October 28, 2008

Pumpkin Patch and Fall Festival!

While I was on the Retreat, Hailey's class went to the Pumpkin Patch!! It was the first time I have ever missed a field trip or class function :-( I was so sad that I couldn't go with her, but her teacher was so sweet and took tons of great pictures for me!!
She was super excited that morning because they were going to get to ride the BIG YELLOW school bus :-) Woo-Hoo!!
Love this picture of her!
Here she is with some of the kids in her class. I think she is the tallest one or close to it!She got a cute little pumpkin painted on her hand. And posed for a picture in the pilgrim cut out! She did this with her papa back in 2005! We've taken her to this pumpkin patch every single year!! They had mazes to crawl through... I'm sure she loved that! Right now one of her favorite things to do is gather the patio chairs and make her own obstacle courses in the backyard and crawl and climb through them with Jack tagging along behind her.
After the pumpkin patch they headed over to a park to have lunch and play on the playground.
My pretty little girl!! I can't believe she's almost 5yrs. old!!!
I'm almost positive this was taken on the ride back to school! I know she had a great time and again... a big THANK YOU to Ms. McAllister for giving me these pictures!
Just a quick little insert from my mom's recent get together... (this part wasn't in my title) She had some ladies over from church and hosted a Pampered Chef party. The consultant is a friend of mine who's son goes to preschool with Jack. It was lots of fun and my mom sure knows how to throw a 'little get together'
I was in charge of the punch with the scary smoke!! We got some dry ice from Publix and used it for the first time to try to get the foggy affect. It worked pretty good. You just have to stay on top of it and keep putting the hot water on it.
She had a great turnout and we got to try really yummy pesto pizzas and a turtle fudge cake. Oh they were so good!
Here's Meshaun licking the spoon and bowl while Michelle prepared the cake topping!! She just couldn't wait like the rest of us had to!!
Okay.....
On Saturday we had our church's Fall Festival out at the Lineberger's house. They live out in Perry on a huge farm and for the past three years we've been doing this at their house and it is always a wonderful event.
I wanted to try to make a 'pumpkin' shaped cake. It wasn't pumpkin flavored, just shaped like one.
Here's my finished product. The top is an ice cream cone covered in icing!I wanted to get pictures of the kids before we left because I knew once we got there it would be really hard.
Here is Jack-Jack!! Can you guess??
He's Buzz Lightyear!
And Ms. Hailey was a super scary Witch!
Her dress even has fiber optic lights running through the skirt!!
Happy Halloween 2008
My Favorite!
This was after about 15 pictures...can you tell they are so ready for me to stop so we can go already!!
Oh, wait...just one more before we go! We have to show off Daddy's handy work! He 'tricked out' our truck for the 'Truck-or-Treating' Once we arrived Hailey immediately hit the trampoline!! At one point the dress even came off and she walked around in just her striped tights and black tshirt!!! Eddie and Ralston are jumping with her in this picture!
Here's Riley!!
He was Robin....his older brother was the Batman in the picture above!! Too cute!
Jack was NOT interested in the trampoline....He's not my daredevil. So off he went to have a little adventure in the woods with Riley! They both fell down right after I took this picture! You can kind of tell Jack is in mid-fall :-)
Hailey however is my daredevil and after the trampoline she wanted to climb the tree house!! We had to convince her she wasn't ready for the zipline!! She did get scared coming down the ladder but her hero of a Daddy got her through it. She was so proud of herself for going up there.
Trick or Treat time!!
Here is Sarah's trunk! Hailey was having a blast and I couldn't keep up with her. I had to run ahead to get this shot of her :-) I finally just let her go and she kept hollering...."This is SO much fun"
Jack was a little more timid... Sometimes Mommy would have to get the candy for him if there was anything too scary in the trunks.
There's Daddy handing out candy.After that they started a HUGE bon fire.... It was beautiful.Allyson (Ariel) and Jack (looking a little rough) were chatting and watching the fire.
Then it was hayride time. I know this picture is blurry but I had to post it because every year (past three) Hailey has ended up sitting in Candy's lap on the hay ride. She wants to ride every time and I either don't or can't and for some reason Candy is always the 'lucky' one :-) And this year Hailey shared her lap with Candy's 39 week prego belly!!
Some of the older kids get to ride in the tractor's front bucket!!
Second time around I got on. Jack had fun and Hailey (behind us with head turned) rode again. It was nice and chilly and a great way to end our evening. ....Daddy however, was riding the 4-wheeler like a maniac! He took me, grandma and some other people for rides. I have to say it was fun but I kept thinking....'if we crash and die our children will be orphans!'
Hope everyone is enjoying the Halloween festivities!! Can't wait till this Friday :-) More fun to come!

