New Moon

Russ took me to New Moon the other night.  The only way I could get him to take me was to promise him that during the "wolf" scene he could interpret it for me like Guillermo.  We can't stop laughing at this video.  Russ explained to me what a chupacabra is.  Apparently to Latins it is a mythical creature.  Kind of like how we "believe" in a Bigfoot. Thanks Ashley for posting it originally!

Decorating the Tree

Russ knows that decorating the tree the weekend of Thanksgiving is very important to me.  I wasn't feeling well enough to really participate in decorating this year, so Russ took it upon himself to do it.  As a boy he would always help his mom decorate for Christmas, so he didn't mind doing it for us this year.  I got to be bossy and tell him where to put things, and take pictures of all the happenings.  I enjoyed at least being part of the festivities even if I wasn't that much help.

Russ carefully and patiently arranged our little cheapy fake tree to my liking. {I can't wait until next year when I have a real one!}

At first the girls watched with excitement

 

But the process started to get to long for them, so we pulled out their nativities for them to play with.  They got both of these last year for Christmas and didn't get to play with them much.  By the excitement they had at seeing them today, I'm sure they will use them a lot this year.

  

And of course we had to let the girls help put on the ornaments.  That part is always a little nerve wracking especially since Lily likes to hang them on the lights. 

 

The finished product....

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was quite unusual for our little family this year.  Normally we would drive the four hours from Idaho to Utah and spend Thanksgiving weekend with my family.  We have done that every year since Russ and I got married. This year we obivously couldn't do that.  A friend had invited us to share Thanksgiving with them, but declined.  On Tuesday I had been given some news that left me highly emotional.  Add that to my first major holiday away from family, and I knew I would be an emotional mess.  I realized that I didn't want to subject that experience on my friends family, so I told her so.

On Monday I began to prepare for the holiday.  I wanted to see if I could replicate my mom's Thanksgiving dinner, but only a quarter of the size.  I called her and got the menu, and braved Walmart with both the girls to get my VERY LONG list of groceries.  The only way we made it through that experience was by me bribing the kids to be good with animal crackers.  They complied quite nicely.

Tuesday I received nine homemade uncooked rolls from my fore mentioned friend.  Apparently her recipe makes a ton and she had to get rid of a few.  Nine was just right for us!  And after receiving bad news, a small gift like this brought tears to my eyes.  Of course I cried in the car, not in front of my friend.  Ugh that would be way embarrassing! :D

Wednesday I deemed as "prep" day.  There was a lot of things I felt like I could get done that day and make Thanksgiving a much less labor intensive day.  I made pumpkin pie dessert, green jello salad, toasted the bread for dressing, and I poked the turkey to make sure it was defrosted!

Thursday came, and Russ let me sleep in.  He is awesome about letting me do that.  I think part of it is that he can't sleep through the girls yelling that they are awake.  I sure can!  I got up and made the dinner.  I had to call my mom a 100 times asking about this or that.  She declared herself the "Butterball Hotline" by the end of it.  I had great plans of taking pictures of my food and us before we ate.  But I forgot.  Too many things on my mind I guess.  I did snatch these two of the girls with their whipped cream beaters.

Dinner turned out pretty good.  I discovered after we had eaten that part of the Turkey was still pink.  EEKS!  The good news was that it wasn't the part we had eaten.  All of our pieces had been cooked.  After talking with my mom about it she said that I probably should have cooked the stuffing separetly, or cooked the turkey longer.  Turns out that the "Butterball Hotline" doesn't always have the best of answers.  Just teasin' mom!

After our dinner we Russ declared we were going for a walk.  It was gorgeous outside and the house was stuffy from the oven being on so long.  I was a bit grumpy about going since I didn't feel well, but conceded.  I must admit the fresh air was wonderful.  The streets were so quiet as we walked since everyone was home with their families.  I'm glad Russ suggested it.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing, sleeping, playing on the Wii, calling family, and looking at Black Friday ads.  Yes I'm one of those nutty people who go out shopping on Black Friday.  I think it is fun!  Now only if I can rope someone into going with me!  Happy Thanksgiving!

