Halloween Night

The girls have been waiting for this day all week long. Unfortunately, it had been an awful, awful day for Taylor, and she almost was banned from going (I was tempted, but felt bad because Halloween only comes once a year). Fortunately, she calmed down in time to get ready and go trick-or-treating.

Anyways, at about 6, we started getting costumes on. We'd had silver glitter hair spray that we'd saved to use for tonight. No one but Shelby wanted it, so she got the entire can sprayed on her head. Fortunately, fingernails were still painted, so it was just a matter of getting dressed and then putting on the girls' face paint. This time Tom decided to paint Shelby's face like a warrior. Because of this all night long when people would say that the girls were Spurs fans, Taylor would pipe up, "Me and Payden are Spurs fans, but Shelby's a Spurs WARRIOR!" It was hilarious!

We got all ready and headed out. As always, the streets in our neighborhood were super, super quiet. In fact, we saw a few kids coming up to our neighbor's house as we left, the girl across the street later on in the night (who was completely cried and freaked out when she saw the girls' faces), and that was it. In fact, we didn't get a single trick-or-treater the whole night because the 2 others were out when we were out.

Now there was a bit of drama as Taylor was still cranky, but we made it through to the end of the night without too many mishaps, and as soon as we got home it was off to bed . . . yep that meant no looking at candy tonight.

I'm just glad that the girls are so willing to do family costumes. We love it, and most of all they love it!!!

They look so cute knocking on doors. Unfortunately EVERYONE had to knock on each door, so there was a lot of knocking.

What a small world . . . we'd seen this lady around the neighborhood forever. Well, last year we found out that she works at Oak Hills Terrace - Shelby's school. She was also one of the 2 teachers that Shelby's kindergarten teacher recommended for Shelby for 1st grade. Although Shelby didn' get into Ms. Smith's class, a lot of her friends did. Ms. Smith asked Shelby to make sure we trickor-treated at her house, so we were happy to oblige.

This house is where our friends the Blaisdells used to live. The lady there had quite a few decorations up that she was completely proud about.

I'll have to say our costumes got great reception from around here. Everyone smiled and loved that we were Spurs fans. The Spurs are definitely a well-loved team. That'll definitely be something we'll miss when we don't live here any more, especially the Spurs commercials for HEB. They are hilarious!

This is Phyllis's house. We used to live across the street from her. She's part of the Homeowner's Association, and, if your car ever gets towed in our neighborhood, it's probably thanks to her. It was nice living across the street from her because when we'd get solicitors (who were banned from our neighborhood), we'd just tell them to go knock her door, knowing full well she'd kick them out of the neighborhood.

This is the Roberts' house. I have a funny history with Mikhail. Her family moved into my ward growing up. When I was in college, they moved to Las Vegas. When I got married, they showed up at our Las Vegas reception because they lived not too far away from Tom's parents; in fact, I think they were in the same stake as his parents. Then after we had been in San Antonio awhile, I found out Mikhail's husband was going to dental school - the same school Tom was going to. Then this past summer, they moved into our ward and more precisely, down the street from us. Finally, Tom was called as their home teacher a few months ago. Too funny.

I was fixing red eye on all the pictures when I came across this one. We decided to keep it just how it is because it's a perfect Halloween picture. Oh, there was one more thing about tonight that was just too funny. One year for Christmas our friends the Smiths gave us a box of Whoppers made to look like a reindeer, so you're were eating reindeer poop. Well every time anyone gave the girls Whoppers, Taylor would say, "Well I call this reindeer poop." The people were so confused at what she said. It was funny, and she made sure she said it every single time.

Here we are at the end of the night. I love our little neighborhood. It's the perfect size for trick-or-treating with little kids. Now we can't wait for next year for our really, really fun costumes. We're sooo excited!!

We Voted

A friend of mine had mentioned on her blog about how to vote early. I've never, ever even checked it out before (I have no idea why not), but decided to this year as she had made it so easy to do. Well it turned out that Tom had Friday off from school (amen to chart audits), and, since he'd be out of town on Election Day, we decided it'd be perfect to go vote early, plus being able to pick your location is a wonderful benefit.

So after a shopping trip with the girls, we headed over to good ole Leon Valley to vote. The lines weren't bad at all (although the line definitely got longer after we got in line, but still nothing compared to voting on election day). We had all the kids with us. It ended up being completely crazy because both Payden and Taylor didn't take naps when they really, really needed them, so they were a bit disobedient, especially Taylor. In fact, Tom said Taylor almost knocked over a polling booth . . . oops! But I will say, I'm glad they were there to experience it, to see that their parents took the time to vote, and to see how important it is to participate. I'm so glad we got to vote . . . now hopefully the rest of the country will vote the way we did . . . :).

