Happy Halloween

This year was one of the easiest years I've ever had regarding Halloween costumes. Phoebe's just came together with stuff we already had and a few purchased items. I had to order Eli's props and make his jacket, but it was easy and I finished it in a Saturday. Easy-Peasy all around

Phoebe decided to be PINKALICIOUS. I gave her a choice between two different ideas and that's the one she chose.

I think it was the pink hair.

Or maybe the sparkly wings.

Or it could have been the twirly skirt. (If it looks familiar, it's because she wore it at her BIRTHDAY PARTY this last February.)

Whatever the reason, she looked pretty darn cute!

I told Eli that if he'd be Indiana Jones for Halloween, then I'd let him watch the first movie. (Yes, I realize I'm a controlling mother, but really it's all in how you present it. My children have never had a choice so they don't know any better.)

He takes this role quite seriously.

I was trying to get a photo of him with the whip. This is the closest I got, but I like it. I find it an amazing thing how every mother thinks her child is so darn good-looking. Eli just might be the handsomest 2nd grader ever. :)

He wanted me to take a photo of how Indiana Jones sleeps. I think this was one of his reasons for agreeing to be Indiana Jones. He wanted to pull his hat down over his face.

I like this photo because both children are so completely in character. It makes me laugh.

So what are you (or your children) dressing up for Halloween this year?

Superhero Seraphina

One of the reasons I kept Phoebe at KU this year instead of sending her to the half-day Pre-K offered at the elementary is because she has three whole days at home to just play. The elementary Pre-K meets everyday for half a day whereas KU only meets 2 days a week, but all day long. She'll head off to all day kindergarten next year and her playtime will be drastically reduced, and I value unstructured playtime a lot. I think it's one of the most important thing a child can do! Four-years-old is one of the best childhood years (I think). Four-year-olds live in a secret land where the line between reality and fantasy is fuzzy at best. They need that time explore and create and pretend and build and dream up new superheroes.

Like this one.

Superhero Seraphina.

She named herself. These pom-poms may look like ordinary pom-poms, but they are so much more! They shoot "blasters" from their tips and can be used as a "smooshersizer" to "smoosh the bad guys".

Bad Guys everywhere are shaking in their boots and running for their lives!

I just love four-year-olds!

Show and Tell: Nine-Patch Quilt

If you live in Amarillo, you know that I did not take this photo today as there are 3 inches of snow on the ground and big, wet flakes still coming down. That's right, folks, snow. And a lot more than the weatherman predicted. I took the photo yesterday with every intent of getting it posted yesterday, but life happened and I just didn't get around to it.

This is the nine patch quilt my friend, WENDY, quilted for me. The same quilt I started when Eli started kindergarten. It's so nice to have it finished and sitting in my living room to snuggle under...especially on a day like today!
Wendy said her walking foot got a work out with this cross-hatch quilting, but I think it was worth it. The quilting makes the pieces really pop. It looks so much better in person than it does here, too.

THIS was the inspiration for my quilt. I have a thing for squares and something about this quilt spoke to me. Little did I know it would be as hard as it was as a novice quilter or take me this long. I used a jelly roll from Mary Englebreit's Recipe for Friendship collection that was out a few years ago. I had to add a few extra fabrics (mostly supplied by my friend, Dixie) to make it square up, but it turned out great. I used a cherry print from JoAnn's for the backing and the binding.

This quilt is now sitting in my laundry room so I can throw it in the dryer right before I pick up the kids from school. I've got some cookies baking so when we get home we'll all snuggle up under the quilt and eat our cookies. It's a nice way to break in a quilt, don't you think?

What You Need To Make For Breakfast This Weekend

This was another Pintrest recipe. I thought it might be a nice variation on our Cinnamon Roll Friday routine. Cinnamon Roll Friday is just what it sounds like. We have cinnamon rolls for breakfast on Fridays. Nothing fancy. Usually just from a can (unless I've made THESE or THESE and have them in the freezer...which doesn't happen very often) and lately we've been switching it up a bit with other cinnamon roll-type recipes. Like this one.

