Neighborhood Fall Festival

Every year our neighborhood throws a big fall festival. It is really fun and all the kids dress in their Halloween costumes. This year Rachel decided to be a ladybug like her cousin Meadow in Arizona!That's one cute ladybug!


Their was an amazing face painter there.


Look at this gorgeous face!

Rach had a blast running around with her friends:)

Their was all kinds of fun things for the kids to do. Check out this human hamster ball!!

They also had a really cute train that went for rides all around the neighborhood. According to Rachel's face, it wasn't THAT fun!

See ya next fall!

Rachel is 7!!!

Good morning my sweet little 7 year old!Rachel woke up to the house decorated in 7s!
For her birthday this year we invited 15 girls (and their families) to the pumpkin patch!


We started off feeding the animals...

posed for a group picture...


we all took a fun hay ride...

pop pop and Preston too...

ate pizza...

and pumpkin cupcakes...

opened a bunch of presents...

thanked our friends...

opened a few more...

and passed out goody bags. It was a GREAT party!

Back home with the family and opened a couple more presents. Heeleys! Just what she wanted!

A new bike! Just what she needed!
It was a great birthday. I think next year we will go backwards in age. Our little baby is getting way to big:(

Happy Birthday Rachel! We love you!!

Wakeland Homecoming 2009

Ok...I am going to try to explain the "mum" thing to my Arizona family! It is a southern tradition to exchange mums for homecoming. Apparently the bigger and tackier the better. Yes-even the boys wear them on their arms. It is a very big deal!! The goal is to have the biggest, tackiest (the kids don't call them tacky) mum at school. You do not wear the mum to the dance, but you do wear it to school on Friday and at the homecoming football game.

Here is Preston posing with his mum!

Here is the mum I spent hours making for Preston's girlfriend Kinzie. I spent quite a while on the Internet researching all the "rules". The seniors wear plain silver and white.

It literally hung to her feet. I attached a ribbon so it could hang around her neck! She was PUMPED (according to her mom) and had the biggest one on the cheer squad. Mission accomplished:)

Preston all dressed up for the dance!

Preston and Kinzie

All the kids they went with!

It took so long for all the kids to get there that we were able to get some more pictures with the gorgeous sunset!

Career Day!

It is career day at school to day. The kids get to dress up as what they want to be when they grow up. Here is how the conversation went with Rachel.

"Rachel what do you want to be when you grow up?"

"I want to be one of those people that takes care of all the animals."

"Oh, a Veterinarian?"

"No."

"A zookeeper?"

"No. I want to work at that store that sells all the puppies."

"Petsmart?"

"YES!! Petsmart!"

So there you have it! She wants to work at Petsmart when she grows up:)

First day of school 2009

The first day of school seemed to come too quick this year! Rachel really loves her teacher and I think she is a great fit for her:) This is Rachel and her first grade teacher on "meet the teacher" night up at school.

First day of First Grade!!!
Sitting in her big kid desk. No more tables!!

Preston was not so excited about school! Summer went too fast for him too:)

First day of 11th grade!!

Preston and Michael being very tolerant of a weird mom!

Summer Highlights 2009

Summer has flown by again! I really enjoyed our time off together, and had so much fun with my kids:) Here are a few highlights...

We got invited to spend the day with our friends on their boat. Rachel loved the tube-until she didn't! She looked like this the entire time until the very end and then started sobbing. Having this much fun can be very stressful!!

Wake boarding with her brother however- not stressful at all!!! How cute are they!


Preston is getting pretty good on the wake board!

Check out this move:)

Rachel really likes hanging out on the boat

One of our favorite things was going to Arizona to visit our family and play with all our cousins! Apparently we were having way too much fun to take very many pictures:)
Here are a few we did get. Jumping with cousins on the trampoline...

And taking care of babies! Rachel was obsessed with Secret! Can you blame her???

Rachel played a little indoor soccer

We celebrated Nana's birthday

Did TONS of art and cooking projects

Check out these yummy, perfect looking peanut butter cookies Preston made from scratch!!

We got to "babysit" Annie (Jeff's parent's dog) for three whole weeks!

And I did a little re-decorating!!

new curtains for Rachel's room:)