Fall Happenings

In September, Dax and I celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary. My how the time does fly.

Even though it's an incredibly busy time at the office, we snuck away for the day and celebrated us. He was a big winner, and I was hoping for something really special for our anniversay.

And look what he got me!

We went the Texas Renaissance Festival. There's no telling what you'll see there, but we always have a good time.

Addison and Abigail decided on a theme for Halloween. 

They're pretty funny. Their Aunt 'Manda said that it figures that Addison would be the one in charge. Ha! She's not wrong.........

Not my fault....

I know it's been forever, but this time it's actually not my fault. lol My computer contracted a couple of really nasty viruses. There were two different ones that are new that each did a lot of damage in completely different ways. We tried for a couple of days to make repairs to no avail. Then we took it to the computer doctor and after he spent a week trying to save it, we had to concede defeat and wipe the hard drive clean and start from square one. Not only did we have to reload all of the programs for work, we had to go back and retrieve (thank goodness we had carbonite) all of the files and pictures that were specific to my computer. At this point we've spent roughly three weeks trying to get things back to regular working order again, and I'm still finding little things here and there that we missed. It's just crazy.


So, let's see. Where did we leave off?


For Halloween, since none of our kids want to dress up anymore, Kirsten and Addison went to the square in town and watched the little trick-or-treaters there. Dax and I love to go watch them each year, and I think that the girls had fun too. At first they told us that we were kind of creepy for doing it, but then they realized that it's fun to watch the little kids so excited in their costumes.

Here are two of my favorites:

How cute are they?!

Addison's concussion is all healed now. She was terribly disappointed at having to miss the final two games of the fall season. She's decided to go ahead and try out for the high school team, although there are apparently only 4 open positions. It appears that returning players have to go through the motions of trying out, but their team positions are reserved for them. Not sure I agree with doing it that way, but I'm not the coach so I don't get a say.

Abigail has started the skating class in order to play hockey. Not crazy about that idea, but she really wants to play. *sigh*

I looked at this picture that Kirsten took recently, and I can't believe how grown-up my babies are getting.

Hold on to them while you can!! They grow up much too quickly and long before you're ready to handle it. Heed my advise on this one, people.

Halloween

First of all, I took Addison back to see the doctor about her knee. We were hoping he would release her to go ahead and get back to soccer and out of rehab, but, sadly, that wasn't what he said at all. She's still doing physical therapy until things are better healed. So we wait.

In the meantime, Dax and the kids had fun carving pumpkins.

Wyatt's:

Kirsten's (It's the Hunter Hayes logo)

Dax's

 Abigail's (Her's is a Rottweiler)

 

Addison got frustrated with hers so just taped some pictures to it.

 

We weren't sure there would be any Halloween festivities at all. The night before we had heavy rains all night long (about 14 inches) which caused flooding and quite a bit of damage. Here's a part of the road out to our house that got washed off it's base and into the ditch.

 

But, the water around us receded pretty quickly. The kids got lucky and school was cancelled due to the flooding, so they had a day off.

Addison and her friend Alex volunteered in the haunted house at a local nursing home. Kirsten was the only one that went trick-or-treating. She was a flapper.

 

All in all it was good.

Halloween 2009

Our Halloween tradition is to first go trick-or-treating in town at the square. Many of the shop owners close early to hand candy out to the kids. (Many just close early and leave - party poopers.)


Here's how we started the trick-or-treating out:

Abigail was one of 'my people' (an Indian- oops, I mean Native American)



Kirsten was a candy corn witch. She kept getting mad because everyone thought she was just a candy corn. lol



Addison was a Spanish princess.




Wyatt said he was too cool for Halloween.

I don't think that we agree on that.



What?



I'm just sayin'.




Each year our little town has a scare crow making contest. I have no idea who won but this one was my favorite.




After we finished visiting with our friends on the square we headed back to the house for hot dogs (also part of the tradition.)



While we were at the house Addison decided that she wasn't going to keep trick-or-treating.



Kirsten spent about an hour going back and forth about whether or not she should continue. She kept asking Dax and I what we thought, asking Abigail, and on and on. Finally Abigail realized what she wanted and suggested that she could wear Addison's costume.



I asked her if that's what all of the hem-hawing was about and she said yes. Ugh! She could have just come out and said so and saved us all the drama (look out future boyfriends!!)


So Kirsten got changed and we headed out to do some more trick-or-treating.


We spent a little over an hour in the neighborhood that we go to (we don't live in a neighborhood.) Abigail was still mad when we left. She still didn't feel like she had enough candy. Never mind the fact that when I gave them their Halloween bags they were full of candy already. They filled them up again when we were on the square, and then again out in the neighborhood.



I guess she's over it now though. She was eating candy when I went to bed last night and was having candy for breakfast when I left the house this morning. Good thing this only comes around once a year.



For me the bad part about it is that they're getting old enough to stay up later than I do and they get up before me on the weekends. When am I supposed to have the time to dig through their bags and pull out the stuff I like without them knowing? Sheesh!

Halloween Costumes

I hope everyone had a great Halloween. We went trick-or-treating on the Square in town. Most of the shops on the square stay open to give candy to the kids. It's a great 'small town' activity and it's one of our favorites. After we left the square we ran home for hot dogs and potato salad and then off for traditional house to house trick-or-treating. They only did that for about 45 minutes (maybe an hour) before they decided they were tired and just wanted to go home. I guess they figured they'd gotten enough candy. lol When they asked if they could eat some of their candy early on I told them that this was the only night of the year that they got to eat candy until they thought they were gonna be sick (if they wanted that much).

Well, here are the costumes:

Addison was a hippie. I couldn't get her to let me take a picture without her making some sort of dorky face. *shaking head*



Wyatt was an alien. His costume looked really good (I just couldn't get a good picture of it) but it was really hard to see out of the mask. There was this pattern over the eye part and it made it tough to see.



Kirsten was Princess Liea. We made her costume because I had trouble finding one. She was pleased with it so that's all that really matters, right?



And Abigail was Cleopatra. I made her costume from an old party dress I bought at Goodwill. She was happy with how hers turned out too. Seeing one of my babies with makeup on is more than I'm ready for (although hopefull she won't want to wear it quite this heavy when she does.)