halloween.

halloween ended up being an all week event for us  

sunday we started out at the pumpkin patch in the rain…

monday night we carved/painted pumpkins…

{sadly we never got a picture of our pumpkins lit up. with all of the rain, they molded out and collapsed before we could light them up}

wednesday, we headed up to katy for trunk or treat at my parent’s church. unfortunately, it was raining so it was moved indoors…


e was being uncle james for halloween this night…scary!!! pointing at a picture of his favorite pilot!


halloween treats for school…

and finally thursday night – halloween night!!!

ready for trick or treat!!!!

at one house, they were taking a little while to answer the door. evan turned to us and said “maybe they’re going potty!” haha!!!

the ghost with a trick or treat bag that evan drew…

some of their loot…

thank you to aunt barbie, uncle mike and cc for coming trick or treating with us!!!

big girl bed & aci free.

tonight was a big night for miss thing! we have known for awhile that she would do great in a big girl bed since she sleeps on air mattresses or in a bed at nanny & vanpa’s with no problem. the real challenge was that we were combining switching her crib to a toddler bed with take her “acis” away. I think I put that rule on there more to force myself to do it than anything else I honestly didn’t care that she still had an aci but knew it was getting to the point we really needed to take it away…

we had been talking to her for a long time about how big girls don’t use acis and while she listened, I could tell she wasn’t really on board. the aci was her comfort and was guaranteed to always calm her down which made it hard to take away. we decided to try the "give your acis to another baby” strategy because she has a sweet heart and loves taking care of babies. luckily, one of our good friends had just had a little one so we started talking about giving her acis to baby evelynn. she thought it was a great idea and we thought we were home free until about 5 seconds later when she then said “and I get new ones!!” with a huge smile on her face…haha!!

all of that to say that honestly, we had just been putting it off but today, we decided to bite the bullet. I knew she could do it but wasn’t sure how much stubbornness we would have to withstand before she gave in {she did get that stubborn streak from somewhere after all }! during the day, nanny & I were asking her if she wanted to sleep in a big girl bed and got an excited “YES!!!” but when we told her she would have to give up her acis, she thought about it for a second and then said “no thank you!” haha!!

tonight, while brian was converting her bed, I handed her a pink gift bag and asked her to go and get her acis out of her bed to give to baby evelynn…and she did it!!!!! no crying or fussing!

she is now asleep and apart from a little singing and talking before going to sleep, we have had no issues!!! I am so proud of my little girl! apparently her sweet heart won out over her stubbornness so proud of you miss avery jo!

gathering her acis…

”helping”

ready for bed! our big girl is super excited!!!!

halloween party.

one of e’s friends from school had a halloween party tonight!! talk about fun!!! the kiddos went until they just couldn’t function anymore!

thanks for the fun loring’s!!!

fall festival.

the kids’ school has a fall festival each year and the munchkins have a great time with all of the cute activities!! I spent one day working while aj helped out and then worked the next day while my munchkins’ classes came through! lucky avery got twice as much fall festival fun!

e’s class on the playground while I was manning a booth