Sneak Peek of My Blog Book

Slowly but surely I've been working on my Blog book.  Then a few weeks ago I got an e-mail from Blurb.com {the company that I'm using to make my blog book} that they had a sale going on.  20% off with free shipping!  I was ecstatic and pushed forward with finishing my book.  It came down to the wire, but I got it done on time.  I must admit there are a few "awkward" page layouts, but I just didn't know how to fix them.  Hopefully  on my next book I'll know how to fix that.  A lot of it has to do with the fact that graphic imagery is not my strong point.  I thought I would leave you with a Sneak Peek of my blog book until it comes.  This is the cover....

Festival of Lights: Part 3

As soon as Lily finished dancing I grabbed her off stage, and stuffed her back into her pants.  Mainly I didn't want her to freeze because it was getting cold outside but I also wanted to be able to hurry and get a seat to see the light parade.  A friend had suggested that we watch the parade from the area across the street from the museum.  That would have been just dandy, but we were too late and all the spots were taken.  We crossed the road and sat in front of the Museum.  It was a little wet, and mucky there, but not too bad. The girls were waiting for the parade to start.

The parade was scheduled to start at 7:00, but by this time the girls were almost to the point of having had TOO MUCH fun during the day.  They were tired and antsy.  Russ bravely bought Lily a light up top that sang a song.  She loved it, but was a little ungrateful for it.  Allie on the other hand was quite grateful and kept requesting it be played more and more.  With Lily's attitude I saw a melt down coming so I took her for a walk.  I had the intentions of finding some hot chocolate so she would quit complaining about how cold it was.  The lines for hot chocolate were horrendous!  I knew we would miss the start of the parade if we waited. 

We scooted along and were going to go back empty handed when I saw some popcorn for sale.  The girls LOVE popcorn and I knew that would bring smiles all around.  I bought the bag, and then realized it had white chocolate on it.  Oh well, more for me if the girls didn't like it! When we got back I found Allie and Russell like this....

Apparently Allie had been complaining of the cold too, until Russ wrapped her in his coat. Then she was content. 

I started dolling out the popcorn and all complaints about cold toes, noses, hands, or bums were forgetten.  Munching merrily on our popcorn we watched the parade.  It wasn't quite what I had expected.  It was mainly businesses that had decked out their company vehicles with Christmas lights.  But the girls really enjoyed it.  I did learn from the parade though, that if there is ever a fire we have plenty of fire trucks to come help out.  I think there were atleast ten that went by.  Everytime one did we crossed our fingers that it wouldn't honk its horn.  Lily was terrified of the loud noise. The parade ended and wearily we trudged back to the car.  I really enjoy days like this where we get to spend it doing just family things.  With Russ traveling they are few and far between, but I've come to cherish the ones we do get!

Festival of Lights: Part 2

After enjoying part of the festivities we ran home and allowed Allie to take a nap.  Lily, Russ, and I played New Mario Bros Wii.  We rented it from Hastings to see if it was worth buying.  It was a lot of fun, but we are still undecided if we are going to buy it.  Then it was a quick supper, and into some warmer clothes.  The girls had hats and sweaters, while Russ and I just had sweaters.

Lily and her dance class were performing for the Festival of Lights.  She was really excited.  I don't think this girl has a nervous bone in her body.  After parking in the Police Station parking lot again, and walking very quickly we made it to her meeting spot with one minute to spare.  I helped her get out of her jeans and tennies and into her ballet shoes and tutu.  I made her keep her jacket on until later.  While waiting for other girls to show up, a few of the girls grabbed hands and started dancing in a circle.  Cutest thing in the world to see the little ones dancing around in their tutus.  None of them really know each other that well, but because they were all ballerinas, they were all friends.  It was so dark that night, and the area wasn't lit well, so most of my photos didn't turn out.  Including this adorable sight of the dancing ballerinas.

