trick or treat!!

this year some friends of ours invited us to their neighborhood to take the kids trick or treating. 

they have a really great area and everyone gets really into decorating and handing out candy. 

here are our lovely hosts!

Trisha and Philip.

They just announced they were expecting this week and this is how they told people!

super cute!

 Briea and her friend Isaac. she loves playing with him. anytime we pass their house (which we do every morning) she will say "go to Isaac house, play?"

 Here is Jillian and her sweet new baby Sam. 

I get to watch this little guy during the day. 

he is such a cutie and super sweet. 

he was a candy corn, but it was a little chilly, so he stayed in his bear suit!

i had to snap a picture of this. it made me laugh all night. 

when i bought this costume, i thought these were pants. i don't know why it did not dawn on my that they were chaps. 

I just kept giggling at Kael's little bootie hanging out while he ran from door to door! 

 finally, here is our whole crew!

darth vader, cowboy kael, fairy briea, and super baby ayla!

hope everyone had a safe and fun halloween!

school halloween party.

today was Cullan's school Halloween party.

he was more than excited to wear his costume to school. 

here he is before he left. 

Darth Vader!

 They do a fun little parade at his school so the kids can show off their costumes to the parents that line the streets. Here is the principal leading the way!

 Cullan was so surprised i was there that this is the best picture i got. he is standing with his teacher and classmates.

 After the parade, they went back to their class for the party.

it started with Ms. B reading them a Halloween story.

 then they broke down into stations. 

Cullan's first station was the witch hand. 

they stuffed gloves with popcorn and then decorated them with stickers and rings.

 next up was snack. a cupcake and they got to make spiders with Ritz crackers, peanut butter pretzels and raisins.

 after that they got to play pass the pumpkin. this was the station i was in charge of. the kids were so funny. they would try to hold the pumpkin until they thought i was going to stop the music so they could get a prize. i had to be sneaky!!

 then the party ended back on the rug with ms. B sharing a fun story about a witch looking for a home that ended up being a pumpkin. 

i was so grateful that i was able to spend an hour with Cullan in his classroom today. i enjoy seeing him with his friends and in the classroom. 

he is growing so fast. i just don't want to miss any of it. 

love.

i love garran for so many different reasons.

here is one.

after a long week with the kids, briea's allergy craziness and two hours in the car driving back and forth to pediatricians offices, he comes home one day and does this.

i need to run to the store, which i was so tired and dreading, that i asked him to make a list. 

i was begrudgingly putting my shoes on, when he handed me this.

i took him up on it!

he is amazing.

he does so much for our family and works so hard.

yet, he still does things like this for me!

he's great!

allergies strike again.

well allergies strike again.

after visiting with her pediatrician. 

she is currently on 4 different meds. (some are creams)

and she is off milk. 

almond or rice.

we are going to try a few different things to see what might be the trigger for this.

i hate seeing her suffer!

Fall Pictures

Last year and this year, I have asked my friend Becca to take some family pictures of us, so that we have something to put on our christmas card. 

So about two weeks ago, we went and did pictures. 

These are just a few from the day. 

I am saving the family one for our christmas card. 

So if you want to see our family, make sure I have your address!! ;0)

 Cullan

 Kael

 This is so Briea

 Ayla

 Ayla and daddy. One of my favorites. She is such a daddy's girl. 

 Garran and I

Our wild monkeys. 

This picture just makes me smile. 

It is our family.

The oldest three running wild, and Ayla about to jump out of Garrans arms wanting in on the action.

Their are a bunch more. Maybe I will post some on facebook in an album or something!

PJ DAY

instead of wearing their costumes to school, kael's class got to have a PJ party.

he was really excited about wearing his pajamas to school. 

he asked about it all week. 

when i dropped him off at school all of the kids were so funny showing off their pj's to each other. 

i love that kael is enjoying school so much and having so much fun!

Pun-Kin Fun

once again. pinterest is to blame.

i saw this idea on there and thought it would be a cute decoration, but also a cute idea to take to the boys teachers. 

all i used was orange paint, black duct tape, and baby food jars. 

 the ones on the site did not have the tissue paper on the top. 

i added that myself. i thought it need something.

so weed added the green leaves and some candy inside. 

the boys had fun picking out faces for me to cut out for their pumpkins.

 after we were done. we put them in some orange bags and sent them on their way.

i love fun and easy crafts to do with the kids. 

we are working on some funky turkeys to hang up for thanksgiving. i will post some pictures when we are done with those.

cuteness

my friend Ann showed me how to make these last week. 

now i am in love. 

you can do so many things with them. 

sometimes she puts safety pins on the back and will wear them on her sweater or on a bag she is carrying. other times she puts a clip on them and wears them in her hair. 

i am in love. I think they are so cute, and so easy.

I made these four last night while watching TV.

I found this fabric at jo-anns for $2.00. you do not need a whole lot to make them. I love cute things that are cheap to make!!

Thanks Ann.

Baking.

get ready for baking and crafty posts galore.

it is not my fault.

it is pinterest. 

that site is so dangerous. 

i get sucked in looking at stuff and then have to fight the urge to rummage through my craft supplies or make a run to hobby lobby.

hence the lack of blogging. 

i have been busy.

the first thing i did off of that site, were these.

they are blue berry muffins.

they are WONDERFUL!

my taste tester agrees. 

they make huge muffins and are definitely not as easy as the box mixes, but they are worth it. 

and they only make 12. 

which is good. 

eating to many could be a serious problem.

