Girl Scout Service!

Lily joined a Daisy Scout troop this year and she loves it so much! Today her troop (along with other community members) spent two hours cleaning and beautifying the oldest cemetery in Oceanside. They picked up leaves and trash, cleaned up headstones, they even dug up a few headstones that were completely grown over. Then they put American flags on the headstones of all the Veterans. It was such an awesome experience. She had a blast (she got to use tools!) and felt good about what she had done afterwards. I love being able to share things like this with my kids. My allergies, however, did not love it.

Cutest. Girl. Scout. Ever.

She's an American Girl.

Yes, I allowed somebody to take a picture of me. Don't look too closely. This was at the end of the two hours and I was not at my freshest...I love my girl!!!

Random Sharing

A little while ago Connor told me that when he got married, for his honeymoon they were going to go to New York City and walk around calling taxis all week until they found the "Cash Cab". Then he is going to set a record for the most money won on the show. You heard it here first.

Halloween (eve)!

Halloween on Sunday...kind of a bummer. But our kids were awesome and took it in stride. Our church had a huge Trunk-or-Treat on Saturday night with games and food and trick-or-treating. Then Devyn's ward had one later that night, and we hit that up too. So the kiddos got just as much candy as they would've if we had trick or treated on actual Halloween. We were really proud of them for understanding why we weren't trick-or-treating on Sunday and never got upset or whined about it.

My kids weren't feeling very adventurous this year. Connor decided to go with "baseball player" (big stretch, I know). Lily decided she wanted to be Batgirl (again)! Easy-peezy. I wasn't complaining.

Heading out to our first Trunk-or-Treat of the evening.

Donut on a string. Connor got the entire donut into his mouth in about a millisecond, the other kids had barely even taken one little bit out of theirs. We all have special gifts...

Cookie decorating. She took one bite out of it, then I carried it around for half an hour before she let me throw it away.

The annual Lily & Sydney picture. Sydney was a "Moon Fairy". When it was costume debating time, Sydney was picking between Fairy or Genie. Lily was debating between Batgirl, Zombie or Mummy. I think it's hilarious that two girls who are so different can be such great friends.

After the candy! This is towards the end of the Trunk-or-Treat at Devyn's church. Clearly, Jane is drunk on lollipop. See Dev's blog for cute pictures of Jane, unfortunately this is the only one I took with my camera.

Halloween Crafting Craziness

I really can't take credit for any of this. I am not a crafty mom...I have to rely on other people's creativity, but that's okay cause I'm a really good at copying. Some of these we did with awesome Auntie, some at school, and the rest at home (once I had stolen the ideas from people at school). We had a really good time, we had a "craft night" instead of doing pumpkin carving and the decorations are still up (yeah, it's Nov. 6th) which is a much longer shelf life than a pumpkin.

They are so proud of their creations. Lily wants to make sure that everybody knows that the paper cone witch is hers, not Connor's!

That and the adorable pumpkin bats were put together by Devyn a couple weeks ago when we had a craft night at her house. It was so much fun!

Don't you love our spider webs and pom-pom spiders? I think those are my favorites. The spooky eye reflection frame actually glows in the dark. Connor's class made those, and it was quite an undertaking. Me and a couple other moms were madly putting the frames back together after they dried before the bell rang. A couple days after I took this picture, Lily put a post-it note on the mantle under the eyes that says "I'm woching you closly, very closly." So freaking hilarious.


Lanterns! So awesome. Connor's class made these. The side partitions are pictures printed on vellum paper, so they look like it's glowing when light hits it. We had so many supplies left over, that I brought one home for Lily to do.

The Toothless Wonder

They're dropping like flies! At this rate, she won't have any baby teeth left within a month. The last tooth came out via soccer ball. Here's exactly how Lily tells the story:

"I was playing in my soccer game and this girl kicked the ball and pegged me in the face."

She was pretty awesome, she just yelled to me on the sideline "Mom, my tooth came out!". She brought it over to me, rinsed her mouth out with water a few times and jumped back in the game. What a pro.

Sofa Makeover

Oh my gosh, our couch is so gorgeous now!! Most of you will remember the couch in its previous state. It was a light khaki color, BUT there was some serious color damage. For some reason, big patches of color would rub off and our couch ended up looking like a dirty splotchy mess. It was driving us crazy and it got to the point that I was literally embarrassed to invite people over. So, we decided to undertake the huge project of re-painting our leather. We ordered all of the supplies online and after 6 days of back breaking work (mostly done by Darrin), this is the finished product. I LOVE IT!

First Day of School-2010

Lily's first day of first grade and she's so excited!! Connor's first day of 5th grade (kind of) and he's so over it!! He's already at that "school is lame" portion of life...it's gonna be a long 7 years!

Cutest First Grader Ever!

I don't think Lily could look more excited if she tried!

Carefully disguised disdain.

Walkin out the door.

Mom's FREE!!!!!!!