Miss Daniel rounded up the girls {all 15 or so} and had them go line up and sit down on the stage steps.  Lily is such a chatterbox that she kept talking to her neighbors the whole time!

Daniel pulled me aside and told me that she was going to have Lily lead off.  In class she has pointed out that Lily is driven by patterns.  EVERYTHING must be done in the same order or else Lily goes haywire{aka tantrum central}.  She wanted Lily to feel comfortable so she had her lead out.  Have I metioned that Daniel is awesome?

Russ was in charge of watching Allie and videotaping.  I was going to take pictures.  But apparently we hadn't planned well, because before Lily even got on stage the camcorder ran out of tape!  I swear I checked it, but must not have.  So I pulled double duty.  Even still I was able to enjoy her performance.  I have never seen her dance routine, because I've always had Allie had practices.  Since a toddler can be disruptive, I've never watched the practices.  It melted my heart to see Lily up there on stage.  She knew most of the steps without watching her teacher, and even more amazing she knew the words to the songs!

 

 

 

These videos of her are about a minute long.  The first is of her doing a dance to My Magic Tutu.  This is her favorite dance....

This second movie is her doing a dance move across the stage....

I can't express how happy I am that I decided to put Lily in dance class.  I know it has helped her socially, mentally, and physically.  It makes me happy that she enjoys it so much!

Festival of Lights: Part 1

Twinkling Christmas lights are one of my favorite sights of Christmas. As a child I loved to go turn on just the Christmas tree lights and stare at them.  Sometimes I would read by the tree, do my homework, or take a nap with the twinkling light carrying over to my dreams.  When I heard that our city does a Festival Lights, all those wonderful memories came flooding back.  Come to find out though, the Festival is a weekend long fair type thing.  

 

Yesterday Russ was still on his way home from California, and it was raining furiously so I didn't venture out to the Festival.  This morning after making a short stop at a realtor we headed to a local church.  There was a craft show going on inside the church, and I couldn't resist stopping by.  I'm so glad we did!  I found a bracelet and butterfly hairclips for Lily for Christmas.  They both were really cheap, and very pretty.  She was excited to pick them out until she found out they were going to "the little girl in China".  Yeah, I probably shouldn't lie like that to her, but she is so good about believing her presents are being sent to China that it makes Christmas shopping so easy.  She actually isn't all that dissapointed when we tell her they are going to China, so I don't feel TOO bad about lieing to her.  

After the craft show we headed to the fair.  We parked in the Police Station parking lot and crossed our fingers that we wouldn't get a ticket. Of course as we walked into the fair the first thing that greeted us was the smell of food!  Their were food stands everywhere!  We hurried past them to the giant blow up toys.  The city had rented about 10 different blowup toys, and the kids could go on them for FREE!  Lily was so excited as she climbed up to the top of the giant slide.  Mind you it took her about 10 tries because those little arms and legs of hers wouldn't work very well.  I don't know if it was the cold {Mid-50's which is cold for us, plus the humidity made it even colder} or the fact that there were so many kids pushing and shoving to get to the top.  Russ got this one picture of her coming over the top, and then our batteries went dead {Of course we forgot to bring spare batteries!}

We let Lily run around on a few more blow ups before dragging her away to look at some more craft booths.  She came pretty compliantly because we told her we would come back and ride the train.  There was little train that was driving around a parking lot.  It was free as well!  The craft booths weren't all that cool here, so we decided to grab some lunch and go back to the train.  We bought some potatoe stack thing.  It was fried potoatoes with some kind of cheese sauce.  It was gross and good at the same time.  Since getting my gallbladder out REALLY greasy things have made me sick.  This was one of those things that made me sick from the grease.  

Since I wasn't feeling well, Russ volunteered to ride on the train with the girls.  Lily couldn't stand still she was so excited.  At first Allie was pretty indifferent, then she reached forward and grabbed onto the bar that you could hold onto.  She was all smiles and excitement after that.  It would have made the cutest picture those three....stupid camera!

