Happy Halloween!

We had a great Halloween Day! After the gym this morning, we had a wonderful lunch at On the Border, and then took the kids to the Halloween Family Expo. They got to see Ronald McDonald, trick or treat, jump on a huge bounce house, and just have a great time! Then we headed home for some rest time before trick or treating. The kids got up and carved pumpkins with Allen, and then I gave them baths while he ran to Sonic to get them corn dogs (their first time tasting one). After corndogs, the kids put on their costumes and we hit the streets. Trick or treating in our neighborhood was amazing--there were so many kids running around, and the houses were all decorated super scarily! Check out the pictures of one house in the slide show--crazy scary (which means Braedyn LOVED it)! After chowing down our black Taco Bell tacos (piled the kids in the car), we headed home, and the kids are OUT! Now time to watch the DVRed Hog game!!

Check out the slide show:

Halloween Fun at School

Today was Brookelyn's Halloween party at school! She got to wear her Ariel costume to school, and the mommies got to come sit in on their chapel time and watch their costume parade. It was SO much fun! Here is Ariel on her way to chapel:
And, here is Ariel sitting in chapel:

And, here is Ariel walking in the parade:

Later this afternoon, all the mommies came back up to school, and we had the Halloween Party! It was so much fun! Here is Brookelyn and her best friend, Riley, working on their craft:

And, here is Brookelyn showing off her eye ball cupcake that she made:

These were the examples I made--don't they look cute? The kids loved them!

And, here is the peanut gallery--Braedyn and Riley's little sister, Morgan. They were all eyes during the party! These are the little treats I made for Brookelyn's teachers. They are supposed to look like owls:

When we got home Brookelyn went through her goodie bag and found these scary teeth:

And, Braedyn got to enjoy an eye ball cupcake of his own:

It was a great afternoon!

Haunted Halloween House

With Braedyn at school, Brookelyn and I had some "girl time!" Yesterday Honey sent her a Haunted Halloween House Kit, and I had to plead and beg with her to wait until Braedyn was at school this morning to put it together--I knew that icing and tedious tasks would not mix with Mr. Braedyn and his current destruction phase! So after we dropped him off we got everything ready: Brookelyn couldn't wait to open the icing packages!

And she was very patient to carefully spread the purple sprinkles. Actually, we put on thick black icing before the sprinkles, and I let her use a knife to even out the icing. She told me, "Mommy, icing is like my hiney cheeks." I was like okay...and didn't want to ask. Never fear, she explained. "Mommy, I have to spread my hiney cheeks to poop, and spread the icing for the sprinkles." Pretty advanced analogy if you ask me! :) Although not one I would want her to share at school!

Here is more of that black icing. I felt sick after we were done from licking it off my fingers. That stuff is like straight corn syrup and cane sugar! You can see the candy corn walkway she made all by herself!

She decided all the leftover sprinkles should be dumped in the middle of the house, which was fine with me as long as they didn't end up on my freshly scrubbed (by hand) tile floor.

And, here is the final result! I think she did an AMAZING job! Luckily, we are off to gymnastics now to burn off all that sugar high!!

Chicago Marathon!

So Allen and I actually did it! Nine months ago we couldn't even run one mile, and on October 11th in 30 degree weather we ran 26.2, and more importantly, we did it all together. It truly was amazing to run with 45,000 people and to see 1.2 million people cheering us on through the whole course. Allen and I crossed the finish line together and clocked a 5 hour marathon...only 15 minutes off our pace of 4 hours and 45 minutes. Truth be told it was my fault we didn't make our goal time. I ran all 21.5 miles of the race, and then my knee just gave out. It would no longer bend. So with Allen cheering me on, I galloped, ran with one leg straight, speed walked, anything I could the last five miles. And the last .2 miles we both ran together and crossed the finish line stride for stride. I think this is one of the most difficult tasks either one of us have ever tried to achieve, and it feels good to be successful. In fact, we are now planning on running a half marathon in March and the LA Marathon in 2011. While the marathon was the highlight of our trip to Chicago, it was also our first real vacation away since our second wedding anniversary (we have now been married for six years)and our first trip away from the kids. It was great to be able to eat with both hands, use the restroom in private, take a nap, and sleep as late as we wanted to. Here are some pictures from our trip:

This is us at the runner's expo picking up all of our participant gear. Little did we know how true this sign would be!


The first night there we ate AMAZING veggie pizza at Gino's East. Definitely recommend it!


Saturday morning we ate McDonald's for breakfast. We wished for the kids because it had an escalator inside--Brookelyn would have LOVED it!


Saturday we watched the Razorbacks demolish Auburn at the ESPN zone--Allen and I demolished those cheese fries! Hey, we were carb loading!


And, here are our medals! I have to order pictures from race day because we couldn't bring our cameras. I will post them once I receive them.

Honey's Marathon

Honey came to watch the kids while Allen and I went to Chicago to run the marathon (a post to come soon). They had such a great time with her! Here are the kids splashing in a puddle:

And here is Braedyn loving all the scary Halloween stuff:

And this is my favorite video--the kids tap dancing in their skeleton pjs! Sashi made Braedyn his very own pair of tap shoes by attaching taps to the bottom of a pair of tennis shoes! He LOVES them!

And, here is a slide show of more fun they had:

Brookelyn's MRI Today

We headed to the hospital about 8:30 this morning so we could arrive by 9:00. While I checked her in, she sat at a little table and played with her new felt storybook (thanks Honey).

After we were all checked in, a nice nurse led us back the the radiology section and got Brookelyn settled in her room. She asked me a million questions and then got Brookelyn dressed in her "doctor's costume." She looked so cute, and wanted to know if she could keep them! In this picture she is also holding her special mask. It was pink and smelled like strawberries. She loved smelling it and was very excited about being able to smell the "strawberry air" once she started getting her pictures taken (I told her the MRI scan would take her picture).

She also wanted a set of gloves, so she could be a "real doctor."

The doctors were running a little behind, so instead of starting the scan at 10:00, it was more like 10:45. I carried her into the MRI room where she got to choose what scene she wanted to look at from about 10 pictures on a little screen. She chose an airplane scene, and the whole room immediately changed into a cartoon of outside with planes, clouds, the moon, etc all floating by. She loved it. I sat her on the little MRI table and she held the mask (attached to the "strawberry air") to her face all by herself. We watched the scene, talking about everything we saw and the doctors and nurses kept commenting on how calm and collected Brookelyn was. After about 4 minutes, she wanted to lay down and then closed her eyes. I gave her a kiss and waited in the waiting room. After about an hour they came and got me. This is what I saw when I went in her room:

She was calm, not crying for me, just sipping on a juice box like everything was so normal. Her IV had already been removed before she woke up, and she wasn't concerned about the little band aids. I got her dressed and we were back in the car within about 35 minutes. The nurse warned me that she would be unsteady on her feet and would probably sleep for 4-6 hours once we got home. So, I made her sit on the blue chair and eat her lunch--I was worried she might get dizzy and fall off her little chair at her normal table. Here she is eating her mac 'n cheese!

Needless to say, there was no 4-6 hour nap--there was NO nap! In fact we were off to Target to get supplies for her Fall Party at school about an hour and a half after we originally got home. She is doing just great! Hopefully we will hear the results of her scan tomorrow!