Happy Birthday, Alyssa!

19 years ago, she arrived. A week late, but in a hurry to get here. I couldn't wait to dress her in bows and ruffles and ribbons and lace.

Now, in a few short weeks, she will be off to college, and on her own. And I'm going to miss this girl. I'm trying not to think about it, though, because I will start crying.

On her birthday, (8 days ago! I'm caught up on this blog!!) I managed to get her to pose for some photos I wanted to take. I'll try to convince you that I was going for that retro-industrial look. You must try to ignore that we took these pictures in the back parking lot at Welenco. And, ..... ADVANCE WARNING.... there are a lot of photos here. But I couldn't help myself. Because I really love the personalities coming out here. It's awesome!!

So with minimal commentary [hopefully] .... here are the pictures taken on Alyssa's 19th birthday. This is our daughter, Gorgeous:

 

(I think that last one is my favorite)

 

(don't you just love "attitude"?)

 

 

So the story behind the photos is that Darcie was just over my shoulder, posing and making faces at Alyssa.

 

 

And you should know something about these two.

They are each other's best friends.

It's one of the qualities about them that I love so much. It would be so easy for sisters that are so close in age (22 months apart) to be at each others' throats, but that is not the case here. I love that they have such a close bond, and I must figure out how to keep them close once Alyssa is moved away. Thank goodness for Skype and Snapchat. Really.

 

So.... the photo story isn't just about Alyssa.....

 

 

 

Emma was there, too, but after just a few pictures, she was ready to go throw rocks in the puddles. Glad I got her in here enough pictures to count for something. Because right after this, things started to get silly....

 

 

 

 

 

(that last one is another favorite of mine)

 

 

 

 

 

(That was their impression of Lewis and Clark!)

 

 

 

And then, ..........

 

the photobombings started.

 

 

... and then, she got Emma in on the act. You can kinda tell that Emma wasn't quite "in" on the joke.

 

 

(That was the high-5 from their softball pitcher-catcher routine all last season. I actually caught the whole routine on camera, complete with Emma running through the foreground, but it would have been WAY too many to include here.)

 

Yep, we love our Darcie, too.

 

After pictures, the girls went off to a movie together, and that evening was Alyssa's birthday party with the family.

 

 

(Emma was trying to do "heavy, heavy hangover", and Alyssa was bending down to help her out as much as possible.)

 

 

Thanks for making it to the end of this VERY long post. I hope it gave you a glimpse into

our girls' personalities and the reality of what we live with around this house EVERY DAY.

 

A very big Happy Birthday to our Alyssa. She is so amazing and she will leave a hole behind when she moves on to the exciting college life in January. We are so proud of her and the wisdom she shows beyond her years.

 

And though we're in NO HURRY for her to find a nice young man to marry, {are you listening, Alyssa??? NO HURRY!!!!!!!}, I hope when she does find him, that he will realize what a treasure she is. Awesomeness comes 6 feet tall and gorgeous.

 

love you, Sys!!

 

--Mom & Dad

 

Wordless Autumn. Well, Almost Wordless.

 

I was thinking I would do a wordless post. But then I remembered that I can't keep my mouth shut. I have a friend who says that she can't say good-bye in less than 20 minutes, and I'm the same way.

 

At our last house (actually visible in the background of this first photo), I remember looking outside my window at my neighbor's yard one fall day. The tree in their back yard was dropping leaves like rain. In one day, that tree lost almost every leaf on it. Which made the raking task pretty straightforward.

 

I am not so lucky with our trees. An area that is raked up will probably need to be raked up again in another few days. Here is just one raking day.....

 

 

 

(Look closely, and please tell me you can see it...)

 

 

 

(At our house, this is always the job of the youngest leaf-raker.)

 

Love these kids!!

 

 

 

Halloween. 2013 Edition.