The high school drum corp started to play right as Russ and the girls got off the train.  It had been recommended by a friend to listen to them.  We started ambling towards the stage when Russ saw a Funnel Cone stand and told me story about the last time he had one.  I mentioned I had never had one, and he insisted on getting me one.  One look at it and I knew I had to share it with the family.  It was HUGE {and I still wasn't feeling well}  We listened to the band and ate our funnel cake.  It was a lot of fun.  Allie was ontop of Russ's shoulders and was having a great old time.  She would clap her hands like the cymble players, beat daddy's head with her hands like the drum players, and dance on his should like the whole band.  So hilarious to watch.  She wasn't very happy when we decided to leave before it was over, but we had a few things we needed to get done before returning a few hours later.

Bump at the Playground

I've been hiding in my house the past three or four days.  I've gone out once to go to walking group, and twice to go to the store.  I haven't wanted to see anyone.  After telling Russ this last night, he suggested I go to play group for the kids sake.  I woke up this morning and I didn't want to go.  The kids were climbing the walls by 10:00 and I thought, "Well maybe I will go for them"  But I kept feeling like I shouldn't go.  Finally I hurriedly got us ready and got to play group ten minutes late. 

I hung out over on the playground barrier trying not to talk to anyone.  We've been to this park quite a few times, so I knew the kids were okay if they wandered while I watched from my seat, or so I thought.  Allie went up onto the small play area meant for kids a little older than her.  Normally she will just keep walking forward and then go down the slide.  This time I watched in slow motion as she started to try and go down some spiral stairs that she normally doesn't even pay attention to. I got up in time to watch her fall off face first into the dirt.

By the time I got to her she was crying the "I'm hurt" cry.  Sure enough blood was coming out her mouth.  It took quite awhile of struggling with her and sticking a wippy in her mouth in order to see what exactly had happened.  On her bottom lip she had two cuts.  One REALLY deep and one mildly deep.  I couldn't get them to stop bleeding.  I finally forced some water in Allie's mouth in hope that the coolness would help the wound seal up.  It worked like a charm on the small cut, and the larger cut slowed in bleeding.  Finally after 10 min or so I let Allie go even thought the large cut was still dribbling blood.

Poor Allie has a fat lip and of course the two nasty looking wounds in her mouth.  I wanted to take a picture so Russ could see it, but Allie won't let me get near her mouth.  I guess I should have followed my feelings about being anti-social and stayed home.

Another Giveaway

 

I can't resist telling you about another giveaway over at LeeLou SWAG.  ScrappingSimply is giving away a $100 gift certificate to their shop!  I use ScrappingSimply to print my 12 x 12 scrapbook pages.  Their quality is awesome.  Check out the giveaway for yourself by clicking on the button!

The Family is Ordained of God and Central to His Plan

The Primary Program was today in our ward.  Because we simply don't have enough teachers, I got to sit on the stand and help out with it.  Allie was handed off to my visiting teacher, and she made quite a racket at first.  She hates being separated from me when daddy is gone.  But soon after she quieted down.  I was assigned to sit in the back with some of the older kids.  This spot gave me a birdseye view of Lily and all the antics she pulled throughout the program.  I just reminded myself through out the whole thing, that it could be worse.  For example, she could have pulled her dress over her head and showed off the fact that mommy forgot to buy her new tights, therefore showing off her Strawberry Shortcake underwear.  But to my great pleasure THAT ONE didn't happen.

I really enjoyed listening to Lily get up and give her two little lines.  On one she turned to Sis Curl and told her, "I can do it! The family is ordained of God and Central to His Plan"  We had worked hard on memorizing that line that had REALLY big words for a three year old to say.  Lily beamed at me as she walked down the stairs from the microphone.  I was so happy for her.

