pumpkin carving!!

Since the kids had the day off of school yesterday we decided it would be a good time to carve their pumpkins! After all a full day at work with us and no activities would have been BAD!

I almost forgot to get the before picture!! As you can see some of the art work had already began!

Josie and Audrey cleaned out the pumpkins. Bri was busy making teenage "yuck" noises and Nathaniel thought it was all too much!

Audrey was pretty fun to watch as she went back and forth between "this is fun" and "eww gross!"

After the pumpkins were all clean the kids drew their art work on the pumpkins and Josie went to town carving them!

This is Josie's creation.... nice sick gal!

This was Nathaniel's creation!

This is the back of Brianna's creation.

And this is the front of Brianna's creation!

And last but not least is Audrey's little guy.

And the happy pumpkin crew!! You DO NOT want to know what I had to do to get hem to all smile at the same time!!

Happy Halloween.... we will be back with more pictures soon I am sure!

Blessings!

Team Butterfly posing as....

Yes.. tonight was the Chamber Mixer and Halloween Costume Contest!! Team Butterfly had lots of fun, check it out HERE!

But I think my favorite moments from today came when I lost my keys to my car. Yes, me. I lost the keys, not Faline (who we all know looses keys, cellphones, etc ALL THE TIME). While we were waiting for the keys to magically reappear (which they did! PTL!) Josie decided to teach Nathaniel to dance with her.

To really understand this you have to understand 2 things. First Nathaniel was practicing being a HELLION again today. I mean, SERIOUSLY! This kid was REALLY testing all of us. No one could handle him for more than 5 minutes before passing him off again. And second, Josie usually has the fewest patients of all with Nathaniel. They do great together when they are doing something they both love (like playing computer games) or when they are sleeping. Other than that they are usually oil and vinegar!

So it was totally melt my heart sweet watching them dance together. Josie was showing him how to move his feet, patiently teaching him the steps and he was LOVING it. Giggles abounded. And when we got to the mixer Josie even made a point of showing her dance instructor what they were doing. This mommy's heart had a ROUGH day, but is singing with sweetness now!

Now make sure you cruise on over to the BB blog and check out how we dressed Faline up!!!

Blessing!

1st grade field trip!

So I went on a field trip with my darling daughter and her first grade class today... WOW! 60 some odd first graders all stuffed on one bus are REALLY loud!! But I did manage to get some great pictures... so I am going to share those with you with FEW words tonight. I haven't regained all those brain cells that they screamed out of my head today!!

Audrey & mommy

Audrey wasn't really in a good mood today, but we tried to have fun!

Audrey's best friend Kaia

Best Buds

Audrey and her bud Ian... so cute!

Have I mentioned that I *LOVE* taking pictures of pumpkins?? Well I do! My kids know this well, but they were being punks on Saturday when we went to the pumpkin patch, so I was glad to have another opportunity today!! Love those fall shots!

Blessings!

Not Me! Monday!

(am I the only one that can't get the buttons to work recently??)

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

Yup. It's Monday again (how do they get here so fast??) so it's time for Not Me! Monday!

Around our house this week you would NOT have heard some very interesting conversations. And my children were NOT using some strange word substitutions. I always teach them the proper words and would NEVER sit back and giggle at them instead of correcting them.

For example, when Nathaniel was getting his glasses out of his new case in the car on the way to school he did not carry on a five minute conversation about the glasses case "snacking" on his finger. Nope. Nothing like "I hope this doesn't snack me", or "Oh man that snack was loud!" or even "Sissy, sissy that snack got my finger! Help me, help me!" I heard nothing like this coming out of my back seat. And if I did, when I asked "Nathaniel don't you mean "snap" the glasses case "snaps" right?" He would have NEVER told me, "No mom, Raven says "Oh Snap" I say "Oh snack!""

Another example would not have been last night when I was drinking a glass of white wine and Audrey came in and asked me "Is that Apple Spider mom? Can I have some Apple Spider too please?" Nope, not serving spiders in glasses ere in my house!!

In other family NOT news, I would NOT have let Audrey wear cowboy boots to soccer Saturday, and even if I had I would NOT had documented that fact on my blog HERE!

Nor would I have let my children play games on my Facebook page for an hour on Saturday just so that they would sit still so I could get a few things done! And I would NOT have discussed this particular parenting skill on my BLOG either.... Nope, Not me!

And I would have NEVER been running SO LATE to get Audrey to THIS performance that I set my keys down and didn't know where. And if I had done that I would have never said, "Oh well, we will figure it out AFTER the show, we are too late!" And after Audrey finished dancing we would have NEVER walked back to the car only to find the keys to is sitting ON TOP of it. Nope, Not Me. Never done something that silly! And NEVER had to say "Thank God we live in such a nice town that the car is still sitting here, even though the keys are right on top of it!" Geesh.. who would do that??

So what have you NOT been up to this week??

Oktoberfest pics and video too!!

Oh me oh my... WHAT a day!!!

We got up and did church this morning, then it was off and running at about a million miles per hour!!

We were silly enough to think that we could get some pictures for the Christmas cards and stuff... WHY? Do I try this every year?? I mean WHO can get 4 kids to look sweet, cute and innocent all at the same time with no wardrobe mishaps?? Not me :(

We also decided to head to the pumpkin patch to get our pumpkins for the year.. and my yearly pumpkin patch pictures. We THAT didn't even happen!! It was way too hot, the kids were WAY too grumpy and yea... so NOT!

Don't you just love the "again mom?" look that Audrey has going on??

This was cute.... but where are the pumpkins?? And where is Nathaniel??

This was a pretty cute shot of Bri.... if only I could get that child to sit up straight!!!

