Fall Festival!!!

Ever since we have moved here our church, Lone Star Cowboy Church, has put on an annual Fall Festival right around Halloween time to give families a fun, safe and FREE event to celebrate the fall season! They always have done it on Friday nights and this year Friday night was also Halloween night so they added a trunk or treat and continued on as planned.

I had an idea of what to dress my kids up as since Tyler has a "handy man" hard hat, tool belt (with all the tools included) and neon orange vest AND I had Tyler's old costumes I thought I would just put on Gracie now. However about two weeks before Halloween I thought to myself, "my son growls at everyone who says hi to him, and he has a CRAZE for dinosaurs right now so what better excuse to finally LET him growl and not get in trouble for it!" And so the costume making began. I went the homemade (and cheaper) route and hand made both of my kids costumes. We paper mached the dinosaur head, dyed a couple pillow cases green and made a body and tail and added painted paper mached spikes down the back and voila! DINO costume! I also found some bunny ears laying around (surprisingly from when my husband rode bulls...he put them on over his helmet one time on Easter) and so cut up and sewed another pillow case and hot-glued some cotton balls together and costume number 2 - a bunny! I had a BLAST making them and let the kids help as much as they could. Although after about 5 minutes of slinging liquid starch all over the newspaper covered (thank goodness) table and mom trying to reign them back a little they had had enough. Anyways I DID get some snapshots of making the costumes and as soon as we get them off my husband's cell phone (sorry a camera wasn't handy at the time) I will do a step by step post of making your own costume. In the meantime here are some pictures of our fabulous fun filled night!

My Two Cuties:

The backs of them were more detailed than the front so we had to get the rear shot! I love their tails, hehe. Oh and the dino spiked DID go all the way up but of course before I could even get a camera out Tyler had already ripped one off. The rest didn't come off however - they are SUPER GLUED on!

They had a whole row of people from our church that set up for Trunk or Treat. My kids ask for candy for their first time (since we usually just do the festival). Tyler was nervous at first but once he realized he got candy from these people got pretty brave and started walking up by himself! Go figure.

My camera is slow but Tyler is throwing a bean bag through the hole to get a prize. He won a helicopter toy. Those sticks with two propellers that if you rub your hands together fast while holding the stick they will take off. I know you know what I am talking about.

They had so many games to play that for the first time we actually didn't get to play all of them. Every year it outdoes itself and gets bigger and bigger. It truly is like a small carnival! they had a dunk tank, 4 different types of blow up play stations, such as jump houses, slides, obstacle course, and even a crawl through caterpillar. Every time you won a game you got a prize which was either a small toy or candy. There was face painting, cake walks, door prizes, free hot dogs, popcorn, cotton candy (OK enough with the free food...), horse and pony rides, a petting zoo, etc... the list just goes on and on and on.

Gracie's first cotton candy she LOVED it! Tyler on the other hand handed it to me and said "there is hair on this", meaning the cotton candy itself. I could NOT convince him to try a bite.

Ah yes and who could forget the traditional "Pastor's Greased Pig Contest"? Every year they make, yes I said MAKE, all the pastors get in the ring and do a greased pig contest. It is overly competitive guys that all love to pull pranks - bad combination! I am proud though this is the first year Nick has NOT broken a bone during this event. The first year he broke his glasses and chipped a tooth and the second year he broke a finger. These pastors collide, tackle, trip, roll, and do just about everything but catch a little pig! Pastor Randy our senior pastor was the winner of the 2008 Pastor's Greased Pig Contest. This is him and my husband in the picture below (Randy is on the ground).

Right after the Pastor's greased pig they did a "Mommy Greased Pig" and since I was taking pictures of my hubby I was caught standing nearby. So here we are lined up getting our hands soaped (we can't do the traditional oiling of the pigs since staining clothes is a problem with such a crowd) and that is me in the orange shirt showing them I did NOT shake all of it off! My hands are NICE and soapy!

and this little piggy went in the hay bails...

My friend Dana grabbed me as we were making our way to our car for the night and asked if I still had my camera. Dumb question. But still she showed me these two pigs that were asleep on each other and she said they had been like that for almost 30 minutes now. Dana said it looked like a postcard picture so she wanted me to catch a shot. Well you don't have to ask me twice...

