A Kindergarten Thanksgiving Feast...

Lizzie had a little party at school this last Friday in honor of Thanksgiving. It's always fun to be in her classroom and have her excitedly show me what she's been working on and learning. For the feast everyone brought in a cup of sliced fruit so all kids could make a giant fruit salad with muffins and various breads on the side. After hanging out and playing for a little while everyone took turns and shared what they were thankful for. Some were pretty silly and funny (on purpose of course) and others were very sweet... everything from the air, to the whole earth, mom and dad, pets, stuffed animals, God, and of course the food.

 Lizzie with her turkey place mat she made

 Can you find Abby?! Yup, front and center in the highly coveted comfy chair!

Lizzie's whole class... minus one. Her friend Elizabeth had to leave early that day.

Makes a mama proud!

Halloween Night...

Our Halloween was a pretty busy day... tons of fun though. We started the day by going to church, then playing at home for a little bit (Abby and I even somehow got a little nap in), then we all got ready for the evening. Ben wanted to do a little photo shoot in his John Marston costume... of course, so off we headed to Mentryville (which only happens to be15 minutes from our house). I wish we would have gone way earlier, but Ben's not very good with his time or quickly putting on a Halloween costume for that matter... so we got there almost at dusk and my poor little camera was has having serious white balance issues. We stayed until they kicked us out, which was fine since it was so dark by then. You can checkout his pictures over here on his flickr page. Such a cool costume... it was a good thing the girls really wanted to buy theirs this year, otherwise I probably wouldn't have had enough time to give to Ben's. Anyways, so after getting kicked out of the park we went to McDonald's for dinner (yum... I know) and then took the girls around the neighborhood over by Lizzie's school. They got tons of candy, saw some kids from school, and were done after 3 little streets. Ben wanted to keep going... I think it was because people actually recognized who he was (unlike the night before) and was really liking all that attention, but the girls made it load and clear that they were more than done! Hope everyone had a great night, too!

 The one and only pictures with the Minnie ears on... I think we made it to at least 2 houses with them on!

Halloween at Real Life...

On Saturday evening we headed over to our church for their Halloween Eve party. It was totally different than what Ben and I had envisioned... I really don't know what we were expecting, but we were apparently way off! I guess we were expecting there would be stuff for us to do together as a family, like games or activities, but there was really nothing there to do but wander the hallway (which was crammed with tons of people) and trick or treat the 5 rooms upstairs. There was a professional gun slinger there who did a little show, but I think he made a few people mad by scaring their kids with his loud, blank shooting guns... my girls loved him, but nobody attending had any idea he would be there, so he was kind of a strange surprise for the evening. There was also a cardboard maze, but the line to get in was so crazy we decided against it and you could check out the main auditorium all decked out for the supernatural series. So the night kind of felt like a hey, come check out our cool new building with recent addition, instead of Halloween Party, which slightly sucks because they could have done way more with what we have than what was there. Hopefully next year will be a little less about us as a church and little more about the community we wanted there.

This picture pretty much summed up the evening for us...

The gun slinger... I felt kind of bad for him, about halfway through his show about half of his audience left.

Downstairs trying to make our way up...

Finally made it upstairs, but unfortunately the girls were more than done with waiting in lines and people by this time... it was pretty chaotic.

Halloween Party Time...

This afternoon we had our MOMS Club Halloween Party... it's been way too long since the girls and I have been to anything (with school, Ben's crazy schedule, and life), but it was great to be back! I was seriously missing some adult conversation and was starting to feel like I could only socialize with those 5 and under... not fun for a long period of time at all! Anyways, there was lots of costumes, games, food, and treats, plus the weather finally was agreeable and sunny, so we all got to play outside.

Playing a bean bag game

red light, green light

pin the tail on the black cat

the making of some pumpkins

And of course hot pumpkin... which was everyone's favorite.

Let the Halloween weekend fun begin... man do we have a busy weekend!

Chuck E. Party...

Our neighbor's little boy had his birthday party this morning at Chuck E. Cheese, or as Ben likes to call it... kiddie chaos. The girls loved it! Kids running around everywhere, people from Lizzie's school that she knew, of course Xander, and if those reasons were not enough they would have loved it just for novelty reasons alone, since we never, ever go there! The place already seemed pretty crazy for 11am on a Sunday morning... two birthday parties and a bunch of other families just playing made for a lot of kiddie chaos. Wish we had the chance to talk with the birthday boy and his family more, and Lizzie really, really wanted to see him open his present, but I guess that all comes with the territory of having your party at such a place. We'll see them soon I'm sure... they just live two doors down from us.

Yup, more horses... my girls kinda have a thing for them!

Even Abby makes the Lizzie face!

Cupcake stash!

My Tiny Little Garden...

 This spring/summer I started a little garden, just a cherry tomato plant and a little pot of strawberries. I wanted to start small since everything I've ever grown up to this point has died. I'm thrilled to say, so far so good. I love the tomatoes... so does Ben and Abby, so much that I'm the last to actually enjoy my harvest. Next year definitely more tomatoes, strawberries planted way earlier ( I don't think they like the 100 degree weather) and I think we might plant some early spring veggies in Oct... I know weird but down here in Los Angeles the weather never really changes, it's either hot or really hot. It makes it kind of tricky finding out when to plant what because of our weather. I'll eventually get the hang of it, and it's been incredibly encouraging to actually not kill something!

 Strawberry flower... lots of flowers, but never turn into berries...too hot for those little guys.

 Abbers helping me pick our tomatoes

 Mmm...

All gone!

Going back for more!

First Day of Kindergarten...

So, today's the day... Lizzie's fist day of school! I can't believe that it's here so quickly and that I have a child old enough to be in grade school, it's just so wrong... I'm not that old yet! Today has been kind of mixed bag for me. Lizzie's crazy excited, she's been asking since 9 this morning if we could go to school (we're doing pm K which doesn't start until 11:25), which makes me super excited for her, but at the same time I'm not ready for summer to come to an end or for her be gone for such a huge chunk of our day, everyday, but I think it'll be good for all of us. We deliberately chose pm so we could all hangout together in the mornings and then during the time Lizzie's in school Abby takes her nap, which makes it easier on her... she misses Lizzie terribly when she's gone, plus I finally get to have some much needed time for myself... to eat lunch and enjoy some peace and quiet, to catch up on some reading, and even work on my shop. I still can't get over how crazy fast school shoves your family into a totally different routine and it's only day one!

 Complete with matching LPS band-aid from falling up the stairs yesterday!

 Even when we were there she couldn't wait to get inside her classroom

 Silly and excited... teachers must have a fun first day back