At Tyler's Birthday Party

Well, I'm finally posting Tyler's birthday pictures! We had a good time at a party bounce place. I suspect a couple of the grownups had the most fun (ahem, Ryan and Mike) but the kids enjoyed themselves.


Here's a good Mike Tumble:





Autumn and I had a fun little race.





Is there a better way to spend your birthday? Sweaty AND happy!


So fun!!

So Much Halloween Fun!

I love Halloween. Look what I made!


Red hots melted over marshmallows! Too fun! We had a great Halloween night. I made chili and soup and hot drinks and told people just to drop in. I think I might do it every year. Our community group and a few friends came. My mom, too! She was seriously hilarious.


Know who else was hilarious? Lindsay's cat Baxter.


Anyway, my mom cracked me up. Autumn, however, was not impressed. At all.


In order to get a photo of them together, I had to sit between Autumn and my mom.


Look at how cute Micah and Autumn were together!


It was so fun trick or treating with Micah and Liana. It was also fun to see all the trick or treaters. In the past, we went to Ridgeway so we didn't get to do much in the neighborhood. This time, we got to see neighbors when we went out but also when they came to us! Here's a crowd, some of these guys are from across the street.


We also ran into this little strawberry who lives in the cove.


Autumn did SUCH a great job being brave, as she calls it. She rang doorbells, said trick or treat, and said thank you very politely. It took us a couple tries to push the right button at that house. I see with the flash, though, it's really obvious where the doorbell is!


Kyle and Lindsay set up their firepit in their driveway. It is so fun living close to the two of them! I sent our guests over there with marshmallows to roast over the fire!


Kyle, of course, got a huge kick out of my mom's costume. I made her wear it out when we went around the neighborhood.


Micah had to try on the glasses, ahaha.


Here's a full view of Autumn's costume. She, in no uncertain terms, told everyone she was NOT Ariel but a mermaid. I love it! This is at the Mullins Funnybones Festival last Saturday. I took Autumn so she could see old friends and teachers.


Broom ball: hysterical.


Autumn, Ella, and Evie make such a cute group! Evie has been one of my students for as long as I have been at Mullins teaching Aikido. It is so fun getting to watch the kids grow up!


OH! Back to our house Halloween night...here's Penny taking out Mike's stitches. Thank you, Penny!


And, of course, our yearly Halloween photo!


For more Halloween fun, check out this post. The story I tell is a little crazy but the photo is priceless. Click here for details on our costumes and the banner. And click here for information about a friend's adoption fundraiser.

50's sweetheart!

We had a crazy weekend! Two halloween events and Tyler's birthday party!! I have so many fun photos but they are downstairs and I am comfy under my electric blanket so those things will have to wait! Here's Autumn on 50's day to make it better, though!


CAN YOU STAND IT?


NO. NO, YOU CAN'T. I didn't feel like making a poodle skirt and the ones on sale weren't very nice so I decided to improvise. I put a handkerchief around her ponytail, gave her a poofy skirt and collared shirt from another outfit, and slipped a red cardigan on her before we left. The glasses MADE the outfit. I got them for $2.49 on amazon, if you can believe it! I popped the lenses out in case the plastic bothered her and they were awesome. So many people stopped to tell Autumn how adorable she was that Autumn tore the glasses off and said, "I am going to hide these so people WILL STOP LOOKING AT ME."


Mike and I did our fair share of dressing up! I uploaded a few of my Friday photos. I'm going to do a post on our costumes on the other blog but here's a preview!


Oh, and here's a last quickie. Autumn's first field trip was scheduled for last Friday but they cancelled it for rain. Oddly, the thing Autumn looked forward to the most? Riding the bus. She loooooooves school buses! Since she was kind of sad about it, I had lunch with her and sent this picture to the Papa.

This and That

What a weekend. I had a seminar, Mike cut his hand, I completely FAILED at dying a gi top for my costume...oddly the one that's the most stressful is that I didn't dye the gi right, haha! I'm either going to try again or give it up and make one...

Anyway, have a hodgepodge of pictures! There are the last of the beach photos. Autumn and Mike had fun in the ocean. It was mostly too cold for me.

From October 2012

Here's my dolphin photo! I wish I'd caught them just a second sooner.


I have to say, I think these crane things are creepy. They are so tall! We saw one when we were walking on the beach at night, too. I thought it was a person at first. THEN IT FLEW AWAY. /shudder


We carved a jack o' lantern! It was Autumn's first. We did it too early, though, and it rotted. :( We'll do another this weekend!


