Just Plain Cute

Maybe she will hate me for this picture someday, but it's just too cute. I love that smile!

Quite The Neighborhood

This is what I found in the living room the other day. I had to take a picture to document that Rylan and Mackenzie had been playing nicely together. And even though it looks like Penguin, Batman and the herd of dinosaurs are planning attack, I think it was a completely friendly environment.

Raindrops on Roses and Whiskers on Kittens

These are a few of my favorite things!

Coffee with chai latte creamer

Sewing projects

My lovies' artwork

Bacon

Creative little minds

Warm slippers

Cheesy cheese face of my adorable girl

Sweet sweet boy mustering a smile for me when he's not feeling well

My lover, we're approaching our 8th anniversary!

Netflix!! Especially when a kiddo is sick!

Pumpkins as Promised

Here are our pumpkins. We only carved three because the other big one we had was already getting soft and rotten when we carved. The kids' are kinda hard to see, they have an 'r' and an 'm' on them.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween isn't really a big deal in our house as I don't care for scary stuff and none of us eat much candy, but we've had fun this past week getting costumes ready and carving pumpkins.

You can see that Rylan wasn't a big fan of the pumpkin guts. We told him the story of his first Halloween when he was 6 months old and he kept trying to eat the pumpkin guts. He thought that was pretty funny.

And I just realized that I never took a picture of our finished pumpkins, so I will have to post that later.

I'm particularly proud of Rylan's costume. He decided to be batman and I found the one-piece costume at a second hand store for $4.50. I made his cape out of fleece so it would be warm and the mask and arm spikes I made of felt. I should have lined the mask with something else because he complained that it was itchy, but he wore it the whole time trick or treating. I love how the emblem on his cape turned out. I appliquéd it on and then sewed the edges, but I thought it looked pretty cool.

Mackenzie wanted to be Dora, but we had to do a wintery version of Dora's outfit since Dora wears a tshirt and shorts. So we found the proper colors for her clothing, all the way down to her yellow socks. I bought a plastic mask, but she hated that, so I made a yarn wig on a stocking hat. It totally completed the look, but she didn't really like that either. We got a few pictures with the wig, but her favorite part was Dora's purple backpack, complete with the map.

Sweet little Ella wore the banana costume that Mackenzie wore for her first Halloween!

Our last stop of the night was at Great Grandma Mac's, the kids' favorite because they got new Halloween books, a dollar, and candy! It was the perfect ending because the kids were excited to go home and read their new books! We love you Grandma Mac!

In case you're wondering, Mackenzie isn't wearing her glasses in any of these recent pictures because they broke and we were waiting for the new ones to come in.

Wild Wild West Part 3

The hunters: (back row) Curly, Tucker, Cooper, Chad, Mackenzie, Randy, Brian, Mike (front row) Nick and Rylan

Mackenzie didn't actually go along on any of the hunts, but she couldn't be left out of any photos! I didn't hunt this year, but I enjoy pheasant hunting as long as it's nice weather because I love the exercise, the beauty of nature, and sharing Nick's favorite hobby, but I really like to watch Ace doing what he loves best. He is such a good bird dog! Rylan went with on a few of the walks and he loves being out there with Nick. I look forward to doing this as a family when the kids get bigger.

One afternoon, we brought snacks out to the guys in the field and discovered the keys had been accidentally locked in one of the trucks. They tried real hard to get it open, but ended up having to go back to the house for the extra set of keys. During that time, the kids had a blast shucking corn off the cobs we found in the field.

Safety first!

Helping Grandpa get the bonfire ready

A beautiful sunset in beautiful country.