Birthday Fun

Well we celebrated Ayla's birthday last night. I had forgot that I had signed up to have the sisters over from our church a while back. So they just got to join in on the fun!

(I have been sort of scatterbrained lately.)

Here is the birthday Girl!

 For dinner we had all of her favorite foods. So we had apples, grapes, cheese, crackers, chicken and tator tots. It was kind of an odd meal, but Ayla seem to love it. After that it was time for the cake.

I know it looks huge. It was really not that big. I used a very small cake pan. The original idea was that it was going to look like a big candle. however, i got behind visiting teaching, and running errands, so this is what I came up with. Its ok. Not my best. But Ayla was happy, so that is what was important.

 When we cut into the cake. Ayla got the first piece, and then we went to cut some for these ladies....well the whole side fell off. So I just put it on a plate and gave it to them. It was pretty funny.

 Kael waiting patiently for his piece of cake. He is wearing daddy's work glasses that he wears in the shop.

 Next was present time. I think we could have just given Ayla the bag and she would have been fine with that. She loves bags. But there was fun stuff inside. It just took her a minute to figure out how to get into it. She ended up having some help from her older siblings.

 Ayla playing with her birthday presents.

 Briea enjoying some of her party "BLING"! All of the girls at the part go a ring of the cake!

 I found these cute little tissue paper puffs online and thought they would make a cute decoration. I think I will use them again for other things. They are pretty in large quantities!!

It was a fun night, with a lot of laughs!!

Happy First Birthday to Our Sweet Lizzy Lu!!

(she did get the traditional birthday song, but we are still having problems uploading videos)

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice!

so, I have been bitten by the baking bug.

since I have started taking my cake decorating class, I have started baking all sorts of things so that I can practice decorating them. 

the funny thing is, that i have lost all interest in really eating any of it. 

so that is good for me!

bad for all my friends that I have to pawn the stuff off on.

So I learned how to make these flowers last night in my cake class. 

I love them. I think they are super cute.

I am not crazy about these colors, but I was working with some left over frosting, so I just went with it.

 I also made some spooky Halloween mummies to takes to my visiting teaching folks. I am sure they might get sick of goodies soon. I thought the mummies were fun. If nothing else their kids will enjoy them!!

I will be posting more pictures soon. 

Next week is my last level 2 cake class. I have to decorate a complete cake. 

who knows what I will come up with?!?!

1.

Today she is One.

I can not believe it.

October is a hard month sometimes.

I have to remember all month that my babies are getting bigger. 

Today was fun. 

We Laughed. We Played. We Partied!

Happy Birthday Lizzy Lu!

We Love You!

the price i pay...

i guess this is the price i pay for wanting to put cute fall decorations up in our house! ;0P

I was taking some fall stuff out of a tub that we had and a vase shattered when i went to pick it up. 

oh well. a few stitches later and this awesome wrap and I will have a scar with a silly story.

girl time.

now that the boys both have school. 

somedays the girls and i like to have a little fun while we shop!

Wiggle It, Just a little Bit!

Another milestone has happened at our house. 

Cullan not only just turned 6, but he also has his first official loose tooth!

He had just got home from school and I had given him some pretzels as a snack. 

All of a sudden he tells me that the pretzels had broken his tooth and made it loose. 

I checked it out, and sure enough, his first official loose tooth. 

Cullan loves to video things. He makes his own movies all the time. So of course he wanted me to take a video of him explaining what happend with his tooth!

ENJOY!

(well the video would not load. i will try again tomorrow!)

Apple Orchard

On Tuesday I went as a chaperon to the Apple Orchard with Kael's Pre-K class. 

It was a little chilly, but the kids had a lot of fun. I was in charge of Kael and two other little boys. Here they are when we first got to the Orchard. Kael looks so big next to them, but I have to remind myself he is a whole year older than them. He is 5 and they are just turning 4.

Darn those late birthdays!

The first thing that we got to do was go on a Hay ride. The farmers black lab just jumped right up there with us and enjoyed the ride. He was a very sweet dog, and the kids loved having him along.

After the hayride we got to have some apple doughnuts and cider.

 They were delicious. Very tasty!!

Here is Kael with some of his classmates enjoying their snack.

Next, we went into the barn to see how the apples were sorted and stored. The farmer showed the kids some of the more unusual apples that he had found recently. They thought that was pretty funny.

Next on our stop was the bee lady. 

She talked to the kids about the bee hives they have there and how they make honey. 

After she was done talking, the kids got to check out the bees hard at work. The also got to look for the queen who was marked with a blue dot.

Do you see her??

 From the bees we went to the petting zoo and straw maze. It was nice because the kids could kind of get the wiggles out and run around. I was happy too. Only because up to that point I had three little boys wanting to hold my recently stitched hand. All I can say is that that situation equals PAIN!

 I always think it is funny the faces my kids make in these cut out boards. Here is Kael and J. I don't think any of the kids in the class were tall enough to be the rooster!

 We spent almost two hours there and by then the kids were ready to go. It was pretty chilly and they were all really excited about being able to ride the school bus again. For most of them, it was there first time on a bus. These are big moments when you are 5!!

I snapped a quick class picture when Kael's teacher had them all sitting. 

I have a lot of respect for Kaels teacher. These kids were all pretty good. But she does this twice a day because this Pre-K is half days. Wow!! I am really happy he has such an amazing teacher!!