On a funny side note, while we were in line, Taylor kept talking about wanting to go vote (at least that's what we heard). Finally, we realized she was saying she wanted to go boat. Apparently, she was a bit confused why we were in a building to go boat as opposed to being by a body of water. Haha. She might have been a terd today, but at least she's a funny one.

Ward Trunk or Treat

What to be for Halloween? After being tooth fairies (which were REALLY cool costumes), it was hard to come up with something that would be just as awesome. We were going to steal a totally cool idea from Tom's sister's family, but decided to wait until Declan would be old enough to enjoy it. Unfortunately, that left us without any ideas for this year. Because of time and budget, we went for something pretty simple, yet something that we still loved . . . we were Spurs Fans (or Total Spurs Fans as Taylor put it)!!!


Now we weren't just going to wear the clothes. I made bows for the girls. The girls got their faces painted (Payden's lasted until we got to church), and then all of the girls got their fingernails painted. Tom even went the extra mile and painted spurs on each of Taylor's and Shelby's fingernails.

Now we were going to put silver glitter in their hair, but decided that since the Trunk or Treat was on a school night, we'd just wait until Halloween to do it.

Because Tom's on the Activities Committee, we were at the church a little early. While we waited, he had the girls close their eyes and mouths to show off the spurs on their faces. It was funny to look at their faces.

Taylor kept calling hers a "4" instead of a spur. It was too cute.

Finally, it was time for the Trunk or Treat to start. We started off at the booth that Tom made . . . Fishing in the Black Lagoon.

We had invited 3 of Shelby's school friends and their families, but none had shown up yet, so we headed over to Pin the Nose on the Pumpkin. Right after Shelby had a turn 1 of her friends showed up, so I missed getting a picture of Payden. Taylor had disappeared, which would be a common thing all night long. I would look up, and she was gone. It was absolutely PACKED, and I could never see her, and then all of sudden she'd pop up again. I HATED it, but since Tom was manning the fishing booth, I was by myself with 4 kids, which made it a little impossible to keep her by me at all times.

We then headed over to Pumpkin Bowling with Shelby's friend Taylor and Taylor's family. Shelby had been dying to do this. Unfortunately, it was EXTREMELY difficult bowling with a pumpkin. I don't think any of them actually hit the bowling pin (except Payden who had a little help from me), but it was fun to do.

While we were bowling, Shelby's other friend Sandra showed up. I said hi, but with all the craziness going on I got distracted, and then when I turned around they were gone. I kept trying to find them all night long, but the one time I found them they were across the room and went out the door before I could do anything. I felt bad. Hopefully they had a good time. Anyways, next to the bowling was Pumpkin Races, so we headed over to that and were joined by Shelby's friend from church, Adrianna, and her brother Levi. This wasn't really a game for young kids. All the kids too young for school just couldn't understand what to do. It was especially hard for them to pay attention to the instructions. I did my best to help them along, but obviously, our line lost the race.

Then we headed over to Mummy Wrap. The girls were really excited to do this. First, Shelby wrapped her friend Taylor Shepherd. At this point, her friend Emily and Emily's family showed up, so it was Shelby and Taylor racing against Emily and Emily's sister Faith. Then Taylor wanted to wrap Shelby.

Poor girl. She tried so hard, but kept ripping the toilet paper. She kept going though and did have fun doing it.

Then Taylor S. wanted to wrap Shelby, so they did it one more time.


Now what was Payden doing all of this time while the girls did the mummy wrapping?

Picking up!!!! She is hilarious. You can tell who likes to help clean up. The guys running the booth didn't have to pick up a piece of toilet paper the entire time we were over there because Payden kept doing it.

Cute girl!!!

Before we could decide on another game, the carnival closed, and it was time for the costume contest. The judges had been walking around the entire time, but at this point they had the kids go up on the stage so everyone could see them. It was so hard to get a good picture of them. There were TONS of kids up there with TONS of parents trying to take pictures; it was pretty crazy. Behind my girls as the green-haired witch is Taylor Shepherd. Next to my Taylor as Shawn Johnson the gymnast is Emily Hines, and next to Emily as a mermaid is Emily's sister Faith. Taylor's brother Miah is missing from the picture because he'd been blocking Payden and when he finally movrd out of the way, he completely moved out of the picture.

This was the only one where all 3 of them are looking at me.

