Halloween with Miss Piggy

what a fun halloween this year! my mom bought lilian the cutest costume ever (ok, i am a little biased, but hey, it was super cute!) she was a pig! on saturday we went to the halloween parade and trick or treating in downtown blue springs. we got to see the dunn family (kaiya was a beautiful pirate) so that was a highlight. afterwards, we went to the first baptist church for their annual trunk or treat. it was adorable! all their church members got dressed up and each car had a theme to match their costumes. drew, colleen and amelia (she was a little cow, so they went together perfectly!) met us there. it was another gorgeous day!

trying on her costume the first time...gotta love the "piggy face" she made to go with it!

miss piggy with pirate kaiya

all the shop owners in bs handed out candy, it was busy!

at trunk or treat with the ackersons!

excitement for seeing amelia!

hugs for amelia

on halloween night we made some stops around town...our first was meeting the james walker crew up at school to take a picture of all the kiddos together. it was quite comical trying to get a group shot of all of them! by no planning whatsoever, half of our kids were farm animals! after that we made our rounds...lilian loved digging in the candy baskets! my parents and my brother went to the chiefs game (and saw an amazing game!) so we did not have quite as many stops due to that, we missed them! 

jwe babies

jwe babies and mamas

ready for our night on the town!

first stop was laurie's!

we had to see aunt cindy too!

home after our last stop, bryan, alsion and curtis's house...curtis was already out of his costume he was so tuckered out so i never got a picture of buzz lightyear!

happy halloween!

Twins Slumber Party

mark, leanne and the twins were in kc for mark's business so we were able to spend some time with them! we wish they still lived in kc so we could hang out all the time, but it is a special treat when they come to visit. thursday night brian and i finished up the last of our conferences (yay!) and met them at our house. we decided to have a little slumber party with lauren, andrew, and lilian! we took them all to mcdonald's to play and then back to our house to play some more. lilian loves her cousins so much! they were so cute with her...playing hide and seek, helping her on the slide, holding her hand, making her giggle the whole car ride, and helping me give her a bath (this was their favorite!) after lots of playing it was time to go night night...lilian snuggled with lauren and andrew under the covers for a bit before heading down to her crib. it was the cutest! we love you!! the next day leanne took lilian for us and all the kids went to kidzone and the mall. they had a great day together and brian and i got some cleaning done around the house. man, how things change...we get excited about a couple of hours to clean our house! ha! thanks aunt leanne!

lauren requested that lilian put on her matching shirt so they could be twins!

action shot!

getting ready for bed in our tent

night, night!

Pumpkin Carving

brian and i decided we would try to make "cool" pumpkins this year...we bought the tracer set with the pumpkin tools last year but never got around to using them, so this year we did! it has been such a busy week with parent teacher conferences after school but wednesday night we accomplished our goal! we wanted to see what lilian thought of the pumpkin once we opened it...just as we suspected, she would not put her hand inside! she does not like her hands to get dirty (such a girly girl!) she just watched as brian and i cleaned out the pumpkins and started our tracing and cutting. we were very proud of our final products!

giving them a closer look

the next day with the final products!

fall pictures

we headed back to iowa last weekend for a long overdue visit. lilian had been back the weekend brian and i went to weston with friends and his parents were down a few weekends ago to visit but all of us had not been back together in a very long time, it was much needed! while we were home we had planned to have becky (one of brian's good friends from childhood) take family photos of us. she got some really great shots! i am excited to get the cd and frame some of these for the house. it started to rain on us right when she was ready to take pictures of the 3 of us (boo!) so we are hoping to meet up with her again when we are back at thanksgiving and get some more shots of our family. all in all, we were very happy with how they turned out. i love the group one in front of the lake, the one of the twins and lilian walking, and the close up of sis playing with the leaves. we enjoyed lots of family time while we were home too!

Pumpkin Patch

sunday morning we headed to carolyn's pumpkin patch in liberty. we were so excited to take lilian this year since last year she was still so small and could not walk or really do much. this year she was all over the place! she loved watching the goats, playing on the outdoor playground, riding the train and the hayride, and trying to pick up all the pumpkins she found. i loved hearing her say "punkin," "punkin," a million times! it was another warm, beautiful fall day. these are the special memories i adore...

helping daddy feed the goats

how cute is this? my two favorite pumpkins!

this one cracks me up!

on the hayride

Showering Jill and Baby Micah

on saturday we threw a shower for one of my best friends from college, jill, who is expecting her first baby (a girl!) named micah on thanksgiving. her high school friends and college friends all got together to plan the shower which was awesome, so many great ideas and people to help with everything. the shower was held at trezo (same place as jill's wedding reception) in briarcliff village. it was a perfect spot! the theme was whales since micah's nursery is decorated with gray/purple/white and whales. everything turned out absolutely adorable! maggie and leslie made it in from st. louis for the shower as well, so thoughtful. jill received so many sweet, heartfelt gifts...the greatest being a quilt from jill's real mom (her step mom renee wrote this amazing poem about how jill's real mom who passed away will always be looking down and keeping a watchful eye on her and baby micah). there was not a dry eye in the place after opening that gift! we played a fun baby traits game that of course jill loved (right up her alley!). the shower was perfect. everyone is so excited for jill and mike and to meet this precious baby!

the centerpieces emily and dee created, the whale was on the invite as well

estimation station game, guess how many whales are in the vase

the beautiful cake (and it was so delish!)

some of the many gifts...how cute is the whale basket? we put all the books for baby micah in there.

mama jill and me

dee, les, me, jill, sara, em, and mags

of course the day wouldn't be complete with our signature dg picture!


C Squared

curtis and chiefs were what our weekend was all about! on saturday brian and alison went to the northwest vs. pitt state game at arrowhead so we were lucky enough to spend the day with curtis! we soaked up this awesome october weather and took the kids to the zoo. it was girl scout day at the kc zoo so there were lots of kiddos around and tons of activities to do. we spent a few hours there checking out all the animals, the highlight for the kids was riding on the tram!

lunch date!

curtis loved pushing lilian in her stroller! i love the bearcats jersey he sported!

checking out the deer

curtis and his "sissy" as he calls her, love it!

my favorite picture of the day, two cute scarecrows!

after the zoo we came home and everyone took naps! brian's mom came into town that afternoon so we all played until bryan and alison came to pick up curtis. we sure loved spending the day with him! saturday night rhoda, brian, lilian and i headed out to town center to do some shopping and had dinner out there. brian's mom was nice enough to come in town to watch her while we went to the chiefs game on sunday with my entire family. we enjoyed perfect weather and a chiefs win! hooray!

my family (plus rick and kim!)

i got to spend some time with mona and sonya too tailgating!

we got home from the game around 4 and lilian was still napping. grandma said they had a wonderful day together. lilian even got to spend time with her great aunt ruth who was in kc for the northwest game the day before. grandma and lilian spent the day shopping, going to the park, out to lunch at panera, and playing in the yard. to give you an idea how much she loves her grandma...when she did wake up from her nap (and grandma was gone since she had a long drive back to iowa) lilian sobbed at the front door repeatedly saying "grama" with the saddest look on her face! so grandma rhoda, know you are VERY loved around here! thank you for coming down to watch her!