Autumn's school had baby animal day on Friday. I got some super cute photos of the kids in her class. So much fun!


After school we went to My Big Backyard with Josh.


I think going out without having some down time was a bad idea. I thought so, but I wanted to try in case I was wrong! Poor Autumn got a little overwrought at one point and had to take a break.


Hey, can you tell where she is?


Pop!


:D More to come next week! Visit Passing Pinwheels to catch up on the blogging event I am participating in.

Adventures

Your regularly scheduled blog post will be TOMORROW! I spent the weekend at a seminar and I AM SO TIRED. I would have had the evening to rest but then this happened:


The Papa is fine but he did cut his hand with some pruners and I had to take him to the hospital. He had 4 stitches. Between the shock of him coming in covered with blood, wrapping him up, getting him there, the wait, the drive to the 24 hour pharmacy, and the usually Sunday night chores, I'm beat! Wish me luck on a good night's sleep and please say a prayer for Mike, who may have a painful night ahead. I'll be posting tomorrow, most likely!

On the road and back again

We went to the beach!


After the seminar, we packed up and rolled on out of town. I didn't mention it in my last post because I try not to announce to the world when we're gone. :) That's your public safety announcement of the day! It was so great to get away and do a whole lot of nothing for a week. The weather was beautiful. In the 80's, no rain, only a few clouds. Monday morning we were a little chilly but other than that, everything was perfect! There were so many butterflies, it was crazy. I guess they are migrating for the winter? Really, the creatures were in full force. I haven't uploaded all my photos but I'm pretty sure I have some jumping dolphin pictures. The seagulls just kind of chilled on the beach. They were pretty funny. And a little creepy.


We saw SO MANY CRABS. Both the hermit kind and the tiny white kind. The hermits had seriously pretty shells. Mike and P'd found them mainly when looking for pretty shells on the ocean floor. Autumn wanted nothing to do with the crabs but I thought they were cute.


We looooooooved the indoor pool. Seriously, they had it at like 90 degrees. A little too hot to do any real swimming but so nice. I'm not usually into water much but I think I swam every day. Maybe it'll counteract all the vacation food...


I even participated in some acrobatics. :)


It looks like we tried this back in 2009. LOOK AT AUTUMN. She was so little and chubby. And my hair was red then, too!


Oh! We also went to this little theme park. I love this picture of Autumn and P'd.


Autumn did really great on the rides. We were pretty impressed! But the she really didn't like the airplane ride where you move the wheel to go up and down.


But she made up for it at the little people go karts. Apparently all that Mario Kart paid off for her! It was SO FUNNY, Autumn crashed into something and another little girl passed her. You should have seen her face. She was so mad!! It looks like she's going to be a competitive one.


I have more photos to upload! Until next week!

Don't forget to visit Passing Pinwheels! Check out a guest post from Mike for our 10th anniversary, information about pregnancy and infant loss remembrance day, and the stuff I made for Nanny and Boppa's party!

Another Late One!

I had a big weekend! We had the seminar at the Collierville Arts Academy. I'll post some photos soon. FOR NOW. I have dress up day.


Which left Autumn completely unimpressed. I thought she'd be excited about getting to wear a fun outfit. Apparently, the PTA which sends home MOUNTAINS OF INFORMATION CONSTANTLY hit some kind of goal and the reward was a no uniform day.


She added the hat on her own. :) It turns out she wasn't feeling very well. Autumn had been complaining about her tummy and I thought it was because she had been coughing and her muscles hurt. Aaaaaand then she came home with a fever. No strep or anything because I took her to the doctor for a strep test at the nurse's suggestion. So between Autumn not feeling well and the seminar, I don't have a lot of pictures. Which means...it's time for some mobile moments. :D


I don't know why but Autumn loved this Turkey hat. Ha! She even gobble gobbled around the store. When we were getting ready for the ball last week, I curled her hair with foam rollers and wrapped them in a handkerchief. She was so cute! But also completely uninterested in photos.


And this is just funny.


Oh! And here's Autumn's first diorama! We used some sand and shells she had collected from the beach, one of the aquarium plants Penny gave us, and Autumn colored and cut out fish. I didn't see all of the dioramas but I'm just gonna say that out of all the ones I *did* see, ours might have looked the, um, most homemade.


Ok, I guess we'll wind down with some sleepy ladies!


And,


Ha!