Fall Favs #'s: 1-9

I can guarantee that I have been to the BIG ORANGE Halloween tent more than any mother in this county. Those of you that live in BG know the tent I'm talking about. I can tell you exactly where everything is in the tent and probably its' price if you'd like to know. Miles cannot get enough of that smoldering hot place, and we usually make a weekly trip there. I convinced him to try out another place yesterday called the Halloween Bootique in the old Goodie's building. He consented and was not disappointed (although I was). The high notes, it's air conditioned and the prices are cheaper (not that we've ever bought anything from either place--although I could definitely use a severed arm with blood gushing out, who couldn't?). The low notes, the building is only a quarter full and the decor is pretty lame compared to BIG ORANGE. This post is titled my Fall Favs because BIG ORANGE is definitely #1 highlight of the season.

#2 Fall candy. We have gone through at least three bags of miniature Reese's peanut butter cups. Tell me if I'm wrong, but aren't the minis WAY better than the big one's??? DeeeLish! It makes my mouth water from upcoming Halloween candy. And, yes, I do raid my children's stash!
#3 While we are on the subject of food, I am completely addicted to Stacy's pita chips and roasted red pepper hummus. I've eaten it everyday for almost two weeks. It's getting a bit ridiculous, but I love it! Plus, I feel like I can eat as much as I want because it's healthy and all natural.

#4 HAIKU'S: My daughter did one (5)

It was on pet spiders, ugh (7)

Not for your birthday (5)

Do you all remember doing these?

I have to showcase Isaac's work too. He is such a creative little guy. He's doing well in school much like his sister. He's a little more sensitive about the introduction of new centers (centers are where the kids are engaged in the learning process such as literacy, listening skills, phonics, letter and sentence formation, etc.) at school, but he is a sharp little guy and catches on quickly. His teacher is so patient with him and is always telling us how much she adores him. We're so glad that Ms. Rather is his teacher and that he is adjusting to the school routine so well.

#5 the fall book fair at school. The kids emptied their piggy banks, and I added a couple of bucks so they could make some FINE purchases at the ol' fair. Karson came home with a Klutz build-your-own book and a Bad Kitty Chapter book. Isaac used his money to purchases a rubber, bendable pencil and a LEGO sticker book.

#6 Fall weddings are so nice. I love looking at these snapshots from Matt's cousin's wedding. We've had two family weddings this fall, and both were such fun events. We're also looking forward to some spring/summer weddings with more of Matt's cousins. Congratulations to Katie and Cooper -and- Lauren and Joey!

#7 Labor Day cookout at the Maglinger's pad in Richardsville. Isaac is absolutely SMITTEN with Abby Kate Garcia. I've never seen him so engaged in a little one before her. He wants to hold her all the time. She is quite irresistible and the sweetest little thang. I'm so grateful having, yet, another family like the Maglinger's to love and who love my family and kids.

#8 Fall Super Saturdays at WKU are back in October. I registered Karson for Junior Crime Fighters. She loves the A-Z Mystery Novels by Ron Roy. I figured this type of "Who Dunnit" class would be appealing to her.

#9 The kids have a new clubhouse. Our neighbors the Chapman's lost a nice swingset when poor weather attacked our area. Their swingset was turned over and messed up. I asked our neighbor Dave if he'd care to remove the legs and put it in the pine trees that connect our yards so the kids could have a clubhouse. He loved the idea and got to work quickly.

The fab FIVE minus Karson, she'd gone to a Spartans volleyball game with a friend. I don't think I have a picture of ALL five kids yet. Maybe Jennie snagged one last night when they came over? Sorry for the rambling, I'm thinking to myself here...

The kids loved decorating the clubhouse and leave notes for each other. It's such a blessing having wonderful neighbors. I just love our 'HOOD.

The Chapman's also have a hamster ball that the kids spend loads of time in.

#10 is the Plano Fall Festival, but it will require a post by itself =).

Oh What a Night, Or Weekend Rather

It's official, Andrew and MacKenzie are hitched, and I have a new sister in law!!! I had the privilege of being a part of the bridal party. The festivities began on Friday evening at our church (Community). The decorations were B-E-A-utiful. There were long cylindrical vases lining the aisle way with black and gray stones at the bottom and tall black sticks/twigs. The arrangements on the stage were similar but had dangling tea lights and red roses. There were also large black vases with red roses next to the first couple of rows. It's one those "you had to be there" moments to explain. I loved it though especially the traditional black and white wedding (with red roses).