I loved this one because of the classic cheesey smile from Payden.

After the winners were announced, it was time to head out for the trunk or treating. Since I'd juggled the kids the whole time, I told Tom it was his turn to take them around. Looking back, I should have switched and left him with the sleeping Declan to hand out candy. It ended up being chaotic. At one point, I had about 20 trick-or-treaters crowding me to get their hands on the loads of candy in our trunk (Tom had left it all over the trunk and so the kids were just dying to get some). At the same time Declan, who had been sleeping in my arms, started having a hard time and needed me to bounce him, and then to top it off, Shelby and Taylor had lost Tom and were yelling at me to help them find him because they were desperate to get back to trick-or-treating. I didn't even know what to do. Finally a mother yelled at the big kids to back off and let the little ones get candy first, and I ended up going out in the middle of the parking lot and yelled Tom's name over and over again. When I finally found him, it didn't even look like he knew they were missing.

After that, things calmed down. Tom eventually came back with Taylor and Payden. Taylor immediately jumped into our trunk, picked up our candy bowl, and started handing out candy. It was too cute. Shelby had run off with her friend Taylor to do more trick-or-treating (I wasn't too happy about that . . . church or no church I still want her to have an adult around). We finally found her, said goodbye to our friends, and then headed home. It was a crazy, but fun evening with family and friends.

Big Tom, Little Declan

Tom was holding Declan and asked, "Doesn't he look so small next to me?"

My question is, "Don't we all look small next to you?" :)

Don't worry. Tom knows how much we appreciate his size. We will always feel protected with him around; something he is very proud of!!

Oh, and here's a fun little fact - I can stand behind Tom and be completely, 100% hidden.

Visit from Nana and Papa

Well on Saturday morning my parents came to town for a multi-purpose visit. My dad dropped my mom off at the convention center at about 8:45 am, so she could attend Time Out for Women. He then came on over and waited while we got ready; then we headed out to Medina, TX to go to the Love Creek Orchards Pumpkin Patch (see previous post). After that we came home to get some naps (the adults, not the kids), especially Papa who had been up since 4:30am so that they could get my mom here on time. Needless to say, he was a LITTLE tired. We had been longer at the pumpkin patch then I anticipated so Payden missed her nap and we got home just about the time my dad needed to go get my mom. When they got home, they napped for quite a while. Then we headed out to dinner at the place we always go when they're here . . . Salsalito's. By the time we got home, it was bed time for the girls. With it being Sunday the next day and church at 9, we headed to bed farely early.

Sunday morning we got up and got to church on time, which is normally a very difficult feat for us. It certinaly does help to have 4 extra hands. In fact, we had so much extra time that Papa got to read the girls a few books while we waited.



My mom wanted to get a good picture of them since it was a "family" couch (see previous post), but someone was giving her a hard time. Can you guess who? Just look at the mischievious grin on his face!!!

The girls certainly enjoyed the stories. Payden completely enjoyed it and settled into the I'm-totally-comfortable Orme position (ALL of my girls do this position . . . espcially when they were little).

At church Declan was blessed (see previous post). Of course, I also had to teach and had a craft project to distribute. Again it was nice to have some extra bodies helping out. After pictures and lunch, it was so late that we decided to forego naps again . . . at least for the kids. Nana, Papa, and Mom napped while the girls watched a movie and Tom went home teaching. When he got home, he napped while the girls pulled out the rest of the pumpkin craft to do with Papa. They obviously really enjoyed doing it with him previously and, since we hadn't done it since, were completely excited to have him here to finish it.

It was funny because Payden started mixing things up a bit by putting mouth pieces for the eyes, so in the end they had to be a bit more creative with their pumpkins. Although we STILL haven't hung them up anywhere, it ended up being a nice little craft to do for some Papa bonding time.

Since Tom was being such a punk earlier, my mom made him take a good picture with him and Declan.

After dinner, it was time to say goodbye. We were so glad they were able to make it. It was a fun weekend, and we had a good time with them. We can't wait for the next visit.

Blessing Day

Well today was a momentous occasion . . . Declan was given his baby blessing. Even though Tom was a bit overwhelmed and not looking forward to doing it (he has a hard time knowing what to say, which I completely understand), Tom did a wonderful job as he always does. After church, we went to the backyard to take pictures as we've alwas done after each blessing. This was supposed to just be Declan, Tom, and me, but we had a sneaky little girl pop into the picture at the last second.


Now the family.

Now Declan with Nana and Papa.

