Friday, November 12, 2010

Pumpkins and Parties....


The girls had a "pumpkin hunt" at their school. Here they are lining up to head outside....Jocie had to be first in line...shocking :)
Struttin their stuff! :)
Getting ready to "attack" the pumpkin patch....thinking through their pumpkin snatching strategies :)
GO!!!
So, there were enough pumpkins for each child to find ONE. My children do not understand this concept. They think the more the merrier.... I knew conflict was on it's way!

Hoarding their stash...


One kid didn't show up so the teacher let Gabbie keep two of her three. It was a battle, but they each finally gave up one pumpkin each. Oh, the joys......


Here is a class picture...or at least a really good effort for a class picture :)
So sweet Jocie has had a, let's say, a tremendously challenging time at school. Many days she is in time-out most of the 4 hours she is there....mainly for hitting and fighting (her classmates and her teachers...nice.) At the end of every day, if they have been kind, obeyed, etc. etc. they get a smiley face drawn on their thumb. Well, for Jocie, Mr. Smiley hasn't come around very often....BUT, on the day of their class party, she actually did get a smiley face. She was SO pumped and wanted me to take a pic of it (which I gladly did so that I could remind myself that it IS possible for her to have kind hands, obey, etc. etc :) She doesn't act up like this or fight like this anywhere else other than at school. We are working hard with her at home and praying that the LORD will give us patience and give her self-control! So needless to say these pics below were extra special :)

She absolutely cracks me up....
Gabbie's smiley face.... and she makes SURE Jocie see's her smiley faces every day :) Oh....it starts young, doesn't it?!?
Getting ready for the party.....

Decorating sugar cookies with LOTS of icing, LOTS of M&M's, and LOTS of sprinkles....

Yummmmmmm....

That's a whole lot of sprinkles....
Washing the sugar-coated sugar cookies down with sugar-filled apple juice= not-so-great naptime
Look at this cuteness!!
Jocelyn became obsessed with the sprinkles bottle (shocking! she gets obsessed with the most RANDOM things!). She was determined to take it home with her...she even tried to secretly stick it in her lunch box not once, but twice! Thankfully, the teacher caught her both times :)
Another class picture attempt!
Henry (son of our friends Zach and Ellen....Zach went to seminary with Shane and they now live here, too) had his 2nd birthday party on Halloween. All the kids (and most of the adults) dressed up in their costumes. It was so much fun!

Here is the birthday puppy... Too cute!
Family pic....obviously we were Georgia Bulldog fans....despite their very disappointing season thus far....
Shane and Zach....yes, he is in costume if you were wondering :)
They consumed just a small amount of sugar at the party....starting with yummy brownie cupcakes with chocolate icing....

Jocelyn LOVING her brownie...
Happy birthday Henry!!

Next on the sugar list....birthday cookie cake....
Sugar-filled juice boxes!!
And birthday cupcakes!!
Henry opening his gifts....He LOVED his soccer ball!
The girls graciously offered their services of helping Henry open all his birthday gifts :)
See the sucker in Jocie's mouth....yeah, that was seriously the first of like 17 suckers she had during the course of the party. They had a huge glass container full of suckers on the coffee table and she helped herself....ALOT :)
Checking out all Henry's toys to make sure they are safe and work properly :)

Gabbie REALLY wanted to bring Blue home with her....

RIGHT after the party we headed to the church for Car's with Candy....more sugar of course! Here the girls are in their carseats while I was trying to force a sandwich down them so they would have atleast had ONE nutritious thing to eat all day....but they weren't very hungry....imagine that!
The girls helping daddy hand out candy....
Representing the 80's....I LOVE the 80's!!
I mean....cuteness just isn't a strong enough word....

Their friend, Taylor, was also a cheerleader....just for the wrong team! :)
Look at this adorable crayon!! Sooooo cute!
Soooo, overall.....this week was full of alot of pumpkins, alot of parties, and ALOT of sugar!! I'm still trying to detox them.... :)

Jazz Half-Marathon!!

The last weekend in October,Colleen and I headed over to New Orleans to run the Jazz Half Marathon......

Leaving Mobile....
I realized on our way to New Orleans that the last time I had been to there was the first night Shane and I were married! We drove there from Troy, AL right after our wedding reception to spend the night before we flew out to Cancun for our honeymoon the next day. I can't believe it's been that long since I've been to New Orleans....crazy!

After we arrived and checked into our hotel, we went and ate our pre-race meal at Grand Isle. It was FABULOUS!

We split this seafood dish....yeah, it was enormous!

After we finished eating, we browsed around downtown for a bit....



We strolled down Bourbon Street for a bit......Very entertaining and definitely QUITE disturbing....


Right before the race....
It was such an awesome race....perfect weather, beautiful scenery, and so many people were dressed in crazy Halloween outfits that they actually ran the race in....very entertaining!

We finished in 2 hours. We were super excited.....we did better than we had expected!

Yay!!! we did it!!



This guy was titled "the minister of fun".....classic :)

Post-Race concert...


We actually both felt great after the race...surprisingly....
They had all sorts of food at the post-race party....Colleen downing some Thai chicken something-or-other at 9am! yummy.

Replacing our lost electrolytes :)


This tree sculpture was made out of materials/debris found after hurricane Katrina.....


After the race we spent the rest of the day walking around the French Quarter

Street performers were EVERYWHERE....
Crazy....it just so happened that the one weekend I was in New Orleans, my fabulous friend, Summar, was also spending the weekend there with some of her friends. It was SO fabulous to see you, Summar!

Celebrating our accomplishment at Pat O'Brien's....fun times!
So this guy sitting behind me had this crazy wig on and Colleen timed a pic just right to make me look like I either have a chicken head OR I'm wearing a yellow, fuzzy crown :)

Interesting act....

Nice hair-do...

Summar and her friends...

We finished our day off at Cafe du Monde, of course! Got to love deep fried, greasy dough smothered in powdered sugar...definitely ranks up there with one of the best things I've ever eaten!
A HUGE thank you to PawPaw and MawMaw for coming over on Saturday to watch the girls so I could run in the race (Shane was coaching at the South Alabama game all day). The girls had such a fun time with ya'll!!


So, now that we have accomplished a half....we are super optimistic right now and are starting to train for the Rock-n-Roll marathon in New Orleans in February......like I said....we are super optimistic right now...we will see what reality holds :)