Cake

Heidi & Luke

I'm behind with writing about my Sister Heidi's wedding reception October 20th. It was a very busy time for my family! We all did our part to help out - the benefit of a big family. I did all of Heidi's flowers and helped her in any other way that I could. Overall, I think things turned out elegant and classy. Above is the picture of the cake that my mom made...yep, she made it - and the dress too. I added the flowers to the cake for the final touches. It tasted as good as it looks!


Guest table. I think this arrangement was my favorite. I got to take it home afterwards to keep. I wish there was a close-up because I found this great red tinted greenery which made it fun. I also used cranberries to fill in the vases. It was amazing how much color that added.

The happy couple. Heidi and Luke actually went to High School together but didn't date until He served his mission over a year ago in Taiwan.

The family. It was fun to have my Aunt Ann, and cousin Karen with her family out for the reception. It was nice to visit with them - they were also a huge help with the reception.

Finishing touches before the reception. I wish I would've take some close ups of the flowers from the front. This is more of the side/back view. Heidi did a chocolate fountain too, which was kind of fun...messy, but fun.

Heidi and her bouquet.

The highlight of the whole reception had to have been all of the kids dancing, especially my five year old nephew, William. He was hilarious! He started doing semi-robotic, semi-hip hop dance moves. At one point we got the crowd clapping for him. He LOVED it. A few minutes later, there's William again, but on the stage bustin' a groove! I'm having trouble loading more pics but might add one of him later, as if it would do the whole thing justice though! Gotta love uninhibited kids!

Blogging Plug

Blogging is such the craze now. I personally like to blog for a few reasons: to post pics and updates for free to share with family and friends not close by, and also to keep a family history/record/journal of sorts. I also enjoying keeping up with people that I might not be great about corresponding with otherwise, by reading their blogs. I hope to copy Michelle and make a yearly book using blurb or mypublisher websites.

Anyway, blogging has been great for me. I've been thinking for a while about people I wish would blog or at least blog more. Funny thing is, recently a few of those people are doing just that....Cheryl, Nora, & Heidi. I aslo recently stumbled across a friend from HS, Amelia's blog.

People who I think might enjoy blogging or at least I'd enjoy it if they were blogging:
My friends from HS: Cheryl, Nora, Asna, Kelly, my sis Heidi, my SIL Vanessa, my cousins Karen, Laura, Gma Patty, my friends Melissa R., Rebecca S., etc.

There are lots more but this is just a start. Start a blog today!

Can I just say...

I LOVE BABY ELISE! I'm not the biggest fan of newborns. Yes, they are very sweet and provide many tender moments of awe and amazement...However, they cry a lot, are hard to read and don't fill your day with tons of smiles and giggles. Some of you might remember the days back in April or so when, as my friend Nora so affectionately puts it, I sounded "like I was going to kill [my]self". :) Those tough days are behind me and I can finally see myself possibly- in the distant, distant future, having more children.

Elise is 7 months old now. I think this is my absolute favorite baby stage. She's happy, learning, enjoying life, and can't get into everything yet!

What I love about Elise right now:

1. I love her chubby cheeked, dimpled filled smiles!
2. I love that she almost always wakes up happy, even if we have to wake her up early for some reason.
3. I love that she just laughs and laughs at her big sister.
4. I love that she laughs every time I pretend to nibble on her cheek or neck. It's a ritual for me now to nibble her chin or neck before I lay her down to sleep. With her eyes closed and binky in her mouth, I see, hear, and feel her giggling.
5. I love that she loves her momma. She looks for me and is happiest when with me. (Now, of course while this makes me feel special - it has it drawbacks too.)
6. I love how excited she is to learn new tricks. Recent tricks include: clapping hands, waving, scooting herself on her bottom on the slick kitchen floor, saying "momma", "dadda", "babba", pretend singing, putting her binky in her mouth turned the right way all by herself.
7. I love how I can wrap her up (still swaddling), lay her down and she'll go to sleep all by herself! I remember rocking and rocking Ava to sleep every day. Sometimes Elise needs more singing or for me to lie next to her, but for the most part she's out. She also sleeps more than Ava did - love that.
8. I love how good and happy she is at stores and other places usually, as long as she can watch and see what is going on.
9. I love that I can sit her down for a few minutes with a few toys, which she's enjoying banging together - cause & effect, and she's happy for long enough for me to get something done.
10. I'm loving that she's learning to feed herself - holding her bottle, stuffing cheerios and puffs into her mouth, trying to drink from a cup...
11. I love how chubby and full she feels. It's so fun to cuddle a baby that feels so healthy and robust.
12. I love how much she likes to watch our doggies. She'll reach out & pet them or laugh or smile when she sees one of them.
13. I love how her feet kick really fast when she's excited.
14. I love how even when her nose is running and you know she's sick, she's still fairly happy and in good spirits.
15. I LOVE that I get to be her mommy.

