Happy Halloween

We've been into the princess outfits lately. If it's not the Cinderella dress, then it's the Barbie dress or the pink princess dress. It doesn't really matter as long as it sparkles. Abby is more in love with her outfit than she is with the holiday candy. That's a good thing because she's been able to wear her outfit everywhere lately. We headed to church on Wednesday night for PumpkinPalooza. There were carnival games, popcorn, movies and candy. She loved getting dressed up and wore the Cinderella dress.
On Friday she was able to wear a costume to school. This time we sent the Barbie dress. Tonight we donned the Cinderella outfit again and headed out to a local church that had a trunk or treat. It's been so cold, rainy and windy here that the church decided to put everything inside which worked out great. We started down the long line to gather our candy. We only got half way through and Abby said she was done so we headed off to McDonalds for dinner. Then we headed home to visit a few neighbors. We only went to about 5 neighbors and Abby announced she was done. So between the trunk or treat at church and our neighborhood, I think we went trick-or-treating for about 15 minutes. But we wore the Cinderella outfit for hours! So it was a win-win! :)

At church there was a mini studio set up for pictures. Abby's turned out so cute!

Friday night we got together with our SCAM group. This group is hilarious and I love getting together with them. All the girls thought they could help Aliya learn to use the potty so everyone traipsed into the bathroom. It was a picture perfect moment and just too funny to pass up. :)

Here are our four girls! We were missing Beth and Levi who were home with the flu. We had to take about fifty pictures before we were able to get one with everyone smiling at looking at the right camera. This one actually turned out pretty cute.

It's here!

Yeah. It's here.
In my classroom.
Confirmation from the doctors....
It's the dreaded H1N1!!
I don't have it and Abby doesn't have it, but there are several confirmed cases at school. There are a few teachers out with it and today was the first day that I have a confirmed case in my classroom. I had 6 kids gone today. I'm suddenly addicted to washing my hands and the hand sanitizer is never far away.
Today we had 88% of the student body there, we need to have 75% or less for school to be called. I guess we'll see what happens tomorrow. Prayers for health would be appreciated!

Saturday Ramblings

We have had such a busy day! Not one thing happened today that I had planned. I thought we would have a nice quiet day at home. I thought I would get to clean my house, vacuum, get caught up on my school work. Well, we were a little bit busier that that and it turned out to be a great day!
Abby woke me up right at 7:00 so we rolled out of bed and headed straight to the kitchen to make pancakes. This girl loves pancakes and today we added chocolate chips! She climbed up on the counter and threw those chocolate chips in and giggled the whole time. This was the first time she's had chocolate chip pancakes, but I can tell that we'll be having them again soon. They were a big hit.
After breakfast we picked up my mom and headed to Meijer. They were running a deal on Nabisco crackers and I was able to get 10 boxes for $0.06 each!! That's just plain crazy!! Then we headed over to the fabric store. Abby's so active that she's tearing holes into her pants, right at the knee area. She picked up some cute pink flower patches and then we were off to Kohls for some shopping. A few hours later and with a much lighter wallet, we headed home. I got a few pairs of pants and a few shirts, all much needed for work.
After lunch, our neighbor Jake came over to play with Abby. They were hilarious!! They're both the same age and played together for 3 hours! I laughed so hard at their antics. Abby asked for her princess tent and they dragged out the walkie-talkies. Abby got to be the "Princess" mom and Jake was the "Pirate" dad. Abby stayed in the princess tent and would call Jake on the walkie talkie and tell him to come home for dinner. Jake would call back and say that he was busy on the pirate ship but would be back in time for dinner. It was so funny and it went on for hours! :)
And if that wasn't enough we picked up my parents and headed out to Best Buy to look at new tv's. My tv hasn't been working right for the past 2-3 months. I'll be watching tv and then the color will suddenly fade away. It doesn't go to black and white, but it goes very, very dark and all I'll be able to see are shades of neon pink and gray. It was just plain weird. So I've been thinking about getting a new tv. I wasn't going to buy one, I was just going to look and check out prices. Well, things changed! I came home with one!!! And I love it!! It's larger, clearer and the color looks great! After buying the tv, we headed out for some pizza and then home to set it up. I'm watching it right now. Abby's not too excited about the tv, but she's taken over the cardboard box it came in. I'm sure the box will be here for quite a few days and will prove to be very entertaining. Doesn't she look cute here? She loved throwing in the chocolate chips!

These two giggled all afternoon. Here they are enjoying their snacks. For some reason they thought putting the cookie on your eye was so fun. Don't you also love the pirate hat on Jake?

Abby loved playing with the styrofoam from the tv box. She set them up as chairs and was pretending she was cheering at a Hope College football game. Too cute!

Pumpkin Carving Fun

Today was another perfect day. We started off snuggling together in my warm bed and hitting the snooze button quite a few times. Once we finally got up, we headed off to church. I didn't have to teach Sunday School today so I was able to sit with the family which is so nice. Then we came home and spent the rest of the day together- just the two of us. Abby played great while I read the newspapers and then we decided it was time to tackle the pumpkin carving. I had envisioned Abby loving this activity. I had thought she would love sticking her hands into that gooey mess and reveling in pure delight. However, she stuck one hand into it and then almost gagged. She absolutely refused to put her hand back in, but had no problem directing me in how to do it. :) Although it's not perfect, she did fall in love with the pumpkin and even named it.
After some cleaning up, book reading, CandyLand, Crazy 8's, and a delicious tomato soup dinner, Abby cuddled up with me and asked me to tell her again everything we did today. Then she said, "We had a fun day, right?" Right honey! We had a very fun day just being together.

