Trick Or Treat

This Halloween year was so fun. Ezra and Emersyn were so excited about it, that we had a count down of "sleeps" until it was Halloween.

This year, Ezra and Emersyn had strong opinions of what they wanted to be. I wasn't able to persuade them into anything else. Luckily, they picked pretty good costumes; ones they will wear to play around the house in often. Ezra was batman. Emersyn was Jasmine, from Aladdin (her favorite princess). Elynn was a cheetah. For her costume, I just bought ears and a tail for 5 bucks and she wore all black with her cheetah shoes. Simple, but Oh.So.CUTE!

The morning of Halloween started off with Emersyn's school fall parade. I let Ezra and Elynn wear their costume to her parade also. There are two very precious school functions at Oakhills Preschool, 1. fall parade and 2. thanksgiving meal. During the parade, all the different classes parade around the upper mall area in their costumes while mom/dads/grandparents/siblings, etc pass out candy. Ezra was pretty excited about being able to help pass out the candy. He thought he was such a big kid. Elynn, on the other hand, just tried to eat each piece of candy we were trying to pass out. At one point, she had eaten the wrapper off the top of a tootsie pop sucker, so I just let her have it!

My great friend, Ashleigh (who is a teacher at the preschool) was Tangled 

Our friend, Bethany: Rapunzel

Our friend, Kate: UTSA cheerleader

Mrs. Valerie: Brave. All the preschool teachers dressed up as a Disney Princess

My sweet Emersyn: Jasmine

Oliver, the knight

Collecting her candy with her class

Sweet brother passing out candy to Emersyn

Another friend, Harper: Dalmation

Emersyn's Busy Bee class

Emersyn and her besties: Addison and Brielle

The rest of the day was spent in anticipation of when we were going trick-or-treating. We started trick-or-treating around 630. Out neighbors across the street, and one of Emersyn's little friends, Addison, and her family (they live in our neighborhood) met up with us to all go together. It was fun. The kids LOVED running up to the different houses to shout Trick-Or-Treat and grab candy.

Had to get a picture of her tail

The crew all ready to go

Love these boys!

Family photo. By this point, Elynn was ready to take her tail and ears off. Oh well.

Had to get a picture of him pulling the wagon. It just made me smile.

He is such a good sport!

Halloween 2012

with our friends trick-or-treating

Although they had fun getting candy, I really think their favorite part was coming back to the house to pass out candy to the older kids. They loved being in control of how much candy to give, looking at the older kids costumes and staying up a little past their bed time. It was a great day/evening.

Oh, ya. Brent and I dressed up at the last minute. Ezra had begged Brent for a while to be batman also. He didn't want to get a costume though, so our neighbor across the street lent Brent his batman outfit. Ezra was super pumped about it. Then, since Brent had a costume, they said I HAD to have a costume. Emersyn really wanted me to be Jasmine, but there was no way I was going to be able to pull that off. Then, my friend, Jenn, let me borrow her kids batman mask and cape, so, I was Batgirl with black leggings and a black shirt. It was fun. Just seeing how excited the kids were that we were dressed up, made it worth it.

Batgirl

Batgirl and Batman

My girls

I haven't posted in a while, so I thought I would put some pictures up of my girls.

We have been busy between, homeschooling Ezra (m/w/f and him going to school on tuesdays and thursdays), Emersyn going to preschool, taking trips to the zoo, library and just having 3 kids in general! ;)

We love it and wouldn't change it for anything!

We finally got a pumpkin that Elynn could make into a potato head pumpkin! She LOVED it. 

Here is a look at the end result. Pretty cute!

This is a picture of the girls saying "hi" to cowboy, at Johnny's. 

This is a picture of Elynn trying to climb in with the goat and sheep

Love my girly cowgirl.

Love

Emersyn wrote her name all by herself! Proud momma! She is almost 3 1/2. 

Happy Fall

Pumpkins! I am excited about Fall! I just love the weather, the way the trees look, football (mainly college football), pumpkins and fall foods (mainly at starbucks :).  To kick off fall, we went to pick out some pumpkins, at United Methodist Church pumpkin patch, so we could make our potato head faces and to paint them. The kids had a good time picking out their pumpkins and being actively involved in putting the potato head faces in their pumpkin. We still need to get Elynn her potato head face this year. The next day, we had a pumpkin painting play date with our good friends, Ashleigh and Kate. It was fun!

Here are some pictures..

Emersyn and her princess 

Working hard on her pumpkin

Ezra working on his pumpkin

Ezra and his cowboy

The finished pumpkins

Elynn painting her pumpkin

Cheese..

Painting some more..

Kate, Emersyn and Ezra painting.

The finished painted pumpkins!

California Dreamin'

Friday morning we woke up bright and early, the kids even commented on how dark it was outside and how it still must be night time, to catch our flight to Southern California! We have been excited and planning this trip for a little while now. My cousin, Luke, got married on Saturday and the whole family flew in for the celebrations! My mom's side of the family is so itty bitty that it would have been weird to NOT go to the wedding! Plus, they all made the effort to come to Texas for our weddings.

The main reason for heading to California was for Luke and Amanda's wedding. However, when you are in California, and don't visit often, you have to pack in things to do! That we did! I felt like we flew in on Friday and hit the ground RUNNING! We had something planned each day we were there. Events started from when we got up and lasted until we hit the beds exhausted. We literally would get up around 730-8 (except the first morning we were up by 545 AM because we were still on Texas time), and not go to bed until 10:30-11!! It was madness!

Ready for the plane ride

Thought he could sit with her, but that didn't last long!

