Help! My baby's voting Democratic!

Alpha's school had a mock election today.

She voted for Barack Obama!!!!!

I guess we forgot to tell her we're Republicans....

Jim takes comfort in the fact that she pronounced the party's name as dee MO cruh tick.

A Halloween sneak-peek!

We've had a fun weekend! Friday, Alpha was out of school for parent teacher conferences. I took the day off so we could go see High School Musical 3!!!! omg!!!! It's TROY!!!! Troy and Gabriella finally kissed. But only briefly. The movie was, well, about what you've come to expect from HSM. It was a fitting end. (Even if I did sit there and wish Jim was with me so I could make some snide comments....) The girls loved it, so it's all good.

Funny moment: We're about 5 minutes into the movie when Beta leans over and asks in a loud whisper, "Mommy, when is High School Musical 4 coming out???"

Saturday was mulch day! I got out and mulched all the plants I'm supposed to mulch every year. The yard looks nice now, but my back kinda hurts....

Saturday night we went to a Halloween birthday party! The girls got to wear their Halloween costumes for the first time. (so we get more than one use out of them. Yay!) I've got some cool pics I'll post at the end.

Today, we finished up the mulch, planted a gardenia bush in the backyard, and went to community group. Oh yea, and Alpha practiced riding her bike without training wheels! But that's for another post.

The girls are really looking forward to this Friday. It'll be fun to trick-or-treat in a neighborhood with houses. Two years ago, our first Halloween here, it was kind of sparse. Now we've got houses all up and down our street!

Well, it's getting late. So here are those special sneak-peek preview pics I promised:


For those of you with absolutely no pop-culture influence whatsoever, we've got an American cheerleader and Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. (Notice her basket with Toto!)

Fair Days, Fair Days!

I've been gone. Out of town. Busy. First, I had a CPE conference to attend in Little Rock. So I drove down Wednesday and spent the night with my mom. Jim and the girls drove down Friday night. (and managed not to kill each other.....) Saturday, we had our quarterly family birthday celebration! We celebrated Jim's, Matt's and Emily's birthdays. Jim's was Sept 20, Matt's was Oct 9 and Emily's is Oct 27.

Without planning, 4 of us wore purple shirts! This picture includes my cousin Kayla, me, Aunt Martha, and my mother.

After the birthday party, we all went to the state fair! My girls were so excited. We ended up staying way too late so we got home way late on Saturday. (or was it Sunday then? I forget.....) Anyway, here are some pictures from my weekend.

This is Beta holding her nose because the cows were "stinky".
Here they are on the dumbo ride. It's good to have a big sister to pull the bar for you. :)

Snow cones in October?

This picture is horrible. I'm "doing the weather" at KARK's booth. I thought it was a really neat idea! They set up a green screen and let you do the weather like the regular weather people do. The kids were way funnier than me. And I wish that was only the camera adding that extra 10 pounds.
Alpha got to milk a fake cow again. She did it last year and really enjoyed it.

The Farris Wheel. One of the last things we did. Alpha and Beta got to sit with Grandmother while Jim and I sat on the other side. The girls liked it at first, but then, we couldn't get off! The operators kept missing us. Alpha got mad because she was ready to move on to other things....Beta stayed pretty happy though. Neither of them stayed in their seats, which made me almost hysterically nutty. I think I managed to control my self fairly well, in the end. :)

Cha-Cha-Cha!

The other day, our book order from Alpha's class came in. Beta had gotten a diary with a puppy on it that includes 2 keys and a fuzzy pen. She loves it! She writes her deepest, darkest secrets in it......like D, R, L, O, and B.

Tonight at bedtime, she mentioned that when she told her gymnastics teacher today about her new diary, her teacher thought she was talking about poo poo. I asked her why and then, it hit me.

"Did your teacher think you said diarrhea?"

She laughed. I laughed! Heartily!

I guess she told her teacher, "I got a diary" and it sounded like "I got diarrhea."

I have honestly NEVER thought those two words were even closely related.

Maybe I should go explain.

Maybe not.

Lunchtime conversations

So it's Sunday lunch. We've all gathered 'round the table to eat a hearty lunch consisting of popcorn shrimp, mashed potatoes, and green beans.

Beta says, "Mommy, are these shrimp dead?"

Ummmmm......

Daddy replies, "They're cooked."

"But do they know we're eating them?"

No.

Then Alpha, holding the ketchup, says, "We buy this he-knees ketchup all the time!"

That's "Heinz", sweetie.

Never a dull moment.

I've been tagged!

Ok, Kim. I'll try this. I don't usually do these things either. (I hate email forwards as well.) But this seems interesting so I'll try.

7 Random and/or Weird Things About Me

1. I used to organize my clothes in my closet in rainbow-color order (red, orange, yellow....etc). Now I organize them by function, and THEN by color. (long sleeve, short sleeve, dressy, etc.)

2. I played volleyball as a team sport in 7th grade.

3. I like cherry and grape candy, but I do not care for real cherries or grapes. I like apples, bananas, and watermelons, but I do not care for apple, banana, or watermelon-flavored candy.

4. I learned to overcome my fear of bees, wasps, spiders, and snakes after I had kids. Mostly, anyway.

5. I play World of Warcraft.

6. I like to play classical music when I play the piano, but I do not like to listen to classical music. It bores me.

7. When I was 2, I was afraid that I would go down the bathtub drain when the water was let out. I would scream bloody murder if I was still in the bathtub when the drain plug was pulled.

Now, here are my 5 tags! (I don't know 7 people with blogs!) Let's see if Robin, Holly, Jennifer, Amy, and Anna W. will participate.

P.S. I tried to post the image with the rules on it, but it's not showing up. I've got the code in my post, but it's not working. And my computer expert husband can't figure it out!!!!! Go read Kim's blog to see the rules.

Something funny!

Ok. After my mini rant, I'm sure you all want something a lot less serious. So here goes.

Last night we were in Target looking at Halloween stuff. We were in the aisle with the candy bowls that have hands that grab yours when you reach in. This other family was a few feet away. There was a mom with her 3-ish daughter in the basket and her 6-ish son. The little girl looked at the candy dishes and then said to her mother, "Mommy! This is the kind of stuff that'll scare the crap outta me!"