Late

Ok, I know I haven't posted in a while and the blogging community is crying out for more pictures of my kids, so here you go. :)

We went to the pumpkin patch a couple of weeks ago and my camera battery died right after we got there. My friend Natalie (mom of the adorable kids you don't know in these pics) took a bunch and is supposed to send them to me but her computer is kaput, so instead of waiting for those pics I will post these. A couple are from a nursery we went to in Dallas that let the kids decorate free pumpkins. Yay! I didn't even buy one this year!

Halloween was fun. Jill was a cheerleader again this year. AMAZINGLY my kid has not outgrown everything from last year (first time in her life!), so she was totally fine to wear her High School Musical cheerleader costume again this year. It was especially cool since her elementary school mascot is the WILDCAT! :)

Miranda & Natalie got to be fairies. I bought these costumes on sale about 9 months ago and luckily gauged the sizes right to where they fit for Halloween! Now they can be dress up clothes and they're so excited. I kept them up high in a closet so they wouldn't be ruined before Halloween!

I took my little fairies to Ben's office to trick or treat. I guess they had a bunch of daycares and preschools coming, so they said I should bring the girls. So we drove there and Natalie (who had a hard night and was so tired) fell asleep on the way there (at 10 in the morning!), so Ben came out to get Miranda and took her by herself. I think she loved being the only one with Daddy and she got enough candy for both girls!

After school and work, we headed to the church's Trunk or Treat and Ben put on his old prisoner costume that he's had forever. I was the only one costume-less. I guess I should plan better for next year. Tons of people were dressed up and decorated their cars so well for the Trunk or Treat. One family passed out hot dogs rather than candy, which was AWESOME because we didn't have time for dinner before we headed up there and we needed more than candy in our stomachs! They must have cooked hundreds of hot dogs for people. You guys rock! Jill & Miranda got their buckets filled again but Natalie played in the van the whole time clicking car seat straps and pushing buttons. Who cares about candy? :)

***Oh yeah, forgot to mention that our van started having steering issues and the A/C went out and it was surpassing 110,000 miles, so we traded it in a couple of weeks ago for a newer, bigger 2007 Grand Caravan. It's got leather and buttons to open the doors and hatches and we feel thoroughly spoiled. It's not brand new but it's awesome to us! Only downside is we don't have DVD player in this one (yet) and the girls are really missing that!***

After Trunk of Treat, we came home and trick or treated on our culdesac. We have such great neighbors that I really want to get to know better! They all thought the girls were adorable (and I had to agree) and were very generous with the candy, so the buckets were all but overflowing by the time we got done with the 8 houses on our street. As we were heading back toward our house, we heard shouts of "Jill! Jill!" There were some friends of Jill's that she knows from the bus and they were so excited to see each other. I took a pic of some of them at our door. It's so crazy to think that my kid has a social life that doesn't involve me! Kind of bittersweet actually. :)

Then on November 1st, my baby girl turned 2 and we celebrated by waking her up early, putting her in a van with no Dora on the DVD player, and driving 4 1/2 hours to Oklahoma City! :) My nephew, Kaleb, got baptized that afternoon, so we met my mom at the OKC Zoo for lunch and perusing of the animals. It was a fun time and then we went to the baptism. Then we turned around and came home. Yeah, LONG day!

I took Nat to get her pictures taken at Wal-Mart on Monday morning while Miranda was doing her weekly preschool/play group. You can't beat getting a whole package of pictures for $5! She did really well until the last two pictures. She started to want down but I had brought her little Puma stuffed animal (really a BYU cougar but Diego calls them pumas, so whatever!) to give to her if she got grumpy. She hugged Puma and smiled and that was the picture I ended up choosing. So cute!

We had a birthday celebration for her on Monday for our Family Night. We put together her new big girl twin bed and had birthday brownies. We gave her a CD of fun kid songs and the girls danced the night away. :) Then our friends, the Allreds, came over and left their two girls with us for a slumber party, so that they could get up early the next morning to go have a baby boy! The girls loved having their friends sleep over and they were actually asleep by 9, so not TOO late. Nat slept all night in her big bed and I think she really likes it. Yay! I am very sad that my baby is so big now but she is also a whole lot of fun!

So there you go. My humongous update. I'll try to keep up more regularly, so as not to have you falling asleep before you finish my posts. :)