Well at least they are all smiling....

And there are sweet moments too I guess...

But what you really want to see is the dancing hu?

Yes, that is what I thought! I will have to warn you... my brain is a bit fried from all of this heat today so the pictures are in a WEIRD order!!

Yes.. the finale bow first. (I told you so!)

Look at the tiny ones.. aren't they cute??

This is such a fun dance. Someday I will get it on video right for you... today was not the day for it for some reason!

Josie danced right over me today.. it was fun taking silly close ups of her!

ahhh... my favorite dance of Audrey's!!! Coolest Kids on the block.. little Hip Hoppers!! And guess what?? I videoed it today AND it uploaded right so you get to watch it too.... and you have to tell me if you agree. Little hip hoppers are just so cute! It's at the bottom. (And remember to mute the playlist to hear it if you want to hear the kids singing) (oh and if you don't think that they are the cutest thing ever I don't want to hear about it!!)

When you are watching the video Audrey is the girl in red :)

Oh yea, baby!

This is the new number that they did for today the first time in public . I also have a video of it for you. Audrey is the third one in from the far end.

Aren't all of the tutus just so cute?? They are courtesy of Butterfly Boutique of course!

Audrey really likes these parts when they pair up and she gets to be a "big helper". She is so used to being the littlest one in the classes that it is fun for her to switch roles!

Ok... so I just couldn't pick a FEW pictures that I loves... sorry!

At least I didn't post them ALL though... I did only do a few of them!!!

So sweet, don't you think??

So.. without further to do... Coolest Kids On the Block!!

And Polka Ballerinas

Until next time... Blessings!!

Saturday Fun

It was a crazy kind of Saturday around here! Wanna see if you can keep up with us??

I started my day with a Butterfly Blog post... it is SOOOO hard for me to remember to blog on the business blog, but I am trying to make it a habit!

First we got up, dressed and out of the house before 9 am... and for a Saturday that is not fun! I would love ONE sleep in day... but I digress. So here is the outfit my fashion diva chose for the day. Interesting. I personally *love* that dress, but it looks like it is getting a bit small for her. The cowboy boots was an interesting touch I have to say. But if it makes her happy who am I to complain??

So we were off to TOPSoccer first thing.

Are you familiar with TOPSoccer? Well if not, it is a GREAT program that is set up for disabled kids to have an opportunity to play soccer and learn the game. Each child is paired with a buddy. That buddy's job is to make sure that each unique players special needs are met. It is such a great program for the special needs kids to get out and participate, but it is equally great that the buddies get exposure to working with special needs kids.

The weather was beautiful and the season is almost over so we invited Grammie and Papa to come see Nathaniel play too! It was fun having them watch (although don't ask me what they were all looking at the ground for in this picture..)

This cool prop is actually a new shooting goal that we just got for the TOPSoccer program. The kids can kick the balls and aim for the numbers. Nat did really well with it.. .especially when his sister was peeking through the holes and he could aim at her!

Nathaniel *LOVES* to play goalie, but he had lost one of his goalie gloves...

So Coach George got him some new ones to use. How awesome is that!!??

And cowboy boots or not.. sister had to take a few shots at the goalie!

After TOPSoccer was over it was off to Butterfly to work we went.

First on the agenda was to finish the Pink Panther hood for a customer....

And of course you can't have the Pink Panther without the detective (or so I am told since I have never seen it..)

Faline did a great job of turning this cool hat into a detective hat... it was ORANGE when we found it!

Next up was finishing stamping the tee shirts for the school field trip on Tuesday. I think I am going to have to do a separate post to show that fun project!

Then it was time to hem Josie's dress.

I think we are doing brown for Christmas pictures this year... won't Josie look cute in that little number that we just got her off of a GREAT Blog Sale a few weeks ago. Can't wait till April does that again! :)

Now this is funny....

Nathaniel has become ADDICTED to Facebook games. EVERY TIME I turn around he is on my computer playing downhill skiing thing or Farkle. So for almost an hour here they sat. Nathaniel on his new laptop on Faline's FB account challenging Josie (on her laptop and her FB account) to downhill skiing. Audrey was alternately rooting for whoever was doing best! But they were still and relatively quiet for over an hour!!

During that hour I did a rush alteration order that came in for the same day..

And made Audrey a new tutu for Sunday's performance since Faline SOLD Audrey's tutu earlier in the week!! I don't know about that girl.....

It did look pretty funny added to her already Fashion Diva outfit!!

Also during this time we printed labels for all of the art and school work piled on my kitchen counter.... Three years worth of "save" work. UGH!! So I got all the labels printed to get this put away in the new boxes that I bought the kids to save the work that they want to in. Yes, I am TRYING to get organized!!

And LAST before we left BB for the day was starting a project for Josie using this....

Have any guesses what I am doing for her with that set of California King Red Satin Playboy sheets??

Once we got home we still had a full evening which included cleaning the rabbit cages (ask Audrey about that fun job!), putting the labels on all that school work and reclaiming my kitchen counter, cooking dinner (thank goodness for leftovers!) and cleaning the kitchen. All of this and in bed for the night by 9:30 pm, not bad for a days work!

Yes, I think we got quiet a bit crammed in this day! And it definitely helped in distracting us from the unpleasant business we have coming up this week. Please keep us in your prayers for this. And could you also pray for the person or persons that keep telling lies about us and making our life hell?? This really has to stop! My prayer is that the Lord work in the heart of whoever is doing this healing them so they stop trying to hurt us!! It is hard to pray for an enemy that is being so hurtful, but it's either that or hate them and I have no room in my life for hate!

Hoping you are having a fun and blessed weekend!

Blessings!