Recent Snapshots

Chris got Ava this cool cutting set from Melissa & Doug. Ava loves cutting so much we had to take it away so she'd go to sleep.

Here's Ava doing laps around the Jayhawk.

Mommy & Ava during our OKC visit.

Bunch of Pumpkins

Happiest Bear on the Block!

Twins?

I.CRY.EVERY.TIME.

http://abc.go.com/primetime/xtremehome/index

Halloween Festivities

PLAYGROUP HALLOWEEN PARTY:
October was such a busy month! It was fun to enjoy some Halloween festivities. The first was our Playgroup's Halloween Party. As you can see above, Ava was not going to pose for a picture and Elise didn't have much choice.
The party was fun. They did a craft, coloring page, got to play with special orange dough and decorated cookies. I think Ava decorated about five cookies and ate probably 2 1/2. I brought our new parachute (got it at Costco for $14.99!) for the kids to play with.

CHURCH TRUNK-OR-TREAT:
On Tuesday, we went to the annual Trunk-or-Treat at church. I think the crowd was a bit lighter than previous years when it was held on Halloween night, but all the same, the kids had a good time.

So, our official costumes this year....we decided, actually it was Chris' idea, to go as Goldilocks & the Three Bears! We were thinking of having Ava go as a princess like Cinderella for a while. We knew Elise would be going as a bear since we had the costume when Ava was a baby.

I made Ava's costume (with LOTS of help from my friend Rebecca -thank you). It turned out really cute. I think I may be sewing more dresses in the future. On a side note, I bought some after Halloween sale costumes for dress-up and the quality is so poor compared to a handmade costume. I may have started a tradition of making costumes. Tune in next year to see if that sticks. I also made the ears, bow tie and bows so that we all coordinated. The saddest thing was when at least 4 different people at first thought we were mice. ;)

We had to hurry and teach Ava the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I actually found a cute British cartoon of the simplified story here: http://www.britishcouncil.org/kids-stories-goldilocks.htm We watched it several times and then checked out books from the library. Now she definitely knows who was sleeping in Baby Bear's bed.

Elise is so photogenic! She loves to smile for the camera.
Here's Ava with her little friend Payton the Giraffe. So cute!
Here are 4 of the 5 cousins: William the Ninja, Ava as Goldilocks, Elise the Bear, and Kate the Ladybug. Ava's other cousin, Ryan, went as Steve from Blue's Clues. We met up with him on Halloween night.

HALLOWEEN EVENING:
Since the Trunk-or-Treat was the night before Halloween, this left us time on Halloween to try something new...Trick-or-Treating Downtown. We had never been so didn't know what to expect. It got really busy towards the end and I don't know how many suckers and tootsie rolls she got - tons. It makes sense that they'd be giving out cheapy candy because of all of the trick-or-treaters. Sadly, most of this candy will end up going to charity (like Chris' workplace) or into the circular file.

Here's our little family. Ava really got the hang of trick-or-treating this year. She learned quickly to say, "Trick or Treat", and also usually remembered to say "Thank You!"
I like this picture, taken by my sis, Heidi, of Ava and Elise. We like to "beep" noses at our house. Ava must have thought Elise needed her nose "beeped".

After trick-or-treating downtown, we met up with family at my parents' house. Then, Ava and her cousin Ryan, went trick-or-treating for real, up and down my parents' street. They were so funny! First of all, Ava was trotting along in William's shoes (at least 2 sizes too big) because her other shoes hurt her feet. That didn't stop her. She and Ryan loved knocking on the door or ringing the doorbell. The only thing was that Ava would knock, knock, knock, knock, until someone answered the door...the same thing with holding the doorbell button down. She also wanted to grab the candy out of the bowl. After several houses, Halloween etiquette learned.

Overall, a fun week of Halloween.