Halloween 2012

We had a typical halloween filled with nothing more than your normal festivities.

The girls didn't mind!

Next year I'm thinking to change things up a bit.

Happy Halloween Everyone!!!!

From, The Bates Family Zoo

The cutest little 1 year old around!!!

Little Miss Lucy turned ONE.

We celebrated with a YUMMY Baked Potato Bar for dinner and SPOOKY pudding cups for dessert.

 Followed by presents and pumpkin carving.  Super fun night if I do say so!

 

Even though I am not much into the whole costume and trick-or-treating part of Halloween,

I do love the CUTE decorations and FUN food ideas.  And with Lucy's birthday so close to Halloween, I took advantage (and WILL every year until she's old enough to decide otherwise) and tried out some fun halloween ideas.

 

I love the idea of displaying pictures of the birthday girl.  This was my spooky twist.

That picture, there in the frame, is the day we brought her home from the hospital... on Halloween!

Can't believe it's been a year already!

After dinner we sang Happy Birthday to her!

She LOVED it!

And then let her loose on her graveyard pudding cup.

At first she was dainty and delicate, just dipping her cookie and then licking it off ever so gently.

Well that quickly changed.

Yummy!

After Mark got her cleaned up we opened presents.

Lucy got an adorable crocheted hat, a new outfit, and lots of money for her savings account.

The biggest gift of the night, however, was the Fisher Price Little People Zoo we gave her.

I was so excited for her to open it.  I knew she would love it.

It has been constantly played with by ALL the girls ever since, so I'd say it was a good choice.

After presents we started the pumpkin carving!

This was serious business for Abby.

She even cleaned out the "guts" all by herself.  Probably not her most favorite part.

She wanted a flower and the sun. 

AND a flower and sun she got.  Thanks to daddy!

Hannah went with a more classic approach.

Uncle Nickle needed some inspiration for his pumpkin.  Lucy helped with this.

(*I hesitated adding this picture because it reveals a small portion of the dysfunction of my house...or at least one room.  Yes that's my computer... on the floor!  But I just LOVE how Lucy had her arm around him!  Super Cute!)

The final pumpkins... well... most of them.
They did a pretty good job!

Happy Birthday Little Lucy!

Words cannot describe the JOY you bring into our home!

Fall to Winter in 3.76 seconds

So Fall lasted for about 3 DAYS here.  Good thing we enjoyed it while it lasted!

The day after we got our pumpkins we woke up to about 4 inches of snow. 

It was beautiful, but I wasn't quite ready for it!

It continued to snow and to snow and TO SNOW most of the day!  We literally got dumped on people!

The weather guy reported about 12 inches here.  Wow!!!  That's more snow than we got ALL of last year!

Hannah was obviously thrilled about the snow!

*Okay, so we may or may not have stayed in our jamies most of the day too! Don't judge!

 Once Abby got home from preschool she begged me to play outside! 

She played out there for hours!  No Joke!

First she made a snow castle!

 Then this cute little snowman. 

We had to be creative with the nose, eyes, buttons and arms because it was so small. 

So we used chocolate chips, an orange m&m, and a couple of straws!  Super cute in my opinion! 

She then preceded to make snow angels and towers all over the yard!

It is now Day 3 since the big storm and there is still a few inches of snow on the ground.  Crazy right!?!

Even though the girls have had SO much fun playing in the snow these last few days,

I hope we haven't seen the last of Fall yet!

Pickin' out Pun'kins!

Nothing says FALL like picking out pumpkins from a pumpkin patch.  Am I right?

I decided for Lucy's birthday party on Monday we would carve pumpkins. 

So in preparation, we went to the U-pick Red Barn pumpkin patch to get our pumpkins.

Mark wasn't too excited about the idea, so just the girls and I went.

It was FREEZING!!!!  But we had fun anyways.

Right after I got this picture we ran into this guy!

HE WAS HUGE! Stood about as tall as Hannah.... if not taller.  HUGE!!!
Some little girl was chasing him and he ran right towards Hannah.
Scared the pants off of her. 

She spent the rest of the time in the wagon with Lucy.

Lucy loved the wagon ride anyways.

Abby enjoyed looking for the "perfect" pumpkin for each of us. 
She searched the ENTIRE patch!  Seriously!

Can't wait to cut into these babies!

HAPPY FALL EVERYONE!!!!

R.I.P. Plug

 ODE TO THE PLUG!!!

(Just go with it!)

O plug, O plug, what happened to you?

Nevermind, I know, it was little Miss Lou!

The fire is just her favorite place;

To crawl and to climb; it puts a smile on her face.

We knew it was possible you could be there,

but just couldn't figure the when and the where.

We looked and we looked, up high and down low;

around and around, but where did you go?

It was chilly that morning and I didn't think twice

to turn on the fire, so cozy and nice.

While eating my breakfast, I quickly could smell;

Right then and right there I knew where you fell.

I never could fathom that this be your fate,
So sorry for you, but it's really too late.
We'll never forget! It makes Lucy sad.
She'll always remember the good times you had!

R.I.P.
Lucy's Pink Plug
Oct 2011 - Oct 2012



A little ingenuity is all it takes!!!

Abby LOVES her new bike! 

She has been riding her bike almost everyday, weather permitting!

I was kind of hesitant on getting the bike with the little doll seat in the back.  It's kind of cheesy, you know!

But obviously we bought it for her anyways, knowing that she would absolutely LOVE toting around "Baby Lisa"

(or whom ever she's loving on that day!)

However, Abby had an awesome idea one day that proved it to be way more than a dolls seat, no cheese included!.

The idea was to attach the wagon, with Lucy in it (of course!), and pull her around and around the driveway!  Brilliant!!!!

 

Clearly, Lucy loved it!

And I LOVE the fact that all the girls are happily involved in a bike ride. 
Now maybe I can tackle some of the weeds in our yard!  ...then again maybe not!?!

Boise Bound

It was Spud Harvest here last week!

Spud Harvest means NO School, yep, even for preschoolers!

No School means a trip to Boise, a VERY long awaited trip to Boise!

Mark was planning on going with us, but decided he had too much work to do, so he stayed home. 

No problem, the girls and I got the house cleaned, the van loaded, goodbyes said, and took off.  (I felt so grown up!). 

We had a wonderful time visiting family, and only wished the week hadn't gone by SO FREAKIN" FAST!

Here are a few pictures recapping our visit.

We stopped at a rest stop somewhere before Mountain Home... around "Bliss" they call it. 

(Nothing "blissful" about it if you ask me!). 

The girls had traveled really well up to this point, but we all needed a little break.  I think Abby's hair says it all! 

Lucy was VERY anxious to get out of her seat, and none too thrilled to get back in, when it was time to go! 

We had a big week, full of some super fun stuff.  Including....

Harvesting GIGANTIC zucchini from the garden to serve for dinner.

Makeovers and art projects!

The makeover was strictly Hannah's idea. 
She felt so beautiful (black Hannah? ... really?), and did not want me wash her "owbreyes" off!  Such a silly girl!

A chilly (that's right Rach, I said it...) Chilly, but exhilarating walk/bike ride.

And enjoying some super YUMMY ice cream sandwhiches.  These totally motivated the kids to do ANYTHING!!!  Awesome!

With just a few chores to be done in between.  Lucy and Ruby helped with these!

Yeah, the only problem was, we WEREN'T unloading!  Yum, Ruby, Yum!?

The girls LOVED playing with there cousins, and I LOVED chatting with my sisters!

(Sorry Becca, why did we not get any pictures?)

Hope to do it again soon!