After the rehearsal, we headed over to the Warehouse for dinner. Matt's aunt Michelle has been catering for years and decided to open up her own place. SO, the Warehouse was formed, and I believe we were the first people to use the facilities. Dinner was wonderful but short lived (we had the kids with us). I did manage to get a couple of got snapshots though.

MacKenzie is a stylist at Salon Panache which means we got to spend the entire day Saturday at the salon getting "all dolled up" compliments of her girlfriends and coworkers. It was SO fun!

I've never been much of a girlie girl. Make-up (aside from lipstick) never really interested me. In fact, I highly doubt I even wore make-up at my own wedding. I certainly didn't have my hair done--weird, eh? The extent of my make-up use now is a dab of mascara, bare minerals make-up and bronzer, and lipstick and that's on a "good" day. Most of the time, I wing it naturally. SOOO, I loved having my make-up professionally done by experienced gals. I even had FAKE eyelashes put on. WOW. I have to admit, I kind of felt like Tammy Faye after the whole experience but was told by many different people that I looked great.

After getting all glammed up, we headed to the church for pictures. I mean seriously, isn't MacKenzie the most beautiful bride EVER (even with Tammy Faye peering over her shoulder)?

I didn't think to ask anyone to take some snapshots with my camera during the ceremony, DUH! Oh well, I'm sure I will get to sort through all the wedding pictures at some point. THEN, I forgot to bring my camera into the reception and had to run back out to the car.
Isn't this this is the sweetest picture? One day these gals will have a fairy tale wedding like MacKenzie's. Sniff, sniff--those aren't my tears but Matt's. He will be a wreck. I'll be to stressed to be sad =)!

Our little dancing machines.

Miles really started connecting with his cousin Easton (Hayley, Matt's cousin's son). They had the best time together at the reception. At one point, they decided to play hide-n-seek. Why not, right? Miles hid right in front of the head table on the dance floor and right in front of Easton. Easton had his eyes covered and was counting. When he opened his eyes, OF COURSE, he saw Miles immediately and said "I found you." Miles got all huffy and said "No, you're supposed to look over there and over there before you find me." Doesn't Easton know how to play the game right? Apparently, Miles has his own version of "how it's done." I thought that was so funny and had to share.

We love Andrew. He asked Matt to be his best man. I can remember Andy when Matt and I first started dating and how smitten he was with his big brother Matt. He was always wanting to be with Matt and with us whatever we were doing. I have enjoyed watching all the boys grow up. I doubt Andrew and Ben have many memories without me simply because they were both so young when Matt and I dated.

I love these boys! Debbie and Colvin have raised some fine young men.

I spent most of the night on the dance floor rocking it out with my girls Larie and Shannon. We did the Cupid Shuffle and all the traditional wedding songs. Matt was a maniac on the floor. I had people coming up to me all night asking me where he learned to dance. It was seriously NEWS to me. He outlasted everyone.

We love you Andrew and MacKenzie and wish you many years of happiness!!! Thanks for letting us be a part of your most special day!

Lots of Laboring-Part 2

I cannot imagine the conditions being any more PERFECT for a Labor Day weekend wedding. Matt did a wedding ceremony on Sunday night for his cousin Shea (and her fiance Mike Helms). It was held on Old Hickory Lake at Historic Rock Castle in Hendersonville, Tennessee. The weather was awesome, the event was lovely, the bride gorgeous, and we had a great time celebrating with family and friends.

The conditions were also PERFECT for loads of picture taking. I thought it might be easy to get some good shots of all three of the kids since they are older (and a bit more "mature).

Simply put, Isaac is a character and wants nothing to do with serious pictures. You'd think Miles would be the uncooperative one, nope. Maybe we'll manage to snag some good ones at the beach next month??? I'm sure the kids were SICK of having their photo made by the end of the night.

One of the highlights of the night was the photobooth rental. I actually have no idea how to "formally" describe what the entertainment company was doing besides taking funny pictures and handing them out like those photo booths at the mall do. Each session took four different photos. They gave each person a set to keep and put another copy in a photo album for Mike and Shea. The kids LOVED it. It really was one of the cutest things I've ever seen.