The only sad thing about the day was that Russ had to miss it.  I felt bad for him.  Then he told me that in the ward he attends in San Jose, they had their primary program the same day.  Talk about pouring salt in the wound!  Hopefully next year all this traveling will be over and he will get to see Lily recite her lines and maybe even sing! {She didn't sing one word this year, even though she knows the words to a lot of the song!  That stinker!}

Don't Skin Me Alive

I hate how the commercial world we live in pretty much skips over Thanksgiving.  I'm not sure I have heard one mention of it at a store, on TV, or around town.  This year I've been determined to make Thanksgiving special for my family, so they will remember it, and it won't get lost in the shuffle of other "bigger" holidays.  That being said, I was browsing around tonight looking for a new blog background.  I left my Halloween one up, just so everyone could see the inspiration for our costumes.  But I've blogged about it, so it is time to go.  I went over to one of my favorite template blogs and fell in love with the first one I saw.  But guess what?!  It's a Christmas one!  Please don't skin me alive for going against what I just ranted about, but I need to feel a little Christmas Spirit in my life right now.  I feel like it is still August because the weather is still in the high 70's low 80's.  I miss my snow, and cold weather.  Eeks!  Did I just say that?  I'm hoping this Christmas template will help me be a little less homesick....

Chalk

I want a DSLR camera REALLY bad.  But it is on my REALLY long list of things that I want.  It ranks fourth, right below a house, a laptop, and a KitchenAid.  I've put my desire for DSLR on the shelf for now and have been trying to take better pictures with my camera that I have.  It has a manual mode that I really don't understand, so randomly I get a good picture or two.  Recently though I've been discovering that if I just shoot in auto on my camera but try taking the pictures at a different angle than I normally would, I get much better pictures.  Still not DSLR quality, but better.

With that in mind I got on the ground while the girls were playing with chalks, and dragged myself all around them while trying to be invisible.  Once Allie sees the camera she MUST come and poke at it.  Therefore, I get a lot of back shots.  But I feel like these pictures really documented the fun the girls were having TOGETHER.  That is a major milestone for them because Lily is somewhat bossy to her younger sister who doesn't take to being bossed around very kindly.  Apparently since there was lots of chalk, and lots of sidewalk area, they didn't get on each others nerves. :D

 

 

Great giveaways!

 

In case you haven't heard, LeeLou has started an amazing new blog.  She is listing all her favorite items.  Along with that comes some giveawys.  You can check it out too!

  {Button is Linked}

At the Beach

Doug and Suzi really wanted to see our beach when they were visiting.  So today we took them to Quintana Beach.  We took a picnic lunch with us again.  Somehow all are activities have involved being gone over lunch time.  They probably think I'm the most boring cook with the fact that we've had sandwhiches for lunch so many days in a row!

It was pretty warm at the beach.  A cool breeze was blowing which gave you a few goosebumps.  The girls were dressed in their swimsuits, but us adults just wore our regular clothes.  I dipped my foot in the water to see how cold it was and I got the shivers.  Lily on the other hand thought it was just great!  She is such a silly girl.  Two months ago wouldn't go near the nice warm water.   Here it is two months later with freezing water and we were hard pressed to drag her out of it!  This was taken when she was running in to build a sandcastle with me.  That sparked her interest enough to get her out of the water!

She settled right down and didn't move for the next hour while building the sandcastle with me.  Russ sometimes forgets that I want to be in the picture too...

And I couldn't resist this picture.  She is actually digging the mote for the castle, but it looks like she is doing a movie star pose.  LOL!

Doug and Suzi were busy too.  They took a walk over some little dunes that block the beach in from the "marshy" area.  The discovered some wild watermelons and picked one.  When we tried it tonight it wasn't ripe.  DARN!  But they also enjoyed playing at the beach and sitting and relaxing.

Russ and Allie?  Well, Russ was following Allie around with the camera. When we first got to the beach Allie saw some birds and chased them the whole time we were there.  Russ got this picture and video of her...Come back birdie!!!

Right before we left Allie decided to come help with the sandcastle.  We buried her hand in the mote and she thought it was the funniest thing ever!

Gavelston

We haven't done a whole lot with Doug and Suzi while they've been here.  Sunday we talked most of the day because well...it was Sunday!  Yesterday we took Lily to dance class and kind of puttered around the rest of the day.  Today though, was one of our BIG outings.  Doug and Suzi had asked if we could take them to see Galveston.  You always here about Galveston and how beautiful it is, etc.  We asked around for the best way to get there, and then set out.

