Happy Birthday to Me!

Another year has come and gone...and I'm 32. Mondo planned a great birthday night for me. We had dinner at Gloria's with a great group of friends. From there we went to BJ's and then on to Houlihan's. It was a great evening that was made possible by Nana and Papa letting our little heathens stay the night with them. THANK YOU!!!

Sadly, this is the only picture I have from that evening. I had my camera...but there was no battery in it. This pic was taken with Scott's cell phone. Thanks to everyone who came to help me celebrate getting old!

I was so impressed with Mondo's gifts this year. He even had the kids make me cards! I've always told him I would rather have a homemade card then a store bought one. This one is from Caleb.

I loved Ethan's card and the fact that he wrote everything himself...and I could actually read it! That's a picture of a birthday cake.

Does my husband know me or what?! This is a blender that you can take off after mixing and drink straight out of it! Anyone who knows me knows that I have a small problem with drinking chocolate malts...late at night.

I couldn't wait to use it! Doesn't that look tasty?

I'm salivating right now...seriously. What a great present Mondo! Thank you! He also got me a gift card to Chick-fil-a. I didn't get it at first but then he explained that when I am out running around after dropping Caleb off at school I am always complaining that I am hungry and always want chicken biscuits from Chick-fil-a so he got me a gift card! How thoughtful was that?

Ranger Rally

After the World Series, Arlington hosted a Ranger Rally which I think was like a giant pep rally. I wouldn't really know exactly what it was since I didn't get invited. Caleb and I went to church while the big boys partied...sinners. ;-)

Very serious baseball pose.

Check out those cheerleaders!
It was a good father/son night.

I'm gonna guess those foamy things are "claw" and "antlers". I never really understood that while watching games.

I don't know what this was all about. The boys were in pretend "handlockers" as Ethan calls them (hand cuffs). It's a little sad to see!

Mondo said Ethan loved running in the confetti. He brought home his hat full of red white and blue confetti and said he wanted to keep it. Poor thing is a pack rat just like his mother!

"I refuse to take any more pictures!"

The gang...I guess that's all of them since I wasn't there. I was too busy wrangling Caleb at church!

Turnpike Teen Reunion

These two dudes are the ones who made our church youth group so awesome. Bobby Moore and Paul Dalton. I have nothing but great memories of these two. I recently arranged a youth group reunion and it was a great success! Bobby was already at our church preaching about his newest ministry called Bread for a Hungry World( http://www.breadforahungryworld.org/ ). We had lunch after church, looked at old pictures and scrapbooks, and just reminisced about old times. It was great. I will plan another one so people who couldn't make this one can come.

The old gang all together again!

The girl in purple is Cindy, Paul's wife. The blonde in the black shirt with the white collar is Jennifer, Bobby's wife. These ladies were both also very instrumental in our lives.

Of course, these two are still inseparable. That's Scotty-B.

Jeremy Kaps, Paul, and Jana Peden.

Wendy Ramirez (Willett), Candice Hankins (Brown), Jamie Mills (Peden), and Meredith Olivera (Walker).

We tried to get a group shot of the kiddos. You can imagine how that went!

Bobby, Mondo, and Eric.

It was nice to have Hank and Cindy Smith there with us too since they are now the ones leading our group.

The kids had a great time playing together. Ethan was red faced and sweating the entire time.

Scott, Brandon, Kim, and Izabella checking out some old pics from Camp Yaga.

Maggie (Summer's kiddo) made instant friends with Paul's youngest boy. They were hilarious.

Hank, Jeremy, April, and their baby.

We had a great turnout!

Wendy with her daughter Claudia holding Candice's tiny baby.

What a great group. Brandon High, Bobby, Dave Dosier and his wife, and Paul.

I snuck up on the girls with food in their mouth. Sarah Argo, Jennifer, and Kim High.

Our current gang...I think you know these people.

Brandon led a nice prayer before lunch.

The group of momma's with their kids. Kinda weird to think how much we've all grown up!

Just the momma's.

Happy Halloween!

...and a happy Halloween it was! It was nice to not worry about working this Halloween since it fell on a Sunday. We went to our church's carnival which was a lot of fun. I think I only took two pictures there. All Ethan wanted to do was the bounce houses and the cake walk. Caleb just wanted to eat a hot dog and get balloon animals. After that we ran to our house for trick-or-treating. We had a large group of families from our church join us. We made it around the block then back to our house to pass out candy. Ethan always loves to do that and this year Caleb joined in too. Unfortunantly it was a school night so we didn't pass out candy very long before bedtime snuck up on us.

This was the best pic I could get of the two of them. Ethan is Iron Man and Caleb is Captain America.

Ethan kept this perfectly laid out all day just in case he needed to jump into it fast!

The hat was my favorite part of the costume. Of course he wouldn't wear it out of the house.

The Iron Man pose.

Sweet little Captain America.

Being Iron Man is very serious business!

Trick-or-treating at Mr. Lynn's house (our across the street neighbor).

Poor little critters. I realized after they got back from trick-or-treating that they hadn't had dinner! They had a picnic on the dining room floor while waiting to pass out candy.

Waiting on the front porch to pass out candy...or eat some candy.

Caleb eating his hot dog at the carnival.

Ethan doing the cake walk. He won twice!