Happy B-Day Audrey (32!)

My 32nd Birthday was one of the loveliest of my life.

First off, my mom ordered a cold front just for me. It showed up on my doorstep the afternoon of the 6th wisking away the mild, stuffy, and humid air and bringing in the brisk 50 degree TX temps. 

In the morning just as I was pulling on some pj pants to come downstairs Tim and Samuel surprised me with a yummy breakfast in bed. Score!

Once my breakfast was enjoyed we commenced with normal getting ready for school activities. The kids got ready quickly and played marvelously until it was time to go!

Once they were dropped off Grant and I headed out the door to take him to pre-school. Despite stand still traffic for 45 minutes and arriving to pre-school over 30 minutes late I did not allow my happy feelings to be dampened. 

Grant was dropped off and I enjoyed a morning of successful Christmas shopping (happy feelings enhanced by the lovely over cast and brisk weather!)

I went to lunch with my very good friend Michelle who made me these lovely cupcakes:

They were truly, the best cupcakes of my life. Made from a gluten free mix (Pamela's brand). I do not care that it is a $7 box of cake mix. I will buy this and use it for all cupcakes from now on. The texture and firmness of the cake just might be worth dying for. 

When I arrived home and picked the kids up from school happiness continued. Their homework was a breeze! We all went outside to enjoy the afternoon air and met the flower delivery man who had a gift from Harry and Dianne:

They are gorgeous, I totally love them!

We had a great afternoon bike riding, and visiting the neighbors outside. 

After this my parents and sister Laura showed up for dinner. My mom made my favorite cheese enchiladas for dinner and baked custard for dessert. 

Totally forgot to buy candles. No biggie, a lighter will suffice. Plus the kids thought it was awesome!

Present time!

The kids had gone out shopping and were super excited to watch me open the gifts. They had picked out Allegiant (the last book in a series that I have been reading), a box of candy turtle, and a book light :) Thanks kiddos! Thank you also to Laura for a coupon for a picnic with you and to my mom and dad for the Visa gift card. Can't wait to go shopping!

Also, my Young Women's president Connie stopped by the next day and dropped off a present for me. A beautiful white eternity scarf, chocolates, and my favorite snack...hot fries! Love you Connie, that was so sweet! 

Sadly Tim could not be there to celebrate. Lame work responsibilities. No complaining from me though! We went out on a date last night to make up for it. Yummy dinner at Chuy's and a trip to Lowe's where we picked out my b-day present from him: a new chandelier for our entryway. Yay! 

The presents were all super lovely and extremely appreciated, but my day was made absolutely lovely by all the people in it. I feel very blessed to have such a wonderful family, and great friends. Thank you everyone for filling my life with so much joy!

Time Our For Women

Last weekend my mom and I took a weekend trip up to San Marcos to attend Time Out For Women. We had such a fabulous time!!!

It was awesome to spend some mom/daughter time together. We headed up early afternoon on Friday to get settled into our hotel. About an hour before the event we decided we would need some snacks to get us through. We headed out in search of an HEB.....and slammed right into I-35 rush hour traffic. We spent about 30 minutes on the access road just getting to the next exit. This is where we decided a Valero station would have to suffice. We picked out our snack: nuts and ice cream. We got back to the hotel just in the nick of time for the opening presentation. Once we got our seats I back to the lobby in search of some gum. What do you know, I found their little coffee shop. Full of snacks. Including nuts, and ice cream. :)

Here's Justin Cash

I really wish I had gotten pics of all of the presenters. Some of the ones I remember are Virginia H. Pearce, Kris Belcher, Mercy River, D. Kelly Ogden, Mary Ellen Edmunds, Richie Nornton, and T.C. Christensen. They were all excellent! I especially enjoyed Kris Belcher, Virginia Pearce, and Mary Ellen Edmunds.

Mom with her massive "sandwich"

After the evening event we found our HEB where mom purchased yummy bread and cheese to get us through the night. 

The next day...

 Conked out in the hotel lobby in between sessions.

Too bad we had already checked out of our room!

 Fun little booth they had set up to snap some pics:

TOFW was totally fun and quite spiritually uplifting. We saw tons of people that we knew which was great and we had an all around wonderful time together. 

Bonus: the San Marcos outlets were right next door so we enjoyed a Saturday afternoon of shopping and found some great deals!

Halloween 2013

Lots of fun Halloween activities this year:

Last week we went to a family Halloween party at our friends house.

The Rust family threw an awesome get together. They hired babysitters to put on some fun games for the kids in the back yard. The boys had a blast but Lillie kept sneaking in and asking if she could be a part of the adult activities. 

Minute to Win It Games:

Shalece vs. Aaron Barrow 

Jessica vs. John Farrow

Audrey vs. Tim

We had to pick up these bags with our teeth. I am just a tad more limber than Tim. 

I had all of mine picked up before he had gotten to one. 

Rachel vs. Garrett Jackson

Holly vs. Tyler Rust

 Fitting in a birthday party for Isaac Rust

Next up: L and S's school decorates the library as a pumpkin patch each October. They have you decorate a pumpkin as a character from your favorite book. Samuel's is Captain Underpants, and Lillie's is Stacey from the Babysitter's Club.

Our cul-de-sac is completely awesome. We've heard that they have fun block parties but this is the first one since we've been here. One of the neighbors buys a bunch of pumpkins from his church's pumpkin patch and we have a potluck while all the kids carve pumpkins. What a blast!

I helped them clean out the insides but they poked the holes in the patterns and did almost all of the cutting by themselves. I was super impressed. It took them about 2 hours to finish them and I kept asking them if they wanted help. But they were each adamant that they were going to do it. 

William, Samuel, KC, Lillie, Barbara, Grant, Autumn, Nelson

Lillie was not excited about scooping and she kept trying to get out of it 

but KC didn't let her get away with it!

The finished products:

Grants Monster:

Samuel's Ghost:

Lillie's Kitty: (with Grant as a model apparently)

Here's G helping me decorate cupcakes for the Trunk or Treat cupcake walk:

And finally....Halloween! And another block party with the cul-de-sac. We got together early to eat pizza, take pictures, and catch the early trick-or-treaters. Then we left our candy with the adults with no kids to hand out for us.

Tim and Autumn headed into the super haunted house. L kept begging to go inside but I absolutely forbid it. She watched Teen Wolf once and was scared for five months.... even in the daylight. And she just watched an episode of Once Upon a Time with me and has been scared of Peter Pan's shadow. This place had chopping saw sounds, weird flashing strobe light type pictures of psycho clowns and creepy little girls. It was definitely demented Halloween, not regular scary Halloween. There was no way I was letting her little mind get polluted by that. She can do that later by her own choice. 

Laura was wearing a beautiful kimono and her long sleeves were actually pockets! So she kindly offered them to be used for holding the kids candy when their bags got too full. Way to think ahead!

Our neighbor James came Trick or Treating with us. He just turned 2 and L has been having a ball playing with him. She was so cute and patient with him tonight.

S and his best neighbor bud William

The kids with their Haul:

What a fun Halloween season. And nobody got sick! Woo Hoo!