Tick or Treat--or can I just help myself?

We took the girls trick or treating shortly after dinner. Since we have no where to trick or treat where we live we decided to go over to a friends neighborhood for some trick or treating.

In the first picture on the left KK is at her playgroup class. Unfortunately only one other child showed up and he wouldn't wear a costume. The second picture is the girls trick or treating their friend Nick's house. KK decides she will just walk right in and help herself to some candy.

Aly's friend Nick was optimus prime from the transformers. Aly and Nick pose ever so proudly for a picture!

The first house we took the girls to I tried to take a picture. Since I was focusing on taking a picture I wasn't focusing on the girls or their manners. KK decided that trick or treating means help yourself to others candy. She started grabbing a handful of candy right out of the bowl while the lady was trying to hand candy to Aly and Nick. She got really irritated and started telling KK to get her hands out of the bowl. I was so embarrassed because the thought didn't even occur to me that KK would grab at candy instead of helping herself. I immediately put my camera away and started training her on waiting for the people to put candy in the bucket for her. After a couple of houses she got it. I handed the camera over to Daddy so I could focus on making sure the girls had manners.

Bishops Pumpkin Farm

Today I decided to go pick up Grandma T and take the girls to see Bishops Pumpkin Farm in Wheatland. It was a really cool pumpkin farm and well worth the drive. KK was really excited to be there and loved everything about it. Aly on the other hand seamed bored and tired. (Hubby and I talked about it later and realized why)

The very first thing we did was watch pig races. Man are those pigs fast!! It was hard to capture them on the camera. I just loved their turkeys. They were doing such a good job at displaying all of their feathers.

The next thing we did was take a train ride. I really liked it. Some of the local schools made Halloween decorations surrounding the train tracks. We even got to go through a tunnel.

After we were done with the train ride we went to the petting zoo. It was so cute. The animals each had their own little houses. KK loved the cow.

Here is Aly posing with the pigs. She and Grandma enjoyed seeing the baby pigs suckling their mother.

Aly's School Pictures

Check out Aly's preschool pics. The one on the left is from 2006 and the one on the right was just taken last month. Look how much she has grown!

My Birthday Celebration

Well today was quite a busy day. First I had to take Aly to preschool and then we went to Round table pizza for lunch. Once we were done it was finally time for the GCM Halloween Party. After the party we came home. I was so exhausted after being gone all day! I had madea crockpot dinner of Thai chicken. My friend Kristi was so nice to bring me over a cake and help me to celebrate my birthday! Here are some pictures from the celebration.
















Isn't that chocolate cake yummy! I really loved the candles.






















Here are pics of me and Kristi and hubby and me.











Aly and KK took over eating my piece of cake when I was done. Aren't they cute?

GCM Halloween Party

Today we went to the Halloween party that I got to make the cakes for. Aly was so excited because her friend Maya was going to be there. Of course she was also hoping she would get some candy. KK didn't want to wear her Backyardigans costume but I was able to convince her that she couldn't go to the party without it. Even though I had bought a turtle costume for KK for Halloween, I was afraid she would ruin it at this party so I had her wear a costume I had bought her last year that still fit.

Aly loved being a frog for the party.

I thought the picture of Aly and KK was cute. Aly was so happy to take a picture with her friend Maya the penguin!

KK meets the penguin.

Aly at the cake walk.

Pictures from our photo shoot

I have gone through our pictures and picked out my favorites. We didn't end up getting a good family photo but here are some individual ones of the girls that are good.


























Aly was being really silly during our photoshoot so I actually had more favorites from KK which is not normal. I was surprised at how many photos KK was actually looking at the camera!


























Here is the closest we had to a good family photo. Too bad Aly's dress was around Daddy's head! They thought it was funny though and I guess that is why everyone is laughing in the picture.

My newest cake creation

In the last few years I have been enjoying making cakes for the girls and others. I have had a lot of fun and am excited about the two cakes I made today. Tomorrow we will be going to a Halloween Party and I jumped at the chance to make the two cakes needed for the party. I made a pumpkin and a spider. My girls love sprinkles so we just had to put sprinkles on them. Which one is your favorite? Please comment and let me know!

Oregon Day 6: The Trip Home

Well today we started our trip home. We went to the Portland Children's Museum before we started our long drive to our hotel in Ashland. Aly just loved the museum and probably could have stayed there all day if you would have let her.

Aly loved the water play section and she even dressed up as a butterfly and decided to perform on stage!

KK loved playing music on the Xylophone. She was soo funny though, I tried to teach her how to hold the sticks but she refused. She just had to do it her way!!! She loved dancing to the music!

On the way home we decided to stop for a break at a Dairy Queen. We all had a great treat. Aly picked out a big waffle cbowl sundae with extra sprinkles.

Day 3 & 4 of our trip

Well today I thought I would do something fun with the girls and take them to the Oregon Zoo. I figured it would be best to rent a double stroller so Aly wouldn't complain about having to do too much walking. So the first five minutes the girls are in the stroller they are having a great time. Then KK decides she doesn't want to be in the stroller anymore, she just wants to be held. I can't hold her and push a stroller so I had to make her stay in the stroller. So the rest of the time she cried which made Aly irritated and they both just wanted to leave. I wasn't going to leave until I saw the whole zoo. So I rapidly pushed the girls around and looked at everything while KK continued to scream. Pretty painful experience, didn't make for a great day!

Later that night we went to South Western WA to visit some family. The girls were miserable here too as there were a lot of people and they don't really like crowds. Aly just kept tugging on Daddy asking him to go. KK for the most part just made me hold her so it was o.k.

The next morning we decided to go back to WA and visit family. I was so worried the girls would misbehave that I went to Goodwill to see if the girls could find some toys to occupy their time with. They ended up behaving much better so that was nice.

I also took Aly around the old neighborhood I grew up in. I showed her the house I lived in until fourth grade and the school I attended. Here is a pic of my house:

Oregon Coast Day 2..the drive continues

On Sunday we left Brookings for Portland. We decided to take a really nice slow drive. This was hubby's first time driving on the Oregon coast so he was really excited. In fact he was paying so much attention to the scenery that we both thought it would be better for me to drive.















The picture on the left was taken shortly after leaving Brookings. The picture on the right was a quick stretch your legs, get out and run break. I thought it was cute how they were both chasing Daddy!

The next set of pictures were taken at Daddy's favorite beach just outside of Florence. We spent quite awhile at this beach and the girls had a lot of fun!

What's that? Are the girls actually playing together? WOW!

These two pictures are my favorite pictures of the girls that I took on the whole trip.

Isn't that a cute Daddy/Daughters moment? Our last stop was the Oregon Aquarium. We have been so spoiled by the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the L.A. Aquarium that we weren't very impressed here at the little Oregon Aquarium.