BREAKING DAWN!!!

My Husband is awesome.  The best.  Have I mentioned that before?  Well he is, seriously.  So, of course, I was excited about the opening of the latest movie in the Twilight Saga - Breaking Dawn...we always go opening night as couples with our great group of friends.  And, if you'll recall, my fellow Twilight Junkie and dearest friend, Kathryn, and I have always worn matching t-shirts to the movies on opening night.   We started just the two of us with Twilight,  and then convinced Mel and Lynds to join with us for New Moon.  We also made them for Eclipse, but they were a bit of a flop, so that night after Eclipse I decided- no messing around with iron ons anymore!  We are getting serious for Breaking Dawn! Ryan even came up with a saying that very night.  So a year and a half later, here they are...

Couples who watch Twilight together stay together!
Fan or not, you have to admit, it's funny.  Ryan designed the shirts and we had them printed at Extreme Graphics.  It was even more fun to have our husbands match us!  We had 10 couples in our groups, with 6 of us in matching shirts.  We got lots of compliments on our shirts and started thinking we could sell these babies!

Here's all the girls:  Lynds, Jana, Mel, Kathryn, Tonya,
Annette, Ashley, Staci, Kendra and Me.  I love all these girls!  I always say it, but I have the greatest friends!  They make waiting in line for Twilight movies, wearing silly awesome t shirts and having a thing for vampires so much fun!

Me & Kathryn - it's a tradition!

Lynds, Mel and Me.

Now, about the movie... I loved it!  It's funny, I've decided that out of the 4 books, my two least favorite books - New Moon and Breaking Dawn, are my favorite of the movies.  I was a bit worried about how they were going to play this movie out, but I thought over all they did a fantastic job.  LOVED the wedding, it was gorgeous!  And I thought they did an amazing job of making Bella look terribly sick.  And I have ALWAYS been ticked and disappointed at how they have portrayed Edward, but I thought it was improved this time.  Still not as good as book Edward, but a major improvement.  So there's my spill.

Love Ryan. Love Twilight.  Love my friends.  Love group dates.  Loved the movie.
Anyone want to go again?

Toes

When sucking on your toes is completely adorable and irresistible...

My Little Trick or Treaters

What is it about babies and their first holidays? They have no clue what's going on and us Moms go goo goo over them.  Well, I guess we just can't help it,  they are too adorable.  Here is my little pumpkin on his first Halloween...

I am a sucker for cute Halloween shirts, I love them!  I couldn't resist this one for Jensen, it says - Take me to my Mummy.  It was especially fitting for him, he has become SUCH a Mommy's boy.  Which you wont here me complain about,  I love it. 

Like I said, just so adorable! 

Here is my Darth Vader....Are you kidding me Mom,  DARTH VADER does not take off his mask and smile for his Mom!

My little witch and her best friend Rapunzel! 

Sweet little Tiger

Wow, sometimes I can't believe I have three kids!  Here they are all ready for Trick or Treating

Even though this is not the best picture of Madi I  had to include it.  As soon as picture taking was over, Madi put these stickers on her face and told everyone she was a "Pluto Witch"  the rest of the night.  Friends and neighbors were asking me- what's a pluto witch?  And all I could say was "your guess is as good as mine."  Whatever it was she sure had fun being a Pluto Witch.  (There were even more stickers on her forehead.) You can also see the pumpkin ring she was sporting.  Daddy brought it home for her and it was a priceless treasure!  Funny girl!

After the Trick or Treating...

Pierce with his goods

Madi immediately had to start counting out her candy. This makes me laugh because I can remember loving to sort out my candy and divide it into piles and count how many of each kind of candy I got. I loved that!

They had a great time Trick or Treating and had fun going along with Grant and Annie and Joey. We also enjoyed stopping in to see our Hall cousins that night. We had a great Halloween! And now it's 7 days later and I still haven't gotten my Halloween decorations down. I told Ryan today that I think I might have to start getting out the Christmas decor as I put Halloween away. At the rate I'm moving these days that may be the only way I can get Christmas decorations up in time!

Halloween Party 2011

Last weekend Ryan and I hosted our 4th annual Halloween Party. I can't believe we've been in our house for over 3 years, that we've done the party for 4 years, and especially that we have friends who keep coming back! Seriously, we have the funnest friends and I LOVE hosting the Halloween party. Really all I do is provide the place, everyone else provides the fun. It is so fun to have everyone let loose and bring out their wild side. You know how wild we are around here. My favorite part is seeing what everyone comes up with for costumes! They were FANTASTIC this year!
(side note: I thought with my new flash I could do the pics outside, but it's still not enough to appreciate the dark wigs, I'm bummed about that, they were fabulous! I'll be having a new photo op spot for next year!)

Here are all of the party comers decked out along with the costume contest results - and even though we only awarded 1st and some 2nd place winners, I thought it would be fun to record what everyone was voted for...

Jon & April - Neo & Trinity from the Matrix

1st Place Scariest, Tied for 2nd Place Best Couple, and 4th Place Most Creative


Shane & Laura - The 80's Rock, enough said.

3rd Place Scariest and an Honorable Mention for Funniest and Best Couple


Mike & Samantha - The Hollywood M&M's

2nd Place Funniest, 3rd Place Best Couple, 3rd Place Best Over All and an Honorable Mention for Most Creative


Derrick & Andrea - Papa Smurf & Smurfett
1st Place Best Couple, 1st Place Most Creative, 1st Place Best All Around and 3rd Place Funniest

Curtis & Mel - Hagrid & Professor McGonogall from Harry Potter

2nd Place Most Creative and Scariest, and an Honorable Mention for Best All Around

I have to mention, Curt was also dubbed as "Brian David Mitchell" that night and even received two votes for the scariest costume! And I hadn't laughed that hard in a while. Seriously, if he was grey?! The resemblance was a bit frightening!

