Happy Halloween!!

From:

Princess Carli

(and a reluctant)

Princess Ava

Booed!

When Naggy was here for Carli's birthday she left instructions with Keith about leaving a cute little poem and coloring page for Carli to find and color. You've Been Booed coloring page is found by clicking on the link. It is a really cute idea. Keith kind of forgot for a couple of weeks, but alas, he remembered and Carli and Momma got to work (with the help of Sassy!)

First we made a trip to the store and stocked up on some Halloween goodies....

And then we decided who we were going to "BOO!" Cousin Logan was an obvious choice! The girls were super excited to leave him some goodies at his front door...(I promise, they really were!)

And then we sneaked over to our neighbors houses and left them some goodies too!

After "sneaking over," Carli ran back and said "Take my picture Momma!"

I'm not sure anyone else participated, but we had fun with it all. Sassy helped Carli color her ghost and we put them on the front door. Carli helped me pick out all the goodies and put them together. Ava simply helped undo a lot of what we did - but hey, she tries! :)

A Gift from Monica

The girls and I go to Alto once a week. If Pa is not traveling, we more than likely make a stop by his office in Rusk to say "Hi!" Monica works with Dad, and she was so sweet to remember Carli's birthday and got her the most awesome little gift.

Carli was so funny because she had to tell Monica all about her birthday. She was kind of excited to be getting another gift! She thought all the festivities were over!

This is a Barbie dressed like Cinderella. She has the same exact dress that Carli is wearing for Halloween!

Ava thought she was pretty neat!

How blessed we are to have so many people who care about our girls! Thank you Monica for the sweet gift for Carli. She uses her new markers every day and the "princess" Barbie is a new favorite!

A Quilt From Naggy

I am not really good at telling people to buy my children things. But I have learned as a parent, if you don't want your house to fill with tons of toys, if someone asks, you better have an answer ready! So, I was ready with Naggy asked me what Carli wanted/needed for her birthday. I told her she needed her big girl bedding. We needed a quilt, b/c eventually I wanted to get Ava one to match. Since Ava will have a trundle bed, a non bulky quilt was a necessity. And I wanted it to have the purple and greens in it to match their room. After we looked a bit, Naggy decided she wanted to just make the quilts. AWESOME! I picked out the fabric and Naggy did the rest. They turned out AMAZING! It is such a special gift from Naggy to both the girls and one they will use forever.

A couple of pictures with the quilts side by side.

Thank you so very much Naggy for the AWESOME gift for both Carli and Ava! They are beautiful!

Our Consistancy Wall

I try really hard to be organized, but usually if I plan it, something else happens. :) But with my girls I really wanted to get on a small schedule to where they would expect to do at least something the same every day. I was struggling with what to do and how to do it until a friend shared this with me: Cassie & Co.

I thought that seemed simple enough and I really liked the idea of intentionally praying for a person every week. So I printed and cut and laminated....

I cut out paper shapes and arranged them on the wall to make sure I knew what I had pictured in my head....

Keith cut wood for me...

And I glued batting to it....

I took my leftover fabric from another project, that I have still yet to post on, and covered the squares. I tried to use a staple gun, but it was too "powerful" so I went through a ton of hot glue!

Finally, we got to put it all together. God bless my patient husband who did a lot of the hanging.

On the far left, we have the Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow chart and below it is our weather chart (this has been Carli's favorite so far).

In the middle, is our address and phone number page. I did fill this in finally but we really haven't got over it a lot. It'll come with time.

On the far right, is our Alphabet Memory Verse.
This is one of my favorites. I also have a copy of these to keep on the table to go over while we eat. We are now on "B" and Carli can say them both very well, she just likes to whisper them!

In the middle, we keep a picture of the family or person we are praying for that week. This is really neat. Carli already is more aware of other people and what they might need God to help them with! Pretty cool how kids teach you things.

The far right, our calender...

To finish out our "space," I finally got around to cleaning up a project I had screwed up last December. These are from Pottery Barn and I got them on Craiglist. I had gotten two and sanded each down and painted them black. I then put a crackle on it and when I woke up on Christmas morning to go out and wrap them up - the crackle had dried flaky and cloudy. I was very upset. So nine months later, I got over it and re-sanded one to put to good use in our play room!

The final product

We have done really well sticking to this. We started three weeks ago. We stayed on the letter "A" for two weeks b/c I had to work out of town all week one week so I was afraid the "circle time" wouldn't get done. But with the help of Sassy it did! Overall, I have to say that I am pretty pleased with this wall in the playroom and even more so now that Carli sometimes asks if we can go do "circle time!"

The Piggie Zoo

A couple of weekends ago, Keith really wanted to take the girls to the East Texas State Fair for the sole reason of watching the pig races. Carli is a bit infatuated with pigs right now. We think it stems from her stuffed pig that she got at the Build-A-Bear in Amarillo. The races were suppose to be in the morning which was perfect, before nap time and before the rides opened at noon. We had no intention of battling the rides and the crowds.

So we got to the fair and walked around a bit before heading over to the show. Carli was super excited to spot these really big hay bale pigs...

I'm not sure who was more disappointed, Keith or David, when the guy comes out of the "barn" and tells us the races are postponed until 1:30 so he could get a bigger crowd. We were pretty bummed. But the guy was kind enough to bring out one of the pigs so the girls could pet it.

The lack of pig races was quickly made right by the awesome petting zoo they had. They had the usual farm animals, but they also had a baby giraffe and a zebra!

The giraffe was by far the favorite!

Amazingly enough, Carli was not at all shy about petting any of the animals.

Ava squealed with glee every time an animal came near her.

Kids are so funny. Of the three girls, Kenzie is usually the one who is fearless and does whatever you ask her to do. But she was not in the least bit excited about touching the animals. She was quite content to look!

Word is that Yesterland Farms in Canton has pig races...we just might have to make a special trip!

Kickball Swinging

The cooler weather has given us the opportunity to play on our play set a lot more in the evenings. Carli and Ava both LOVE to swing. Ava LOVES balls. So Keith combined the two and we now play Kickball Swinging. Ava gets the biggest kick out of it. She just giggles the whole time.


Carli tries to kick it over her Daddy's head or simply catch it. Which we learned really fast was a bit of a challenge to do if you let go. Odds are you won't catch the ball, but the ground will catch both you and the ball. Ouch.

Book Time!

Yes, this was first thing in the morning, thus the crazy hair. But they did this all on their own and spent a good five minutes "reading" to eachother. They've grown a bit from last year...

Carli's Party

We had Carli's party at the Sonic in Bullard. It turned out great! Very low key, very easy to get to and the kids LOVED the play equipment! We had lots of friends and family that came out to help Carli celebrate. Get ready for a ton of pictures, it was hard to choose just a couple. I failed in some respects with the picture taking b/c I didn't get the annual family pictures of the birthday girl with her Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles.

Carli helping carry some of her gifts!

Three little angels! They all actually were saying CHEESE!
Allie Tyer, Carli and Kenzie Keown

Carli LOVED Kenzie's gift!

The birthday girl with her strawberry princess cupcakes.

Really not digging being the center of attention...

Ava had a blast being a "big kid!" The play equipment was awesome in that Ava could climb on it and we could easily follow her and see her wherever she went. I'm pretty sure she wore Uncle Kevin out!

This is how I expected Ava to look on her 1st birthday...

Carli LOVES her Grandma. She noticed that Grandma didn't have a cupcake and had to take her one!

Thank you all so much for coming to help us celebrate Carli's 3rd birthday. She is still talking about it!