Princess Party Extraveganza

This past Saturday we had Haley and Abby's birthday party.  I totally cleared out the garage so that we could mostly be out there.  I put all the dress up stuff out there with a full length mirror next to it, and a table with jewels and markers and things to decorate cardboard crowns.  Inside the house, Auntie Becca and Auntie Laura  were the face painting fairies!  They were AWESOME!  We had about 17 kids, two cakes, two pinatas, about 700 gifts, and SO MUCH FUN.  It really was a super fun party, and I am SO thankful to Josh and Becca and Laura who came early and basically got all the food prepped and out, and to my mom, who took my kids from 7:00 in the morning until just before the party started, and then stayed after and gave our house the most thorough vacuuming it's EVER had!  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Good old Uncle Nate "The Prince"!

The face paint table:)

The face painting fairies, Auntie Becca and Auntie Laura

Our best shot at a group photo!

Happy 5th Birthday!

Haley and Abby turned 5 years old this week!  Wow!  I can't believe my sweet, little girls are a half a decade old.  For their birthday, we got them umbrellas.  I know...thrilling!  Little do you readers know that it WAS thrilling.  I really don't like kids with umbrellas, 'cause they are always bumping into people with them!  The girls have really been wanting them, and I always say that they'll never get to have them, since their mother doesn't like them.  Anyway, they LOVED them.

They were supposed to have their birthday party on Saturday, but Seth got a virus, so we had to post-pone it.  To make up for it, we took them to the movie theater for the first time.  We saw Tangled and it was SO fun.  They loved it (Carey and I did too), and Abby was SO cute sitting in her chair, cracking up at the funny parts.  On the way home, Abby told Carey "thanks dad.  That was so fun.  I loved it.  Thank you.  From Abby"!

Haley Joy, we love you to pieces.  You are so sweet, helpful, artistic and fun to be around.  Abby Faith, we love you to pieces, too.  You are so forgiving, creative, friendly and funny.  You girls will never know how much you bless us:)

Christmas Tree Adventures

Oh boy, this year our Christmas tree has been troublesome!  At the Christmas tree farm, Seth fell into some plants that looked like poison oak, so when we got home, I was very anxious to get all our clothes into the washing machine.  In my haste, I ended up washing our camera in the pocket of my jacket (hence, no pictures from the Christmas tree farm).  Such a bummer.  Anyway, a couple days later, we decorated the tree, which Haley named Shelly.  It was really fun, with Abby just laughing with joy, Seth "playing" a little guitar ornament, and Haley decorating away!  After we got it all decorated and the kids were in bed, Shelly fell over.  Yep, fell over, stand and all.  Carey ran out to Home Depot and bought a new stand.  Oh, and there were only two ornament casualties in the fall.

The finished product, pre-fall!

The fall!

Carey had to saw off a little of the bottom of Shelly to try and make it fit in the new stand!

Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving was super fun this year!  We went to Grandpa Steve and Grandma Jackie's (Carey's parents) and the kids had a blast playing with their cousin Brannon, playing ping pong with Auntie Kelly and her boyfriend, Rick, playing with the cat toys, and eating, of course.  Carey and Laura and I had a fun time visiting with people, eating, playing with the kids, eating, going on a walk, and eating, eating, eating!

Oh, one funny thing to note (it won't really be that funny when I write it, but it was funny if you were there) is that Grandpa Steve and Grandma Jackie have a little remote control Elmo train that the girls love to play with every time we're there.  Abby was like the queen of the remote control this time.  She took it with her wherever she went.  The funny thing is that Laura and I would suddenly see the train just starting to move, even though Abby was not in the room.  She was just constantly pushing the button on the controller, so when she would walk close enough to the room the train was in, it would move until she walked away again!

The hand eye coordination (or lack there of) was SO entertaining!

Abby's faces as she was trying to hit

Auntie Kelly's boyfriend, Rick, was a really good sport about having an almost 5 year old teammate!

The girls LOVE auntie Kelly.

Good-bye Tonsils (and Adnoids)

Abby had her long awaited tonsillectomy this past Wednesday.  We had to be at the surgery center at 6:30 a.m.  Abby was pretty excited, although she told me she wasn't sure if she would recognize her doctor (the ENT we had been seeing) with his mask on!

We went back into the pre-op room, where she got to change into a cool robe and socks.

