Halloween costumes

The weekend before Halloween we went camping with friends at Joe Pool Lake (south of Ft Worth and Dallas). Saturday night the entire park is decorated for Halloween and the kids get to ride in the back of a trailer/truck trick-or-treating from campsite to campsite. Caleb wanted to be Bumblebee the Transformer so Jessica was a bumblebee princess. I actually made her costume. Next year she gets one off the rack. :-)

Instead of a Potato Head we had a Pumpkin Head kit that Holly brought. The kids loved it.

I realize how wrong the following pictures are. Just go with it! The kids were having fun.

Caleb as the Transformer Bumblebee and Jessica as a bumblebee princess (I started making a plain bumblebee costume and she refused to wear it. She decided she would only wear it if it was a bumblebee princess!).Caleb with some of his friends.

Caleb's birthday present

This year we gave Caleb a choice between a birthday party or a large gift. Once we showed him what the "big gift" would be, he had no trouble making his choice.

The Hunt

Since Caleb already knew what he was getting we decided to send him on a hunt for it, just to make it more fun. I wrote up clues and hid them throughout the house. Cut me some slack, I don't do this often! :-)

It hould say "Mom's got things to do", poor guy was a a bit confused. He hasn't learned about typos and proof-reading yet. ;-P

I think he was a bit confused still. He seemed unsure of what the puzzle picture on the back of the clues meant. We had him narrow down the cars we looked at to 3 favorites so he didn't know EXACTLY which one he would get. This was suppose to be a clue. Oh well, he would find out soon enough.

The Find

He was hesitant when he first saw it. I wasn't sure if he was excited or not. The fact that he spent the next 3 hours on it told me he was!

Awww...sharing with little sister. Jessica is excited too.

Family Vacation New Braunfels-Day 2

Finally, day two!

El Casa

The house was really nice for a lake house. It had 4 bedrooms, a living area, dinning area attatched to the kitchen and 2 bathrooms. There was also a small bunkhouse in the back that had 2 trundle beds and one set of bunkbeds. The property was very steep going down to the river but the grass was well kept and there was a little dock at the water's edge.

View up from the lake.


View down from the deck.

The walk down to the dock.

The trees on the riverbank were huge!

Just Hanging Out

On the first morning we sat outside and had coffee. It was a little muggy but not bad. Caleb challenged dad to another game of checkers. With all this practice he should be a pro in no time.

Again, Jessica was not to interested in the checkers, or sitting around chatting for that matter. I set her up a bowl of bubble stuff and a horn she could blow bubbles with. It kept her happy for a solid 15 minutes.


Landa Park

I just love Landa Park. The water is so pretty and everything is so green!

We, of course, had to ride the little train around the park.

After riding the train we decided to take a dip in the river. The water was so very cold! I forgot the bottom was really rocky and didn't bring Jessica's river/lake shoes. Marc carried her at first and then we put a pair of Caleb's flipflops on. They were very hard for her to walking and kept floating up. Caleb went right in and had fun looking for tiny fish.Grammy watched our stuff and read a book until it was time for lunch. For lunch we did the traditional pb&j's with chips. Yumm!

Feeding the ducks while eating Oreos



After all the activity at the park everyone was tired. We went back to the house for naps and watching a little tv.

Later that evening Aunt Tiffani, Uncle Craig, Avery & Jillian arrived. The kids were so excited to see their cousins. Caleb showed Jillian the checkers game and then spent the rest of the evening watching Avery play GameBoy.

Family Vacation New Braunfels-Day 1

For our family vacation we rented a house near Seguin, just south of New Braunfels. It was a great little house on the Guadalupe. We drove down on Thursday to meet up with Grammy (Marc's mom) at the house. We went out to eat at CiCi's pizza then off to the grocery store to by provisions for the next few days. After we got back to the house, Marc showed Caleb how to play checkers. Caleb loved it and really got into the whole strategy part. He is such a cool kid!

Jessica decided aerobics on the bed was more fun than checkers. She showed me all her "moves" while I held my breath.

Joan of Arc

Apparently what was missing from the petticoat was a sword and shield. Who knew?