Halloween bowling

This is the first year I signed up to be a room mom in my kids' classrooms for their holiday parties. So far it's going super because I got called to do it in Sydney's classroom and not in Briana's. So there's bound to be hurt feelings for sure. But, I still plan on attending both parties, so hopefully that will help me redeem myself.

Anyway, the game I am taking into Sydney's class party is Halloween bowling. I worked on it all night last night, and I love it. Those first graders better not bowl too hard and damage my hard work!

My favorites are the mummy

and the Frankenstien.

Strike!

Leaf Pile!

Today the girls and I made a leaf pile in the backyard. It was a super windy day, and most of our leaves actually blew into our elderly neighbor's yard (oops!) leaving us without too much to rake up. We did manage to get a good enough pile to jump in. And let me tell you, raking up leaves is a workout!

One... two... three..... JUMP!

It was hours of fun!

Poor Ellie even got roped into it.

The girls thought it would be super funny to bury her in the leaves. But she managed to get away from them, and she went to the safest looking place around, the yellow slide.

Dress Transformation

Last fall, I got Sydney the CUTEST gray dress. It was a gray, hooded cotton Ralph Lauren dress that I loved. Sydney did not share in my love for the dress. In fact, she felt quite the opposite about it.

"It's plain and it's boring and I'm not wearing it," she informed me one morning before school. I think the dress was worn maybe once.

While we were cleaning out the girl's closets today, I pulled out the beloved gray dress.

"Do you want to keep this or get rid of it?" I asked Sydney.

"WAIT!" Briana shouts. "You could put that cherry patch on that dress!" I looked at Sydney, and she looked at me. "Oh, yeah!" she said. We picked up this cute cherry patch at Hobby Lobby last week and were trying to find something to put it on. And thanks to Briana's genious idea, we had our dress.

Here is the new, very cute, not boring, absolutely adorable (and LOVED by Sydney) dress:

Guess what? She wants to wear it to school tomorrow.

Trick or Treat!

Against our better judgement, Mike and I took the girls to the zoo for their annual trick or treating event. We've only been once before, when the girls were babies and all we could remember was that it was super busy. I checked the zoo website, and on there it said that this is the most popular trick or treating event in Omaha. It was also featured on the news as a top thing to do for today. We were prepared for it to be busy. Luckily, we all got up and got ready early, so I think we missed a lot of the huge crowds.

Even Ellie got to dress up! Too bad she couldn't go trick or treating with us.

Once we got to the zoo, things went pretty well!

The girls got lots of candy. Then the lines started getting a tad longer.

They moved pretty quick though, and I didn't have any complaints about the wait time.

Still smiling!

The only line we chose not to wait in was the line for free Runzas. That's right. FREE RUNZAS!!! I wanted to wait in that line so, so bad. But the line wound all the way around the zoo. Mike told me if I didn't make him wait in that line, he would buy me a Runza for lunch. I told him it probably wouldn't taste as good as the free one. In the end, I gave in and let him buy me lunch.

Once we got home, the girls spread out all their loot in the living room.

Here's my loot:

Trick or treat!

My Crafty Girl

The other day, my sister made a super cute candy corn wreath using felt rosettes. Of course once I saw it, I had to copy her idea and make one of my own. What are sisters for, right? Once Sydney saw the felt rosettes covering our kitchen table, she wanted to make some too. I showed her how, and she made one, and then she glued it onto a hair clip. So, so cute!!

Sunday morning breakfast

Last week, Mike emailed me this:

along with the message "I know what I want for breakfast this weekend!"

Who am I to deny my family such a delicacy? On Sunday morning, we whipped up our own batch of bacon pancakes.

I thought they looked pretty good! Mike ate the first one, and this is the praise I got for making him such a delicious breakfast.

"Wow, that's..... different."

"I mean, it's not bad."

"Well, it's not horrible."

I tasted one too. Because after that, how could I not? And it was pretty ok-ish. I don't think I'll be making them again. I didn't think it was horrible. I just think I like my pancakes and bacon separate. We did think this would be an awesome idea for a breakfast cafe. And we could make some sort of eating challenge out of it and Adam Richmond could film an episode of Man V. Food there!

A joke by Briana

What's a party called that's in the bathroom?

A Party Pooper!