My crew

John Wayne airport, Orange County

Pretty much EXHAUSTED!

Friday we got to our hotel and had a little bit of time before we had to be ready for the rehearsal dinner. The dinner began at 5 at The old spaghetti factory. After the rehearsal dinner, we decided to walk over to the beach, since it was right across the street, and walk around the beach for a little bit. Well, we didn't really do any walking. Mostly running into the water! The kids were so excited that they ran into the water with all of their clothes on. Awesome! After Ezra was knee deep in sand and water, I realized that he had the pants he was going to wear to the wedding on! Nice! However, just from their excitement and joy, it was all worth it!

My beautiful sister and I (rehearsal dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory)

Siblings

Loved the sphagetti

Sweet baby, Townes

The soon to be, Bride and Groom

Townes and Cousin Aimee

Townes, Aimee, Ashley and I

Newport Beach

Loved this picture. Funny how they are in age order!

My loves..

Saturday, we woke up bright and early: 5:45 AM!! I texted my mom and we ended up going for a 4 mile run before anyone else got up. I couldn't pass up a morning run in Cali. The weather was so nice and cool that I felt like I had so much energy for running! After everyone was up, with breakfast, we packed up the cars and headed to the beach for the morning. The wedding wasn't until 430, so we had some time to kill. It was so gorgeous at the beach. The weather was perfect, the water was cold, and the sand was soft. Such a fun time at the beach. After the beach we headed to In-In-Out for lunch, ( It is a must on our California schedule. That and Del Taco!), and headed back to the hotel for naps before we had to get ready for the wedding.

Newport Beach, again, with proper clothing!

My mom and I

She LOVED the water!

My sister-in-law, Shelby, and niece, Cambelle 

IN-N-OUT.. a MUST

Elynn and Cambelle

All the cousins (F: Townes, Elynn. B: Emersyn, Lincoln, Ezra, Cambelle)

The wedding was so nice and beautiful. It was outside, which was perfect for the kids. It was a pretty ceremony. Luke and Amanda were giddy with excitement and love. Amanda looked beautiful. The reception was so pretty, too. It was a perfect atmosphere for kids, also. Amanda, the bride, is allergic to Gluten, so the whole meal at the reception was a Gluten free meal. It was so tasty! I was very surprised. We stayed till around 10 and then headed back to the hotel. We had a full day planned for Sunday.

Family photo at the wedding!

Ashley, Mom and Townes

Luke and Amanda

Mimi on kid duty

My sweet girls

Ashley and I at the reception

Sunday, the day the kids had been waiting for: DISNEYLAND!! Our family switched to a hotel right across the street from Disney, on Sunday. We weren't sure if we would do Disney 1 or 2 days, so we decided to get a hotel room right across the street. Even though we only did Disney one day, I was glad to only have to walk across the street after a full day of it. We were there when the parked open and didn't leave until it closed. We hit every ride we wanted, plus some. Some of our highlights: Peter Pan ride, Pirates of the Caribbean ride, Disney parade, Emersyn getting to see and take pictures with her favorite princesses, Space Mountain, and the fireworks. It was so fun, but EXHAUSTING! After a full day of Disney, we decided to only do one day. I think if Elynn was a little bit bigger, it would have been easier to do 2. Also, the rest of our family was only doing Disney on Sunday, so we wouldn't have had any extra help for day 2. It was so much fun and we did everything we had wanted to do, so we were happy with that.

On Monday, we didn't have any plans, so we asked the kids what they wanted to do. We even gave them the option of going back to Disney, doing California Adventure or the beach. They both, at the same time, shouted, "Let's go to the BEACH!" SO, we did! We put our swimsuits on and packed up in the car, headed to the beach. Instead of going straight to the beach this time, we headed to Balboa Island to walk around there and see the ferris wheel. When we got to Balboa, the way we came in, we were on the other side and needed to cross over. Instead of going all the way around, we took a ferry across. Ezra wasn't sure if it was such a good idea to put our car on the boat. He was a little nervous. I thought it was cool. When we were finally on the right side, we walked around the little boardwalk area, played some arcade games and ate as big as your face, but bigger!, pizza! It was great. After that, we headed back to Newport beach. This time, we rented and umbrella to sit under and a body board. Such good times! We were there for 4 or more hours!! By the time we thought we should head back to the hotel and rest, my mom called and asked if we would be up for seeing an Angels baseball game. Of course!! So, we loaded up our things, took the umbrella and body board back, rinsed off the sand (impossible!!) and headed to the hotel to shower and rest before the game. We were able to rest and shower for a couple of hours before we had to load up once again for the game. 

The game was fun. We had great seats. It was good to spend time with my mom and her husband, Ron, and of course, eat baseball Nachos!! The Angles ended up loosing the wildcard game to the Oakland A's, but it was a fun game and we all enjoyed it!

On the ferry, heading to Balboa Island

Yep, that was our rental for the trip!

Balboa Pier

Love this picture of Emresyn. She liked the water, but loved playing in the sand.

Building a castle with a moat. 

This girl loved the water and the sand!

How she decided to wear her swimsuit. 

Had to get one picture of me..

She was looking for Brent in the water. He was out boogie boarding. Ha!

Me and my Man!

Last night in Cali!

Tuesday, we woke up, packed and headed to the Airport. It was a good trip, but we were ready to just be HOME! We were all so exhausted from the trip. Sometimes, after a vacation, you need another one to recover from the first one! Ha!

All, in all, such a good trip. It was great to do it with my family. Makes me miss them so much. I wish we lived closer. I am thankful for the times we get to spend together!