Then they started hooking up some different monitors to her, to check and make sure everything was in good shape for surgery.  She was completely charming the nurse with her sweet little voice, her excitement, her comments, and her curiosity! 

That white tube thing is blowing warm air under the covers.  Abby and I agreed we'd like one of those at home!

Bunny/Lightning/Jess (it's name changed every time someone asked her it's name) stayed with Abby the whole time:)

Once she was declared good to go, we said good-bye, which wasn't anywhere near as hard as I expected (probably since she was all smiles and cheerily said good-bye to us), she was wheeled off into the surgery room, and we went into the waiting room to read some magazines in peace!  About an hour later they came and got us, told us the surgery went great, and let us go back into the post-op room to see Abby.

Now, I don't know why, but when we went in and saw Abby I started feeling very light-headed.  She looked a little out of it, and was reaching up, wanting me to hold her.  I picked her up (once the nurse gave me the okay) and then I really felt like I was going to pass out.  They brought me a recliner, put a towel on my head, and had me put my feet up.  Carey got me water and Abby shared her ice chips!  Oops...we were all supposed to be taking care of Abby, but I was having to be cared for (I kind of wished I would have really passed out, then I would have had to stay there and been cared for longer)! 

 Anyway, other than crying a bit, which they said is totally normal when people are coming out from anesthesia, Abby was fine and really wanting to go home. 

At home, a few hours after surgery, enjoying the promised popsicles and movies!

 The recovery has been SUPER quick.  The day after her surgery she was wanting to play at the park, and by Friday (two days after surgery) I was calling the doctor to clarify what he meant by having her "lay low for 10 days".  Now, 5 days later, she's almost completely back to normal.  She's still healing, but the moments that we can tell that are few and far between!  Oh, and she's sleeping really well.  Now let's just hope all this good quality sleep helps with the potty training!

Enjoying some tomato soup:)

Family Photos

I'm finally getting around to post photos from our family photo shoot back in October.  The only reason it's really taken me a month and a half to post them is that there are SOOOOO many great ones, I was over-whelmed with trying to pick a few favorites to put on the blog! 

Our friend Jessica is an INCREDIBLE photographer, and is so fun to do photos with.  She pretty much just had us play and hang out, while she snapped away with the camera.  Her website is www.gigglebean.com if you want to find out more, or just see more of her amazing work!  Anyway, we met her on a Saturday morning in a local park and had such a blast playing together for an hour and a half!  Here are some of my favorites:

Happy Halloween

Our Halloween started on Thursday, when Haley got to to trick-or-treating at preschool.  When dropping her off, poor Seth was PETRIFIED of one of the teachers dressed up as a penguin.  All through the day, if any of us mentioned the penguin, Seth would start crying and saying "it's pretend" (pretty much trying to convince himself).  So, the next morning, when I said it was time to take Abby to school, Seth burst into tears.  I called the school, and teacher Kelly offered to wait to put her penguin costume on until we had dropped Abby off.  I was able to assure Seth that the penguin was all gone, but he still did this all the way to preschool:

Look how scared he looks...so sad.

Once we got to preschool and he looked all around and saw that there really was no penguin, he was thrilled.  All through the day he would randomly say "no penguin" with a smile.

On Saturday night, we went to one of the local Christian camps, Mission Springs, where some friends were having a potluck and some trick-or-treating.  We had such a fun time, the kids got their costumes super dirty, and Seth got his first taste of trick-or-treating.

On "real Halloween" we went trick-or-treating at a local church that does a great job with really fun decorations and NOTHING SCARY!  Our friends Laura and Lisa came, which was a really big help.  Oh, and we ran into one of Haley and Abby's friends from preschool and the girls had a blast trick-or-treating together.  Seth also loved trick-or-treating.  At one point I was holding his candy bag (it was getting a bit heavy) and he shouted "where's my candy"!  Then we came home and took the kids around the neighborhood a little.  Fun, fun, fun.  Now, of course, we are all enjoying the candy!

"Jelly" the cat, Grumpy Carebear, and Pinkalicious:)

Super dad!

A picnic and a cupcake!

Blowing out the candle!

The kiddos and their buddy!

So happy to be together:)

Oh boy!

So much candy!

We counted Abby's (after some had been eaten) and she had 145!