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!!!!!!!!!!!!

Luke

MY MAN...

I was "tagged" weeks ago by Shelley, and I know that we will all need to help pick her up off the floor that I am actually completing it! But, after this past weekend, I figured he was worth a post just about "him". (I promise, more info. in my next post about this past weekend... it was fabulous! You will all be jealous!! :-) )

SO..... without further delay, here are my responses to the "My Man" tag...

1. Who is your man? Luke Martin Killian
2. How long have you been together? 15 years (1 dating, 1 engaged, and 13 married)
3. How long dating? 1 year (oops... kinda jumped the gun on that one in the last question! :-)
4. How old is your man? 36
5. Who eats more? Not that you would know it by looking, but Luke eats like a HORSE. He almost always has a big bowl of cereal before bed, and that is after eating supper. He has the metabolism of a teenager!
6. Who said "I Love You" first? I have no idea. (Is that bad?!?!?!) I think it was kinda at the same time.
7. Who is taller? Luke
8. Who sings better? Me
9. Who is smarter? I don't know... probably Luke, but I think I could give him a pretty good run for his money! ha ha!
10. Whose temper is worse? We are both pretty bad... I think his fuse is longer, but when he finally blows it, the explosion is louder.
11. Who does the laundry? ME. Are you kidding? He SERIOUSLY had to ask me how to run the washer this past year!
12. Who takes out the garbage? Luke. Almost ALWAYS Luke.
13. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? If you are looking at the bed, that would be Luke.
14. Who pays the bills? Me.
15. Who is better with the computer? Me.
16. Who mows the lawn? Mostly Luke, but he just got the most awesome riding mower, so sometimes I do it now.
17. Who cooks dinner? Me (if it gets cooked... we are all pretty busy these days! ha ha)
18. Who drives when you are together? Luke
19. Who pays when you go out? Does it matter? It all comes from the same place! ha ha!
20. Who is the most stubborn? Oh, I don't know... we are both very hard-headed. Probably Luke, though. I usually give in first.
21. Who is the first to admit when they are wrong? I don't know... I would probably say me, but I'll bet Luke would probably say him!
22. Whose parents do you see the most? That's a tough one... we see them all as often as we can.
23. Who kissed who first? It was mutual... you know what I mean.
24. Who asked who out? He asked me out.
25. Who proposed? He did.
26. Who is more sensitive? On a day to day basis, me, but he is really sensitive and sentimental in a big-picture kind of way... I don't really know how to explain it.
27. Who has more friends? It's probably about even...
28. Who has more siblings? Luke does, BY FAR! There are four of them, 3 boys and 1 girl, in his family. In my family, it's just my brother and me.
29. Who wears the pants in the family? Luke does on the big stuff, but I like to think I fill out a pair of pants pretty well for the day-to-day stuff, if you know what I mean!!

OK!! Now you know more than you ever wanted to know about My Man! So... I tag GINA!! (She will probably be even more likely than me to never do this!! ha ha!! Love ya', Gina!)

MOO!

Yesterday afternoon I look out my front windows and, what do I see? The well-loved cows are back to finish off the job they started on my front porch (since I hadn't gotten around to cleaning it up yet...) Anyway, I decided to fling open the front door and take a photo of them in action, and that would probably scare them off, right? NO!!! They continued eating happily and even posed for the camera.It's not a very good picture, because it is back-lit and the flash didn't go off (and I was too irritated to fix it), but you get the general idea...

COWS!!!!!!!

Yesterday I decorated my front porch for Fall. I was pretty proud of myself! It looked great. Pumpkins, mums, Indian corn, a couple of scarecrows, and a few bales of hay. So, even though the INSIDE of my house was a mess, at least the outside was looking pretty spiffy. What did I forget? Oh, I forgot that the fence to my yard is down, and so my 6 cows have the run of the place, including the yard, and (apparently), including the front porch! Take a look at what they did to my festive Fall porch!Note the scarecrow, face down in the yard. Note the hay that is strewn EVERYWHERE. Note the overturned mums (that are also chewed.) Note the half-a-bale of hay that is drug into the yard. You can't see it, but look hard for the cow poop that is EVERYWHERE on the porch. Mind you, these lovely cows have 35 acres to roam and enjoy, but they choose to sleep in the yard every night. This does it... the fencing guys are getting a call TODAY!!! I need to reclaim my porch!! Luke laughed at me and said, "What do you expect? They are cows! They eat hay!" All he got in response was one of "those looks." Curse those cows... (I'll try and post some photos of these lovely "pet" cows at another time.) Now comes the clean up...

More Cheerleading Pics...

I couldn't resist a few more photos of the big "pee-wee" cheerleaders. Here is the official team photo of our entire squad.
Here is Katie performing her best jump.
Here is Abby, looking beautiful during practice.
Here are the Killian sisters, ready to do the perfect cheer. Can you say "Spirit Fingers"?

Brace Face!!

My big girl got braces today!! Can you believe she is old enough?!?!?!? She handled it like a pro... no complaining! I was so very proud of her. Above you see the "before" shot, and below you can check out the "after" shot. Doesn't she look beautiful?

Happy Fall, Y'all!

We started off our busy day today with a visit to the Hospital's annual Pumpkin Patch. After a quick photo "op" with the scarecrow, it was off to the rest of our activities!

The Mighty Miss Grace

Here you can see how Gracie spent her time at the pee-wee football game... playing with my friend Jennifer and her son Cason. I thought we would have a hard time keeping her off the field and away from the cheerleaders on the side lines, but then again, is Grace ever predictable? She thought it was hot, so she just relaxed and tried to keep cool. (Thanks, Jennifer!)
Then, when we got home, she announced she needed a bath, because she had "the sweat". Nothing could convince her to wait, so into the tub she went. She took her glasses and plastic grasshopper with her. What can I say... she's an original!

Pee Wee Cheerleading

Today was our first game for Pee-Wee Cheerleading. The above photo is our sweet little squad (two girls are missing - they had a conflict today and couldn't make the game.) I must say, our little squad did AWESOME!!!! It was really warm today, and even the little ones cheered the whole time. Our team won, and I'm sure it was because of the awesome support they got from these girls! :-)
Here are Lainey and Abby, cheering like little pros! Nobody would have ever guessed it was their first game!
Here are Katie and Abbey H., doing a great job with their pom-pons! Don't they look cute?

Abigail Ann

Miss Abby has had a busy week in kindergarten. Above is a photo of her at the zoo, which is where her class went on their field trip. They had a VERY good time.
Then, on Friday, kindergarten had their first six weeks "learning celebration." They got up on the big stage and perfomed songs, poems, and other things that they have learned since school began. After the big performance, they got to enjoy some snacks with friends and family. Abby did a great job!! We're so proud of her! The photo above is Abs with some her her "buddies" on the stage.