The past two days have been dedicated to Christmas festivities at school for the 2 older girls. Sadly, I can't remember to bring my camera, so I am stealing photos from my dear friend, Shelley, who is always prepared and has her camera! These are pics from Abby's kindergarten party. Merry Christmas!
Luke took Katie hunting this weekend, and shared this story with me. It is so funny that I had to share it with you. (Note: He didn't take a camera, so I'm posting the story with an old pic of him with the girls, ready to go out to the woods!)
Merry Christmas 2007! Here is the girls' Santa shot for the year! Hope everyone has a fabulous holiday!!!!! :-)
Here is a photo of the entire music class, dressed up and proud of their performance!
Here she is, ready for her solo, which was "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus". (I was just glad they didn't ask me to pucker up on stage! ha ha)
Here she is, dressed as a Christmas elf, posing with Santa after singing "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer".
A good time was had by all! Happy Holidays!! :-)
Not really "Girls Gone Wild", but I got your attention, huh? ha ha!! This past weekend, eleven ladies took a weekend trip without kids and without husbands. The world did not stop, and I even think MOST of the husbands and children had a pretty good time without us! We had a FANTASTIC time, and even though I forgot my camera, I can always rely on responsible friends to remember theirs (thanks, Shelley!) We shopped and ate and shopped and ate some more, and just generally had a relaxing time. It was so fun, and we HAVE to make it an annual event!! Thanks, friends!
One of the girls' most favorite part of the Renaissance Festival was having their faces painted. The painters were real artists... believe me, I have tried to paint kiddie faces at school carnivals and such, and it is NOT easy. These people made it LOOK easy, and the results were really lovely!
We have been so busy over the last few weeks (while our Internet was down) that I thought I would post photos of our busy days.
Here is a photo of Abby in the "Secret Fairy Garden". Doesn't she look beautiful? (Note the dirty tennis shoes... that is very authentic for "real" fairies! ha ha)
Here is Luke, riding the giant swings with Grace and Abby. Katie wouldn't ride this time, but we talked her into it by day 2.
Here is a photo of the big girls' face paintings. They were really well done. I'll try and post a close-up view in the next post.
As you can see, a fantastic time was had by all. We camped in our RV and had some wonderful, well-needed family time.
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!!
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 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?!?!?!?
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!!
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!)
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!
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! 
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!!
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!!
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!
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!
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!!!!!!!!!!!!