It was suggested to us to take the Blue Water Highway as long as it had been fixed.  Apparently during Ike large parts of the road had been washed out, and you would have to drive on the sand to use that highway.  We decided whether it was fixed or not we would head out that way.  I'm sooooo glad we did!  The drive was about an hour and the whole way we followed the Gulf Coast.  Lily and Allie loved looking out their window at the ocean.  Lily thought we were going to stop and play on it.  She couldn't figure out why we never stopped! All along the way were beach houses.  When we started out in Surfside they were all fairly modest{aka ugly}beach houses, but the closer to Galveston we got the bigger and more extravagent they got.  I loved looking at the archetecure{Oh why doesn't blogger have spell check?}of these three and four story houses built on stilts.  It was amazing.  I was enjoying myself too much to take any pictures, and they probably would have been blurry anyways!

We eventually crossed the bridge onto Galveston Island.  Since Allie was going to be going the WHOLE DAY without naps we decided to hit the Moody Gardens Aquarium first.  Before heading inside we ate a little picnic lunch at a playground right outside of the aquarium.  We also let the girls play on the playground.  We knew that since Allie would be in the backpack carrier all day she would need some time to run around.

Moody Gardens is made up of three pyramids.  Each pyramid has its own theme, and entrance fee.  Upon recommendation from a friend we went to the aquarium.

Upon entering I was sooo glad we payed the extravagant fee and came. Lily and Allie were captivated the whole time we were there {about 4 hours!} One thing that kept Lily going was the search for Shark stamps.  At the entrance she was given a Passport, and every area that she went to she learned about a different shark.  She loved looking for the stamps and having me read to her about them.

Another bright spot that both Allie and Lily enjoyed was watching the Seals and the Penguins get fed.  The seals were fun to watch as they did tricks for their food.  They would come and wave at us as we set right up next to the glass, or the would jump up and make a big splash catching the fish.  The penguins, well, they fought over the food.  Lily giggled over that, and Allie kept pointing and saying, "WOW"  While watching the penguins a guy who worked at the aquarium told us to come watch the divers in the shark tank at certain time.  More about that later...

It was then on to more fish!  We liked looking at the fish but this guy was so fun to see!  He was HUGE and kept swimming by us.

The seahorses were fun to watch.  There were about ten different varieties of them.  For some reason I got pretty decent shots of them through the glass.  Maybe because they were so close to it.

 

This area brought back fond memories of Hogle Zoo to me.  How do you measure up?  Apparently Lily is about the size of King penguin....

After this we dragged Lily over to the touch tank.  I made her touch a starfish.  She enjoyed it so much she did it a second time by herself!  She's finally branching out a little.  Allie was a little upset she didn't get ot touch it.  We fed her some grapes though, and she was over it :D  Before entering the shark area, Lily AND Russell both insisted we take a picture by the Shark's mouth.  Of course Lily started giggling nervously when she got close to it.  Doug and Suzi were off checking something else out, so we took TWO pictures in order to get the whole family in there! LOL!

 

We were a little early to the shark tank, so Lily had me take her picture by the fish.  I tried to tell her wouldn't work, but she insisted.  She was so excited about it when I showed it to her, because she was "with" the fishies.  As you can see, not a single fish can be seen in the picture!

Finally we watched the divers.  They were in there a LONG time.  We watched as they fed the fish, the eels, and the turtle.  The eels and the turtle had to be fed individually.  It was quite interesting to watch.  Everytime the shark came by the divers had to stop what they were doing until it moved on.  It was eery to watch that!  The divers were great with our kids too.  We were preatty much the only ones watching them, and they would wave at Lily and Allie.  One gave Lily high fives on the glass wall.  Another one touched fingers with Allie.  It was fun for the girls.  Eventually the divers went to cleaning the glass windows and we moved along.

