Part 2 October

In honor of Thanksgiving...let's blog about Halloween! It's so nice to be reminded of how far behind I really am... Grr...

After returning to Kansas from the wedding, we enjoyed some fall weather outside and took these pictures on Avery's 16 month birthday.

She also discovered the fun of dress up. For now it is just the apron, but I can see this fascination growing. She has recently discovered Daddy's baseball caps and Mommy's bracelets.

Then it was time for Halloween! In honor of Avery's first animal noise, she was a duck!

We celebrated by joining Kevin at a chili fund raiser at his work. We also attended a fall festival put on by a local church. "Avery" enjoyed all the trick or treat candy she collected ;)

Here is Avery showing off her duck skills. However, once again we are back to the sideways videos. Sorry...

That's all for now. Hope you are all full on turkey and cranberry sauce. Mmmm.

First half of October

At the beginning of October we had an unofficial Family Fun Day. We went to a local park and walked the trails and played on the slide and swings. These are the pictures we will look back to fondly when there is snow on the ground.

Other than swinging with Daddy...

Avery's favorite part was finding a tennis ball to chase.

In October we also took a trip to Austin to celebrate my cousin Cal's wedding! On the way down we stopped at Cabellas to stretch our legs and try on sunglasses!

What a special occasion to see us all together and in our "Sunday finest".

Sisters...


Avery with her grandparents...

Cal is the second of the '5 Cousins' to get married. We have so many memories together, we almost grew up together.

This is the first time the cousins have all been in the same place at the same time in years. We had to take a cousins picture as it seems to be tradition. Here is a picture of us several years ago,

and then us today...

As you can see, everyone enjoyed the party. Even Papa. I don't think he knows I have proof of this revelry, but now everyone knows. However, if his knee replacement doctor is seeing this, don't look. And Papa, I have video too if you try to deny this photo... ;)

And that is it for the first half of October. Congrats Cal and welcome to the family Kassi.

My Birthday!

As I mentioned before, this year on my birthday (September 20) I met Amber and Sandra at DisneyWorld for 2 days! It was incredible! Instead of typing a moment by moment account here and losing you all, I am going to reprint here a very special page from my scrapbook of this trip. Interspersed in this list will be some of my favorite pictures from the trip.

What Made This Birthday So Special...

It was a trip to DisneyWorld with Amber and Sandra!

Sandra got us into three parks for free on the 19th!

Amber provided the flights at no cost.

We stayed in a beautiful hotel courtesy of Amber, Sandra, Mom and Dad.

I received birthday cards, calls, and gifts from lots of family and Jenise.

Thanks to Sandra I got to shop at the Cast Member store where I bought a fabulous watch.

I got to see where Sandra lives and works.

Sandra Dodd spent the weekend with Kevin and Avery.

I did not change a diaper for the whole weekend!

I had a gourmet cupcake with a Mickey Mouse candle on my birthday.

We came away with lots of pictures and special memories.

Did I mention that I spent my birthday at DisneyWorld?!

And for all this I paid about $30 out of pocket!

I received a birthday button at the beginning of the trip which provided these fun birthday surprises...

Nearly every cast member I passed for 2 days wished me a Happy Birthday.

We rode the Safari ride on a private birthday tour.

At lunch in the Studios, I got a turkey leg for the price of a 'gobble-gobble'.

I received free chocolate dipping sauce for my pretzel, Yum.

The day of my birthday I got FREE admission to the Magic Kingdom.

At dinner on Sunday I received a mini chocolate cake.

I was given access to 'special' pin trading books

A Disney executive gave me the last pin I needed to complete my set, even though I ran out of pins to trade with her.

And when I returned to Kansas...

Kevin took me to PF Chang's for dinner and the Cheesecake Factory for dessert

But at home, he had spent the weekend building me a pantry in the kitchen. Awesome!

As you can see, my 29th birthday was extra extra special! I am still basking in the joy of the event! But now it is finally time to move into more current events, and I have some great videos of Avery coming up.