Like mother, like daughter...

I imagine this is almost exactly what MY bed looked like when I was a child! Ainsley is very attached to her stuffed animals and she wants to have as many as possible up on the bed with her at all times! If she's anything like I was, she feels safer with them all around. It's just very surreal to see her doing things I used to do!

Who says Halloween is only once a year?

In our house costumes get revisited frequently! Dress up is a favorite past-time and recently Ian busted out his old cat costumes and I had a super cute tiger and cheetah frolicking around. RRRRAAAAAAAHHHHH!

Trick-or-TREAT!

Many of you probably know this about our family, but for those of you that don't... we LOVE Halloween! I mean seriously, it's a toss-up between Halloween and Christmas! I absolutely adore making costumes for the kids and I'm always so tickled to see what they decide to be every year! Ian has his moments where he wants to be Annekin Skywalker or a storm trooper, but then he changes his mind and shocks me! He has now been a Texas Cowboy Turtle, a tiger, a puppy, a robot, and a cheetah, but this year he cracked me up when he decided to be a Ghostbuster! Nice! I began my search for a flight suit and Brady ordered some GB patches online and volunteered to take on the proton pack. I knew he was well qualified because of how amazing Ian's robot costume was! Leave it to a geeky dad to take cardboard, a backpack, practice pads and LED lights to a whole new level!

The finished costume was AWESOME!


Isn't he a stud?? Every person that saw him Halloween night was blown away! And rightfully so, after all he was carrying an "unlicensed nuclear accelerator" on his back!

And what about the Piggy you ask? Well, she decided she wanted to be a "wicked ol' witch" this year. And you know me, I couldn't just go to Target and buy her a witch costume, I had to do it up right! I bought some shiny black fabric to make her little dress, I did actually buy the hat, but added feather boa and flowers to give it that little something special, and the best part? Purple and black stripey tights! They were SO unbelievably cute! And as you saw in a previous post, she wanted to have her face painted like the Wicked Witch of the West from the "Wizard of Oz". She did great with the make-up and it all came together so well! She loved it!


Mommy and Daddy dressed up too!

He we are, ready to get some loot!

We headed over to Hyde Park, which in my opinion, is the best neighborhood in town to trick-or-treat. It's one of the old historic neighborhoods and the residents deck out their gorgeous homes, it's so cool!

It was a great night, the kids had a blast, they got all sorts of treats and afterwards we headed to EZ's Diner for burgers! Aaaah, I love Halloween!

The Tiny Tour

Yes, I am still in major catch-up mode on this particular blog. It's amazing how busy one's life can be! So I'd like to go back a couple of months when Brady and I took the kids and the dog to NM for a "tiny tour" with his band. We visited Ruidoso and Albuquerque and boy was that a trip! We traveled with our friends Paul and Chelle and their little four-leggers. We spent some quality time at the cabin, bird watching...



Ian hung out with the boys

Chelle, Paul, Brady and special guest Armando rocked the house

The kids danced

Then rested.

We went to a chuckwagon dinner where the kids got to ride a horse!


We went to White Sands...

Where I took photos of the beautiful Chelle Murrey

While Brady and Paul played in the dunes with the kids




And they all had a blast! The next day Brady and I took the kids and the Otie Potie up to Monjeau Lookout. It's so gorgeous up there, a perfect place to get beautiful pics of my kids!



Ainsley loves her Oatman!

Otis got to hang out with his friends too!

After Ruidoso, we headed up to Albuquerque for a gig. And although we were busy, we still made time to take the kids to the zoo. The Rio Grande Zoo is one of Ian's favorites!


It was a busy, whirlwind trip, but we managed to do lots of cool things and hang out with great friends and family. The 14 hour trip home almost killed us though! Nothing like driving extended periods of time with two kids and a dog in the car!

Where's Ainsley?

THERE SHE IS!

Pre-Halloween Test

I decided to paint Ainsley's face the day before our Halloween Party. I would hate to have her all ready to go, then find out she HATED the face paint and wanted it washed off. This is what Ian did to me the year of the robot! She did so much better with the make-up, in fact it didn't seem to bother her at all! She really like being green!

Carving of Pumpkins

My kids have a strange attachment to their Halloween pumpkins! They look so forward to picking them out and discussing how the carving should be. Should they be mean pumpkins or scary ones or silly ones or crying ones, it's all quite a production. But then the time comes for Mommy and Daddy to wield the sharp knives and both kids get all sad about their beloved pumpkins! In the end, we get them carved and they love them when the deed is done, but relinquishing that giant squash to go under the knife is rough!

The kids giving their pumpkins one final hug! :(


And here's the final product! Ainsley chose to have a happy Jack-O-Lantern this year. From left to right: mine, Ainsley's, Ian's Daddy's! We managed to get a really good batch of roasted pumpkin seeds this year as well! Hooray!

It's the Great Pumpkin Ainsley Pat!

I scored the most awesome of pumpkin deals at my local HEB. I went in on a Monday night, fully expecting the pumpkin selection to be grim. The pickins were slim, but I did manage to find 3 nice pumpkins (we already had one for Ian). One of the pumpkins was downright GINORMOUS but I figured it was a set price of $7.99 per pumpkin and not by the pound, so what the hell? When I went in, the checker pulled the sticker off the smaller of the 3 pumpkins. It rang up at $3.99. She said, "Wow! Looks like you're getting a heck of a deal on these pumpkins!" So for $11.97 I scored 3 nice pumpkins for carving! Yea ME! When I brought them home, the family was in total shock at the size of the one. In fact, it was damn near as big as Ainsley! So she decided it was a nice piece of furniture for a couple of days before we carved it!

Pumpkin Patch kids

Sadly, we weren't able to take our annual trip to the pumpkin farm this year. Who knew you had to book 5-6 months in advance for a field trip? Anyway, Linda managed to find a church that had a pumpkin patch, so we packed up the kids on a very breezy morning and headed out for a photo op. We managed to get a few nice pumpkins to boot!

Kids and Crafts

Halloween always seems to be the start of the "crafty" season. Honestly, we just can't afford to buy decorations, so the kids and I jump right in and make our own. Everything from spooky spiders to trash bag ghosties to monstrous sack puppets! Here are the kiddos showing off some of this year's creations!