We saw a few more fish, finished up Lily's passport, and headed to the gift shop to look around.  I've started collecting smashed pennies for Lily when we go places like this, so we got one of those.  Except we forgot to get a clean one so our penguin has a big black spot on its chest :(

By this time it was late afternoon.  We really didn't know where to go, because information on the internet was pretty vague on directions to actual stores or other FREE attractions in Galveston.  However, we decided to go look at the outside of two historic buildings in Downtown Galveston. The first house we visited was Bishop's Palace.  This is what the Wikipedia said about it:

The Bishop's Palace, also known as Gresham's Castle, is an ornate Victorian house located on Broadway and 14th Street in the East End Historic District of Galveston, Texas. The American Institute of Architects has listed the home as one of the 100 most significant buildings in the United States, and the Library of Congress has classified it as one of the fourteen most representative Victorian structures in the nation.

The house was built between 1887 and 1893 by Galveston architect Nicholas J. Clayton for lawyer and politician Walter Gresham. In 1923 the Roman Catholic Diocese of Galveston purchased the house, and, situated across the street from the Sacred Heart Church, it served as a bishop's residence. After the diocesan offices were moved to Houston, the diocese opened the mansion to the public in 1963, with proceeds from tours being used to help fund the Newman Center, operating in the basement, serving Catholic students at the nearby University of Texas Medical Branch.

The home is estimated to have cost $250,000 at the time; today its value is estimated at over $5.5 million.

While there we also read that there was a chapel in the house. It is neat to think that this house has withstood some MAJOR hurricanes.  On another side note I found out that Nicholas Clayton happens to be the grandfather of the Primary President's husband. Small world huh?!

We then went down the road to see the Moody Mansion.  This place was HUGE!!!!  I couldn't find any good information on it, but from what I can remember Mr. Moody was a well known man to Galveston.  I think he was granted Galveston Island as a gift for something he did?!  Anyway, he was way rich and did something important.  This house was sooooo pretty and you could see the huge garage in the back that holds some of his relic cars from the early 1900s.  Don't quote me on any of this, because it is all from memory and my memory is pretty spotty as of late.

By this time the girls were DONE!  It was past dinnertime and they were tired as well.  We hopped in the car and found the nearest What-a-Burger so Doug and Suzi could experience it.  The we headed off to home!

Lily's first talk

Lily gave her first talk in church today.  This is what she said...

There are many prophets in the Book of Mormon that I like very much.  One prophet that is very speical is the porphet Nephi.  Nephi is one of the first prophets in the Book of Mormon.  Nephi was asked to get the brass plates.  This was very hard to do.  HIs brothers did not really help him and they told him that he could not get the brass plates.  This is what Nephi said to brothers.  1 Nephi 3:7 " I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them tath they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them,"  Nephi taught us that Heavenly Father will helpe us keep his commandments.   There are many  commandments that Heavenly Father wants us to keep and he promises us that he will help us keep them.  Ome commandment tat is very importand is service.  Heavenly Father wants us to seve others.  Service means that we help others when they need help.  sometimes it might be hard to figure out how to serve others.  But we need to remember that the Heavenly Father will help us figure it out.  If we pay atteintion every day we will see that we can do service every day.  One example is that I get to do service for my Mommy and DAddy.  I help them take the groceries from the car into the house.  I help them cook dinner.  I set the dinner table.  I also help them whin I picu upall my toys.  I love to help my family.  I know that Heavenly Father wants us to serv others.  I also know that he will help us find wasy to seve others.  I say the things in the hame of Jesus Crhist, Amen.

She did an awesome job with Russ helping her.  I wish I had got to hear it a little more, but I was ouside trying to keep Allie quiet.  Lily was very excited to give the talk.  Her general attitude toward anything related to church is VERY ENTHUSIASTIC.  I hope she can always be this enthusiastic about the gosple.

Balloons

The girls loved their balloon animals they got yesterday from the ward party.  I couldn't resist posting their pictures with them.

