Update...

to say we've been busy is the understatement of the year! I kept telling myself when I got a break I would blog...but some how that never happened. It's been almost a month since the last time I blogged and it feels like it was just yesterday. So, here's a quick recap of what all has been going on...

Halloween:

The girls had so much fun getting ready for Halloween! Emily wanted to be a cheerleader again. And we had the Oklahoma cheerleading uniform from when Steve went to Okalhoma to visit John, so that worked out perfect. And our sweet friend Ellie, let us borrow her costume from last year. And I do believe Elaina was one of the cutest elephants I've ever seen.

We went to Trail of Treats at The Claud's church, and it was so fun. They had tables set up in the woods with a hayride at the end. Then we went to our church's Trunk or Treat. Man, oh man, were there people there! I think they ended up with 4000 - 5000 people there! I couldn't believe it!

Steve's Aunt Lori and Uncle Mike were in town from California that weekend as well. So, there were lots of projects done around the house. That another blog all on it's own. This was the first time I've met Aunt Lori & Uncle Mike, and I was so glad to get to FINALLY meet them. We even planning a trip out to California to see them and go to Disney Land.

The next weekend we went to Alabama for my cousin's baby shower. We met up at the best BBQ place ever!

We had a lot of fun hanging out with family and getting to see my little cousin pregnant was definitely worth the drive to Alabama! It made me feel very old, but I guess the truth hurts sometimes! I remember when Tara was born so it's really wierd to see her having her own baby. But her and Jeremy are going to be awesome parents. Jeremy is always so good with Emily and he had a blast with Elaina!

Tara's friends really put together a cute baby shower for her and Jeremy. Although, you know you are in the South when this is the focus of your baby shower:

Tara and Jeremy have 2 little dauchsand dogs, and this cake fit her perfectly!

Okay, I just have to say if I had Photoshop, I would definitely crop out my double/triple chins, but alas I don't have it. From now on, I must start remembering to hold my chin up, so that doesn't happen again! This was Elaina's first time wearing a hair bow, well a hair flower. I can't believe she actually has enough hair! Barely has enough hair, but definitely has a little bit.

The proud momma and the proud grandma! (still so wierd to thank of either of them in that role!)

The next weekend we had Disciple Now at our church and we hosted 9-10 grade boys at our house. DNow is where the youth group goes into host homes and have bible studies and discusions to get closer to God. They have so much fun! There's rec time, worship time, and fun time. The boys were awesome! They were up until after 5 o'clock Sunday morning & were up at 7 o'clock to get ready for church. They learned so much! The "theme" of the weekend was passion and I will be blogging more in depth about it later.

Then this past weekend was our 5th wedding anniversary. We went to dinner at PF Chang's (which is kind of tradition for us) and stayed in Nashville for the night. It was so great to get away for a mini vacation. After dinner, we went back to the room and soaked in the quietness of the night. We didn't even turn the TV on....it was so incredible!

So now back to the grind and busyness of Thanksgiving and Christmas!

First Time for Everything...

Friday night, Steve made me aware of something I never would have guessed. He's never carved a pumpkin before. So Friday night, we changed that! I have been putting off carving pumpkins with Emily for as long as I could. I've always thought it would be more trouble than it's worth. And we aren't at home on Halloween, so why would we have carved pumpkins? But this year Emily was really wanting to carve one, so I gave in.

We invited Sam & Holly over, and had thought we were going to make some pumpkin pie while we were at it. After some research online, we decided against the pie, but we did do some pumpkin seeds. Holly & Sam, both, ended up really being a big help with the carving & cleaning out of the pumpkins.

Emily was so exhausted from her week at school, she ended up falling asleep before we finished the carving.

Steve did a great job! For a first time, Emily picked out a VERY challenging design for the pumpkin. But he did it all, and it turned out incredible!

Fall Break...

well as you can tell I'm a little late in posting this, but man oh man we have been SO busy...

Emily had such a great Fall Break...and to be honest Steve and I had an awesome break from parenthood. Emily & Elaina spent a couple of days with his parents and a couple of days with my parents, so it was like we were child free all week. We missed them something terrible, but man it was a nice break.

Not only did Emily & Elaina go to my parents, so did my niece & nephew. So, they did lots of fun things for Fall Break.

They started their time together with going to an incredible breakfast at the Loveless Cafe. It's a little eating place that's pretty famous around Nashville. They apparently all loved it.

Emily has alsways told me she wants to be an ice skater when she grows up, and Franklin has an ice skating rink that has open skating. So, they all went to check it out. They had a BLAST! And Emily is asking me when she can go back.

Did you notice how wet the bottom of her jeans are!?! That cracked me up!

As you can tell, Elaina had a blast too!

The next day they wanted to do something outside, so they drove out to Montgomery State Park & saw some of the fall landscape.

Then once they got home they decided to go by an apple orchad and get fresh apples to make apple butter with. When we were kids we made apple butter every year, and it's always been one of my favorites, so I was so glad Emily was able to make some.

And the best part of this is that we already have our teacher Christmas gifts! They made some in smaller jars for us to give to Emily's teacher!

As you can tell, they all had a blast!

Pumpkin Time...

Last weekend we all went to the pumpkin patch in Franklin. Well, I guess I should say some of us went, it was SO cold, and we didn't think it would be a good idea for Elaina to be out in the cold. We had so much fun! But did I mention it was cold!?!?! They had tons of baby animals for us to look at. And a fun tire swing. We took 100 pictures in under 3 hours, so I'm just going to let the pictures show how much fun we had.