Sadie's Turns 7 & Halloween

Sadie had a great bday. It's hard to believe she's 7.  Tomorrow night we're taking her to see The Little Mermaid play so she decided to be a jellyfish for Halloween.  I made the costume using a clear umbrella, bubble wrap, ribbons, beads, and glow sticks.  I tried to get a picture of it glowing last night, but it wouldn't work. 

Danny made her a ghost cake and "big as your head" pancakes for her bday breakfast.  Then in the afternoon we took her to Chuckie Cheese (yes...my least favorite place).  It actually wasn't that bad and she had a fun time.

This year, Elise was a Rock-n-Roll star, Sadie a Jellyfish like I said, and Anabelle the game Twister. 

 The girls & Danny came up with the idea of doing something different with the pumpkins this year and made a scary pumpkin snow man.   Can you see the red paint dripping from its mouth?  Definitely, not my idea :0)

Pretty Muddy Run

Today my friend Holly & I did the Pretty Muddy Run.  It was a 5k with some crazy muddy obstacles.  The first one was a giant slide.  I somehow went down way too fast and landed butt first in two feet of mud (I think they got a picture of that).  Fun! 

Then they had 10ft tall fences to climb over, concrete tunnels to crawl through (filled with mud), a giant net to climb under (with 12 inches of mud), a 25 ft tall rope net to climb up and over that scared the heck out of me, a "dirty martini" with 6 feet worth of bubbles, and a commando like crawl zone at the end full of...you guessed it...MUD!  Most people ran around this, but not us.  I think we had 50+ people cheering us on...haha.

Here are the after pictures~

Fun fun!  So now I've done a color run and a mud run.  Maybe a zombie run next year!

39

So I woke up to super presents, delicious pumpkin bagels, and THIS!!!!!!  Somehow Danny carried this awesome kayak into the house without making a sound and left it on the kitchen table for me to see.  WOW!  What an awesome birthday surprise!

 

The girls made me very sweet cards.  Sadie's said, "39.  I no you gust have 1 more year so suk it in."  Haha...at first I thought she meant, suck in my gut, but she explained she meant 'suck it up' because I only have one more year until I'm 40.  Ha ha.  Anabelle made this display for me and left it on the counter all day.  Nope...no cleaning for me yesterday!

And then there was our trip to Twin Lakes to try out the new kayak!  It was such a beautiful day and the kayak was super smooth!

 Here's Danny chillin' with his ladies.

We call her Mango...the kayak that is.

We rented a canoe for Danny and two of the girls and when we were returning it, Danny grabbed these single kayaks sitting around and let the girls go for a ride.  They looked like little ducks in the water :0).  I have to admit, I was a little nervous...well, okay, very nervous, but the girls had a blast.  I probably would have felt better if they didn't insist on playing bumper boats. 

After a delicious meal at Bonefish, we came back home and enjoyed Danny's Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Pie.  Oh my, oh my!  I had to take an hour cycle class today to work off that one little piece, but it was worth it!

What a fabulous birthday! My family made me feel extra special and very loved~

 

Then & Now

                      

 

Welcome Fall!

 This is our 8th fall here in Chesterfield and my oh my how they've grown. I remember hoisting the girls up to take their picture in here.

Here are Elise & our friend Claudia before they entered the haunted house.  Anabelle & Sadie wanted nothing to do with it. Sadie actually insisted on staying 50 feet away at all times.

 Duck races!  These are some serious competitors!

 On top of the hay~

 Anabelle chose a really different looking pumpkin this year. 

 Sadie just couldn't decide, but ended up getting a cute small one without a stem. 

 Elise had a hard time, too, but ended up with one that looked like a giant tomato.

 

Like I said...My oh my how they've grown~

 



'The Contract of Law'

So Anabelle has been involved in producing, directing, and acting in plays at school (on the playground during recess) since the end of last year.  Since September, the title of the play has changed 3x and there's been numerous problems with casting and actors dropping out (kids saying they want to play basketball instead).  As of yesterday, Anabelle decided to get an agent to prevent further problems from occurring.  Here's what she typed up had me print to bring to her agent (who is also the director of the newest play 'Aladdin'). 

 

The contract of law

   Anabelle Skye Dow declares that her agent should give her whatever she wants whenever she wants. For example, Anabelle doesn’t want to do practice, so Anabelle’s agent calmly says okay we will make that happen.

     Anabelle Skye Dow also declares that whoever her agent is they must wear sun glasses and walk in front of her. Her agent only has to dress in all black occasionally.

       Rule number 3, whoever Anabelle’s agent is has to be nice or else the fine of $ 1.

       Anabelle’s 4^th rule is in order to be Anabelle’s agent you must let her be in charge of all the props.

       Anabelle’s final rule is that all the directors get to choose their own parts. No main parts may be chosen.

Anabelle from her previous play 'Cindy Ella' playing the role of Justice Beaver.

Hatteras

Hatteras is one of my favorite places on earth. I just love it there. This year was our 20th year visiting the Outer Banks and Hatteras is by far the best place for us. It was hard to head home after such a wonderful relaxing week together. Here are some pics from our week. I think the highlights were boogie boarding every day, Sadie climbing the lighthouse, seeing lots of stingrays, me reading a great book, exploring Avon pier, watching beautiful sunsets, and avoiding one tropical storm and one hurricane. YAY! 

This is the top of the lighthouse after I played around with the image a bit.  I loved the reflection of the clouds in the glass.

 Ahhh...

Daddy helping the girls catch the best waves.

 Posing for a beach pic

 Awesome spot to watch the sunset in our neighborhood. I found it on one of my morning runs. 

 Burying the kiddos

 One of these might be a Christmas card photo :0)

 Just chillin~

 

Having fun together.  That's what it's all about~