Arbor Day....Sort of!

A week ago we had our own Arbor Day!! Mr. Tom has been growing an apple seedling for us since this spring and it was ready to be planted. He has a huge apple tree in his yard and this tree sprouted right next to it so now it's in our yard! The kids were so excited to watch this momentous occasion.
They wanted to know every little thing he was doing.
Hailey loved digging through the dirt looking for bugs/worms. I am so dumb-founded how she can handle this but will totally freak out when the tiniest crumb is on her napkin or finger!

Hailey got to help put some 'good dirt' on the top!
Jack got a turn at it too!My sweet little boy!
(He's been in big boy underwear since Wednesday!! Yea!!)
They are going to take good care of their apple tree!! We love our Mr. Tom and they kept thanking him for planting their new tree. Hailey has checked on it many times and says it has already grown a little bit. :-)

I'll keep catching up on our past week... we've had lots of fun :-)


October 21, 2008

Ladies Retreat 2008

Okay, It's only been two days but I'm already getting "hate" mail about not getting the pictures up here already :-) I've been recuperating and as you're about to see...this long post took me all day to do since I have to share the computer with the kids!
Our Ladies Retreat was wonderful. We headed out Friday morning around 11am. Here is our group shot. (I'm bottom right)
Our trip up to Red Top was a good one. I rode with Dawn in her mom's van. Sarah and Ms. Phyllis (Dawn's mom) and Andrea rode with us. This is the main lodge where we checked in that afternoon. It was sprinkling the rest of the evening and cold but it was still beautiful!!
The building in the back is our rooms. Sarah and I were on the second floor looking out over this meadow.
This is one of the buildings that was on the way down to the lake.
The other side of that same building.
This is where we had our first little devo. Friday afternoon before dinner. It was so pretty. Natalie and Ms. Renee lead the singing for us throughout the weekend. During the first session, they brought out these bags for all of us. Each was hand-made by our own Heather Britton!! It was so "Oprah-style" the way the all came out and presented them to everybody!! It was like we were on the Favorite Things show :-)Ms. Gloria Doty was our guest speaker. She was our preacher's wife at Corder Rd. Church of Christ when I was growing up there. They left in 2000 and moved closer to their family. It was so good to get to see her again and show her pictures of my babies :-) She did a great job with her lessons. Our theme was Encouragement.One of our first activities was this puzzle. We each had a piece and had to write our name and what kinds of things we were going to bring to the retreat....I wrote: smiles, hugs, laughter, encouraging words, etc.... Andrea helped cut out all those pieces and she was putting them all together too.
Here are all the blogging buddies that went: Me, Andrea, Sarah, and DawnI stole these pictures from Dawn's post... This was lunch on Saturday After lunch we headed off the Cartersville for our free time! We hit the downtown area to do some shopping.
I thought this sign was too cute!! "If the broom fits ride it!"We so had to get a picture in front of this store!! Just walking around
Roomies!!
Goofing off in front of the restaurant. Crystal, Dawn, Rosemary, Sarah, and Andrea Sarah, Crystal, Johanna, DawnMore fall decor around the town. Johanna, Sarah, and Crystal Me, Rosemary, Dawn, and Andrea with her lil' pumpkin! (she's due in April!)
This was the restaurant we ate at that evening. It was the one we were goofing off at!! Comparing each other's pictures.On the way back to the lodge I got some pictures of Lake Altoona Kelly met up with us for dinner and came back for the night session. She used to live in W.R. but recently moved up near Atl. It was so good to see her!! (We missed you Susan!) Here she is with Sarah. This was another activity we did. We each brought an encouragement picture and placed it on this board. We described what it meant to us...there were lots of tears during this one. Then we played a game where we had to find the owner of these lost shoes :-) Once found...find out unique things about each other. Angela Lineberger gave a great presentation about when she gave birth to her quintuplets back in 1995. One of her boys was stillborn, but she has raised four healthy boys and told us about how Ms. Gloria was there every Monday night to help her out bathing them and giving her and Kerry whatever they needed. She also has an older son and I know she appreciated all the time Gloria devoted to her family. These were the ladies that coordinated our wonderful weekend. Dawn, Sylvia, and Jocelyn. They did a great job and put so much of their time into all the little details.
Here is our group shot as we were getting ready to head to the Woodstock Church of Christ that Sunday morning. It was super cold that morning :-)
And I just have to show you my great find from a little antique store in Cartersville!! I have been wanting one of these bell jars for weeks. I've been seeing them on blogs and in magazines and love, love them. I saw one at Cracker Barrel but they wanted over $40 for it I've seen little ones for over $20....but I bumped into this big one for only $24 and I was sold!! It even came with the black base :-)Here it is all decked out on top of my entertainment center!!