THE 50TH DAY OF SCHOOL

Can you believe that the kids have been in school for fifty days already. Didn't think I would make it past day one without Lauren, but I've made it fifty!! My how well I have done! The kindergarten classes celebrated with a fifties day sock hop. All the kids were encouraged to dress up in fifties attire. My mother in law made Erin a poodle skirt a few years ago for school so we pulled it out and pinned it up on Lauren. There was only one slight problem...I would be at work that morning which left Terry in charge of dressing Lauren. I just want to say he did an excellent job! Way to go Terry! He even took pictures for me so I could blog! You are such a great girldad!

TURKEY BEDAZZLE

Well its officially confirmed, by the time you get to the third one anything goes! I am usually very OCD about the girls school projects, or should I say "my school projects that I do for the girls." I usually tell them every little tiny detail that needs to be done and where each little thing needs to be placed...or place it for them. I have always heard the saying that by the time you get to your last child you are tired! Well I must be very tired. Lauren had her first school project this week. It was actually due this past Monday, however, I am still working on my organization and I placed the assignment in the general mail stack. I found it Sunday night about 11:30pm. Needless to say our project was a little late! We started working on it Monday evening and here is what we came up with. The feathers were going well, so were the tiny balls used around his mouth...here is where the funny part came in notice the pastel colored pom pom balls in the right corner. Those were going to be the turkey's necklace. However, I had to impose. It took some convincing but I won and we just added them at the bottom of the page. As bad as I hated to let it go I had to leave the bedazzled turkey feet. Some battles you just cant win. If you look closely you will see the turkey has gold jeweled feet and a few pink jeweled "bedazzled" toenails! I guess this is better than the green jewels she wanted to place all over his body...I won that one we settled on a popcorn body! I placed the glue and I let her do it all by herself. I was proud of myself for letting go!

THE TOOTH FAIRY VISITS AGAIN...SO SOON!

Usually when one tooth comes out another shortly follows. Lauren's other tooth has been hanging around, literally. Erin accidentally hit her in the mouth the other night in bed. It has been hanging on ever since. I really thought it would fall out during the night and she would swallow it and be totally devastated....but it didn't. She finally pulled it herself last night. The tooth fairy was prepared to visit earlier in the week but Saturday night caught her off guard. She left a five once again and there was one happy little girl this morning.

A TALE OF TWO PRINCESSES...

The girls were sooo excited to dress up for Halloween. Erin was a fairy and Lauren was sleeping beauty. One of my favorite things to do is take pictures of my children (in case you haven't noticed.) I love capturing memories. I dont really like traditional pictures. I like candid shots. I saved up and purchased this awesome camera that is way beyond me! I probably have no business with it but I wanted it! Isn't that the way it always goes....my friend Jenni has been my inspiration. She has the same camera....of course she had it first and I had to have it as well. She takes absolutely beautiful pictures and I can only follow in her footsteps and hope to do half as well as she does. Halloween was a perfect opportunity to get some shots in. As you can tell Lauren doesnt care to take pictures and prefers I leave her alone. She did let me have a few and told me "I am done, you can take all you want of tootie." Erin, aka tootie, is very, very photogenic she loves to take pictures and would pose all day long! Thank goodness for one. Kalei follows Lauren's beliefs, or should I say Lauren follows Kalei because those two are exactly the same...twins 8 years apart! Anyway here are some of my practice shots...and then a few of Lauren...followed by the sleepy little princess after a long night of candy grabbing...A TRUE SLEEPING BEAUTY!