It was yummy. The kids complained about the pecans, but I love them so they just got to pick them off. More for me! :) I used Grands biscuits, but next time I'm going to use regular biscuits because I think it would be a little less "bread-y" between all the gooey, gorgeous glaze.

Sticky Bun Breakfast Ring
2 small tubes refrigerator buttermilk biscuits OR 1 tube Pillsbury Grands buttermilk biscuits
3 Tbsp. butter or margarine, melted
1/2 C. syrup
1/3 C. packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 C. chopped pecans, opt.
1/4 C. chopped almonds, opt.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray a fluted pan with non-stick spray. Combine the melted butter and syrup in a small bowl and set aside. In another bowl, combine the brown sugar, cinnamon, and nuts (if desired). Place about half of the syrup mixture in the bottom of the pan. Then sprinkle half of the brown sugar mixture on top. Lay the biscuits on the bottom of the pan, overlapping edges (closely together) to form a ring. Top with remaining syrup and sugar mixtures. Bake at 375 degrees for approximately 20 minutes or until golden brown. Cool for 1 minute in the pan, then invert onto a serving platter and enjoy!

You'll notice that the above photo was taken after we had eaten some from the breakfast ring.  I take Eli to school at 7:30 and it's still pretty dark which is not ideal for good photo lighting.  So I waited till later in the morning and that's why some is already eaten. Maybe even more than one slice a piece. :)

A Quilt Rockstar

When you think of "quilters", you probably don't think "rockstars". You probably envision old ladies with embroidered sweatshirts and old lady hair, but you'd be wrong. Well, not completely wrong as a lot of quilters fit this stereotype, but there are also "rockstar quilters".

I happen to know one. Her name is Wendy.

There aren't too many people who can make me feel completely intimidated, but she's one of them. Driven, determined women usually have this affect on me. I leave a conversation with her trying to remind myself that I, too, have things I'm good at, I just can't remember what they are when I'm around her. :) I mean, this girl has got it together. She's a mom of two little girls, she teaches math at the local community college, she has her own QUILTING BLOG, she makes her own patterns, she's a mean machine quilter, and she has stuff on MODA BAKE SHOP. (You can see those projects HERE.)

I had two quilt tops that were waiting for me to finish, but machine quilting is not my favorite. One top has been a WIP (Work In Progress) for 2 years! That's right, I started this QUILT when Eli was in kindergarten. It was high time to get it finished. I knew I wanted a cross-hatch pattern, but I don't have a walking foot for my machine. I was worried that the other quilt top (in which I used my VERY FAVORITE FABRIC EVER...at least so far) would suffer the same fate so I asked Wendy to quilt both of them for me.

Her work blew me away.

I got the quilts back last week. (I'll be sharing the Show and Tell posts after I finish the binding.) They were beautiful. I mean she really, really did a fabulous job. Plus, I got to work with a quilting rockstar.

If you ever need something quilted, Wendy is your gal. She's very reasonable (as far as quilting prices go) and you can rest assured that it will look beautiful. It makes me quite anxious to drop a quilt top off with someone who's going to quilt it. It's like leaving one of your children in the care of another to finish raising. You've poured so much of yourself into this project through the fabric selection and cutting and piecing that it's hard to hand it over to someone else. Then again, maybe I'm a control freak. :)

Maybe that's my thing. I'm a Control-Freak Rockstar. That doesn't sound near as cool as being a Quilt Rockstar, though.

Watch Day at Ballet

Phoebe is again taking ballet this fall. I'm not sure if she loves it because she loves to dance or because she gets to spend an hour with two good buddies every week. Maybe it a combination of the two. Whatever the reason, we are on a "ballet countdown" every week. "Phoebe, you have to sleep five more times before ballet." "Phoebe, you have to sleep two more times before ballet." "Phoebe, you sleep one more time tonight and then it's ballet!" Then, on the afternoon after ballet, she starts asking again and this time it's seven more times. To her four-year-old brain, that sounds like forever.

