New pictures by Grandpa

Thanks for our new pictures (see the sidebar)!!!



We are so lucky to have a photographer in the family savings us lots of $s. The girls picked the location and the poses. Grandpa went along with it even though the lighting was disappearing quickly.



The pictures turned out wonderful!!!



Thanks, Dad, for all you and Mom do for us!

Playing with Amber

We have a silly dog -

Amber's always curious when I bring out the camera:

















Her favorite seat in the house - on top of Jeff:

















Dragging her legs when she wants attention:


















Wearing the necklace Kara made her over the weekend:

Aunt Alisa & Uncle Alex were here

We were so excited to have Aunt Alisa & Uncle Alex come to visit - hopefully they'll come again even though our doggy is a pest...

Some fun times we had while they were here (besides Brooke's party):

Brooke at Chuck-a-Rama with her meat platter (turkey, roast beef, ham, and a chicken drumstick):

















Uncle Alex keeping the peace in the backseat while we drove around and looked at different things:


































So sad to see Alex & Alisa go home, but hope they'll come back really soon!:

Super Creepy!!!

I heard about a creepy headstone on the radio (the dj was asking for local creepy things in the spirit of Halloween)... this headstone is called the "witch's ball". You can see why the caption creeps people.... The girls loved teasing me about this - I have an aversion to walking through cemetaries anyway, but this just proves why I don't like them (and why you will NEVER catch me in this one at night!)...

This old headstone is strange anyway and it's really old (the lady was born in 1812 and died in 1884):


















Close-up of the writing (do you SEE IT?!?!? "NOT DEAD - BUT SLEEPING".... talk about CREEPY!!!!):

Brookie's Birthday Party

Here are some pictures from Brooke's 7th Birthday Party!!!

Note to self: do not have a birthday party on deer hunt weekend... out of her entire class at school, we only had 5 RSVPs and only 1 actually showed. Good thing we did something low-key (pizza and playing at the park). Thankfully Uncle Alex & Aunt Alisa were here this weekend, so it felt like there were more people there... :)


Jeff, Alex, & Kara playing at the park:
















Brooke about to blow out her 7 candle:





















Brooke loves chocolate cupcakes!:


















Opening her present:

Halloween

Brooke is mad that I haven't decorated much for Halloween. I put out Grandpa's home-grown pumpkin on our table and wrapped it in a leafy garland, put little fake jack-o-lanterns around it, and put out a ceramic pumpkin. Brooke has painted a pumpkin patch which is on display... she wants spooky fake headstones in our front yard, fake spiderwebs everywhere, bloody door sign on the front door, basically anything she sees any other house in the neighborhood with. I tried to explain I did not want to buy, decorate with, then store any of those things. She didn't care. Oh well.

So I've redecorated the blog. Hopefully that helps things a little. And I found some old Halloween fabric I bought a few years ago I'm putting out on the table too. She was pacified a little this evening when we finished the planning stages of Halloween costumes.

Both girls plan to be vampires this year. But not gross vampires. And their costumes will be vampire/witch hybrids that they can switch between depending on how the mood strikes them for each occasion (Trunk-or-Treat at church, school costume parade, then actual Halloween). We bought a basic black witch costume (complete with hat & belt & pumpkin bucket to trick-or-treat with) from Target for $7.99. Half the work is done for me! But since I can't leave well enough alone (and because it doesn't look vampire-like), we found examples of store-bought vampire costumes that we plan to copy with some extra fabric sewn onto our basic black dresses. We are making a collar and adding fabric to the front of each of their dresses. The collar will be a neck piece either tied on or velcroed on (like a choker). The girls each picked out a different color Halloweeny spiderwebby sheer/shiny fabric we will sew onto the dress. Didn't need much, so it didn't cost much. Both costumes cost $7.99 each plus $9 from fabric store total.... two costumes done for $25. Pretty good I say. And both costumes can be switched between two different characters. Even better!

DMV :)

Today I LOVED that there was NO LINE at the DMV. I walked in, registered the car, and walked out within 7 minutes. There wasn't even a warden like at the CA DMV telling you that you do or do not have everything you need to complete your transaction! Instead there was a machine where you push a button which corresponds with what you want to accomplish and that printed out your ticket. My number was called before I could even pull my ticket off the machine.

One car registered in Utah, one left to go (due next month). Bye-bye California plates!