Halloween Hauntings

Halloween started off nicely, with the kids letting us sleep in just a tad.  Soon after getting up we headed to a breakfast that our apartment complex was putting on.  We had Lily and Allie get dressed up in their costumes.  I'm so glad we did!  They each got a $10 giftcard to Wal-Mart for dressing up!

We came home and took care of some halloween tasks that needed taken care of.  The day slipped by WAY to fast and at 4:30 we headed to the church.  Our ward was doing a carnival at the church and Russ was in charge of the Elder's Quorum booth.  I had agreed to help him set up.  We sat at the church for 20 mins. waiting for someone with a key to let us.  The activities guy never showed up, so someone else had to run home and grab there key!  Very hurridly we set up the booth, and then I took the girls around to the other booths.

It was fun for them.  They got to fish TWICE, do a bean bag TWICE, do a ring toss, and make a spider cookie.  They did those games twice because they activities chairperson failed to communicate with anyone, and some auxiliaries did the same things.  After they had played the games I let them run around.  Allie kept going back to the ring toss and the guy manning it kept letting her through it around.  Lily was content watching everyone else play games.  I'm not really sure where that came from, but I'm glad she wasn't whining because she wanted another turn.  Maybe she is growing up a little?!

Sometime during the carnival Sister Matthews and Cheyenne Oden started making balloon animals for the kids.  Lily got a sword, which was totally appropriate.  Cheyenne made a really cool hat for Allie which freaked her out until Russ plopped it on his head for while.  Then Allie warmed up to it, and fought tooth and nail if someone tried to take it away.  LOL!

While Russ still was manning the spider cookies I took the kids outside to do a Trunk-or-Treat with the Angleton ward.  Don't worry I didn't crash another wards party.  They had invited anyone who wanted to participate to come.  Right before starting Russ ran out and said Ben had come to help and was supervising the table. It was nice to have Russ there so he could comfort Allie.  She is so shy with people she doesn't know, and some of the costumes were really making her hide!  We quickly did our loop around the parking lot, and then I sent Allie in with Russ.  Lily came and sat in our trunk with me and handed out candy.  She was so excited about handing out the candy to her friends.  She like that more than the actual trick-or-treating!  When I started to see the same five kids coming back through for there fourth time I packed up the trunk and went inside to help Russ.

Allie was still playing ring toss! LOL!  We finished throwing things away and then asked Bro. Bradshaw (aka ring toss guy) to take a family picture for us.  A mummy, a pirate, a superhero, and witch. I chose our costumes when I found my blog template for the month.  Allie and Lily were already going to be a pirate and a witch, so I thought it was only natural for Russ and I to be a mummy and a superhero!

We then hightailed it out of there.  Russ wanted to go to a guys house that he works with so the girls could trick or treat there.  We spent 20 minutes trying to find it with no success.  While driving my eyes around I got a good feel for what Halloween is really like.  See, where I grew up it was freezing cold on Halloween so we had to wear coats.  Also, we lived in a rural area so our parents drove us to a few friends/family homes and that was it.  That is certainly not the case here!  Kids in groups{with parents tagging behind} marched up and done the streets collecting at each house.  Noone {well, maybe a few babies} had coats on.  I can't wait until next year when we live in a neighborhood and the girls can go trick-or-treating like that!

Also while driving around Russ saw a house that was decorated really cool.  He decided to stop, and drag Lily up to the door to trick-or-treat.  She was scared stiff by some of the decorations, but was laughing on the way back to the car.  We tried to go trick-or-treating at a few other houses of people we knew, but they weren't home.  Since it was past bedtimes we headed home to take a few more pictures.  It was such a fun, exhaustin, and eye opening day!

{Can you tell Lily took the picture for us?! LOL!}

Imaginary Friends

Me:  What the heck are these pictures of?

Russ:  Lily's imaginary friends.

Me:  How do you know?

Russ:  When you were carving your pumpkin she was talking to them.  She told them to line up by the door so she could take their pictures.

Without further ado, I present Goofy and Chayla.

What? You can't see them?  Maybe a close up will work better.

Ah yes!  There they are! ;)