Now Nana and Papa with the grandbabies. It's kind of weird to think that I have just under half of the grandbabies in my family although that number will definitely be decreasing as my parents have been getting about 2 new grandbabies each year and the next one is due within the next few weeks.

Finally, we have Declan, the blessing boy.

We are sooooooooo happy to have you in our family!!!!!

The Pumpkin Patch

On Saturday when my dad got to our house, we got everyone dressed, and then set off to Love Creek Orchards in Medina, TX. They have a little store in Medina with some DELICIOUS apple stuff, but during October they open up their apple orchards and get pumpkins, animals, and all sorts of fun things for families to go do.

This year they had so many things to do and had gotten so big that we had to park across the street and then walk across to the Pumpkin Patch. The girls were sooooo exciated and this next picture is a typical shot of the day . . . Taylor running off to something, Payden closely following her, and the rest of behind trying to catch up. After paying this was the first thing we came too . . . the pumpkin painting area.



We headed over to let the girls pick the pumpkins they wanted for painting.

Then we headed over and painted. Of course Taylor just jumped right in and started painting.

Papa went over with Shelby and Payden and helped Payden through the whole process.

Fortunately because we'd gotten there about 1 1/2 hours after it opened, it was busy, but not CRAZY busy.

Of course, Taylor and Payden finished, and we had to sit and wait while Shelby finished hers. This is how it works everytime we do any sort of craft. She is such a perfectionist and loves to put lots of colors on things, so sometimes it takes her a LONG while to get things just how she wants them.

Declan had fallen asleep in the car and had no problem continuing to sleep in his stroller even though we were walking over very bumpy fields. In fact, he slept well over an hour while we were walking around at the pumpkin patch.

Right by the pumpkin painting area, they had a whole bunch of different kinds of pumpkins and gourds for sale. Tom and I love looking at these sort of things. There were lots of interesting ones.


My dad and Tom thought it would be fun to make a pumpkin pie out of these pumpkins, but didn't want to pay $6 for the pumpkin. It would have been fun to do it. I'm not sure I could get past the color enough to actually try it. Looks really have a lot to do with the enjoyment of your food!!

Of course, these were are favorite ones . . . in honor of our nephew, Jack.

These next 2 kinds were really, really huge, but I forgot to get something in the shot to give you some perspective.

Next to the pumpkins and gourds was a little hay maze, so of course the girls headed straight in. They stayed together in this little line; it was so cute. I love how well they do things together. They went all the way through and then went back through the maze to finally come out the entrance. Then Taylor decided she wanted to go by herself, so she headed in. Shelby and Payden were going to wait, but then it took to long, so they headed back in. As soon as Taylor saw that Shelby and Payden had come in, she stopped where she was . . . which was right in the middle of the maze . . . and started yelling that she was NOT going to go until Shelby and Payden got out. Oh boy. Silly girl!!!

After the drama of the maze was finished, Taylor, of course, headed over to this area for picture taking. Here's our cute little pumpkin girls . . .

This area was right by the lake. Taylor saw the bridge and just HAD to go across, so we followed. The bridge had TONS and TONS of really cool spider webs all over them. They were awesome to look at. On the little island that the bridge took us to there was a gazebo . . . not really much over there, but going across the bridge was cool enough for the girls.

We headed back over the bridge, and the girls were just DYING to touch the water. Gross. The water looked pretty stagnant, so we wouldn't let them touch it, but they got awfully close.

While Shelby and Payden sat by the lake, Taylor looked across and saw some animals, so she started running around to go to them. Of course Payden jumped up and ran after her, while Shelby waited for the rest of us to catch up, and then we headed after the girls.

These horses belonged to a group that did something with horses and Jesus. Fortunately (not that I don't like Jesus, but I didn't come for that), they just let the kids pet the horses. They were all super, super excited. I've noticed that the toys that get played with in our house are all animals . . . dinosaurs, dogs, cats, etc. The girls have also said they want to be veterinarians when they grow up, and I honestly would not be surprised if they really did that. They LOVE animals, so this was completely exciting for them.

In the paddock, there was a horse and a pony to pet. The big horse walked away and was a bit too big for the girls (at least from a mom's perspective), so we headed over to the pony to pet. They had brushes to brush it with and the girls just LOVED sitting their brushing it. Payden initially picked THE biggest brush in the bucket. It was HUGE, and of course she had a hard time holding it. Fortunately, she decided to trade out for the smallest brush in the bucket, but then she traded another. I guess she wanted to use every brush in there.

We had to pull them away from this. They just wanted to stay forever, but I convinced them other kids needed a turn and there were other things for us to do. Outside the paddock a man had a dog, so of course Shelby had to stop and pet it.

