Pajama Party at the Park

One of the things I love about Midland is that you can play outside almost all year long. Case in point: A nighttime birthday party outside in November!

One of our soccer friends just turned 5, and had her birthday party at one of the local parks. Families came together for dinner, the kids played on the playground and on the bounce house, and when it got dark we all sat and watched Cars 2 projected on the big screen.


 What a fun night, and what great weather.
...and it looks like November will have more nice days like this! For that, I am thankful.

Health problems

Some days I feel like this.
Some days I look like this too.

Jungle Safari... in a mall parking lot

Last weekend there was a travelling "zoo" that made a pit stop in the mall parking lot, and now that our weekends are soccer-free, we had time to take the girls for a fun afternoon.

They had the usual petting-zoo favorites.. goats and llamas
 They had pony rides (by far the favorite!)

 


They had exotic cats... that were sadly locked up in cages. It almost made me angry that such beautiful animals were being hauled around the country like this. Yet, there we were giving our money to this company and supporting it all.
 
For $20, you could get your picture taken holding a baby tiger. Um, no thank you. So instead I snapped a picture of some other girl holding the baby.

Needless to say, there were a few tears shed because we wouldn't pay for that.

So instead, we did the cheaper option - the camel ride. 

 
  
All smiles!
Unfortunately Lydia still remembers that she didn't get to hold the baby tiger. She asked for one for Christmas.

Halloween 2011

This year for Halloween, our costume plan was "Well girls, let's see what we have in the dress-up box". There is definitely no shortage of dress-ups in our home. The only difference at Halloween is that I let them wear makeup. Also, we happened to have no fewer than 5 Halloween parties to go to, and the girls wore different costumes for just about every one of them. 

At our church pumpkin-carving party, Lydia was Princess Aurora and Claire wanted to be Princess Tiana.

 I told the girls to give me their most beautiful princess smiles. Lovely Lydia...

 And this is Claire's princess smile... love this girl!

 Then it was Claire's preschool party, and mom forgot to dress her up. So at the last minute I asked my friend Laura for a costume, and thus Claire was Ariel for her school party.

 

Josh's office also hosted a Halloween party for families. This time around, Lydia was a fairy and Claire was Belle. AND Scarlett made her first Halloween appearance as a little clown.

 

 

 

And finally, on Halloween night we had the big Trunk-Or-Treat. We went with the princess theme: Claire as Cinderella, Scarlett as Snow White, Lydia as Sleeping Beauty (insisting on keeping her fairy facepaint, and wearing that lovely wig), AND - best of all - Grandma Taylor as the queen, who escorted the lovely little princesses around to get their treats.

 

Josh didn't dress up, but I recycled my Cruella DeVille look from a couple years ago.

And now, we have wayyyy too much candy, and a 1yr old who demands dum dums.

Our weekend in Dallas

Josh and I had a weekend to ourselves in Dallas. Grandma Taylor watched the kids, and we had a great kid-free weekend of sports, shopping, and Josh's first triathlon!

On Friday the 28th BYU played TCU at Cowboys Stadium. The world's largest domed stadium and the world's largest HD screen. The venue is the only reason I got Josh to go to the game with me

  

It was a fun game to watch, even though BYU lost. We had a tough defense and a productive offense, but we just had too many costly turnovers, especially on special teams. 

 

It was fun to be surrounded by a bunch of Cougars again. It'd be great if BYU actually did join the Big12 and played more games in Texas. There was an older couple sitting behind us that had travelled all the way from Florida for the game! They took this pic for us.

On Saturday we slept in, shopped the outlet malls, ate out a lot, and had the best movie-going experience at Grapevine Mills mall. Half the theaters there are "suites", with huge leather recliners and tray tables where your personal waiter serves your food and drinks. It was heavenly. 

Then Sunday was the big race: The Monster Triathlon. It was a sprint triathlon: 300m swim, 12mile bike, and 5k run. There were close to 800 participants in the event, and Josh finished 18th out of 45 in his age group. I am a very proud wifey :)  Here's some photos of my triathlete.

 

It was about 40 degrees outside that morning, and after the swim, each of the athletes had to run outside in the cold to get to their bike and change. Josh said he almost blacked out.

 

The 5k run...and the first mile was absolutely miserable, but he found his pace and finished well.

As it was the "monster triathlon", athletes were encouraged to wear costumes for the run at the end. Josh saw this pic and said "...THAT guy beat me?"

Another great soccer season

 Purple Power had another great year! We won 7 out of 8 games. I am so pround of these girls and love love love coaching them.  Lydia wasn't as aggressive at the start of the season, but after a few games the tiger inside came roaring out and she was scoring 5 and 6 goals per game.

 My team: Lydia, Noelani, Shylo, Aubree, Jaycee, Joslynn, Caroline, and Holland (not pictured)

 We got a bounce house and had our end-of-season party at the park, and the girls were awarded their medals.

Can't wait to do it all again in the spring!