Halloween

I absolutely LOVE Halloween! It is one of my favorite holidays. This year for Halloween Cecelia was a Renaissance princess/zombie princess...at school she was just a Renaissance princess and for actual Halloween she was a zombie princess with full on zombie makeup. Stanley was a pirate this year. My sister Erika had a Halloween party this year. The kids loved it! Pizza, cupcakes, decorations, party favors, getting ready with all her cousins, and lots of pictures! My mom took all the pictures that night so I have to wait to put those up.

Denver

We headed to Denver to visit Kiley for 3 days while she was on fall break from school. I love the picture of the tumble weed stuck to our car! I hit that thing about 2 hours before we got to Denver. I had no idea that it stuck to my car...I did get a few weird looks from other cars. The weather ended up not being as nice as we would have liked:( We did drive up to the Colorado Springs area to go to a dinosaur museum but it was snowing so we couldn't drive up into the mountains like we were hoping. We also took the girls to Casa Bonita one night for dinner. The girls enjoy watching the divers and the skits that the staff do. The girls loved swimming in the indoor pool at the hotel, but we were not happy that the hot tub was out of service. The last day we were in town we took the girls to Hammonds Candy factory. The store gives hourly tours and you are able to see the employees making all of the candy by hand. The girls got huge lollipops as treats. I'm sure it will take weeks to finish them. We decided that next fall when we go out to visit Kiley we are just going to drive through Denver to pick her up and then we are going to stay in Colorado Springs. We are also hoping to make the trip in late September or early October because we would really like to enjoy the mountains a little more than we have been able to on our last few visits. Plus, there is so much to do in Colorado Springs!

Tau Tau

I was recently invited to join Sigma Theta Tau National Honor Society. Our instructors make their recommendations to the organization and we are then contacted and invited to join. It's such an honor to be asked. In order to be eligible you have to have a 3.5 GPA and be in the top 3rd of your class. I'm really excited to be able to put this down on my resume! Yay!!! I'm going to be applying for a job with the VA this month! I can't wait to get a big girl job!

Mini Golf

We have never been mini golfing as a family before. It was so much fun! We picked the perfect day to go mini golfing! The weather was gorgeous and there was an amazing breeze. In the beginning we were keeping score, but after realizing how silly it was to keep score when playing against your child, we gave up and had so much more fun!

Cece finally got into a gymnastics class. She had been on the wait list at Omega for a few weeks and we got a call last week saying that she could start on Monday! To our surprise, Cece's friend Kaylee from school is also in her class. Cecelia was a little worried about making new friends in the class, so it was a relief to see a familiar face. Finding a leotard that fit our little munchkin was a whole other story! In fact, shopping for her this year has been a little more complicated. Her waist is so tiny, so she fits the waist of a 4/5 but she is tall enough to fit into 5/6. Jeans with adjustable waist have been awesome but finding comfy yoga pants or sweat pants that fit her have been more of a challenge. At her well baby/child visit 2 weeks ago, it was brought to our attention that since March, she has grown 4 inches taller and gained 4 pounds! Ironically, she was born at 4 lbs, 4 oz! I just thought that was kind of cool! In addition to her well child checkup Cece just had an appointment last week for her 6 month cleaning again. NO CAVITIES! Thank goodness, cavities are so expensive and painful! Picture day is Friday. I have to work, so Aaron will be on his own for this one. I'm not really worried. He has mastered the straightening iron amazingly well!
My last nursing class is officially over! At this point I will be starting precepting at the end of this month. I need to complete 192 hours of precepting experience which equals out to about fifteen, 12 hour shifts. Sounds easy right? HA! November will be quite busy for me, trying to juggle work, precepting, class one day a week and all of my family responsibilities. Oh well, I have to keep remembering that saying "anyone can do anything for a short amount of time". Plus, graduation day will be right around the corner. December 17th can't come fast enough!
We are planning a 3 day trip to Denver to see Kiley towards the end of the month. Hopefully the weather cooperates. Last October when we went there it snowed about 10 inches. I hate driving on the interstates with the kids in the car when it's snowing like that. We know we will be taking the kids to the nature and science museum one day we are in town. Then we would like to go to the Rockies another day we are there but that will depend on the weather.

Trip to Grandma's barn

Cecelia is holding a very cooperative black chicken and an equally as cooperative (although tortured looking) bunny rabbit. My grandma has her very own petting zoo to go with all the ponies. Coincidentally, the chicken that Cecelia loved to hold and play with this day, is the same chicken who lays the eggs that we eat sometimes (they are so much better than store bought!)

My best friend Jade's baby, Anna. She is so precious! Jade says that she is a handful but every time I have babysat her she has been a perfect Angel! Cecelia loved helping me too. She is going to be such a good big sister. She can't wait to have a baby to play with and neither can I!