I don't know what it is about wedding dance floors but my kids are highly attracted to them. I see parents trying to urge and push their kids out their to dance, and they simply won't do it. I can't convince my kids to take a BREAK from bogeying down. When the kids weren't in the photo booth, they were on the dance floor.

Baby I like it
The way you move on the floor
Baby I like it
Come on and give me some more
Oh yes I like it
Screaming like never before
Baby I like it
I, I, I like it.

*Had to throw in some Enrique Iglesias for you all.*

The singer mainly sang songs along the Jack Johnson, Ben Harper, Neil Young type genres, but that didn't stop the boys from requesting "Beat It" when he opened it up for requests. "Beat It" was a no go, and the musician looked at the kids like he'd never heard that song before. I believe if he had given them the microphone, they'd have sung it. I'm thinking we may need to install a permanent dance floor in our backyard to keep the kids busy since our trampoline busted.

Lots of Laboring-Part 1

This has been one eventful weekend. Not only has the weather been gorgeous, but we've been able to be outside most of the weekend. We spent Saturday at Nolin Lake. The kids swam around in the cove for a bit. They really enjoyed catapulting off the dock. It's inevitable that something "strange" always happens at the lake--it's our own little redneck getaway. Evan was swimming around the docks and stood up on a trolling motor. Long story short, Matt strapped on the goggles and swam down to find a SUNKEN boat. Yep, you heard it here, a sunken boat in our dock. This may SURPRISE most families but not ours.

Fortunately the sunken boat wasn't the one we needed for cruisin' on the lake. Papaw hooked us up with a nice pontoon.

Here's the crazy crew out on the water. You'd think I would know Nolin lake better than I do, but we could NOT find the beach. I know there is a beach somewhere because we took the kids there once. They were disappointed that we couldn't find it, but Nolin is quite large and we were lucky to find our way back to our dock.

Guichie Guichie, ya ya, dada

Have I mentioned how much fun it is to be a part of the whole "wedding scene" again? Matt and I attend our fair share of weddings which is one of my favorite parts about being in ministry. It is even MORE fun when family is involved. Matt's brother Andrew is getting married this month. My sweet sister-in-law to be MacKenzie has included me in the ceremony which means I get to be a bridesmaid again =). I have to admit I'm a bit psyched!

MacKenzie's sister and mother hosted a personal shower at their home on Friday night. MacKenzie and I had Laura's personal shower there a little over a year ago. If we can wrangle up some females for Seth and Ben, we can have one again next year. The picture above is from this year, and the one below is from last year. I am STILL the shortest in the group. I thought maybe I'd grown a bit taller--I knew I had grown wider =). I guess I need to invest in some stiletto's.

Tyra (MacKenzie's mom) asked me to be in charge of games. It's quite hard finding PG-13/R rated games online. There are LOADS of x-rated games, but I didn't find them that tasteful (shocking, eh?). So, I tweeked and came up with my own versions of games.
Game 1 -we played shoot the weiner on Andrew. Debbie brought me a poster from school which featured Regis Philbin wide legged with a book. As you can see, I changed a couple of elements on the poster, like Regis's face and the book he was sporting. At least the READ message was still clear at the top.

Game 2 - we played Porno Pictionary. Being a preschool teacher and all, I have access to certain things, like chalkboards. I had MacKenzie leave the room and everyone drew a "risque" picture and MacKenzie had to come back in the room, guess what the picture was, and select a favorite. There were some pretty great artisits in the mix. I made sure the boards were erased thouroughly. I wouldn't want any of the 3 year olds at EEP having sex education to early!
Games 3 & 4 - I asked all the girls to come up with a household chore that they HATE doing and to be specific on why they hate doing it. Once everyone had written something on the card, I collected them and gave them to MacKenzie. BUT, instead of stating I hate doing the dishes because..., she had to say I hate having sex because...It was the funniest game.

I also asked MacKenzie a series of questions about Andrew and for each one that she got wrong, she had to chew a piece of gum. Can you tell by the wad how many she missed?

She was such a great sport about everything. Here are pictures of some of the goodies she received.

We love you MacKenzie and are looking forward to adding you to our Deaton bunch!