So, in thinking about this post, it occurred to me that a good portion of the readers of this blog are also my Facebook friends. And yes -- I did post photos on Facebook, too. So for this, I tried to come up with a few different shots, but some of the Facebook-shared ones were irreplaceable. So if you feel like you've already seen some of these, ....... well, you probably have. But it's worth a second glance, right?

And every time I start a sentence with, "So," it reminds me of the movie, "National Treasure 2" (I think it's the second one), where Nicolas Cage is talking to his friend, and describes his failed relationship by saying, "She began starting sentences with "So" "...... maybe you know what I mean? I hope you do, because I am NOT going to explain it now. 

So.

We do love fall and Halloween around here. You can probably tell, because every year, I keep taking a ton of pictures. It helps that we have Emma, and having a young child helps us to see it through her eyes and with a thought of making it fun for her. No longer have we "outgrown" a holiday.

Truth in Advertising: These photos are from different days, leading up to Halloween. We didn't actually have it all happening at once. Even *I* am not that busy.

Miss Emma picked out a pattern for her pumpkin that was a witch. Which shocked me to no end -- I didn't think she was really into the scary characters of Halloween. But rather than jump through the hoops of asking if she was *sure*, we said, "Fine!" and she got her witch:

 

Which witch was carved by Todd.

Now I have the Munchkins' song running through my head...

"Whi-i-i-ich was not a healthy sit-uation for the wicked witch!"

 

And now you have it running through your head, too. You're welcome.

 

We grew pumpkins again in the garden.... but it wasn't the bumper crop of 20+ that we had last year. But we managed to get 5 decent-sized pumpkins for carving, and another half-dozen or so that never progressed from green, which I used with the dried cornstalks as fall décor. Emma went out with Cameron to harvest the orange ones:

 

It's like the pumpkin version of Simba (Lion King), right?

 

She carefully washed the dirt off them...

 

But she could not hold or carry one by herself, so Cameron helped her out.

 

Oh, how I love those kids!

 

Hide and seek behind the pumpkins.

 

She got to dress up an extra time when her preschool group went trick or treating at a nursing home. We could have done more dressing up and trick or treating, but I really didn't see enough good coming from it to make it worth our while. We certainly don't need extra candy around here. And I think if you trick-or-treat too much, then it makes the fun of it a little too common.

 

So Emma went as a Pirate Princess this year. She had a number of Disney princess outfits that she plays in, but this was new and she really loved it. We stopped at Welenco to show Daddy, and that's when we snapped these pictures.

 

 

"Aaaaargh!!"

 

Little-know fact about me: Whenever I can get the footwear to coordinate with the whole costume, I give myself a pat on the back and an invisible tally-mark in my head. Score!

 

 

(She was checking out a witch decoration at the nursing home -- and I thought it was cute.)

 

Here's the whole group of preschoolers:

 

Are they cute or what??

It was so nice to see the elderly residents as the kids came by. Their faces lit up and they loved handing out candy and treats as much as the kids enjoyed getting it.

 

The people in Physical Therapy were probably the most active and responsive, but they were all just so sweet. It was a good day there.

 

Pumpkin carving happened for Family Home Evening before Halloween. Except mine -- which didn't happen until Halloween night. At least I actually got it carved this year. Some years...... not so much!
Left to right in the photo below: Cameron's, Alyssa's, Todd's, Emma's and Darcie's. 

 

At the church parking lot for the Trunk or Treat. (My pumpkin is second from the left here. You can't see Cameron's because it was on the ground when I took this photo. We moved it back with the others a few minutes later.

 

 

Darcie was keeping warm under her blanket.

Emma saw one of her best friends right away...

 

 

... and made silly faces!

 

One of our favorite traditions is to go to Grandma and Grandpa's house after the Trunk or Treat, and have pizza and play games together. This time, Grandma also had some glow necklaces that the kids played with.

 

You wouldn't believe the strange people that come out on Halloween.....

 

 Yep, Uncle Wade still has a drop of holiday spirit left in him!