We had a blast and when I asked Tyler if he had fun simply responded, "yea let's do it again!"

I explained we had to wait one more year before it came again but promised we would do it all again, costumes, pumpkins, candy and all!

So what did you do Halloween night?

Silent Sundays

Our church has a HUGE Fall Festival each yeay to give parents an alternative to Halloween. Since next Friday is our annual Fall Festival I thought I would post last year's photos to remember! My son is the giraffe and my daughter, princess (of course)!

Oh, the Places You'll Go!

A blog I like to visit found a book published in 1940 and yes it was a Dr. Seuss book. I am waiting on pictures to make another post so I thought in the mean time I would share one of the well-known Dr. Seuss books with you.

In 2002 I ran for State 4-H Treasurer and won! My friend had currently held the position (one of the main reasons I wanted Treasurer - she would hand her position down to me). It was custom to hand them a gift on stage when you passed your title and she gave me a couple of different things but one was this Dr. Seuss book and it had more meaning than she would ever know. Here is the first two pages:

Congratulations!

Today is your day.

You're off to Great Places!

You're off and away!

You have brains in your head.

You have feet in your shoes.

You can steer yourself

any direction you choose.

You're on your own. And you know what you know.

And YOU are the guy who'll decide where to go.

Silent Sundays

These two pictures were taken off of my phone and I just absolutely love them! One is of my son swinging in our backyard and the other one is my husband in Phoenix at the Pastor's School we went to - I was laying on the ground waiting for everyone so we could all head to lunch, had my phone out, and started snapping things from my different point of view down there.

My Adventures!

Life has sure been crazy this last week or two and I feel the pull of "holiday season" setting in and upping the chaos and busyness! However I must take a minute to tell you about two great adventures I had last week! The first one I will describe today and the next one in a few days (I'm trying to find the cord to upload pics of the 2nd one and you will see why the pics are SO important!) So Adventure #1 begins Sunday before last...

A good friend of mine was talking to me after church on Sunday and then asked if my husband still had Thursdays off. I looked puzzled and said well yes why? She then slipped a $20 bill in my hand and said good then here is money for you and your husband to go to "Fireproof" in the theatres on Thursday and I am going to come over and watch your kids for you! I was like WOW really? I thanked her very much and promised to call and set up the details once I found out the show times.

So Thursday rolled around and she was to come around 11:00 AM and I had packed a sack lunch for Nick and I that we would eat at a nearby park and maybe play Frisbee or fish and then head over to the movie. We had never been to the Tinseltown theatre over in The Woodlands so decided it would be a good time to try it and so not knowing the area well just looked up parks in the area. So anyways she called and said she was stuck in traffic and ended up being a little late which meant we had to hurry to the park. Well we get down there and end up playing the "do we turn here, what street are we looking for, and where is this park supposed to be? We went to turn around in a business and noticed a dirt trail off the sidewalk going into the woods (it is called "The Woodlands for a reason!). So we parked at this business and took off on the trail. We came to a quaint little bridge with water running out to a big pond that had a fountain shooting up probably 30 feet in the air! We continued and found the park with playground, skate park, another pond and fountain, a gazebo, and an awesome wood swing to sit on...all hidden in their own opening of trees. In other words you couldn't see any of the other things from one spot you had to take another trail to get to something else in the park! Very cool and so different from what I grew up around...FLAT as far as the eye can see with few trees in between! (New Mexico desert) so anyways we sat down and ate our lunch on a bench and I noticed some beautifully vibrant bright purple berries on the bush next to us! And yes I took pictures but have lost the connection cord to get them off so will upload them when I find it!

It was already time for the movie so we headed off and watched a GREAT film!!! It is the same people that did "Facing the Giants". This one was Fireproofing your marriage and my husband talked to the firefighters in our church and said it was the most accurate movie as far as firefighting goes. All the firefighting scenes, training and all were completely accurate! And yes we BOTH cried! I remember at the end it flashed a verse on the screen and I just whispered to Nick, "That is SO cool to see a verse on the big screen at a movie theatre!" We loved the movie. You MUST GO SEE IT!! And then let me know what you thought of it!

