Daisy Scout Investiture

Last Tuesday, Lily and the rest of her Daisy Troop had a badge ceremony. They got official Daisy Scout badges, and Lily also received two other badges. One was for he Haunted Stroll she attended, and the other was for a Money Counts event she went to. First she did the Daisy handshake with her leader, Miss Gladie:

Then she got her badge pinned on!

All of the Daisy Scouts!

After the ceremony, the girls all sang a song called, "I'm a Little Daisy" that had actions. It was too cute & they did a great job!

Lily is having so much fun in Daisies and learning a lot!

Getting Ready for Christmas

We actually decorated for Christmas last weekend, but I am just now getting the pictures up on the blog. There were a few fights, and Lily took sooooo long to put up the decorations that are only hers that she missed out on helping put up the "family" ones. So, she went down the basement stairs and pouted. So dramatic.... That lasted until she realized we still had candy canes to put up, so she was OK after that and helped out. So, overall, not too bad. :0)

I'm trying out a new idea this year for Christmas. I always have all of these ideas I want to do/make with the kids, but half of the time, I get to the 20th & I try to cram everything in and it is more stressful than fun (for me). So, this year, I decided to try to be more intentional with our time. I made a calendar and put at least one thing I wanted to do each day until Christmas. I used our regular calendar as a guide so I knew when to put small stuff. For example, on Sunday, we were in KC, so I just put read Christmas stories together. But later this week we are going to make sugar cookies and decorate them when I know we will have more time in the evening. Some of the other things we have listed are:
Watch the Grinch & make Grinch cookies & punch, make reindeer with hand & footprints, look at Christmas lights, make gingerbread houses, and I need to add a Nativity activity that I just found to the calendar, but there are lots more fun things on it! 
We are also doing acts of kindness throughout the month. We know that we are so blessed, and we try to show the kids how blessed they really are, so we hope this will help show them that Christmas isn't all about what they want, but that we need to help others and love one another. And of course, we have our Advent Wreath that we use every night. I am so excited for this season to begin! 

Happy 10th Birthday Zach!

Ten Years ago, Jeff & I were blessed with the sweetest bundle of joy we could ever have imagined. We couldn't know what a wonderful adventure he has taken us on these past 10 years, and and I can't wait to see what the years ahead hold for him!

10 Things About Zach:
1. You are incredibly smart. Your intelligence astounds me sometimes.
2. You are so loving. You would do anything for your family.
3. You are so imaginative! You will sit with a piece of paper for an hour making up new inventions!
4. You love to read. You will read anywhere, anytime!
5. You HATE any kind of change.
6. You are my researcher. If you don't know it, you want to look it up and learn about it.
7. You are such a big helper! Anytime Dad or I need help, you are there to step up.
8. You are so funny, and I love to listen to you laugh.
9. One of your favorite things to do is to mix things together to see what they will do/make. You are definitely the scientist of the family!
10. You are our first born. We have had you the longest. We learned how to be parents with you. :0)

I can't believe how fast 10 years can fly by. You are no longer my baby, or my little boy. You are growing so fast! I love the person you have become, and Dad & I could not love you more. Happy Birthday Zach!!

Blog posts to come soon

I am out of photo storage on my blog right now. As soon as I figure out how to get more, I will continue to blog. Hopefully that will be soon!

Fun With Turkeys!

Lily's Kindergarten class had a Thanksgiving Feast on Friday, so I thought I would make these cute turkeys I saw on Pinterest:

They are made out of fake leaves, Tootsie Roll Pops, Hershey Kisses, paint for the faces & hot glue to put it all together. The first few were really easy. It was after the 20th, that I thought maybe this wasn't such a good idea. And I still had 8 more to go......

The kindergartners really liked them though!

Since Emma wasn't going to the Feast with me (she got to stay with Grammy!), I decided she shouldn't miss out on all of the fun, so she got a turkey hat. :0)

Lily with her head dress & necklace:

When they first came into the room, they sang a cute turkey song with actions. They did a great job!

Then it was time to eat! Here is Lily with her BFF Charlie:

They all had a good time!

This week, the kids have the whole week off, so yesterday, we did a turkey art project. They painted their palms and thumbs brown, and then their fingers different colors & then pressed their hands onto paper:

Even Emma did one!

Lily's turkey had eyelashes:

We only have a few more days until Thanksgiving, but I am sure we'll squeeze in at least one more project. :0)

Las Vegas!

Last week, Jeff & I got to go to Las Vegas! This is the third time I have been. The first was a fun vacation, and the last two were for Jeff's work. I know, he has a rough job, huh? ;0)
This is us the first night:

We had the ice breaker for the conference that Jeff was there for & then we headed out to a few bars with some people he/we knew & then listened to some live music. It was really fun, but at some point I realized we had been up for almost 24 hours (because of what time we left Wichita, the time change between Wichita & Vegas, and Daylight Savings Time) & I could not keep my eyes open. I was exhausted!!!

The next day, after Jeff went to see people at the conference (and I slept in...) We did a little sightseeing. This is New York, New York:

This statue of liberty is made of jelly beans. :0)

Jeff hung out with the guy from "The Hangover" ;0)

This is Excalibur:

(We stayed at Mandalay Bay)

That night, we went with a group of people to see David Copperfield!!

The show was fantastic!! It was so cool & three people from the group we were with got called up on stage.

After the show we headed to the old strip to a restaurant called Oscar's. The guys all loved the slogan for this restaurant:

After dinner, we walked around the old strip, and let me tell you, there are some interesting people in Vegas....

On Tuesday, Jeff & I got a couples massage at the spa in our hotel. Ahh! It was SO relaxing. :0)

That night, we went to a party on the top floor of The Hotel at Mandalay Bay where they have 360* views of Las Vegas. This was the only picture I took that turned out though.

After we chatted up people at the party, we met another vendor who took us to dinner. It was so hard doing all of this "work"! ;0)

When we got back to our hotel, there may have been a little but of gambling on my part, after I had had a little bit to drink, and I might have lost a little bit of money....but we don't need to go into details about that. Let's just say that I'm not a good gambler. ;0)

On Wednesday, we did a little more sightseeing:

And that night, we were able to see Cirque Du Soleil Ka. It was amazing!!

Last picture of Vegas:

The next morning, we got up & headed to the airport. It was a fun trip!

We got the kids their own souvenirs, but this was something that we got all three to share. We went to the M&M store & had their names & a Las Vegas sign printed on M&M's that were their favorite colors.

They really liked these. =)
It was fun to get away, but it was good to get back home too.

Halloween!!

The kids had a great time trick or treating last night! Lily dressed up as Merida, the princess from Brave:

Riley was a ghoul:

And Zach was a skeleton:

What Zach really wanted to go as was a walking coffin. So, Jeff built one for him out of cardboard:

Of course walking in the coffin only lasted around our street. That's why we had the back-up costume of him being a skeleton inside the coffin. =)

Here are the kids' pumpkins lit up with glow sticks. (Zach's is supposed to be purple, and it was, but the picture makes it look pink.)

All three kids had fun & got a lot of candy! They got hot chocolate and ate candy while watching a movie afterwards. I love that they don't have school the day after Halloween! =)