Fall Festival

The fall festival at our church is a big highlight of our fall. The kids love the bouncy houses, games and tons of candy they get. This year they even had an amusement ride that the kids rode first. They were then queasy the rest of the night. Troy got on it with them and he didn't feel too hot either! Maddie went as Super girl. She wanted to be super girl last year, but I will admit I'm pretty cheep when it comes to halloween costumes so I didn't want to pay the $30 price tag! Fortunately Melinda and I found this costume for a couple of bucks at a yard sale when I was home this fall. Maddie loved it! I will admit I thought she looked pretty cute myself!

Poor Sam...he was having a rough day. He had talked about being a knight for months prior to halloween. We had his costume ready complete with a dagger- not to be confused with a sword. The weather wasn't cooperating with this costume choice because it was around 90 degrees when we got out of church that morning. We tried to modify the costume with shorts, but it just wasn't the same. He then decided he would go as a pirate so I tried to whip something up real fast giving myself a 3rd degree burn while trying to apply gold buttons to a little red vest with the glue gun. When I got the costume done I got a disappointed response- tears. He said he just didn't want to go at all, but we had him go without dressing up. Long story short- when we got home from the festival and eating out with friends he was crying that his head hurt and he ended up having a 101.5 degree temperature.

I know looking at this picture you can tell he didn't feel good and you would have taken his temp instead of making him go to the festival. Looking back at this picture I can tell too, but at the time I was just trying to make it to the festival on time with everyone in costume.

Meggie-moo went as a ballerina. The cutest one there if you ask me! She wore Maddie's head piece from her recital last year, a tutu we got at The Children's Place for a $1.98 and some little ballet slippers that Madaline had as a baby. She also wore some leg warmers since the temperature started to cool off as we headed out. There were a ton of people there and navigating the stroller turned out to be close to impossible so Troy took the kids around to the booths while Megan and I people watched and stood around looking cute.

It was a fun night minus the grumpy feverish Sam. Hopefully next year everyone will be healthy!

A few projects

I've been working on a few projects lately.... Pumpkin bean bags.

This was a 'in the hoop' embroidery design that was super easy. The kids helped me fill them and picked the colors. This resulted in a large mess of rice on the floor, but they had a good time! They have enjoyed playing some games with these.
Pacifier clips for Megan.
I've never had a paci baby before, but now that I do I realize that clips are a must! I wanted some to match her outfits and I've been playing around with sewing in my hoop with the embroidery machine. This pattern was really easy as well and all the sewing was done by the machine.

Flower hair clips.
I made a bunch of these for Megan, Maddie and my niece Leia. They are so easy- just take apart flowers glue them back together and attache them to a covered clip. We got jewels for our centers since Maddie loves things that sparkle. They attach easily to Megan's headbands also.

Baby Leg Warmers for Megan.

I love that legwarmers are popular for babies! I made these with the serger out of Maddie's size knee socks I got at T.J. Maxx (one of my favorite stores) I had seen a few ideas on how to make them out of knee socks and scarfs on different crafting blogs so I thought I would give it a try. They turned out great and were so fast with the serger. I'm going back this week to grab some purple sock to make more. ( Megan is wearing them in the post 'burst')

Pumpkin Patch (sort of)

Ok- I don't want any Northerners laughing at this post. I realize that some pumpkins setting on the side of the road may not seem like a 'patch' to you'all but down here we have to take what we can get! Last year we went to an awesome farm and got our pumpkins, but they cancelled all their fall festivities this year. Our choices then narrowed to wal-mart or this patch-so we choose to go to the 'patch'.
The kids had fun picking their pumpkins! Maddie wanted a big one, but the 'patch' is a little pricey so we settled on small ones for everyone!

Sam wanted a small one. He said he was going to pick out one that his 'strong muscles can carry'. I guess he didn't want any help toting his pumpkin this year.

Even Megan got one. She didn't really care. She is just happy to suck on her fist or paci or whatever is near her mouth.

When we checked out the kids wanted to use this little cart to take their pumpkins to the car. Our car was parked about 5 feet from where you pay and these pumpkins are huge so you can see the necessity in this. The lady was very kind and let them pull it over to the car.

The kids said this was the best pumpkin patch ever. I'm very grateful they are so easy to please!

Forever Friends

Yesterday was beautiful and the kids played outside most of the day. I heard them get into a fight about who was the 'boss' of a game they were playing. They were very upset with each other for about 2 minutes while each of them stated their opinion about who should be boss. Then silence. Then just like nothing happened they went on playing and having fun. I love that about kids.

Not too long ago Maddie and Sam fought alot. I'm glad it's not like that anymore.

When I put them to bed Sam ran up to Maddie and gave her a big hug. He said "I just love you Maddie!" She hugged him back.