However now we had been cut short on park time so I quickly texted my friend and asked if she would allow us one more hour to go back to the park. She gladly agreed and she was having a blast with my kiddos and so we headed back to the park. Oh actually I lied before we went to the park, we walked the waterway. When we parked I noticed we were in "Waterway Square" and with a quick glance down the block found the waterway so we took a stroll hand in hand down the water first. There were small shad in the water that as soon as they saw you walking would come gather up in a massive herd and just stare at you waiting for food. Nick started spitting in the water laughing every time they jumped at it! I know cruel.

Anyways back at the park, Nick started fishing and I walked around, camera in hand and took in the bright purple berries, saw a catfish swim across a glimmer of sunlight on the pond, sat in the bench agreeing I would MAKE Nick come back here with me and noticed sitting there that the trees had bent over and made a perfect arch just like at a wedding! Two really cool things about this park were that there were squirrels everywhere and if you weren't talking as you walked the paths it felt like someone was stalking you in the woods because every few steps you'd hear "crack, hustle, swoosh" as the squirrels would scurry. The other neat thing was that over by the gazebo there were cardinals everywhere! Every time you walked by you could see at least three swooping from this branch to that! They were beautiful. I then came back sat on the bench and ate a snack and watched my hubby almost catch a turtle!

I know he loves me fishing with him and I enjoy it also so I then finally took up my pole and fished. We fished both ponds, eventually made it to the swing and then after a potty break headed back home!

It was a beautiful day and such a relaxing escape from the world!

Scroll ALL the way down to the bottom of my blog to check out the movie "Fireproof". Oh and by the way we are planning on continuing the chain of giving someone 20 bucks to go see it, we have already picked which one of our friends we will do it too! Start your own chain!

Silent Sundays

The blog that got me started, "Life, as we live it", found a website awhile back where you can insert your picture to yearbook yourself through the decades. I finally had some time the other day to do this myself and so here are some of my favorites! Try it for yourself and then let me know!! And join us for Silent Sundays, where life is shared through photos!

1950

1952

1960

1968

1972

1976

1978

1984

1990

1994

1998

Some of these are just really funny but some are pretty accurate as I can picture my grandma, mom, aunt, etc... in some of these shots (if their hair was styled like that, but still!). Let me know if you yearbook yourself!

Fruit Fly Be-Gone!

I keep my bible on my end table right next to the lamp so I can get up in the mornings before my children wake up and spend time with God. Well my daughter found it this afternoon and started taking out all the papers tucked into a pocket on the front of my bible cover. She had successfully torn every single thing out of it before I found her and so when I went to put them back decided I should sift through everything to perhaps lighten the load a little.

I came across children's church sign-in's, a drawing a little girl had made me during church the other day, another drawing - this one by my son, and a recipe for how to get rid of fruit flies. Yes that is right, in my bible cover I had this recipe and then remembered I was supposed to have given that to my friend Melanie at church on Sunday. I had completely forgot for like the third time and then as I went about my day thought well I could just email it to her and then my mind kept going and thought, "ya know everyone always complains about the fruit flies being in their houses around here and when I say I have something that easily kills them they all light up with joy and amazement!

So I figure it must not be common knowledge and so I decided I should share the recipe I found shortly after moving here and needing to do some research to help with new problems I encountered that I wasn't used to! So yes I found it and it works WONDERFUL and is super easy! If you have problems with fruit flies, here is your answer:

Fruit Fly Be-Gone (my own name, lol)

1/2 Qt. water (2 cups)
2 Tbls. sugar
2 Tbls. white vinegar
couple drops of liquid dish soap

Mix all of these together and place in any open jar, cup, or bowl and leave out on counter wherever fruit flies are prominent.

The flies attract to this mixture and you cna easily kill 50-100 bugs in as little as a week! Hope this helps!

Coupons For Troops

Hey I just stumbled into a GREAT opportunity to help military families who are overseas! If you have coupons laying around that are now out of date DO NOT throw them away! Check out this cool alternative that only costs you a stamp! Go to Coupons for Troops or just click on the title of this post to check it out!

Silent Sundays: Progress on our new youth building

Please join us for Silent Sundays!