Fall Randomness!

As I sit and write this, I am boggled that Halloween is TOMORROW!! I'm SO not ready for winter, but I do LOVE Halloween!

An update regarding gymnastics. She LOVES it! And I don't know why I waited so long to get her started. Now I feel like my reasons were pretty insignificant, because she is learning SO much and doing so GREAT! So much progress has happened since the first lesson where she was clinging to me, and afraid to try much of anything. Now she is constantly running around the house doing forward rolls, and cartwheels and handstands on the couches! This picture was taken as the teacher was having each of the students do a cartwheel. Carissa was the last one to go, and she was just itchin' to show off! I couldn't believe her extention! This was the first time I had actually seen her get her legs straight, but she's been getting more consistent with all the practice she does!


Here she was being instructed how to super glue her hands to the mat to use her hands to push up for a backwards roll. The concept was pretty tough, but she's been getting better and better...again with all the practice she does!


Every week as we would drive to gymnastics, we would drive past the pumpkin patch, and every week, she would ask when we would be going to go pick out our pumpkins! So the day finally arrived, and we all headed to the patch! She wanted to pick up all of them....even the squishy ones! And really, she only cared about the ones that she could pick up. If they were too big, there was NO potential in it!
She finally found one that met all of my requirements...no squishy, and it stands on it's own WITH a pretty stem! (And her ONLY requirement...she could pick it up!)


She carried it all the way over to the wheelbarrow!



Donavan of course wanted the ones that were NO LESS than 40 pounds each! He struggled to carry it to the wheelbarrow, and then discovered that it was already full!


Of course Carissa "wanted" pictures on the tractor...but lacked the patience to really sit still long enough to take them! I managed to fire off 3 shots, two of which are blurry cause she was on the move again!


Then it was time to take our treasured pumpkins home. And when Carissa found this little beauty, she wouldn't accept being separated from it, so it got to come home with us too!




Now just a couple more Halloween activities, and then it will be the "holiday season" in full swing!

Halloween sneak peak!

Well it seems that things have been super crazy fun busy the past few weeks. I've taken Nikelle out driving once, and her dad took her another time. I only braved the church parking lot. He was ALOT braver than I, and took her out on the main road! (Yikes) But needless to say, she did fabulous! And lived to tell about it! Now we just have to remember to take her out often before the snow starts hitting, so she can be good enough to practice with that lovely obstacle!

I was asked to help out with a couple of projects for our super saturday coming up (very soon!) so that has consumed a BIT of my time! But sorry, no sneaky peaky here, you'll have to wait until Sunday to see the finished product!

Then between gymnastics and preschool, and about 4 photoshoots, I've seriously lost about 2 weeks! But after taking around 1000 shots, Donavan FINALLY settled on a "favorite" shot for his senior yearbook picture!


Then one of his good friends wanted some pictures taken to. So here is Dillon.


When I told Carissa that I wanted to take pictures in her costume, she was ULTRA excited, until we got there. I need to remember to take her early enough to let her run around and not lose light. Or I just need to take her out more often, so she knows what I expect. But it was a good thing I had Donavan with me, otherwise she would have been run over (several times) by cars not watching for little cute kitties running across the street!

So here she is in all her silliness! It's amazing that I was able to get 300 shots to work with, cause every time Donavan got her situated, and as soon as I was in position, she was OFF! But we did get a few fun ones! Isn't she the cutest kitty EVER???




And here she was pretending to be in a cage, and she was "sad"! Precious isn't she?




Show me your paws!!!


She was really getting into being a kitty! Here she was hissing! (She would only responding to me calling her "Kitty", and people were looking at me weird!)


I have lots of her backside....but isn't that the cutest tail....EVER???


I love the side shot, which really shows how puffy the costume is.


Donavan was working with her on a "peeking pose"! She kinda got the concept.


I've decided that she has the personality of a cat. She does what she wants to, when she wants to. Gets grumpy when she is told what to do. Has bursts of energy and then moments of calm. Here is one of the "moments" of calm! She was pretending to have a "kitty nap"! (I do think this tops all PRECIOUS of all things precious!!!


Now it's off to the pumpkin patch! One of my very favorite family traditions!

Be Afraid....Be VERY afraid!!!!!

Just letting everyone that I am now the proud parent of another teenage driver! She's yet to be allowed behind the wheel, but I'm sure we'll hear some begging this coming weekend! So you have now been warned!



It was funny cause on the way down to the DMV, she was all excited about "getting her permit" and I had to keep reminding her that she has to pass the test first! But she did well! And even told me it was pretty "common sense"! (Well except for the stupid percentage questions that she got wrong!)

She's so ready to begin this next phase of her life, but I am desperately trying to keep her from growing up too fast! And she also notified me that she has about 6 dates lined up for when she is "official to date"! As long as she waits, that will give us time to formulate the official interview questions for her dates!

Baby animals at the zoo!

We took the opportunity last week to go to the zoo to see all the cute baby animals we have right now!

By far, my favorite was the elephant. Her name is Zuri. She was born at the beginning of August, but has just recently been brought out for display.

She was quite playful while her mom ate.

I've never seen an elephant nurse before, so this was a treat! I've always wondered how they get their trunks out of the way....and you know what...I still don't know!

