thought we were going to "Minnie World" a.k.a. Disney World...but once we got that straightened out it was pure excitement. The show was tons o' fun, and it Miss E didn't make a peep the whole time. I was worried that she would spaz out cuz of all of the noise and screaming kids, but she took a nap! Unbelievable! We've had a lot of fun things going on around our house but I will have to save that for another day...motherhood calls.

Such a weirdo

Well...Since it's two a.m. and I apparently have nothing better to do than try and have a conversatin with a 4 month old, I am going to do this tag from Courtney...
I can not be held accountable for sentences that ramble, make no sense, etc...
The Tag is to list some quirks about yourself...Enjoy learning about my weirdness.

1. Like Courtney I obsess about making sure everything is turned off/unplugged, etc. I check at least three times before we go anywhere, and still worry the whole time I"m gone if I checked.

2. I really don't like milk, unless I have some sort of sweet treat. And then I can't eat that sweet treat unless I have a glass of milk. But I HATE drinking it alone.

3. I am obsessed with lotion. It's the first thing I put on after showering, washing my hands, breathing...you get the idea.

4. I have been a dancer my whole life, specifically ballet, but sometimes watching ballet bores me to tears. Really.

5. I'm not really sure if this is a quirk but I can't stand to smell/eat anything that I smelled or ate while pregnant. Prob cuz it all reminds me of puking. Which is what I did every day for nine months x2.

6. Finally, I hate not being ready for the day within an hour of waking up, but i loathe getting ready. If I were rich the first thing I would do is hire someone to do it for me.

Tag to Kyla, Crystal, Jocelyn, and Kat.

Growing Up!

Something to Think About

My Aunt and Uncle stopoed to see us on their way to Nauvoo this week, and it was so fun to see them. I haven't seen them in forever, and they are such amazing people. I wish the visit could have been longer. But, we are grateful for any opportunity we have to see family because those opporutnities don't come around too often. Miss H warmed right up to them, and we were all sad to see them go.

I just wanted to let you all see how much fun my girls have together. They really do love each other, and I love seeing them playing together like this.

I was watching Oprah the other day and it was an episode about this Mom who left her little girl in the car for over eight hours, and this little girl died. When they first started talking about it my first thought was, How does a Mom do this? How do you forget your child for EIGHT HOURS? Well, this mom started telling her story and the first thing she says is that her day didn't start out routine. Her husband usually took her two girls to pre-school and day care, and she went to work because she had to be there earlier than their drop off times. On this particular morning her husband had a dentist appointment, and it was the mom's first day back to school (she was a vice-principal). She had to run a few errands before it was time to drop off her three year old at daycare, and by the time she was done with those errands her mindset was, "it's time to head to school." Her daugheter had fallen asleep in the backseat, which caused the mom to forget she was there. She went through the whole school day not even thinking about her child in the car. Until the end of the day when a co-worker came running in to tell her that she was in the car. The daughter hadn't survived the long day in the hot car...
Ok, my point is this. I read about this happening a lot over this past summer and my thought was always almost immediately one of disbelief. How can you forget your kids? They are around almost 24/7, and the center of almost every mom's world. As moms our lives revolve around our children, so, at least for me, there are very few moments that I'm not thinking about them.
Well, this mom went on to say that as a mom we all just get to busy. We try to do too much, be everything to people around us, and try to be the perfect moms. Our lives get so busy that simplest things slip our mind. How many of us get busy running errands, the kids fall asleep in the car and we leave them there for just a few moments to run the groceries inside, or leave them there when we run inside for a quick errand? Over the course of that show my thoughts about this mom and her mistake changed. She has to live with her mistake for the rest of her life. She was distracted, which is something we are guilty of. Her routine was broken for that day, and it changed her life. So...my question is what do you all think? Can you sympathize with her? Understand how it could happen? Think that it could happen to any one of us? I"m curious to know what you think.