Don't you just love this face? One hand went into it and then it was over. I tried giving her a spoon to scrape the sides, but she absolutely refused to do it again. So I dived in and took care of all the goo! :)

Here's the finished product. Don't you just love how Abby's claiming it as her own?

When it got dark we headed outside to light it up. We found an old candle and put it inside. Abby LOVED it! You can't see the glow from this picture, I had my flash set so that I could get Abby in it too.

We hope you all had a great day with your forever someones!

1st Homework Assignment

Last week Abby came home from preschool with her first homework assignment. She was sent home with a blank pink sheet of paper and she had to create an ALL ABOUT ME sheet. There were very few directions and there was no template. I do student of the week at school so I had a few ideas of what to include and decided to have her list her favorites.
We started working on it last night. She LOVED putting the stickers on for her name. She labored over what color to use for each letter. Then we moved to the computer to find just the right pictures. This took a long time because Abby thought we should put every picture we owned on there and that would be 100's of pictures! But we did manage to narrow it down to the chosen few.
We finished working on it tonight and Abby was thrilled to do "homework". I'm not kidding! She been waiting for the day that she would have real homework. She usually plays school at her desk and assigns herself some homework and sometimes I have to "create" homework for her to do, but this assignment was real homework! She couldn't stop smiling. She loved the cutting, coloring, gluing, and especially the writing. She doesn't have to turn it in until Friday so I'm sure we'll have to oooh and aaah over it several more times.
Ah...I'm going to keep pictures of this to remind her that she loves to do homework. I'll probably have to bring it out to remind her several times over the next few years. :)

Pumpkinfest Weekend Fun

In spite of the rain that has continued to pour down, we have been very busy! Seriously, it's been raining and raining and raining. But, it's Pumpkin Fest weekend and we celebrated Papa's birthday. We started the weekend off with the pumpkin run. This is usually held outside in a park and it broken up by ages. All the kids can run into the park and grab a pumpkin. If the pumpkin has a number written on the bottom then you win a prize, but you do get to keep the pumpkins. Well, since it was raining, they had to hold it inside the library! What a funny place to put it and it was so crowded and not well organized, but Abby did come away with two tiny pumpkins. She was thrilled. Our plan was to walk downtown to enjoy the rest of the activities, but it was raining and nothing was running so we headed to Taco Bell for dinner. After a few tacos, and more rain, we headed home. We settled in our pajamas with big bowls of ice cream to watch Cinderella. We even turned off the lights so it would feel like a movie theater. It's the stuff you dream about doing with your daughter and it was so fun!

As soon as we woke up on Saturday we headed over to Papa and Nana's house for breakfast and to see our cousins. My sister and her family came into town for Papa's birthday. The cousins absolutely adore each other and had a great day playing together. Here they are playing with the princess castle.

With my sister around, you don't stay home...you go shopping!! So we hit Old Navy, TJ Maxx and Bumble Bea's. We left three of the girls home with Papa and Uncle Jeff. Sophie is the only one who wanted to come. She got spoiled by us and came home with not only new clothes but also a red bouncy ball. :) Here are Nana and Sophie waiting for us to pay for our new outfits.

One of the highlights of the Pumpkin Fest weekend was the parade. Abby got to be in it this year!! Her preschool class had a float so we plunked her on it and she loved it. We were so worried it was going to rain, but the rain stopped for an hour and the parade was great. Abby got to ride with her friend Jake and they both waved together!

Here she is on the float as it passed by us. She's the one waving her hand directly in front of her face. :)

The gang's all here!! These kids loved this parade and not for the entertainment....for the candy! I can't believe the haul of sugar these kids came away with. I think tonight when Abby's in bed, I'm going to sneak a few pieces for myself. :)

Here's the pile of candy they came home with!! They all put it in a pile and shared it equally and were on a sugar high the rest of the night.

We celebrated Papa's birthday with a great dinner! Sophie was the lucky one who got to sit next to Papa during dinner. We had delicious chicken parmesan and spaghetti and topped it off with birthday cake and pecan pie. Yum!

Here we are! Our gorgeous family of two!

For Papa's birthday we bought him a new Hope College hat. He has an orange sweatshirt that he wears for the basketball and football games so we thought we would buy him a blue hat to match it.

By the end of the night everyone was tired. This is what happened after baths and right before bed. Nana read books to Julia and Abby....

and Papa read books to Sophie!

Then it was off to bed in order to rest for another day of fun! And, of course...it's still raining outside!

Quack, quack!

Tonight our Hannah and Emily came to visit. We just love these girls! They come to do their homework and laundry. Yeah, right! They come to make chocolate chip cookies, feed ducks and play kitchen with Abby. I love the nights when I get to see them.
We did feed the ducks and man are they getting vicious. We have to break up the bread in the house before heading out because they will peck at each other in order to get the food. They are so mean. Abby and I break it up so that we can throw handfuls out and avoid a gang fight. I'm totally serious, these are crazy ducks. There was one time this summer when there were 45 ducks in my backyard. I live in a crazy neighborhood. :)