Angie & Brooke - Jona chose hunting over the party (I know, how could he, right?!) and Daron was conveniently sick a few hours before so the girls came together. What a couple!
Tied for 2nd Place Funniest, 3rd Place Scariest, 4th Place Best Couple

Nate & Ashley - no explanation needed

1st Place Funniest, 4th Place Best Couple


Dustin & Kathryn - Santa & Mrs. Claus, I think they've found a great job for themselves when they retire!

2nd Place Best Couple, 2nd Place Best All Around and an Honorable Mention for Funniest


Lynds & Darrin - June & Johnny Cash

Honorable Mention for Best Couple and Best All Around


Dustin & Staci - The Bun Maker and the Bun in the Oven

3rd Place Best Couple, Most Creative and Funniest and an Honorable Mention for Best All Around


And since Ryan currently has his bum foot, we had to roll with that for our costumes, Dr. Robison and my patient.

We all enjoyed a delicious soup and salad dinner and scrumptious desserts and then on to the games! I didn't get as many pics as I wanted of the evening, since I had my little sidekick with me this year. But here are a few highlights...

Andrea taking the victory! Contestants had to stack 7 cookies on their forehead and hold it for 3 seconds. It was a close competition!

Candy corns and chopsticks...contestants had to move as many candy corns as they could from one bowl to the other with chopsticks in one minute. Mike was a pro, he kicked everyone's trash.


Moving marshmallows from one bowl to the other by sucking them with a straw... Dustin was victorious!


Pretty intense competition with the dice stacking...and doesn't Brian David look scary?


Attempting to blow the deck of cards of the bottle leaving only the bottom card on the top, it proved to be too difficult but they gave it their best!


And the championship round...all the winners competing to see who can move the most cotton balls with their nose and a little vaseline! Dustin Schofield took the victory this year! Way to go Dustin!
Thanks to all of our fun and fabulous friends! Great food and great laughs, we had the best time!

Look How Cute

My dishes need doing, my laundry needs washing, my floors need mopping, my bathrooms...well I'll just sum up and say - my house is a disaster, but look how cute my baby is!

Big Stuff!

Last week was big one for this little man! 4 months old! We introduced him to the exersaucer and he loved it! It was so fun to watch him, his eyes got wide and he just stared at the toys, so much to look at! He enjoys playing in it for a few minutes at a time, he focuses on one toy at a time and really studies it and then if it's possible puts it in his mouth.

I love this pic, you can just see how fascinated he is and I especially love the drool hanging from his chin.


Here are a few pics I snapped of him today that were just too cute not to share.



I am loving this precious stage he is in and love hearing his "talking", squeals, shrieks and laughs. Today he had his 4 month check up and weighed 14 pounds 12 ounces. Love this handsome, blue eyed boy!

Major Surgery and Major Cuteness

Last Friday Ryan had a pretty major surgery on his foot. An injury? No. He has lame feet. His feet are shaped weird and have a major curve to them and a very high arch, (which caused him to break his foot in high school.) A few years ago his right ankle started bothering him and it got to the point he couldn't run or jog on it anymore, it was too painful. It has gotten worse the last three years and the pain and discomfort has increased to the point that all he could do for exercise was swim, and even doing things like mowing the lawn or playing catch in the grass with Pierce were painful and causing him to hobble like an old man for days afterwards. We didn't want him to be dealing with the pain and we wanted him to be able to exercise and play with the kids. The answer was surgery.

We've been dreading going through with it, knowing it was going to be a long recovery- he will be in a cast and can't put any weight on it for 6 weeks. Which means no driving and no helping me do much of anything around the house for 6 LONG weeks. He will then be in a walking boot for another 6 weeks. The good news is the surgery went great. Once the Dr. got in there he saw it was even worse than he thought, he'd been planning to repair one tendon and to cut a wedge out of his heel bone and reposition it with screws. He repaired two tendons that he said were just shredded, 36 years of lame feet and they had had it. He also said the ligaments were in pretty bad shape so he repaired those as well, along with the most major part of the whole thing- cutting the wedge out of the heel and repositioning it with the screws.

It's going to be a long recovery for him but I am glad it's done, he'll be so much better off. We have survived the first several days and it's actually been better than I expected. The kids are loving having him home this week and even though he's on the couch or in the chair all day, they love the extra time and attention from him. He's home with his foot elevated for this first week and he'll be back to work next week. Were he'll need all the help he can get.

Here's a look at the scene around here now...


Day 3 post surgery, in his soft cast with a nerve block drip. This was his worst day, but by the end of the day things were improving, plus he was holding the sweetest baby ever, so how could he not be happy?


Day 5 post surgery, soft cast came off, Dr. said his incisions looked great and put him in a hard cast. Madi LOVES helping take care off Daddy, thank goodness!

And now for the good stuff...Major cuteness around here!

I am SO in love with this little boy! I'm convinced he is the best baby ever. Not only has he been sleeping through the night since 2 months (every night, 10 hours now!), he is so happy during the day! I cannot get enough of his smiles and and laughs and he melts my heart every time. Now that he is such a pro at rolling he is really loving tummy time!

This is what I find every morning when he wakes up...

Happy boy with lots of smiles, giggles and "talking". Have I mentioned how cute he is? Seriously, so in love.