Sorry

Am really sick and will get my butt into gear to post the Halloween night piccies soon.

Sorry but my throat and head are a'hurtin. Real bad.

Halloween decor

Here is a couple of pics of around the home of the halloween decor.

I took on few craft projects this year and was very happy with the results. Next year will only get easier and better as I've got more plans in my head.

The front porch. It was so hot this year and I was worried about the pumpkins staying ok for the duration. I never planned on carving them as they would have rotted out really quickly.

 We saved up a bucketload of the gallon-sized milk jugs. We cut the backs out of them and drew some faces on them then put lights in them to light them up at nighttime. Unfortunately my camera doesn't take night piccies (sorry I don't know how to use my camera to take night piccies) so I don't have much of the final look. But it did look good.

 By not carving up the pumpkins I actually managed to save this "Queensland Blue" looking pumpkin for eating. Yes, I had roast pumpkin last night and yummmmmmmyyyy!

 Inside the house..with my fave wicker pumpkins from Target. (I so miss living near a Target!)

 I made this one. The plastic eyes on the center circle were hot glued and it left a lovely trail of glue that looked like spider webs. Enjoyed making it.

 My cabinet from Craigslist. I still need to paint it (and have all good intentions of doing so of course!) but I love it for holiday decor.....

 A glass full of eyes.

 My halloween tree.

 I made the cheesecloth ghost...

 I made the cheesecloth mummy (sensing a theme here yet?) and the wicker tree with candy corn ribbon. I also made the piccies of the orange pumpkins in a frame.

In looking back over these photos I realize that I missed quite a few things. I'm quite disappointed in the fact that the broomstick hangout didn't get immortalized and my main door Boo wreath also missed the cut. I also didn't take a piccie of the decor on the library shelves. All the decor for halloween is down now - only the fall decor is still out (but christmas is not that far away and a month is too short for christmas in my eyes so the fall stuff will be gone real soon....)

Mmmmm. Love it!

Halloween catchup time.

I know but I pulled the piccies off the camera last night and it was late so I had to wait until today to get them posted.

Oh well better late than never huh?

So, I'll start first with costumes. Mum bought the girl's both harem costumes when she was in Turkey this year. So cute but the girl's are fairly messy when it comes to food, drink etc and I didn't want to get the good costumes wrecked so I came up with another solution for the halloween party. A new costume!

Now I have had the sewing machine out for a bit, making curtains for the girl's room and kitchen etc so I thought that I would "whip" up something.

So after a bit of searching through their closet and my fabric stash I cam up with the thought of a Supergirl outfit. They already had the deep blue star skirts and I had a huge roll of red satin (I know! How fortuitous!). I thought it was cute the way it turned out - what do you think?

 Not quite sure what's running through Syd's head as she's posing for this piccie but she sure pulled it outta nowhere!

 It's disappointing but this is one of the only piccies that I have of one of them standing up in the costume. It was extremely difficult to get them to pose standing up and looking at me. Such a shame.

 I did have plans for putting their initials on their shirts but ran out of time.

They really enjoyed wearing the cape and kept it for long after the hair had been pulled out of the pigtails. It's now going into the fancy dress clothesbin for dress-up days! So much fun!

Anyway, another sewing project that I completed was the girl's candy corn shirts. They looked so cute in them. Candy corn is not a well-known candy in Australia and I'm not a big fan of it but I enjoyed making these for them. Teamed with a tule skirt and some black leggings, they were ready for the orange and back day at school!

 Here they are begging me to let them dance. We have a Tippie Toes dance CD that the girls enjoy bopping along to at every opportunity...

 And what's dancing without some wild arm movements?

 And a jump or two....

 Well, maybe just a listen will do for Kendall.

I enjoyed this sewing effort of mine and am very much looking forward to next year. I am seriously considering a family outfit. All I have to do is talk Storm into it!

Phew.

Well another has past and what a wonderful weekend it was.

We were finally a reasonable temperature which meant we turned off the A/C and had the windows open. I so, so, miss having the windows open and have absolutely loved the past few days that's for sure.

This week found us really busy. I had the Mummy and Me group here on Thursday for a Halloween party potluck. Every mummy brought a dish (there were 9 of us - I supplied a dish and drinks as well) and I bought a pumpkin pinata and some prizes for the best dressed kiddo.

We all had fun - i.e. 9 mummys and seventeen kiddoes and the weather, even though a little warmer than I would have liked at the time was great, encouraging all outdoors into the backyard. The kids played well and the mums got to have a great chat. I was very pleased with the entire day's events. One day I'll unload the pics and put them p here. Shouldn't be too long but I'm just too lazy to get off the couch at the moment (Twilight is on the TV) to get the camera.

