Boo!

This year the girls and I decided to make some cute Halloween treats. Thanks to Martha Stewart we found this quick and easy recipe for ghost suckers. Abby helped put on the eyes and Brooklyn was in charge of getting us the sucker sticks. What good little helpers I have!

Pumpkin Carving

Last night we had the fun of carving pumpkins. Abby and Brooklyn both picked out which pumpkins they wanted to carve (since we have about 8 on our front porch they had a choice!- see pumpkin patch post!) Abby picked out a nice round pumpkin and made sure to let us know where the perfect spot for the face was. Brooklyn picked out the tiniest pumpkin and I was actually a little worried about carving it, but once we got into cleaning them out I think it was the perfect choice for her!

This was about the 3rd time Brooklyn took off the lid. She kept making this deep gutteral "ohhhhh" sound under her breath. Kind of like when you know you have to do something but you just can't make yourself do it yet!

She finally resigned herself to just get the job done! Somebody had to do it!

Abby wasn't sure that this is what she signed up for either!

But, it was all worth it in the end!

A Little Witchy....

For those of you who don't know, my little Brooklyn loves to dress up. Love with a capital L. Her favorite past time is transforming herself into a princess and then draping herself with jewels. Shoes are next and if she can't find any of hers (I can't imagine why they wouldn't be in her closet where they belong!) any of MY "clicky" shoes do the trick. This year for Halloween we found a little witches costume and she was very excited to get into it.

Abby has a little playschool digital camera and she and Brookie love take pictures with it (or with my cell phone!). So here are a few pictures that I took of Abby taking pictures of Brooklyn! I had my camera on a color setting to pick up the orange and leave everything else in black and white. It was pretty funny watching Abby give directions to Brooklyn -

"Brooklyn, look this way. At ME Brooklyn, NOT at mom."

"Oh wait, that's not a good one. Hold on Brooklyn I need to delete this."

"Ok, now make a scary face. No not an UGLY face, a SCARY face."

"There that's better!"

Can you tell that Abby is the first born child? She certainly knows how to get the job done!

Pumpkin Patch

Ever since Abby has been old enough to walk we've taken a trip to what we like to call Grandpa Sim's pumpkin patch. This year we were lucky enough to have cousins come with us! Heather's two little girls, Lexi and Kendri, were here at just the right time. Grandpa Sim works in a small town (yes, there are towns smaller than Lamar) about 20 miles away. He is the produce salesman and also has the run of any field he wants (or so he tells us). At any rate, Gramps said we could pick out any (and as many) pumpkins as we wanted. And so we did!

Abby wanted to make sure the sun didn't get in her eyes......hence the cheap dress up hat. I have no explanation for the bright yellow, plastic rockstar necklace - other than she wanted to look good!

Brooklyn was looking for a "tiny, tiny little pumpkin".

Grandpa Sim and his "little Punkins"!

Jace's Blessing

Here are a few pictures of Jace's blessing. He was blessed the beginning of September and we were lucky enough to have Darren's parents come out for it. These pictures make me smile every time I see them and I'll tell you why. We have church every Sunday at 9:30 in the morning which is a little hard to get to especially with trying to get 3 small children out the door by myself (Darren has meetings). But the real issue is that we get done with church at 12:30......lunchtime. Actually, if you are my husband 12:30 is AFTER lunchtime. So here I am trying to get some great shots (note: Darren also hates taking pictures!) of my two favorite guys and THIS is what I get. Tell me that their expressions are not identical! Annoyed...possibly. Memorable.....definitely!

Like father like son