I'm so glad God gave us Maddie and Sam so they could be good friends.

Burst

I've been reading up some on photography lately..usually when I'm nursing Megan I guess. The most important thing I've learned is that I need a new camera and photo editing software...but since that isn't in the Dave Ramsey plan I was excited to find out today that my camera has a setting called 'burst' that will take 3 pictures in a row when you just click the button once. This helps alot when you are taking pictures of kids since usually they move alot and don't always look at you for more than a millisecond.
It's more fun to take pictures of Megan now since she smiles more and likes the attention. Maddie and Sam like the attention too which is why they are in the top picture!

The funny thing is, Maddie was playing with my camera and when I took it from her it was on this setting. I played around with it some and really liked the pictures I got. Unfortunately now I can't figure out how she turned this setting on. Oh well, at least I had fun with it this morning!

Self Portrait

Maddie drew a self-portrait in school last week...it really tells alot about her perception of herself.

Maddie has finally admitted that her eyes are not blue.

She doesn't like it and Sam still likes to tease her about it but she has accepted it. In this picture she has drawn her eyes green.

Her eyes are hazel and change color with what she is wearing. Troy, Sam, Megan and I have blue eyes which is why she is not happy with her eye color. She went to the mirror this day and looked to see what color her eyes were. They looked green to her because she was wearing a green shirt.

My favorite part of this picture is that she has on pink nail polish and a band-aid on her right hand.

That was all true.

The funny part is that her hair is short and she is wearing glasses.

This is not true, but a girl can dream.

Bakery

Maddie has been learning about all kinds of community helpers in Kindergarten. Last week we learned about bakers and what they do. This week we went to a bakery in town called "Andy's Flour Power" for a tour and lunch. It was lots of fun for the kids and very yummy! This is the baker John.

He was super nice and great with the kids. He told us all about different pastries and showed the kids how different types are made. Maddie and Sam were pretty impressed. They thought it was really funny that bread is made. Not really sure where they thought it came from. I have made homemade bread numerous times also but I guess they weren't paying attention.

Daddy met us for lunch which is always a special treat.

Maddie and Sam enjoyed PB&J's on homemade bread and wonderful chocolate chip cookies. Troy and I split a chocolate pastry which was delish! We also had yummy sandwiches and ships.

We all had a great time! I'm looking forward to Sam's turn in Kindergarten so we can go back and count it as a school day!

Girl Talk

I thought these pictures were fun! Looks like the girls are telling secrets.
Sisters are so much fun.
These pictures make me miss mine :-(

Zerberts

Megan has been making zerberts lately which provides great entertainment for everyone in our house....thought we would share!

Crazy Week

Sorry I haven't been making blog posts. We had a little bit of a crazy week. Maybe every week from now on will be crazy I'm not sure, but I'm hoping things will calm down some! I started back to work at our Church's Mom's Morning out program this week. I really enjoy teaching the 4 year olds and while I work the kids get to attend for free. They like being with their friends, I make a little money and get to talk to a few adults so it seems to be a win-win situation for us this year. On Tuesday Sam had his 4 year check up. He is growing well still holding in at the 25% for his age. We are making an appointment with an eye specialist at the pediatricians recommendation. We think Sam may be color blind. Maddie also failed her eye exam in March so we are just going to take them both in to make sure everything is ok. Megan also had her 2 month check up. She is growing very well! She weighed 13# 8 oz and was 24 inches long. She is a great sleeper (she slept 11 hours last night) and is a very happy baby. We are very blessed. Daddy had a term paper due and a big test this week so he was very busy. He started most of his days at 4 am and didn't end them until very late. He also had a conference to attend on Tuesday for work out at the beach. He was glad when Friday came! We ended the week with a cookout at home. It was nice to just relax and enjoy some quiet time together...of course with three kids it wasn't really quiet.

I hope this week will be calmer...we will see!

2 months old...Really?

Today is Megan's 2 month birthday. Man that was a fast 2 months! She is getting big and is a very happy little girl. She has been sleeping about 9 hours at night for the past week or so and also taking 3 naps a day. Mommy is glad that she sleeps so well. She is also growing very fast. This week we put her 0-3 month clothes up and got out her 3-6 month clothes. She has an appointment on Tuesday for her 2 month check and I'm curious to see how much she weighs. The kids love interacting with her now since she will smile and coo when they talk to her. We are very blessed that she is doing so well. When Sam heard it was her birthday he insisted that we bake her a cake. I told him Megan can't eat cake so we could just sing to her or something. He thought for a minute and said "I know! We can just give her some marshmallows. They are so soft you don't need teeth to eat them." Well that boy is always thinking I guess. Now I better go hide the marshmallows before I find them in Megan's mouth!