Here's a close up. Still can't tell!

Here she is playing in the mud!

Look at this adorable furry belly! Just makes me smile!

Then she was just plain tuckered out...so down she went!


Then we made our way over to the penguins. I was happy that this guy posed for me, just long enough for this shot! Isn't he cute! Love the pink around the eyes! I'm not sure what breed of penguin it is, but I like it!


Eventually we made it over to the giraffes. There were actually 2 babies, but only one of them looks like a baby! (These are for you mom!) :o)
This is the momma...she was really trying to get close to check out my camera!

Check out the eyelashes! And they say that animals don't have eyebrows...um..check out the giraffes!

And now I'm convinced that baby giraffes are no different than a four year old that doesn't want his/her picture taken!

Then this little cutie finished eating, and went and stood in the doorway! Love these shots!





Then we went on to the big cats. We have tiger cubs and snow leopard cubs.


Check out the paw on the BABY!


Then of course the zoo favorite is the carousel! And the animal she chose this time was the zebra. She had to wait in line a few times, cause apparently it was others' favorites too! But once she mounted that zebra she was in heaven!




Then a quick train ride and it was time to head out! And since I didn't take too many pics of anyone else...here's my cute (older) girl and my honey!


And now it's time to go home with our zoo treasures! Carissa has been asking about this silly "explorer backpack" since the last time we went to the zoo, and we finally allowed her to get it! And she couldn't wait to get home and go exploring!


And now my favorite shot of the day:

State Fair & First Gymnastics Class

It seems that throughout the past year, we have heard at least once a week, ask us if it's time to go to the fair yet! So as the opening of the fair was getting closer, we looked at our schedules and realized that we would only be able to go with Carissa, and the big kids would miss out this year. So when we told her that "today was fair day"....she was ecstatic! Everything seemed to be going perfect!

Well it was REALLY hot the day we went, and we were unable to stay late enough for it to cool down, so the parents were miserable. But we tried to have a good attitude, so that she would have fun. When she saw this "skeleton" she was pretty excited! But I'm pretty sure it's a pumpkin thing. But hey, I wasn't going to argue when she's willing to stand still for a picture!



All she wanted to do was ride the rides. Well we got there early enough that NONE of the rides were open. So we had to WAIT....and WAIT....and WAIT....almost TWO hours!!! And that was the LONGEST two hours....EVER! We were getting so frustrated with her. We tried to get her something to eat, but my incredibly picky eater noticed that no one had Happy Meals! So there was MORE whining involved with that!

So she wouldn't eat lunch, so we decided to head over to the Little Farmer's Market.



That was a smart idea. Until we got behind a HUGE group going through together from a preschool...so they were taking FOREVER at each station. Eventually we couldn't handle the whining (again) so we snuck around them! (which caused us to miss the cow milking barn....so we had to go back for that one)


So NOW the rides are finally open. We purchase the ultra expensive overpriced wristband, thinking she will just be happy to ride all day! She had been talking about going in the hot-air balloon ride all morning. Ya, as soon as it went up ONCE, she was screaming her head off. So the next ride we tried was the helicopters...again screaming. (the picture was obviously before the screaming started!)


Since she had been looking forward to the "dragon coaster" we headed over there. As soon as it was off and moving...she was DONE!


So much for all the anticipation. We even tried to get her to go down the giant yellow slide, and she was terrified of it. But she did enjoy the pony ride. And we got extremely lucky when she was the only one riding for a bit. So she ended up getting almost a 10 minute ride, until all the ponies were taken! So I guess if that made her happy then the day wasn't totally wasted!


I've been wanting to get her in a gymnastics class for a while, but because of her separation anxiety, I've held off. But after her tremendous success at preschool, I figured it was time to TRY and see if she could do it. We got there a few minutes early to have a look around and hopefully have time to prepare her for the class, and hopefully meet the teacher. Well the teacher had hurt her back, so another teacher was filling in. When it was time to go in, Carissa was a bit hesitant, so they allowed me to sit inside the gym room with her.


Then as the teacher began to ask her to "do" things, she kept saying it was "too hard"! She would come back to me and I would encourage her to just go and try and do her best. Eventually she re-joined the class, and did what she does BEST...running in circles!!!


Then the teacher used the word "cartwheel" and she had an "I can't do that" moment! So the teacher, seeing that kids were having confidence melt downs (Carissa wasn't the only one) so she started calling it "monkey jumps" and low and behold, she was really into that!

(not the best picture of her doing her monkey jump...but it was the only one without the teacher in the way!) And the best part is, is that she's been practicing ALOT since we've been home from the class. And she's actually extending her legs pretty good. I'm super impressed! And the scary thing is that I think she's got what it takes to be fantastic at gymnastics and it scares us to death...since we both did gymnastics in our younger years. Well more Andrew. But I tried. Then I went to dance instead.

Then she had the kids do some tricks on the uneven bars. I was pretty impressed with how strong her tummy muscles are!



But she was an absolute rock-star on the balance beam! She walked across that thing like she's been doing it her entire life!


So we'll try this for a bit, and see how she does. But over the past week, she's improved on her "monkey jumps" and she is constantly doing handstands on the couches! (usually with a running start...NOT something she was taught in class! Like I said, I really think she is born for this....but that terrifies me!)