I'm BAAAAAAACK!!!!!

I know you all have been SO disturbed by my absence from the blog... My Internet has been down for about 2 weeks here at home. Guess why? (I'll give you a few minutes here to contemplate my "country" life...) Yes, A COW bent my satellite dish and rendered it inoperable. It's too comical to even get angry about it. But, I will have my revenge... the fence builders are coming TODAY to create a beautiful fence to keep the beasts out of my yard!

Many more photos to come soon, and lots of wonderful stories (mostly about the Grace...)

Photo by Bridgette

My extremely talented friend, Bridgette, asked if she could snap some pics of Grace and me at church the other day. I'm thinking just some practice snap-shots, but WOW! This girl has a fantastic eye. She made Miss Grace and myself like like pros posing in a studio! This is my favorite photo that she took. I love it. I printed it off and framed it. Thanks, Bridgette! Love You!!

Pumpkin Patch

Abby's Kindergarten Class went to the Pumpkin Patch on a field trip Halloween Day. They had a fantastic time! Above you see A. sitting on her favorite pumpkin.

The kids learned ALL about pumpkins, from how they grow to their seeds and they even got to do some other "Fall" activities. Before they left, they got to play some games. One of them was a Pumpkin Rolling Relay. Below you can see A. quickly rolling her pumpkin to the finish line!
The next game was a hopping race. Below you see A. hopping to victory.
At the end of the trip, each child got to pick a pumpkin to take home. My favorite part of the day was watching those 60+ kindergartners trying to get those huge pumpkins back to the bus. Classic! They were rolling them, kicking them, carrying them, whatever they could think of. They had to go across a pretty large field, and by the time they got to the bus, they were pretty tired. Check out the expression on Abby's face. Can you say whiny?!?!?!?

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!

Just wanted to post a few quick photos of the girls in their "official" Halloween gear. Abby was an "Autumn Fairy", Katie was a "Pirate Girl", and Gracie was a "Princess". Just look at that expression on Gracie's face... that pretty much says it all!! She wasn't very cooperative about the whole "Halloween Process"... I guess she didn't realize that she was about to get a WHOLE LOT of candy!!!! She perked up once she saw the candy! ha ha! Hope you all had a very Happy Halloween!!

"Autumn Fairy"

"Pirate Girl"

"Pretty Princess"

The FINAL Surprise Is...

Above you see a photo of all the girls cleaning the "guts" out of our pumpkins. We really had a great time with all of our Halloween preparations on Sunday. However, there is a part of the story that I left out! (My friend, Shelley, reminded me that I should definitely blog about this!)

We had been having so much fun all day. As soon as we got home from church, we started doing fun activities with the girls. We would take "breaks" from the festivities for them to go outside and just play. Then it would be back inside for the next surprise. It had been a very busy day, but a day that was just wonderful for the kids. After we carved the pumpkins, the girls had their baths, and then Luke said, "OK!! I have ONE MORE surprise for all of you. Do you want it?!?!?!" The girls' eyes were shining, and they all screamed "YES!!!!" Luke said, "OK! Now everyone gets their FLU SHOTS!!" You should have SEEN how fast their faces changed from happiness to shock to horror! And, he wasn't kidding! He had gotten his nurse to draw up flu shots for everyone on Friday, and he had kept them in our refrigerator all weekend, just waiting for the "perfect" moment. It was a classic. They were SO disgusted with us for actually giving them their shots. Oh, the added little bonuses you get when your Daddy is a Doctor! ha ha!

Pumpkins!

Our final activity for Sunday night was carving our pumpkins. All of the girls had a really great time. Of course, we couldn't carve just the traditional Jack-O-Lantern face... NO!! That would be too simple! We had to use a stencil and do a difficult design. Above you see K. and A. getting ready to cut open the first pumpkin. Below you see G. digging out the pumpkin "guts". She loved that part!
Below you see the finished projects, lit up and glowing and looking pretty. Happy Halloween!

Halloween Fun

Yesterday we "really" got ready for Halloween. Luke found some pre-made "Haunted House" cookie kits, and the girls got busy decorating. They are too cute to eat! Above you can see Abby's creation, and Katie's handiwork is pictured below. (Note the black frosting around her face... she only tasted it a little bit! ha ha)
Surprisingly, Grace had no interest in helping with these houses. (And for this we are all thankful! ha ha!) She spent her afternoon happily playing, dragging out many toys and generally making a mess. Below you will see her dressed like a puppy, playing on the stairs (because isn't THAT so safe?!?!?!) Rest assured, I made her move right after this photo!
Last night, after decorating the houses, we ate supper and let the girls make a spooky Halloween drink. Witch's Punch! Note the hand-shaped ice floating in the punch, and the "eye balls" (grapes stuffed with a raisin and then frozen hard) as well as the gummy worms. The kids thought this was GREAT!

Pre-Halloween Photos

This weekend we went to a friend's Halloween party. What fun! The girls got to dress up in their costumes and have a lot of fun. Now, mind you, they spent WEEKS pouring over the catalogs, beginning way back in August , to select the perfect costumes. They love to dress up! They did wear their costumes to school on Friday, but for this party, Katie was the only one wore her real costume! Abby and Gracie both wanted to be something else. (Katie did, too, but I kinda talked her into wearing her new one... the one she wanted to wear was a bit small this year!) So, I present to you the pirate girl, the black cat, and the angel!!


