Ry and Maddie have been looking forward to seeing the movie "Tinkerbell" for months now. I picked it up yesterday while the girls were at school and surprised them by decorating the house with green streamers and balloons. They had so much fun at our Princess Premiere when they saw "Sleeping Beauty" for the first time that I decided to turn this movie into a celebration too. It's fun to spice things up. And who doesn't love a party? :)

We "decorated" pumpkins for Family Home Evening tonight. I decided to try something new with these Mr. Potato Head-style pumpkin parts. Though I missed that jack-o-lantern glow, I did not miss the hours of carving and cleaning up pumpkin guts. The girls had a blast creating their own silly characters- which they wouldn't have been able to do on their own otherwise. I think we'll be cheating again next year!

Ally turned three months old yesterday. She has brought so much joy into our lives. She loves to "talk" to us and is so smiley and cheerful. If a herd of wild elephants trampled our house, she'd sleep right through it without even flinching. She already crawls/scoots around and is able to sit up with only a small amount of help. She is just amazing! Ryen and Madelyn love her dearly. The way they interact with her usually makes me so proud, sometimes makes me terrified, but most of the time makes me laugh. It's so fun to watch them talk to their baby sister in those high-pitched little girl voices. Every day Ally gets a new name. Yesterday it was "Ally Pie Sweetie Sweets" and today it was "Lovey Lovey Lover Baby." She is so lucky to have such good big sisters. I love my little family!

I went with Madelyn today to our local library for a safety puppet show. That Sparky the Fire Dog is quite the entertainer! I can't believe it was a whole year ago that I went on the same field trip with Ryen. This was probably the first of several repeat field trips, but I'm looking forward to each one of them... each time!

It's hard to get my kids to settle down at the end of the day. It's even harder to keep them in their beds. Something that helps? Matilda! She's a bedtime fairy born of a star (and total desperation) who can't come to life until two little hooligans are soundly sleeping. She leaves stickers for them when they are good and has been known to leave fairy sparkles on their pillows at night. Ryen and Maddie love to hear stories about Matilda's adventures in the fairy forest and how she is even related to Tinkerbell. :) I may be crazy, but at least my house is quiet by 9:00 pm!

We had such a great weekend at the beach. Ry and Maddie loooove our vacations! It was pretty dreary and cold while we were there, but the girls didn't seem to mind. Their favorite thing to do is swim at the hotel anyway.

TV shows I love to watch:
(The only shows I regularly watch are #1 and #6. What my kids call "Mommy Shows" are few and far between!)
1. The Office
2. Battlestar Galactica (kidding!)
3. I Love Lucy
4. SpongeBob SquarePants (serious!)
5. Antiques Roadshow
6. Masterpiece Theatre- but not the mystery stuff they've had on lately
7. So You Think You Can Dance
8. Mighty B

Places I Love to Shop:
(This is supposed to be places I love to eat, but I don't ever care where I eat)
1. Target
2. Ebay
3. Ross
4. Pottery Barn/Pottery Barn Kids
5. TJ Maxx
6. Digital scrapping shops
7. Land of Nod
8. Gap/Old Navy

Things That Happened Yesterday:
1. Had a meeting with Ryen's teacher
2. Met Sonny for lunch
3. Bought baby leg warmers
4. Tried to kill a squirrel with a slingshot
5. Laundry laundry laundry
6. Ate dinner made for us by someone from church (I don't know why, but it sure was nice!)
7. Taught my kids what a wedgie is
8. Read my kids stories to try to calm them down from #7

Things I Look Forward To:
1. Taking the girls on trips to foreign countries
2. Living closer to family
3. Planting my own apple trees, cherry trees and berry patches
4. Riding in a hot air balloon
5. Seeing my girls grown up and happy
6. Taking some classes
7. Christmas
8. Celebrating my 50th wedding anniversary

Things I Love About Fall:
1. Leaves leaves leaves
2. The way the crisp air smells
3. Fall portraits
4. Going to the pumpkin farm
5. Halloween costumes
6. Making treat bags for school
7. Family walks
8. Getting to use our fireplace again

Things On My Wish List:
1. This bedroom for Ry & Maddie
2. A pen tablet for my computer
3. Maid service
4. An awesome playhouse for the kids
5. Just about anything from children's clothing designer Meli Meli
6. A Hello Kitty waffle iron
7. World peace :)
8. I seriously don't need a thing in the world!

Okay, so I tag the following people:
1. Rachel H.
2. Kris
3. Carrie
4. Suzanne
5. Caity
6. Lauren
7. Amber
8. Tiffany

I'm not a big Star Wars fan, so I don't know if Yoda ever had a girlfriend. But, if he did, I'd imagine she looked something like this...

Disney's "Sleeping Beauty" came out yesterday and, of course, I picked it up for the girls. They had never seen it before and were so so so excited. Even without seeing the movie, Ryen has always loved Princess Aurora because she was named Aurora at birth and also because she looks the most like her. According to my girls, matching hair color is vital when choosing a favorite princess. To celebrate the movie, we had our own little premiere where we all dressed up like Princess Aurora (Sonny was the prince, of course) and transformed our family room into a cuddle zone. We had tickets and popcorn and everything. The girls loved the movie, but I think their favorite part was dancing with their prince/daddy when the music video came on at the end of the show.

*Happy birthday to Princess Rozlyn! We were thinking of you, sweet girl!

Ally is going to hate me for this when she is older, but I have to document these pictures of her infamous "taking care of business" face. She's been making that same face since she was born, but it still cracks me up every time.

When Ryen was in preschool, she never played with boys. Every day I would pick her up from school and ask her what she did that day. Every single time she would give me some sort of generic response and then end with, "But I didn't play with any of the boys!" Now that she is in kindergarten and surrounded by more children and more influences, I wondered if her feelings had changed. (At what age do the "crushes" start, anyway? I can't even remember.) So I asked Ryen if any of the girls and boys loooove each other. She told me that they didn't. Just for fun, I asked her why. She anwered, "Because boys like to talk about soccer and girls like to talk about butterflies." Sounds about right.

I have been freakishly blessed.

Why is it that kids get stuck on the same movie and insist on watching it over and over and over... and over? And why is it that those movies almost always come with songs that get lodged in your mind so that YOU end up singing them all day long?