Merry Christmas!

We decided to skip the mail this year with our Christmas card, so I hope between Facebook and the blog everybody who cares gets it! Merry Christmas everybody!

Happy Halloween!

We had a fun Halloween this year!  I love this holiday! First our ward had a Trunk or Treat on Friday.  We ate yummy soups and desserts, and the kids had a costume parade before we headed outside for The Trunk-or-Treat.  As usual, Rand and I couldn't agree on a costume for Avery.  As a back up I got a little Pirate costume before everything was sold out... Just in case we still didn't make up our minds before it was too late.  We ended up just using it, and I must say that Avery makes one cute Pirate! Avery didn't quite understand the trunk-or-treating, but she loved running from car to car saying Hi to everyone.  Here are a few pictures after the trunk or treating was over:

The cutest pig and pirate in town!

Family picture

Me and Nikki

Baby Quinn, Kim, Nikki and Me

We went out and had a campfire at the state park near here on Sat. night (sorry, no pics.), then we carved our pumpkins on Sunday night.

 

 

 

 

Avery thought is was pretty cool and got pretty excited, but didn't really like getting the pumpkin guts on her hands.

She loved pretending to scoop out the empty pumpkins though

 Hi everyone!

 Our finished pumpkins...

The small one in the middle was our puking pumpkin.  We didn't get a picture with the guts coming out of it's mouth- sorry!  The neighborhood kids love it!

Halloween night we got together for dinner with a bunch of our friends for a chili dinner and then headed out to Trick-or -Treat with the kids!  Avery did much better this time, she ran right up to the door and held out her bucket! At first she was a little confused why we were knocking on doors but not going inside, but she caught on pretty quick. She did get tired of walking and I had to hold her towards the end, but it was a great night with awesome weather!

Here she is modeling her costume before it got dark 

Showing off her sword skills

 Believe it or not, she actually kept that eye patch on for a while!  She loved wearing it, but didn't love not being able to see..

Happy Halloween!

Pumpkin picking!

A really nice older couple in our ward told my friend Nikki and I to bring our girls to their house in the country and pick out a pumpkin from their patch. We went over Sunday afternoon, it was a beautiful day and the girls loved running around the yard!

I let Avery roam the pumpkin patch and pick out the perfect one all by herself...

 

Found it!

 

It was the perfect size for her and she loved holding it.

They are so cute together.  I tried to get a picture of them sitting
nicely together with their pumpkins...totally didn't happen.

Happy Birthday Avery!

Avery turned two on Saturday, so we had a rainbow party.

I made rainbow jello cups, a rainbow layered cake, and cupcakes too... Just in case there wasn't enough of the cake to go around.
 

Avery was drooling over the cupcakes earlier that morning, so we decided it was her birthday, so she could test a cupcake if she wanted to. As you can see she didn't hesitate one bit!



  The Jello cups ended up being a lot tougher than I thought (that's a long story) The cake didn't really taste that great, but it looked awesome... and that is all that really matters right? ;)  We invited family (what little we have here in MO)and friends. We had lunch and originally had planned to do a water party in the backyard so the kids could play with the slip n slide and sprinklers. Unfortunately the forecast showed rain in the afternoon on Saturday; bummer...  The night before a really big thunderstorm came through, so it was really wet and muggy by Saturday morning, even bigger bummer...  However, it was still warm enough and wasn't raining yet, so we decided to set up outside anyway, even if we didn't play in the water.

We ate...

We played...

And then it rained, so we had to pack up and head inside...

Then we opened her gifts...

...and sang to her.

Then we ate cake!

How cool is the cake?! Pretty amazing if I do say so myself!

Avery ate her entire piece...

After the party was over we had cleaned up, Rand had fallen asleep on the couch and Avery was watching one of her cherished Dora dvd's. I was finishing up the kitchen, but for some reason (I can't remember why) I went back to our bedroom for something, I was maybe gone a minute at most. 

When I came back this is what I found...

I totally forgot that I had left a few cupcakes on the table. I think she knew exactly what she wanted, and was probably waiting for the opportunity to make her move! That thing was almost gone by the time I caught her! 

(I apologize for her lack of pants.  Rand feels it isn't necessary to put them back on after changing her diaper)

Then Grandma Brown called and Avery told her all about her birthday party.

Thanks to everybody that came and celebrated with us, we had a lot of fun even if it was partially rained out!