Meanwhile Taylor and Payden had run off to another area with animals. In a fenced area were some goats that they reached through and pet.

Then we went to look at the chickens. There were some pretty cool looking chickens. One had a poofy bunch of feathers on its head. Another had cool looking feathers coming off its feet like shoes or something.

Then there were some of the classic looking chickens . . . like the kinds you see in books.

Then we noticed the area where we could pet chicks. The girls tried to go pet them on their own, but they needed me around before the boy would let them have a chick, which I completely understand because little kids can love animals to death . . . literally.

After much pleading and begging, I let them hold the chick. Of course my hand was right there, which they all wanted me to move. In fact Taylor and Payden had to be convinced they were actually holding the chick because they figured if my hand was there then they weren't holding it. There was no way I was going to let them hold it by itself, especially after all the smothering it got when I was holding it. Anyways, they were very excited. Payden even started talking to it like she talks to Declan . . . too cute.

Taylor was so excited, but kept giving it smothering hugs like she does to Declan . . . the kind where you can't see Declan's head at all or in the chick's case you could hardly see the chick at all. Of course, my hand was right there to help the chick out.

Shelby was funny because she just sat next to me looking around while waiting patiently for her turn. Taylor and Payden were so excited and all over the chick that Shelby, fortunately, just sat back and chilled until it was her turn. I did give her a little more freedom with the chick, but kept my hand close by just in case.

Next we headed over to this cage to look at the rabbits . . . or in Payden's case to bang on the cage and scare the rabbits.

You can see the rabbit behind Shelby in this picture. After Payden and other kids banged on the cage, someone's comment was that now they knew why the rabbit was sitting in the middle of the cage. Yep. We sure do.

Before we'd gotten to the animals, we'd gotten a caramel apple to eat. Unfortunately the caramel wasn't made correctly so it was really grainy. The girls enjoyed it. Poor Shelby is still growing her two front teeth (she's been missing them for almost this entire year), so it made eating the apple a little difficult and a little messy.

We then headed over to go look at this tepee. Of course I mentioned to Taylor that we were going to go there next and off she ran. While we were over there, we saw one of the girl's from Tom's dental class.

For some reason, Taylor decided when she got out of the car that she was going to be a velociraptor. The entire time we were there, she ran around in the funniest positions. Honestly, she looked like she was handicapped because of the awkward position she held herself. It was really funny. It took me forever, but I finally got her to stop and to stay close enough for me to snap a few pictures.

We decided to go stop in the barn where they make apple cider. We bought a sample; it tastes exactly like what an apple would taste like if you drank (unlike apple juice, which is delicious, but not exactly like drinking an apple). Again, Taylor ran off ahead of us. The crazy thing was that I looked up and couldn't see her. I looked around and around and finally found her. She had seen a dog behind us and had ran back over to it. I have NO clue how she ran back past us without us seeing, but she did. It scared me for a second, but then again it seemed I had a million of those moments as she was often running ahead and out of sight.

By the time we finished in the barn, Declan finally woke up, so we headed back over to the pumpkins to get a picture. Taylor was NOT happy because she still had places to go and things to do, but fortunately she got over it and we got some cute shots of them. The oddest thing happened while we were taking their pictures. This man was trying to get pumpkins right where we were. Even though he knew we were taking pictures, he'd cautiously lean forward to look a pumpkin and then move back, so in a lot of the photos we have his shadow or his arm and head reaching for the pumpkins. Honestly, is it really that difficult to wait for us to finish? This one was one of my favorites. Shelby's eyes are so sensitive that she's always squinting and therefore giving a funny smile, but we certainly caught some big smiles on Payden and Taylor. Declan was still trying to wake up (and possibly a bit uncomfortable), so we weren't able to get any smiles out of him.

Since we were back by the maze to take the pumpkin pictures, Taylor immediately jumped up and ran into the maze to try to get her Taylor-only turn again.

Payden then ran in after her, but couldn't find her, so we had Shelby run in to find Payden.

Eventually they finished the maze, and we headed over to pick up their painted pumpkins that we had left to dry.

It worked out perfectly because their pumpkins were dry, we were back by the entrance, and we were ready to go home. To top it off, the hay ride transport between the entrance and the parking lot was loading up to take people to the parking lot, so we finished the day with a hay ride to our car. Perfect. Now we missed out on dressing a scarecrow, riding a pony, taking a hay ride through the apple orchards, and some other things, but we had a nice family outing with Papa. What a great day!