Halloween

Happy Halloween! We followed our yearly tradition of going over to Grandma and Grandpa's house for chili and hot chocolate, although it wasn't nearly as necessary as usual. When we first got there it was about 60 degrees outside. It did get a little chilly when it got dark and during the times it sprinkled on us, but other than that it was one of the nicest nights for trick or treating that we've seen in a long time.

Deanna didn't stick around for very long. Her friend Tay invited her to a party, so she went and hung out will all her friends. Alot of her friends from 6th grade were there, even a few that don't currently go to Churchill.

I wish Halloween could be like this every year. The weather was perfect!

Cornbelly's

We took our annual trip down to Thanksgiving Point to visit Cornbelly's. This was one of the most fun times we've had.

B'Elana was being a bit of a grump when we got there, but threatening to turn around and go home got her spirits up. The first activity we did was the Gem Mining. We did that first because I was afraid it would get dark fast and wanted to make sure we did that before it was dark.

The girls were concentrating really hard on making sure that they got all their gem stones.

Look how big we've all grown:

Obviously, I haven't gotten any taller, but Deanna insisted that I had to have my picture done if she had to have hers.

I thought this huge rocking chair was so cool. Deanna gave me a bad time about how I climbed up into the chair. Apparently it was pretty comical, so I'm glad my video camera wasn't available for her to get the evidence on video.

Farmer Pride!

Pumpkin Painting

I decided that carving pumpkins just wasn't going to happen this year. Too messy and just not enough time in our busy month to get pumpkins carved. We found a pumpkin painting kit at our local Harmon's store and thought it would be fun to use that to make some pumpkins.

B'Elana did bats.

Deanna decided to do a picture of a witch.

This was my finished product. I thought it came out nicely, if I do say so myself! :)

Skyline Swim Meet October 23-24

Warming up in the practice pool.

When she caught me taking the picture in the practice pool she stuck her tongue out at me!

This is Deanna's second race on Friday. I missed her first race by seconds. We are working on getting a "Michael Phelps" picture of her swimming the Butterfly :)

She did the 200 freestyle on Saturday. She definitely beat her previous time. She was able to beat it by 45 seconds (of course it helped that she actually completed the race without stopping at lap six this time)

Gardner Village Witches

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Orchestra Halloween Concert

Deanna had her Halloween concert for Orchestra on Wednesday. She did a great job. Can you see her pointed hat? She's in the middle of this picture: The orchestra played 4 songs in the concert and they also had the other bands, the award winning Shakespeare team and the choir. It was fun to see, in part because each time Deanna's teacher came out she was wearing a new costume. One of them was Jack Skellington, one was a spider and one was the evil Queen from Disney's Sleeping Beauty. They also had the stage decorated, and of course I had to get a picture of her with the decorations. By the way, she's decided that she is a bride that is so upset about getting married that she wears black and carries black flowers :)

Cake Number 2

This is my second cake. She taught us all about making the cute little clown and the flowers. We also worked on scallop edges. I did pretty good with the clown and the flowers, but I got really frustrated with the scallop edges, so I'm not sure I'll be using that very much. Katrina's cake turned out so cute! We borrowed the clown heads from Suzy (thanks!) and she put two clowns sitting together on top of her cake, then put a good scallop border around the top and cute dots all over the cake.

Oh the trauma!

Okay, bad mommy confession: I totally forgot to get Deanna's 7th Grade shots. So as of last Wednesday she was banned from school until we got them done. Jason wasn't able to get her over to get the doctor, so we ended up doing it on my day off on Tuesday. Turns out it was probably a good thing that I was there. It took both Jason and I holding her down to get the one shot she needed. In addition to having both of us holding her, she was screaming bloody murder and I'm sure EVERYONE in the clinic heard her! Thank heaven that is over for another 10 years or so.

Later that day I had an appointment with our favorite uncle to have a couple of fillings taken care of. Can I just say, I hope our girl never gets a cavity. They will have to sedate her for sure!

My first attempt

Tada! My first attempt at cake decorating! I think I have a future in cake decorating, don't you? (LOL!!!) Luckily my family doesn't care what it looked like. Apparently it still tasted okay, it was gone by the next evening. Look for more exciting cakes coming up in the next couple weeks.

Busy Days

Fall is a busy time in our house: football (of course!), extra cheer practices, Girl Scouts starting up and swimming. To top all that off, I decided to take a cake decorating class and get back into scrapbooking. And my girls are wanting to go to all the fun Halloween/Fall events that are going on around town. Is there any way we can get more hours in the day?

First Swim Meet

Deanna had her first swim meet on October 3rd and 4th. She competed in 6 different events. They were 100 freestyle, 50 butterfly, 100 IM, 200 freestyle, 100 butterfly, and 50 backstroke. She did great!

She ended up being DQ (disqualified) from 100IM and 50 backstoke for stupid reasons. In the 200 freestyle, she made a bug mistake. The 200 freestyle is 8 laps. After six, she stopped! At the wall, she took off her goggles, thinking she was all done. When she relized she was wrong, she jumped off the wall and swam the fastest 50 meters she had ever done. Her total time: over four minutes! (More then 30 seconds per lap...thats pitiful.)

The Many Faces of Mom...

Otherwise titled: Why you should never let your daughter have the camera!!!