MISSION ORGANIZATION

A replay of our Sunday....church, lunch at Olive Garden, football, football, football, yardwork, a little shopping, LAUNDRY...LAUNDRY....LAUNDRY....This is pretty much redundant of every Sunday, except if it is a Sunday that I work and its work, work, work, LAUNDRY, LAUNDRY, LAUNDRY. Oh, I forgot Desperate Housewives. It is one of the few shows I am faithful to. In fact, it is the only show I am faithful to. Anyway the point of my story is...HELP! Does anyone have any organization tips? Is there a book? a website? and inspirational calendar? I will try anything at this point. I am trying to get it together. I feel that I am constantly picking up the same things and just shoving them in a different spot! I am slowly but surely conquering clutter but it is a huge task! My friend Kay that I work with is totally my hero! Kay has it together! I wanna be just like her. She is totally organized in every aspect! I always like to be around her and "pick her brain" for ideas. My major problem is mail, children's school papers, and laundry. I cannot get excited about laundry and I just don't understand why? I put it off and put it off. Then I do it but I don't want to put it up. I put all the mail by the phone in the kitchen along with the kids cute school papers and papers they bring home that I need to remember dates and when it falls over I know its time to go through it! Speaking of...has anyone ever seen the inside of my purse??? OMG! If you have seen my purse you know this is serious and I need all the help I can get!

HAPPY FALL YALL!

This week is Red Ribbon week at school. Each day has different theme for the kids to dress up and participate in. Its a cute way to celebrate and teach the kids to say no to drugs. It was a really fun week. The high school participated as well. Yesterday was twin day at the high school. Kalei and Stephanie were thing 1 and thing 2 from the Dr Seuss story. I thought K had a very original idea. Today Kalei was a princess, of course, "princess Kalei girl." Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of K because she gets up waaay to early for me and my camera, not to mention the fact that she thinks I am totally emabarrassing(...mission accomplished!)

Today was "Don't fall into drugs" day. The kids were encouraged to dress up in fall colors or scarecrows. Lauren wasn't so keen on the idea of dots on her face. The fact that Erin had them as well didn't impress her either. So I had to use the "Lauren you are 5 and not the boss!" line early this morning. Here are my two little scarecrows!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN...TGIF...AND SO ON.....

Happy Halloween everybody! It's every child's favorite day, besides Christmas..candy, candy, candy! I guess it is every dentist's dream as well! I personally think Halloween and Christmas should be spread apart more. The two days every child looks forward to come so close together and they have to wait another year for a little joy, but who cares about my opinion! :0) Another problem with Halloween in the south, isn't it ironic that we sweat just about year round and the costume your child picks out just happens to be a sleeveless sheath and guess what there is frost on our pumpkins! However, if you pick out that cute little wool lamb suit, or the footed fleece pumpkin suit that is oh so cute, its 90 degrees out with 110% humidity! ~oh well that's what we Southerners get! Along with hurricanes, and snowless winters...blah blah blah...

On to much cuter things....WHAT A WEEK! I have already put in 45 hours as of last night this week, hence, the TGIF! That was working hours, not counting family hours which totally consisted of pumpkins. We started off the week Sunday evening working on a pumpkin for Erin to take to school for display. They are having a little contest so we will see how cleaver my idea was. My idea was to make a "pumpkin mummy" however I think he turned out to be "osama bin pumpkin" instead. Of course, the kids wouldn't get this but I think it is hilarious! Well Erin was very proud of her pumpkin mummy(aka "osama").

We had dancing on Monday, which turned out to be our Halloween costume trial run. Every year the girls get to dress up the week of Halloween in their costumes and go to dance. It is very cute because they usually get to dance to Halloween tunes and for me I get to see where I need to tweak the costume and what I am missing...so works out perfect for us all!

By Wedensday our poor little pumpkins were still sitting under the graces of the LSU flag proudly displayed outside of our house...(even if they are having a tough time, I always tell Terry a true fan never turns their back, we Texans know this, just look at the Astros and Texans!) Anyway our pumpkins are still just pumkins and no jack o laterns as of Wedensday night. So here we go with our pumpkins in tow...we start digging and you hear "eehew gross pumpkin guts!...and you thought our girls were "girly." We all got our turn digging out pumpkin guts one by one. As we were carving the pumpkins, Buzz our cat decided to join in. We finished up the pumpkins late that night, however maybe the Manuel family should stick to traditional jack o latern faces with triangles because we were supposed to have a cute witch face and frankenstein...but frankenstein kinda looks like "bubba-stein" to me! Have a safe and Happy Halloween!