Watch Day was this week. She has a new teacher, Ms. Marissa (or Ms. Arissa as Phoebe calls her, and Ms. Marissa only has one Watch Day per semester. It makes it a little more special, I think. I'm also very pleased with how she interacts with the girls and actually teaches them things. Phoebe is gathering quite the vocabulary for French words. Ms. Marissa also has the girls face her during the class, while the moms line up in chairs behind them. While it doesn't make for the best photos ever, the girls do so much better and we actually get to see how much they've learned. But you'll have to excuse the fact that all the shots are from the back.

Plié (plee-ay)

Tendu (ton-do)

Balancé (balance-ay)

Then the girls switched over to tap. Tap is my favorite, but I don't think it's quite dramatic enough for Phoebe. She likes it, of course, but I don't think it speaks to her soul like ballet does. Maybe it's because tap doesn't have fancy names like ballet.

Heel

March

It was about this time that my friend, Rhonda, showed me how to get better photos in the bad, fluorescent lighting of the ballet studio. (For those of you with a BIG CANON, you turn the setting to "P"; I don't know what it does, but it helps.

I love this photo of the two of them. It looks like they are both enjoying each other immensely and all mommies love people who genuinely enjoy their children.

Shuffle

Marching at the beginning of the little dance they are learning.

A booty shake. And everybody knows that no tap dance is complete without a booty shake.

I like this photo. I think it's because the composition is nice...not that I did that on purpose. It just happened.

After class, I made the girlies change back into their ballet shoes so I could snap a few more photos. Because that's what I need in my life. More photos.

Makes you realize how much they've grown since LAST YEAR.

The Pumpkin Patch With All Our Friends

Sunday night after our HOMECOMING WEEKEND, the children's ministry at our church hosted a Pumpkin Patch night at the local PUMPKIN PATCH. Even though we'd already been to the MCCALL PUMPKIN PATCH, we decided it would be fun to go with our friends. (I got a little link happy. Sorry.)

Boy, were we right!

The weather was warm, albeit a little windy, but that didn't stop us from having fun. There were lots of our church family friends there, but we seemed to hang around with our kiddos friends. I didn't take a ton of photos since we already had a bunch of pumpkin patch photos, but I did take a few.

Kinsey, Hannah, Phoebe, and Cade waiting for the tricycles.

And then there were two.

A ride on the cow train.

A ride on the "other" train with Amy Kate. This one went through the corn field so that was fun.

Phoebe and Cade at the entrance to the Obstacle Course. Or the "Octopus Course, as Phoebe called it. She, apparently, only opened her eyes for about half the photos.

Rock climbing was great fun. I didn't think Phoebe would do most of the obstacle course trials, but she surprised me and did them all!

The zip line was in the middle of the obstacle course. Eli, of course, needed no convincing.

Surprisingly enough, neither did Phoebe! I was so proud of her. She didn't get scared or fall off (well, she did the second time, but she hung on the first time). Sometimes that girl can be so unexpected.

A ride on the train with our friend, Dacie.

Who happened to Phoebe's "hair twin". Phoebe was way more excited about this than Dacie and she didn't want me to take a photo. I caught one when they were distracted, though.

Like I said, not too many photos, but enough to capture all the fun. If how dirty one got is any correlation to how much fun one had, then my children had the time of their lives! Both of them were covered in dirt from head to toe. I thought long and hard briefly thought about hosing them off when we got home, but that seemed a little inhumane.

Why ruin a perfectly good evening with a run through a freezing cold water hose?

ACU Homecoming 2011

It's true. We bleed purple at our house. ACU calls us home each fall to remember the amazing time we spent there just a few short years ago.

