We are in Oz

We had such a fun day! Zeb did his fatherly duty and carved the girls a pumpkin. He's getting pretty good at it!

You can tell by her pitiful look, that sweet Leigh was having a hard afternoon! She did enjoy watching her daddy though.

We got them dressed up to pose with their pumpkins--it was impossible to get a good picture. You can see Leigh was snuggling with her Toto which gave me the idea months ago that the girls would be Dorothy and Toto this year! (Toto is Leigh's dog that she sleeps with--she got him as a Christmas gift the year before she was born--and she's attached!)
She needed a sweet sweet Daddy-Daughter moment!
Our first trick-or-treater was a friend who was also dressed as Dorothy! This is Sara Beth and Sara Foster.
It took them a house or two to get into it, but once they did there was no stopping them! They had a lot of fun going house to house. This was our first year to do it. Last year our only stop was the Davis'.

Yesterday, Sara Beth had a big day at school. Of course, Toto jumped right in and thought she was 3.
Trinity has a cute little parade. Honey and G came to watch.
And so did Daddy!!!!!!!!!!
They were led by their fearless leader, Mother Goose (aka Mrs. Neville).
Here is Sara Beth's class.
She completely got into this.


They also got dressed up for gymnastics this week. I think it is so funny that Fico is a hotdog. Fico was one of my coaches 18 years ago!

new orleans trip

we took the girls down to new orleans for our very first family vacation. we had a great time.

leigh discovered that she really liked to pull sara beth's hair and that every time she did she got her hand spanked. it was a constant battle...finally sb just walked!

their favorite things about new orleans were...in no particular order...

1. sofa bed
2. taxi cabs
3. pigeons
if we had gone for these three things only they would have been happy, but we did a lot more...

daddy had a work dinner on thursday night at acme's. it was delicious. the girls were so good so it made it fun for all!
the next morning we went to cafe du monde...and their responses were...

we don't know where our kiddos get their taste buds--i mean, who doesn't like beignets

our next stop was the insectarium. this place was so much fun.

sara beth wasn't sure sure about touching this giant beetle...but she did.
they loved playing in the "love bug"
the butterfly room was so beautiful. if you look closely you can see several butterflies on the plants. they were flying all around the room.
after a delicious lunch at gordon biersch and a short nap, we were off to the aquarium.
they played on the slide for a long time

they both really enjoyed looking at the fish. my pictures are absolutely terrible because i couldn't get them to focus on the camera.
then we were off to an imax movie--sara beth's first movie in a theatre
saturday we went to the zoo. here sara beth is posing with the gator.
i love this picture. leigh was very enthusiastic when telling zeb and sister about the snake.
of course we rode the carousel

and finally proof that i actually went along on the trip!

6:30 this morning we here "mommy, my sunshine is on". this is what she was talking about. the best gadget in the WHOLE WIDE world! my little sunshine, sara beth, likes to wake up early--like 5:30, 5:45ish. we (i mean zeb) puts her back in bed and she has to stay until 6:15 or so--but it's very frustrating!

my sis-in-law, laura, found this awesome clock. it has a clock on the back and you can set the times. for instance, we set it so that the moon will come on at 6:30 p.m. and she knows it will soon be bedtime. then, we set the sunshine to shine at 6:30 a.m. sara beth knew she had to wait for the sun to shine for morning! she was so proud of herself! zeb and i have talked about how frustrating it might be for her because morning time has always been a guessing game--now she has something concrete to know!

we got it at www.goodnitelite.com. well worth the money!!!!!!!!!!!!

on monday, while sb was at school, mom and i took the other three to the library. here they are singing "the wheels on the bus"!
and getting in some reading time with my may
tuesday, we decided the big girls needed some time alone. mom played with leigh and bryson slept late (or normal in his case--10ish). i took the girls to the park. (the red sweatsuits were pure coincidence-but they loved it!)

don't they look big and mature in this pic
i showed them how to "train" down a slide
then we met everyone else at backyard burger and they all got some sliding time!

fall festival

we have had so much fun with zeb! his internal medicine and pediatrics boards are over! so we got to play all weekend--and it was cold!!!!!

saturday morning we went to the fall festival at the township in ridgeland. we started off with sara beth decorating a bat cookie with BLACK icing! who ever heard of such!

we quickly moved into face painting.
and horseback riding... she could have done this all day...
poor leigh was so cold, her eyes were a constant faucet
then it was jumping time...there were a bunch of big kids on the slide so i had to do it with her the first time...
but only once
until leigh wanted to go down
we didn't stay as long as we planned due to the weather-but we stopped by soulshine and got some pizza on the way home. after pizza, she got to eat the cookie she decorated with black icing!