Note the pretty pirate girl pictured below. AARRRR, Matey!
Look at the cute kitty cat in this picture. Adorable! Meow! Meow!!
And, finally, I give you the pouty angel! What?!?!?!? Angels are supposed to be sweet and loving! Apparently, not so when you are the mighty Miss Grace! This photo is SO HER!!

The Best Weekend Ever, Part 2

Just for fun, I thought I'd post a few more photos from our wonderful weekend in Napa Valley. Above is a picture of us from the Robert Mondavi winery. A man saw Luke taking a picture of me alone and offered to take our picture together. I just love kind people!

The picture below is a wine storage cellar. Note the sides of the room, and look REALLY hard at the back wall... all of those are bottles of wine! It was at least 30 or 40 feet deep, and stacked chest high.
This is a photo of the "tasting" room at the "castle" winery that we visited. It was built underground in a classical medieval style (note all the arches...)
The climate in Northern California is PERFECT (thus why the grapes grow so well there!) But, grapes aren't the only things that grow well there. I was fascinated by the perfection of the roses. I took quite a few photos of the flowers, but will only post this one.
That's all the photos that I have time for now. Visit the wine country if you can (and leave your kids at home!) It is the PERFECT get-away spot!

The Best Weekend Ever

OK, readers. It is official. My husband is THE BEST husband out there. As proof, I present you with exhibit A, also known as "The Best Weekend Ever". My husband planned a weekend trip as a surprise for me. He arranged ALL the details, including all the reservations and even arranged a babysitter to stay with the kids over the weekend. Yes, that's right, a weekend with NO KIDS! Just the two of us! Don't get me wrong, I love my kids VERY much, but I do spend a lot of time with them, so this was a real treat. And, as if it wasn't already great enough, he didn't tell me ANYTHING about the weekend. I had no idea where we were going. Just that we were dropping off the kids at school on Friday morning and then leaving for the airport! How fun! So, on the way to the airport he finally let me look in an envelope that told me we were jetting off to....... (drum roll here) the Napa Valley Wine Country in California!!!! A place where neither one of us has ever been! It was very exciting. We boarded a plane and flew to California. After landing in Sacramento, we picked up our car and drove to Napa. We pulled up to a GORGEOUS mansion, which is where he had made reservations for the weekend. After checking in, we went over to the spa at the Silverado mansion and had a massage, which he had arranged ahead of time. It was SOOOO fantastic! Then we showered and got dressed up and went to the restaurant on the resort grounds and had a wonderful dinner. The next morning we ate breakfast and toured around downtown Napa before checking in for our next adventure... lunch aboard the Wine Train. We boarded an old fashioned steam train that leisurely chugged through the Napa Valley so that you could see the scenery while eating a gourmet meal. It was beautiful. Below you see Luke boarding the train.
After lunch, we had a bit of time to drive around and get a closer look at some of the wineries that we had seen by train. The first one that we stopped out was really amazing. Castilla di Amarosa took its founder 14 years and 31 million dollars to build. He wanted to build an authentic Medieval castle, complete with vineyards, wine storage vaults, moat, drawbridge, church, dungeon, towers... you get the idea. It was really unbelievable! And, best of all, it had a beautiful wine tasting room! We got to sample a few different varieties and even bought a few bottles that are being shipped to us here at home. Below is a photo of us at the top of one of the towers. We set the timer on my camera to take this pic. Pretty impressive, huh?
After touring that winery, we had another wonderful meal at the Bayleaf restaurant. It was AMAZING food. We left there and went back to our room, exhausted and stuffed. Sunday we had to drive back to Sacramento, but we had a few hours to drive around and see a few more sights. We stopped at V. Sattui Wineries, which was probably my favorite. They had beautiful grounds where you could bring a picnic (or buy their food and picnic...). Even though it was pretty early in the day, their wine rooms were open for samples! We bought a few more bottles of their "vino", which they are also shipping to us. Thanks, V. Sattui! Below is a picture of just a few of the huge oak wine barrels in their massive wine cellars.
Everywhere you went in the Napa Valley there were grape vines. There would be a cottage, and directly off the back porch would be rows and rows of grapes. I couldn't resist taking a few shots of the grapes up close, because, really, in Napa, they are the stars.
We also visited the Robert Mondavi Winery, which is one of the "biggies". It was truly lovely, and I will try and post some more photos tomorrow. After we finished touring, we raced back to Sacramento and hopped our flight back to Texas. Wonderful Miss Judy had the kids all tucked into bed and asleep by the time we got home. Even though they say they missed us, I think they secretly had a wonderful weekend! They went out to Judy's house and fed the ducks with June and drove the golf cart. They also made their team's football game, where they cheered their team on to another victory. They also made it to church, and then weaseled their way to Chicken Express for lunch, which is one of their favorite treats. All in all, a good time was had by everyone (but especially by ME! ha ha) My husband is the best!!!!!!!!!!!!