Pumpkin Carving with Matt and Elisha

I thought I'd get these pictures up before the official Halloween costume pictures, since we had so much fun!

Our carved pumpkins

Monica's pirate skull...thanks to Uncle Matt and Elisha who helped her carve her pumkin!

Ryan's witch

My Tinker Bell

Originally, when Matt took this picture Ryan had red eyes.

Unfortunately, I think he looks worse with the black eyes!

Uncle Matt helping to carve the pumpkin.

I'm not sure how we missed getting a pic of Elisha doing her part too.

After we were finished, Matt got some good pictures of our lighted pumpkins.

Matt took this sweet picture of Leah.

I was really trying not to make Tink's nose too big.

Ryan taking his time.

Matt- getting into the spirit of Halloween.

The girls love their aunty!

Leah kept "sneaking" pieces of the pumpkin.

I'm not sure what the draw was.

Finally, we had to do something with Leah's itty bitty pumpkin.

When I bought the Mickey, Monica looked at it and gasped, "Mom, what happened to Mickey?!" I told her he dressed up for Halloween as a vampire and she said, "Oh. I don't like vampires."

No Twilight for her!

The First Snow of the 2009-2010 Winter Season

I looked out the window, this is what I saw. I rushed and got the girls to show them it was snowing and they begged me to go out in it. About 10-15 minutes later, after trying to bundle them up properly....

...there was a pretty good layer of snow on the ground.

Look closely at Leah's lips. She's "oooooh-ing" with excitement!

This was another of Leah's firsts.

This was her first reaction to snow, and she LOVED it!!

 And for some reason, the water table is still popular even after the water is frozen!

So the girls had fun...

For about 10 minutes. And then the snow melted.

BOO!!!

The cold is only worth it when you have something to show for it.

I think there were too many people praying for it to melt so my prayer for it to increase didn't stand a chance.

Oh well.

It's still early yet.

I'm sure we'll have more snow and better pictures!!

X these are my fingers crossed X

Reading a Book is Fun To Do...

Fun to do, to do, to do...

Especially when you can cuddle up with your best friend!

Leah and Monica love to lay side by side and 'read' their books.

Monica will often tell Leah what is going on in the pictures and make up a story to go with it.

Then Leah will take a turn and tell Monica in gibberish what is happening in her book.

I love that Monica sits there and goes, "Uh huh. Yeah, Leah! And then the puppy finds a frog!"

P.S. Leah's feet were wrapped up because we were trying to rehydrate her excema ridden skin there. We had a blood panel done and she has no food allergies. It's really excema and it looks like it's around to stay. Thankfully, we have a pediatrician who is personally concerned about Leah. She prescribed a topical steroid for Leah's skin and it has been working wonderfully. No more insane bandages here. Leah's feet were soft again within 3 days of using the stuff and we are just grateful for Dr. Millea!

Pumpkin Hunting

You know those blog posts that seem just a taaaad bit overloaded with pictures?

You have been warned.

But this is our family's picture journal, a.k.a. digital scrapbook.

So here goes...

The last two years, we made it out to the McCall's Pumpkin Patch in Moriarty. This year, it wasn't really possible with work schedules, drill schedules and the like. So we had to go local.

We meant to go to the Pumpkin Patch on Paseo, but got it confused with the one on Paradise. Since we were already there, instead of driving the extra block to get where we wanted, we figured we'd see what the United Methodist Church pumpkins were like. It ended up being pretty cool and Leah was M-A-D when we left. She wanted to stay and run through the aisles between pumpkins some more.

My BOO-tiful girlies...

Monica surveyed her options...

Then decided on one she could barely carry, but she got it!

She's such a turkey!

Last year, Leah was too little to pick a pumpkin.

So this was her first time and we got some great pics of her.

Leah went for a pint sized pumpkin just like her.

She saw another one she just had to have...

Two little bitties for one little bitty girl.

I just love how this picture turned out.

Leah and Monica immersed in the sea of pumpkins

Leah got a kick out of the scarecrow.

Picture posing time...

Monica Kay

Leah Grace

The Allred girls

Daddy and his little girls

Mom and Dad

Sweet sisters

I love the Institute Choir

This is how much I love the Institute Choir, and really, the choir director, Rebecca Pugmire. In a moment of complete flakiness I forgot about an extra rehearsal we had scheduled and totally blew it off.

I've been watching a lot of "Cake Boss" lately. I consider myself an artist, just not a cake artist. But the cake artists on "Cake Boss" are phenomenal. And they didn't all start out with sugary products. So I made a cake for our rehearsal this last week after being inspired by the latest episode. I'm not sure I was completely forgiven, but I think it helped.

And I would like to put in a plug for our concerts coming up in November. If you have never had the pleasure of hearing a choir directed by Rebecca, you are missing out. She is extraordinarily talented. She makes ordinary people sound like a heavenly chorus. She brings out the best sounds in each person. And the end product is fabulous. I love playing for her. I just hope I'm not too much of a floozy to keep her from asking me to play for her again. 

Balloon Fiesta Fun - Part 2

Since our first try this year was a bust, we went on Thursday night for the Special Shapes Glowdeo and it was pretty awesome!! The girls had fun, and well, let me amend that. Monica had a blast but Leah was done pretty quickly. She wanted to get out and run around with everyone else hurrying here and there to get to their favorite balloons. I had a ton of pics to choose from so I just added the ones I liked best.

Enjoy!

Enjoying the balloons is always more fun when you run into family!

Hi Taylors!!