Trick-or-Treating

The anticipation had finally paid off, and it was FINALLY the day of Halloween! Carissa woke up that morning SUPER excited! Then to realize it was only 7:30am, and there would be a bit more waiting until it finally time for trick-or-treating! Unfortunately during that waiting period, she began to have doubts about what to wear for her costume. (which had already been clearly established!) She kept saying that she wanted to be "TinkerBell" (which was what she wore last year) or even a "kangaroo" (which IS adorable, but she wore it 2 years ago...and it really is too small!). Then she had a complete meltdown when she wanted to be "Sleeping Beauty"! I wasn't prepped up for a princess costume, and it was much too cold to wear it, since she would have had to wear a coat over it anyway. SO FINALLY, she calmed down and let us dress her in her adorable kitty costume, and she meow-ed all over the neighborhood!


When Judy answered the door, she was so excited that her "nursery teacher" was giving her treats! (funny that she remembers her when she rarely stayed in the class without crying!)




At one door, when the door opened, she started meow-ing, instead of saying the traditional "trick-or-treat", and the gal said, "what do you say?", and Carissa's response was "Meow-meow-meowwwww"! (Which obviously is "trick-or-treat" in adorable kitty language!)

We finally caught up with her friend Kassidy (who dressed as a "wolf" and howled all night)


Back at home checking out all the loot! (you should have seen Andrew's pile....it was just about as big! I didn't realize he'd been stuffing his pockets as he took her up to the door! Next year, I think I'll make him carry a bucket too!)





Now she thinks her birthday is "in a couple of seconds"! Wow, the next 3 months are going to be excruciating to deal with! Thankfully we do have Christmas in there too!

Hope everyone had a great Halloween!

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: