halloween...

elayna and i had fun making these cute little treat boxes and filling them with candy corn. perfect for friends, teachers, visiting teachers. i got the template from martha stewart crafts.

nightmare

our computer crashed over the weekend and we lost everything. what hurts the most is the over 300 photos that weren't backed up yet. i'm just so sick about it. i've learned my lesson the hard and painful way. from now on i'm going to back up all files and photos once a week, if not more!! i will be back to blogging when we get our computer back up and running.

the happy news is that i have a new niece! sister emily's baby girl was born today. can't wait to see her this weekend :)

today.

enoying the beautiful fall weather. the last few days have been gorgeous. it's nice to spend lots of time outdoors and have the windows open to let in the cooler air.

halloween party

we had our annual ward halloween party on saturday. the girls had tons of fun. i didn't want to bring my camera along so i took a few quick pics of the girls before we left the house. elayna dressed up as a cute cowgirl...

avery was a sweet little honeybee..

and kyla was a pretty princess...

dan was a crazy hunchback laboratory assistant/mad scientist. he was scaring all the little kids all night long. he put this costume together about an hour before the party started. i'm not quite as creative as him and didn't have a costume.

i hope to get a photo of all the girls together in their costumes on halloween. :)

20 weeks...

i had another ultrasound today and everything looks good with baby boy. i love this picture of his little profile. so cute.

by request...

...my pumpkin chocolate chip muffin recipe from my 10/1 post.

i got this recipe off the internet a few years back. can't remember where, or i would give credit to the source.

1 c. flour
1 c. sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
2 eggs, beaten
1 c. ground pumpkin (canned)
1/2 c. cooking oil (i use a little less than this)
1/3 c. chocolate chips

mix together. fill muffin cups and bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes. so easy and yummy too!

silly girl

lately every time avery sees me with my camera she says "take picture me!" she always makes the funniest little faces for the camera. i just had to post a few.

princess party

on saturday we had a fun little princess party for Kyla. we were going to have her party in september but we had to postpone it because of the hurricane.

the girls came dressed as princesses. they looked so beautiful! for one of the activities they decorated foam princess crowns.

we played lots of fun princess games. ring pops were the prize. (that's what kyla has in her mouth)

she loved her princess party!

choo-choo...

..kyla's newest love. aunt jessica took her to build-a-bear for her birthday. she picked out this cute koala bear and named her choo-choo. these two are inseperable. in other news, dan got his cast off today! hurray! now he just has a "boot" on for two weeks.

pumpkins

even though it doesn't feel much like fall around here, i am so ready for it. i can't wait for the cooler weather of fall. i picked up some little pumpkins at target to decorate with. i love pumpkins! lately i have been craving anything pumpkin: pumpkin bread, pumpkin cake, pumpkin muffins... so today i made some pumpkin chocolate chip muffins. yum. kyla was my little kitchen helper. here she is waiting for the muffins to finish baking

a peek of the chocolate chips inside

potty trained!!

the best thing about the hurricane aftermath was that we had lots of free time to potty train avery. i was trying to potty train her for months but wasn't very consistent. the day before the storm came, i only had 4 diapers left. i decided not to buy anymore so that i would be forced to get serious about it. within 3 days she was completely potty trained and would come and tell us when she needed to go. we are so proud of her! she even stays dry at night. so now she wears her big girl panties all the time.i am sooo happy that i don't have to buy diapers anymore! (and yes, she drew all over her arms with markers)

5 years old...

our cute little munchkin turned 5 during all the hurricane mess. this is the second time in three years that her birthday has been interrupted by a hurricane. we had a fun little family party at grammy and grandpa's house. she got so many nice gifts from all the family. we are still planning on having her "princess party" for her friends to come to. she reminds me about it every day :) we are so thankful for sweet little kyla. she is growing up so fast and i just wish we could keep her little forever.

hurricane ike

things are finally starting to get back to normal now that we have our electricity back. i restocked the fridge and freezer and did some cleaning around the house. now i finally have a few minutes to blog about ike. what a storm! dan and i stayed up all night on the night that it made landfall. we watched our poor little pine trees being whipped around by the tremendous wind. and we could hear shingles from our roof and our neighbors roofs being torn off and thrown against the house. then in the early morning hours we could hear drip, drip, drip coming from our ceiling in the master bedroom. luckily it was just a small leak in the roof and we didn't have the ceiling collapse on us!
the next day my dad came over to put a "louisiana blue patch" on our roof. we are so grateful for the help, with dan not being able to do much with his broken foot.

most of our fence was either leaning at an angle or completely knocked over.

after about the second day with no power, we headed over to my parents home. they bought a generator before the hurricane. so that meant they had refrigeration and cold water and ice!!! what a huge difference that made. they were even able to plug in a good number of fans and the tv with the generator. we are so thankful for my family! the girls had a blast and spent most of the week hanging out with aunt jessica. she did fun little crafts with them everyday and painted their fingernails and toe nails. here's one of their cute little crafts they made.

i really wish i got a picture of mom (grammy) reading Little House on the Prarie to the girls each night by lantern. it was so cute. i have to admit i kind of miss the meals by lantern, the hum of all the generators and the cool breeze that blew through the windows each night. but boy am i grateful to have electricity back!

quick update on us...

after 10 long days, we finally got our electricity restored! we are safe after the hurricane and only sustained minimal damage to our house. i will be posting lots more about our hurricane ike adventures within the next few days.

painting with avery

one of her favorite things to do. she loves to use every single color and mix it all together!

3rd grade

school started two weeks ago. elayna is loving 3rd grade and really likes her teacher. she is so happy that her best friend from last year is in her class again!

13 weeks 5 days

i had an ultrasound today. everything looks really good.

and look what we found out...

it's a BOY!!!!! we had no idea we would be finding out the sex today. we thought it was still too early, but that's the first thing the technician saw while doing the ultrasound. dan is sooo happy to finally have his boy, and the girls are just thrilled to be having a baby brother!! we told the technician that we had 3 girls and she wrote "finally broke the mold" on the photo :)

calvin

we sure do miss this little guy (and his mommy and daddy too). the girls had so much fun playing with their cousin from utah!

a fun week...

this past week dan's sister grace and her husband travis and baby calvin visited us. we had a great time hanging out and playing. we went to moody gardens-rainforest pyramid, rainforest cafe, took the kids to the splash park and did a little shopping. we love ya'll! thanks so much for coming! here's a few pics from moody gardens. it was elayna's first day of school so she didn't get to come :(

dan got to ride around like an old man in a wheel chair because of his broken foot.

the kids loved watching these huge fish from the amazon!