Happy Halloween!

Somebody had given me this great skirt in a bag of hand-me-down clothes and I thought, what a perfect Halloween costume. The best is the back where the ruffle gathers up in the center and has a BIG white bow. Allie had a great time being a cowgirl. She was so proud of her boots. They are about 3 sizes too big. When I got that skirt and saw that it was an easy Halloween costume I was trying to think of something easy to go along with it for Tyler. I am all for the simple and no cost. So I thought we will do him as an Indian. Luckily, it was still a few weeks before Halloween that I realized Brandon practically grew up on the the Indian Reservation and an Indian is not something you really dress up as. haha We had a good laugh about that. Anyway, I am grateful for this batman mask that I have in my dress up box. I remembered Tyler loves it and constantly asks me to put it on. Only he growls at you once he is wearing it. I don't think he realizes Batman is a "good guy" Thanks to my friend who had a cape and belt, I just bought some new underwear(that Allie can use) and the iron on transfer paper. He thought he was SOOOO cool! He walked around the house saying "batman" all night. I just wish you could all hear the voice he uses. It was so great!

I got Allie a hat at the dollar store and thought I should get Tyler one while I am here and they are only a dollar. He soon wanted to only wear the cowboy hat. It has been a great investment. Every time he puts it on he thinks he needs to go ride his horse(a bouncing horse that my grandma had from when I was little) and he will spend a good 15 to 20 min riding.

Picking and carving pumpkins

You can tell Allie wasn't so sure about touching the "guts" and we never could get Tyler to.

A few pictures

After many sleepless nights with Tyler teething we finally learned that the only thing to keep him from crying in the middle of the night is football. Not a popsicle, not ice cream, not anything. He will accept other sports but football is by far his favorite. He now asks almost every day to watch it on TV and this is one of the times we agreed. It was quite funny because Tyler had taken Allie's chair and Brandon and I told her that she should not be worried about "that" chair because they are all the same. A few seconds later Brandon said to Allie "Allie, I can't see." She turned to him with her hands on her hips and said "well, your just going to have to deal with it!" I just busted up laughing. She was obviously a little put out that we did not care to help her get her chair back because this was completly out of character for her.

Tyler brought this out from the playroom and told me "bye!" He walked over to the door and told me "daddy, backpack." So this is his backpack and he is taking it to school like his daddy.

Allie had to barrow some underwear from her friend and Tyler has just discovered that the underwear have tractors on them. He would yell at her every time she moved and he couldn't see the tractors anymore.

This does not look comfortable.

Part 2 of September Birthdays

I was too tired to post the other day with Brandon's birthday so here are Allie's birthday pictures. If you ask her she is 3 "more" old. It is very cute!


We started out early. At Brandon's house they got to open presents at breakfast. So we did a few presents at breakfast. This is her opening her package from g and g Haynie. She saw the card and her eyes lit up as she said "It's perfect!" It is an Ariel card. Then she opened it and was so stunned she closed it. The card started singing "under the sea," she was NOT expecting that.
She wanted spray whip cream for breakfast with some waffles on the side.



Allie is telling us to be quiet so her baby can sleep in her new crib. A little project I gave Brandon for her birthday. I think he is hoping I will run out of ideas of things I want him to make.

The Party! My friend Cody helped me with the cake. She had made one for her son over the summer and Allie saw the picture and requested a caterpillar cake for her birthday. Cody did almost all of it. She did a great job!! Allie LOVED it!

Tyler is using the biggest spoon we have to eat his ice cream and loving it!



We saved the Mr Potato Head for that night. She had played with one at our reunion over the summer and loved it. Brandon and I were probably more excited to give it to her than she was to receive it. Her reaction was great! As soon as she saw it she yelled. "It's a Mr Potato Head!"

You can see she was pretty proud. She had a GREAT day! It was so fun to spoil her the whole day. She had quite a few people call her and she loved the attention. When I would call her to come to the phone she would say, "Ok mom, I am coming" as though she was very important and was ready to take another phone call.

September Birthdays!!

I know that this is so late but I was waiting to get a picture from Brandon's mom before I posted. Hopefully you will appreciate the wait. This was a much requested cake at Brandon's house growing up. Allie and Tyler had a great time making it for him. Here he is enjoying the same cake 24 years later.

He said that he loved the taste of the m&m's on his cake just as much as he did "back then." We had a lot of plans fall through, as usual. Poor Brandon's birthday is always the week after school starts and that is ALWAYS so CRAZY for us. Anyway, he did not even have any presents to open and after many attempts to find a baby-sitter I gave and ordered take-out from Texas Roadhouse. One of his favorites. That ended up being a lot more fun anyway to celebrate with Allie and Tyler. Also, Allie was so excited to bring her Dad "a mi-steak!" She was not confused when we first bought it but by the time we made it home and gave it to him it was no longer called a "steak," it was a "mi-steak." To this day(even though we have reminded her of the real name), she loves mi-steak just like her dad.

Pictures!

Allie LOVED this!!! We are going to have to find a way to buy a little four-wheeler. It will probably be about the same time the she outgrows a little four-wheeler and needs a regular size. I was actually impressed with her skills. She is a little or maybe a lot uncoordinated but she handled it really well.

Tyler always has to be cooking with me. He says, "I see, I see!" until you lift him up. Sometimes it is helpful.

Other times it is not.

Helping dad with the green chili's. As you can tell from the picture on the side she thought they taste quite good. We had to stop her from taking a bite out of everyone that she peeled the skin off of.

Is Clifford appropriate for church? Allie had outgrown her Sunday shoes but I had not had a chance to replace them yet. I was trying to find something decent for her to wear this Sunday morning and had her trying on a couple different pairs of sandles. I kept telling her that I didn't like any of them because they did not look nice enough. So she would take them off. I finally said, "I don't know what you are going to wear, Allie."

We were trying to figure all this out while I was curling my hair. She left the room and came back a few minutes later. "How about these, mom?" I just had to laugh. Luckily she wasn't really set on the idea and she was willing to take them off and try something else.

Las Cruces

We made it back home and we are so grateful to be back. Life has been SOOOO crazy! I feel like I can finally have a good reason for not doing my dishes every night. All the other times I have just wanted to think I was that busy but really I just didn't want to do them. Now every night I have been going to bed so tired and having done so many things only to think I still have so much to get done tomorrow. I like the feeling. It feels good to get so much done every day.

Brandon started school and that is pretty much life consuming. It always amazes me when we start a new semester after a break that school really does take over our lives. I feel like when we are not in school that I just remembering wrong and that it can't really take up that much time but it DOES! We only have this one left and we are so EXCITED!!!

To prove that we really have done nothing since we got back I was trying to see what pictures I had taken to see if maybe I had just forgotten the things we had done. I then realized that I have not even put any onto the computer since got back in the middle of August. That is how few I have taken. My memory card used to fill up every week or so. We have used the apartment pool quite a few times but I always forgot to take my camera out with me. It just closed yesterday and now I have no pictures. Oh Well! Allie and Tyler have both gotten so much more brave over the few weeks we have been going regularly. It has been fun to see them both and to see Allie's excitement of learning a new "trick" every time we would go.

I do have a few pictures to post but need to let Brandon write a paper so I will have to post them later.