Photo Shoots

We took our yearly pics at Portrait Innovation for the the girls' birthday and Halloween.  Here are the best ones of the girls....the photographer was not that great but fortunately the subjects more than made up for that deficiency :)

A few weeks later we took some family pictures with one of our friends who is also a photographer - seems like everyone down here has some type of job either as a photographer or a monogrammer! I am a slacker!!

We loved all of the pictures and it was a struggle to narrow it down to just these.  Here they are - you may recognize some from the Christmas card.  Though D and I could not agree on the card and so we ordered them both!  But since I was the one actually doing the cards - almost everyone got my card :) 

 They look like little models!  In my mind I am going to get big prints of these and put them up as a pair.  We shall see how long it takes for that to actually happen!

 They are just so full of sass!

 I seriously love this one!!!

 This is the one artsy one that we got!  I am old school.  I like to see us in the picture.

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!