Homecoming at ACU was this past weekend and we drove down Thursday night. We wanted to meet my parents and my sister and go to chapel on Friday. I'm so glad we did. Brad and I were what you'd call chapel junkies. We loved it. At what other school are you called together each and every day by the chiming church bells to praise and worship God with all 4000 of your closest friends? If I lived in Abilene, I'd be tempted to attend every Friday chapel, which is praise and worship day. It's an uplifting experience that speaks to my heart. This chapel was no different.

And we got to go to lunch with one of our old Huddle students after. He had to break the news to Brad that he had pledged Sub-T and not Gamma Sigs. It was a hard moment.

But Brad forgave him and even bought him lunch. He was our only former student we were able to see this trip. Stupid pledging!

Friday night we headed to the carnival. It's a great way to let your kids play while catching up with other alumni. Phoebe was just excited to wear her cheerleading uniform.

Face painting.

Willy the Wildcat...whom Lincoln would have nothing to do with!

I don't know anything about these ACU superheroes, but I'm a sucker for these silly cut-out faces. Hee Hee.

Eli remembered the laser tag game from last year and I'm pretty sure it was the only thing he did the entire time we were there. Do you like how the college boy behind Eli posed, too?

Phoebe rode a horse and I was so proud of her. She's not so brave when it comes to animals, but she wanted to ride this pony like nobody's business. It was a fairly tame animal...the trainer had to make it stop eating grass and actually walk around!

Grandaddy and Eli. My kids were loving this time with their grandparents who we hadn't seen since August. That's way too long, folks!

Eli did finally take a break from the laser tag to do a little rock climbing.

He never quite made it to the top, but it wasn't for lack of trying.

We had pizza that night for dinner at my aunt and uncle's house. These two boys couldn't get enough of each other this trip. Lincoln has decided that Eli is just about the funniest thing around and everything Eli did, Lincoln did. It warmed my heart to see Eli treat Lincoln with so much kindness and tenderness. There's hope for that boy yet! Here they are giving each other "knuckles". Sorry the photo is blurry, but Lincoln's face is priceless.

And Sister and I couldn't resist these "matching" ACU shirts for babies. (We call Carrie "Sister" in case anyone is confused.) That boy's cheesy smile melts my heart every single time.

Saturday morning meant parade time. Or "when those people walk by and throw candy" as Phoebe called it.

Still waiting.

We finally heard the Big Purple Band. Have you ever seen such excitement?!

Grandaddy and Phoebe.

After the parade, we walked around campus a bit to get some photos. The Ad building is my very favorite building on campus so it was a definite stop. Apparently it was everyone else's favorite spot, too, because there were people everywhere taking photos. We managed to get a few good ones, though.

Look! It's a really good family photo! Go figure.

Those steps were just too tempting for Eli. I let him jump off a spot I thought might be a bit safer.

The education building is always good for a photo op. I know I've posted several times photos looking very similar, but these little "kids" are so darn cute. 

Grandaddy and Nena with the kiddos. It's incredibly hard to get a good photo of everyone, but this one came close. At least no one is throwing a fit...not even Grandaddy. :)

This is what I spent a good portion of Homecoming doing. Waiting on Brad. I love the man, but he likes to dawdle and visit and I end up sitting on the curb by the truck waiting.

It wasn't our reunion year so there weren't as many people we knew on campus for this Homecoming. The weekend was more about visiting with family, hanging around on campus, and enjoying that time. We headed back Saturday night in order to have a day at home before our week started. ACU will always hold a special place in our hearts and I hope we're able to attend many, many more Homecomings because...

Oh, dear Christian College, we love you,
Our dear Alma Mater, today;
Like stars shining brightly above you,
Your fame shall shine brightly for aye.
To you will prove faithful and loyal
While ever upholding the right,
And gladly we give forth the royal
Three cheers for the purple and white!
Then we'll pledge our love to Christian
To her is honor due;
As we gaily sing let praises ring
For our Alma Mater true!