Busy busy busy Birthday

The end of October / beginning of November was super duper busy (and apparently so was the last month and a half as I am shockingly behind...though I guess it is not shocking at all as I am always behind!)

We had Halloween, Homecoming, the girls' birthday party, and then family photos done back to back to back to back.

This year the girls had their birthday at Exerfit in Baton Rouge.  Basically they are a gym that also does birthday parties.  There are several rooms that you can rent.  We rented three - the trampoline room (which you can only get for 30 minutes), the adventureland playroom (which is like a big chick-fil-a playroom), and the big room (which has bouncers, a turf area, rock wall, and general running around room.)  We had a great turn out - almost everyone that we invited was able to come - and the dads seemed to really enjoy it too as they were able to play!

The pictures are pretty awful as there was not really a time when they were still.  But here they are nonetheless:

 Gramma was able to come for the big weekend.  Here she is giving the girls their presents early in the morning of the party

 The girls right before the party started- can you tell that they were excited?

 A shot to show the turf and the two jumpies

Their friend Ella Grace doing the climbing wall - love how we make the kids exercise during a party!!

Their friend Anna trying to climb the rope.

 A picture of the playroom - the bottom level has those little scooters that you wiggle to make them move.  The top levels had lots of slides.

 The trampoline room

 Brooke on the scooter

 Audrey in the playroom bubble

 The party room - we had chick-fil-a and cake

 Getting ready to blow out the candles - LOVE this picture of Audrey.  She has such a sweet expression and of course she is holding her hair out!

Halloween Fun

Every year - well starting two years ago - I let the girls pick out whatever they want (assuming it is within our budget) to be.  Every year I am nervous that they are going to pick something other than an animal and then I will know that my little girls are all grown up.  But not this year!  Brooke was a lovely unicorn and Audrey was a zippy little zebra!

They wore their costumes to Boo at the Zoo - super fun and super cute!

They wore their costumes to school.

 

No picture of that - so here they are with their carved pumpkins.  Look closely and you will see the eyelashes, tiaras, and glitter!!

And then it was super duper rainy for Halloween.  Brooke decided that she did not want to mess up her costume (but really where else is she gonna wear it?) so she was Jasmine and wore her costume from last year's dance recital.  We went to a party first and then the girls convinced Darren that they NEEDED to go trick or treating - in the pouring rain.  They did and they loved it.

Here is a photo of the photo booth pics from the party.  D and I went as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

 This picture does not really do it justice - but here they are at the end of their trick or treating.

Homecoming

In true Louisiana fashion, parades are a pretty big deal around here.  And as the PTO person, it was my job to get the kindergarten float up and going.  Fortunately for me, my friend Elizabeth has a husband who is super handy with building stuff so we were in business.

The theme this year was super dumb (in my opinion) and was "We are older than Disney - Zachary High School is 100"  What are you supposed to do with that??  Well we decided that since there are 5 elementary schools, we would each divide up into 20 year increments and represent the 100 yrs that way.  We were assigned 1933 - 1953.  Great, huh?  So we decided to go with Fantasia - with the tag line We Sweep the Competition.

Here are pics of the whole float process:

 The trailer - the bare bones beginning.

 The beginnings of the sorcerer's hat.

 Wrapping with hat while our kids posed for pictures!

 Back wall - supposed to look like a castle

 

Stuffing the chicken wire to make the hat's rim

Spray painting the letters for the sides

work work work - no pictures as I forgot my camera!

 

Loading up the candy for the parade

 Getting ready to start the parade - how cute is that float??

  Here you can see the cute Mickey ears at the front and the back of the castle wall.

The girls loved riding on the float!

Fall Fest and FSU

The first part of October was super busy for me as the PTO put on our annual Fall Fest fundraiser.  The weekend that we did the fall fest, my sister came to visit.  And honestly I am not sure how I would have made it through the weekend without her and her van.  As it turns out 375 lbs of pulled pork takes up a LOT of room!

 The silent auction baskets all set up.  The girls "won" the principal for a day and the PE teacher for the day for their school.

Making some signs with the PTO ladies

That same weekend was the big FSU vs Clemson game (as of writing this in November, FSU is undefeated and is #2 in the BCS polls.)  And my sister who is a Baylor alumna was a trooper wearing some Noles gear during the game. (and as of writing this, Baylor is also rocking it in the top 10 too!)

 The sweet little Nole girls

 

Amy with her nieces

All of us before the big game!

Random Pictures of Us

Me and some girls from our church group - please ignore the fact that the dress I am wearing makes me look pregnant.  I can assure you that I am not!!

Brooke with Gramma

Brooke is King of the World!

One of our friends had a star-wars themed birthday parties.  Here is Audrey fighting with her light saber....and she was in fact wearing pants!

Audrey sparring with Darth Vader

 Rocking out their FSU bows!

 I am not really sure what was going on here but it is so darn cute!!

The girls decided that they wanted to wear their princess dresses out to the grocery store and if you look closely you can see that they had done their makeup too..  Surprisingly we didn't even get many second glances.

The girls with their Granddaddy - posed in front of the giant Z for Zachary

Cheerleading

This year for the girls' activity they selected doing a combo gym and cheerleading class.  They LOVE it. And they have both improved dramatically in just a few months.  Brooke is CONSTANTLY busting out with cartwheels.  Here are pictures of them before their first class:

Then they did a little cheerleading clinic that was put on by the high school and middle school cheerleaders.  It was a Saturday morning followed by them cheering for the first quarter of the high school football game that next Friday.  They were in heaven....absolutely loved it.  So much so that I have just agreed to sign them up for Upward Cheering.  I tried to convince them to do basketball instead but they could not be dissuaded.

Here are the pics from the football game.  They are in the back in all of the pictures as they are the tallest of the pre-k and kindergarten kids.  They are with their friends Lauren and Anna who are both in Brooke's class.

Love Brooke's expression!

I mean so cute!

The kids were divided into groups of 4 and got to make mini-pyramids.  Here is Audrey as the top.

And here is Brooke as the top with the real cheerleaders.  Can you tell that she loves it?

Family Day at Blue Bayou

Every year D's company rents out the big waterpark and amusement park near us called Blue Bayou.  It is such a fun day!  The girls are FEARLESS in the water. I mean they went on slides that I did not like.  Since they are both pretty close to 48 inches we decided to let them try to go on the ones that last year they were too short for.  And the kids watching the slides didn't seem to really care that much at all!  (of course we did not try to two giant adult ones where they were clearly checking!)

We were able to go both weekends and were there from open to close both days.  D also won a gift card to PF Chang's - yummo!

Here is a picture of us from the day - sadly I did not seem to realize that my belly was so dang white!