I made the girls some superhero capes (I didn't want them to get their harem costumes dirty) and dressed them as, DOH, SuperGirls! So cute. Loved it.

So this weekend has been very productive. We went for a super walk with the girls and dogs on Saturday. It has been such a while since we've all been able to go out with the dogs (it's usually too hot when both the girls and dogs are ready to go so the dogs go with Storm really early) which was really lovely. After the girls had their nap we headed up to the local school for their fall festival celebrations. It was a shame that the majority of their games were targeted to those over the age of 2, we still managed to get some games in where the girls could earn some toys.

After dinner we went to the girl's school to their fall festival. It was really good because the girls managed to pat a beautiful horse (they had been so excited to see the horseys all day) and even though nervous, really enjoyed spending ten minutes with the horse just patting it's head and mane. Very special.

So, yesterday Storm and I made a snap decision to drive to Victoria and take the girls to the zoo there. So now we left early this morning and got there a little later than we would have liked but on the flipside the zoo was very empty and almost ours for the two hours we were there.

The girls get the biggest kick out of animals and looked at their animal books on the way there and played with their plastic figures too. They love tigers and lions - heck, practically everything. We saw wolves, coyotes, moneys, birds, deer, otters, a badger, ocelet, petting zoo and many others. It's not like they weren't scared of some things (they were - like the huge python and the stuffed black bear) but they had a ball - until Kendall tripped.

Yes, the concrete was uneven and she fell over it. She fell so flat on her face that she has the concrete print on her forehead. The poor kid cried for the rest of the stay. It certainly didn't help that the pot bellied pig (yes, the one that I want to get) in the petting zoo was feeling a little cranky and nudged her which set her off again. It was a shame as not even the goats could set her straight. She loves piggies which really was quite painful.

Anyway, we had lunch at McDonalds (they ate the apple dippers, milk and fries) while they played on the playset and came home for a nap (yes, mummy had a nanna nap.

We're all exhausted but feel really happy at how the weekend went.

Only two weeks until our first weekend away (Wurstfest in New Braunfels) and we;re so excited. We managed to get the master suite painting finished this weekend too so there's another thing off our list.

I promise - more piccies to come. In the meantime we're getting things done and enjoying life with our two little preciouses.

Catch-up.

Today was a wonderful day. In fact the whole weekend went wonderfully.

Not that the kids didn't whine or cry (they did - a lot!) and not that Storm wasn't ill (he was!) but we got a bucket-load of stuff done around the house and that makes us both very happy.

We have a list. This list is quite extensive and we knocked off 5 things off our list the past two days! We're so rocking out the list right now. We need to get the rest of the list knocked off before we start travelling on our weekends away (which by the way we are so excited about!) as we have been reserving the weekdays for business and the weekends for housey-stuff and we're running out of time.

Anyway, since the last post we have had school piccies taken, school, a couple of playdates with our Mummy and Me group as well as with next door's young'un, decorating for halloween, more fall festivals and deadline. The time is flying by so quickly which is great because we are so hanging to get going with our plans. We have a lot going on in our little heads right now with planning the move and dreams of expansion that we just want to get a wiggle on and get it all started. It's gonna take a bit in logistics and I'm sure I'll lose some sleep (I'll just have to keep a notepad beside the bed for those moments when thoughts overtake me!) but it's going to be exciting.

I wish I had some piccies to put up but since we bought the new video/point-and-shoot camera (yes the second kodak died and wasn't under warranty - sob!) I haven't figured how to pull off the piccies just yet but I have some.

The biggest news this week is that the girls are becoming like cute little broken records singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". Sorry, by writing that I imply that the girls sing the entire song - no. They (mostly Kendall) sing the one line "Up above the world so high" over and over again. I mean it - over and over and over and over again! I once got "Papa Don't Preach" by Madonna stuck in my head for a week so I cannot imagine what's happening in her head with "Twinkle Twinkle". It's so cute though and makes my heart melt. I'll try and get it on video.

So this week I'm holding a Mummy and Me Halloween potluck this and still have a ton of stuff left to do for that (but on the flipside the house looks really cute and all my projects that I made I am so happy with!) and still have some sewing to do before I can put the machine away. Between that and the playdate on Tuesday with the group for lunch this week is setting up to be quite a busy week.

