Fall Cleanup

This past weekend we decided to clean up our backyard and get it ready for snow/cold. Of course having my new camera, I felt the need to document a very boring event. Here is a little jig from Clara to brighten your day....

Maggie enjoyed the sunshine and playing with the kids outside.

Edie helped out too. She got out the broom and swept up the leaves for John.

John was really bugged that I kept taking pictures. He's yelling at me here to stop....

And my favorite picture that I took all day. I love this. Her big belly pressed against her jammies and the car in one hand.

Halloween

Happy Belated Halloween! If you can't tell, Clara is a bat. If you saw our previous post, you knew that Clara wanted to be scary this Halloween. Thankfully she was looking through dress ups and found my Brother Lukas's old bat costume from years ago. So I took it in a little and hemmed it a bit, and I also added some purple glitter to be "veins" on the wings- make it a little femminine. I also added the ears. She was pretty darn cute bat.

This is Miss Clara's face covered in Chocolate at 9 PM - She's sitting on Grandma's stairs and totally stoned on candy. Kind of sad but we didn't do our regular Trick Or Treatin', we did Boo at the Zoo in the morning/afternoon and then we did Trunk or Treat at our ward. At this point it started pouring down rain, so we went and visited Grandma and Grandpa (where mommy also picked up the worst stomach bug she's ever had... It's not their fault though, they didn't know it was brewing). We meant to go later, but Gremlins was on cable and John could not be torn away from the television. The girls really didn't care though- it was so cold and wet they were happy to be inside and hand out candy.

The rest of our pictures are from Boo at the Zoo... Here is Edie's tail.

Clara got a great deal of Candy while going around the Zoo. Once we got to the park section she would not be seperated from her loot. She sat in all different places eating her goods until I caught it on camera, which really ticked her off, so she'd try and move to her next hiding place to consume her sugar in privacy and peace....

She ate it on the Alligator back....

The spider web....

The Spider... You can see her displeasure in this shot.

And here we are taking turns riding the Rhino...

She would not look at the camera and smile. This is the best I could get All day long!

She was also SUPER serious when meeting Clifford. Would not crack a smile....

So there you have the pictures from our Halloween. On the Friday before Halloween, Clara's pre-school had a Halloween party and a parade. John got the morning off so he could come with us. I took a bunch of cute pictures and then it was time for the parents to go outside and wait for the parade. During this time Edie got antsy and began playing with my camera. I didn't really mind since it seemed to be keeping her entertained. BUT- she then took off running with it (In her Flamingo costume) and of course tripped on her own stubby legs, and my beloved Kodak EasyShare went flying and was ruined :( I was so sad, for many reasons, I knew we would have to spend money to buy a new camera and mostly because I couldn't take any pictures of the party of parade. So John and I talked it over and decided it would be worth the investment to buy a nice camera- and we would just skip buying each other Christmas presents this year. So we splurged and got a Canon Rebel T1i and I am completley in love with it! John had two lenses from his old Canon camera (not digital very old) so I only had to buy the body. It takes BEAUTIFUL pictures- and it has a HD video camera built right in. I am super excited to use the video camera soon!

When nature turns on you....

One day in late September I dropped Clara off at pre-school and came home to clean my house. I was wiping off the dining room table when something moved and caught my gaze. I looked over and it was this hideous BEAST!! I literally-let out a blood curdling scream and it turned its head-no joke- and LOOKED right at ME! I almost passed out! I was light headed and my heart was racing. I didn't know what to do. I called John at work crying. He didn't answer. I left a hysterical message. (which he later laughed his head off over- thanks a lot hon!) and then I called my friend Lindsay. She acted like I'd lost my mind. She said "just put the dang thing on a piece of paper and put it outside!" But there was no way on earth I was getting that close to that thing. So I cried for a bit. I sent John a few more texts and picture messages of the creature. Still no response. I brought Maggie inside to kill it, but she didn't give a crap. I pretty much just stood across the room and stared at it for quite awhile. Then Edie came in driving along in her Fisher price car. She bashed the wall it was on and it turned its entire ugly body to look at her. I was worried it wanted to attack her so I knew I had to kill it. I thought about sucking it up in my vacuum (with the extension) but my vacuum is brand new and I didn't want its nasty body to ruin it - or clog it- oh my gosh can you imagine cleaning that up?
Finally I knew I couldn't wait any longer so I moved Edie out of harms way and then I picked up the broom and beat the dang thing to death. I carried its body out (it was stuck the bottom of my broom) and dumped its remains in the garden over the edge of my porch. I came inside and calmed myself down and went about cleaning my home. A couple hours later I headed out to pick up Clara from pre-school. I pulled up to our house and we unloaded out of our car and we were headed up the steps when I hear Clara go "What's this thing on our doormat mommy?" No, I really promise you- I am NOT pulling your leg here. It was back on my doormat. It was waiting for me! And I knew it was the same one because it was missing a leg from when I beat it earlier. I grabbed the girls and made a mad dash for the back door of our house. I stayed in the house like a prisoner until John came home from work that night. Thankfully it had left by then. (It must have given up its on revenge....) I was surprised by how upset this thing made me. I can squash a spider without missing a beat, but for some reason this thing gave me the willies like you wouldn't believe! Here's one last picture of the ugly thing...