Anyway, it's late, I'm distracted by the Housewives of New Jersey Reunion and am absolutely gobsmacked by 4 Italian chickies playing verbal tennis loudly. Major apologies if this is disjointed but they're so loud!

It's kinda fall, y'all!

What a beautiful day it has been today.

Finally under 90 with a breeze and we actually got some rain. In fact when we went into Corpus today it rained so hard that we had to slow down on the highway as visibility was down to about 6 cars ahead and the water on the road was like a river. Ok, a creek but it was enough that if you didn;t play it right you would aquaplane without much effort should it be played that way... Now the reason I harp is that we have not had any decent rain since we arrived 6 months ago. It's been wonderful and we've finally turned off the A/C and opened the windows. Excited...

Anyway, the fall festivals and events have started around the area and frankly, it's about time that we got out and about without having to retreat indoors for any form of activity. This weekend marked the beginning of our festival season (we hope...as long as the weather holds out anyway).

So, starting off with Fall Festival No #1 (local church here in town) - Saturday (yesterday)
Was it the best fall festival that I've ever been to? No. Was it the worst? No. It could have used a little ooomph that's for sure though.

The kids were in average moods (they're really not coping well with the humidity) so the day had its ups and downs. Photo opportunities were somewhat limited as it seems they decided to be naughty at alternating times (yes, it seems that we never stopped yelling almost the entire time we were there!) and ignore us. So the pumpkin patch was a case of shoot and hope for the best.

Syd with daddy.

 Kendall wouldn't pose with Daddy and Sydney (so much drama and tears) so I had to step into the shot to get her to have a piccie taken.

 Syd was already hot and we'd only been there for 5 minutes. Love the little red wagon. It helps to carry my bag, drinks, snacks, their bag, any purchases etc., when we end up having to carry the girls. They seem to love it at the beginning but hate it at the end. Oh well at least I'm not carrying everything! 

 Yes, it appears that this is the girl's official "fall" piccie so far this season. Can't you see how cooperative and happy they are?

 Yes, check the attitudes and total disinterest towards me yelling their names so they'd look in the same direction at the same time. Soooo. Not. Fun.

 This is a new thing that Syd has started doing lately. She'll look at you out of the corner of her eyes and move here head so that she can just see you. The look is kinda "Bride of Chucky" sometimes but it's actually quite funny the lengths that she'll go to to look at you in a kinda, sorta, kind of way...

The highlight of the day was the little petting zoo. It blew the girls' minds!

It's so funny. Both girls are so shy around people. So shy that Kendall bursts into tears if she catches someone looking at her most times so it's incredible how that shyness is all forgotten when they catch a glimpse of animals (or am-mals as Kendall says it). Yes, people will be navigated around with much abandon, even touched! when in the pursuit of something furry. These girls had no fear of the goats (Pygmy and Boer), sheep, cow, pony, pig, rabbits and (I can't believe - 'cos I can't do it easily) chickens!

 Grabbing the leads of the Boer goats. They would have taken both goats for a walk given the chance or it might have been vice versa considering the size of the goats.

 Let me in! Let me in!

 Awww. Missy sheep was very soft and freshly shorn.

 But the pony was just sensational and so the right size! (The girls have loved some little plastic horses that we bought them a while back and rarely leave the house without them, even sleeping with them so putting a real live horsie into their life was just fantastic!)

 Kendall adored the piggy.

 And when allowed in the pen wouldn't leave the poor thing alone.

 And then there's the rabbits. Both girls have pink blankets that are made out of a plush fabric. When they're tucked in at night they love touching them and always say "Nice" - yes it's Borat in design but they say it with an Aussie twang! Anywa, one they finished petting the rabbits all Syd could say was "Nice". So soft.

Finally, they both decided that the jumpy castle looked like fun but only if mum went on it with them. So on I went. I was wearing a skirt so not necessarily the most comfortable piece of clothing to bounce around it that's for sure. Luckily one of my friends, Mandy, her husband Chuck and their son George came along and Syd gladly took her hands and jumped for ages. (She never looked at Mandy but held her hands so it's a start!)

By this time it was pretty hot (see Syd's cheeks) so we stopped for a cold lemonade before heading home (with more tears of course!).

Cannot wait for the Bootfest at Victoria, Wurstfest at New Braunfels and the Christmas Parade in Fredricksburg. Mostly am looking forward to January for the Greenville trip. Need to get some more greenery in my life ASAP!

Why?

It's amazing how you can be excized from someone's life. As if you never existed.

Hurts. Wish I knew why. No explanation. No phone call. No response. It's like I died.

Too bad, so sad.

So many memories down the drain...