The Longest Week Ever

...still isn't over!
It's been a fun week, but wooo....I. Am. Exhausted. And we still have Trick-or-Treating and David has the big Ellison Homecoming Dance tomorrow night. So excited about that extra hour of sleep tomorrow night. I hope my kids get that message, too.

Benjamin's therapy sessions have been moved around a bit lately to where we had therapy every day this week except Thursday. For some reason, that made things even wilder....we certainly burned up the road between here and Belton and Temple a whole lot!

Wednesday evening, our church hosted its annual FUNival... 

Buzz & Woody were ready for action.

These are our friends Bethany (the monkey) and her little sister, Landry (the banana)...Landry and Jonathan thought each other were pretty funny.

Our friend, Bat Girl....aka, Kylee!

Benjamin at the cookie-decorating station.

Benjamin in action at the ring toss.

This is our friend, Adam Stewart. 

Jonathan spotted him from afar, pointed and yelled..."It's Jesus!"

Indeed....King of all Kings.

I have to add that the Stewarts always have the best family dress-ups for Halloween. They all got in on the BK act, too! A couple of years ago, when there were just four of them, they came decked out as the Wizard of Oz foursome.

Benjamin (although his expression doesn't quite depict it) thought it was so cool that Emily came as June from Little Einsteins.

Emily's little brother, Ty, was Leo... Jonathan and Ty are a hilarious combination. 

They are a mess! Love these buddies.

Mmmm...orange frosting. 

Not great later since this costume was hand-wash only!

Jonathan toured the fire truck.

The boys were so excited all day (even more-so than they were about FUNival), that our friends Sara & Danielle got to ride home with us since their mom had class late and dad is deployed right now. This was such a treat for the boys! 

I tried my hand at treat toppers this year for the boys' classes. 

Thursday, the boys wore their costumes to school. 

Here is Ms. Mary with Benjamin. 

I love how sweet Cole is grinning in the background (he was one of my Busy Bees last year).

This week was actually H² for El Rancho Dominguez....

Homecoming & Halloween.

Here are the boys showing off their arm mums 

Friday night of Ellison's big homecoming game.

They thought they were pretty fun!

Before we met Daddy at the game, we stopped by our church's Halloween party for our class. Becky decorated and set everything up so cute! All of the goulish-goodies were so fun....I took photos of all of the goodies and hopefully will post them soon. 

We headed over to the game to watch Ellison win 21-0! This was the first game that the boys and I stayed the whole game! In the last minute or so of the game, we headed down to the field to take pics with Eddie the Eagle. Then after the game ended, the boys were able to run and play on the field! A fun way to end our last home game of the year!

And now, I am off to bed. SO TIRED!

Feeling the need to get into the holiday spirit? Hop on over to my business site for all the festive fun:

Top Three Things I Heard Out of Benjamin....

....after we were told our pediatrician ran out of H1N1 vaccine. (Apparently making an appointment for a vaccine in advance guarantees, um, nothing.)

1. B: Are you kidding me? Is the doctor kidding? Don't they know I need that?

2. B: I really, really wanted that shot. 

    Mom: Remember it wasn't a shot, it was the nose mist. 

    B: So the nose mist is all gone? Does this mean I get to have a shot instead? 

3. Now I am going to get sick and have to stay home every day.....wait, does this mean I get to stay home from preschool?

No matter how you feel about the H1N1 vaccine (I know many of my friends are opposed to it), I actually was going to get the mist for the boys. In fact, our doctor said she was having all three of her girls vaccinated with it. After talking to her about it and what the buzz was all about with it being "scary" and such, she convinced me it was a good thing. 

After the vaccine finally arrived at our clinic last week, I called right away to get on the list. The gal put me on hold to do her "count" and there was "plenty of vaccines for us to get on the list". This morning they called to say they ran out since a lot of kids in for check-ups got most of the mists. This *slightly* frustrated me that they didn't take those kids into the count last week when I called. Really, what's the point of having a list if you're only putting a fraction of the receivers on it?

What is more frustrating is the prep I go through with Benjamin to make sure he doesn't have any major anxiety issues with a new thing. So, we went round and round about what a vaccine is, how it protects you, etc.. He was finally excited about it and ready to get it. Poor kid was more disappointed than I was.

Guess we'll be riding it out. Lots of hand washing and "coughing into our elbows" around here.

A Quick Get Away

We finally had the chance to escape for a couple of days. David had two days leftover from last year's non-duty days that were to expire by the end of the month. Nothing like waiting until the last minute to use them, right? We headed out Saturday morning and traveled down to San Antonio for a couple of days.

As soon as we pulled in, we headed down to the River Walk. 

We walked around and saw the sights.

Then headed to the kid-friendliest restaurant we could think of down there...Rainforest Cafe.

It had been a while since we had been to a Rainforest Cafe. The boys enjoyed the animals and thunderstorms and their flashing light cups.

After the River Walk, we headed back to the hotel for the biggest attraction ever....the hotel pool. We probably could have saved a bundle by hiding out at the hotel and just swimming the entire time (but who drives all the way to SA for that?). That's about all they wanted to do once they realized the hotel had an indoor pool. But we had other plans....

We had thought about Sea World, but Benjamin was a little more excited about the zoo. So we headed to the SA Zoo (this was the zoo I grew up going to as a kid...it's changed a bit!) The weather was awesome and it wasn't too terribly crowded.

Benjamin loved the lilypad walk in the children's area.

Jonathan loved the elephants.

A nice stroll down the main walkway. My guys...

Sunday night, we headed down to The Market area to one of my family's favorite restaurants ever. We have converted David into a big fan also. Mi Tierra is a place my parents used to go to when they were very young (my family is actually from San Antonio, I am the only native Austinite from my immediate family). They now prefer Mi Tierra's sister restaurant, Pico di Gallo, since it isn't as tourist-y. But, hey, we were tourists for this trip. So....Mi Tierra it was! And it did not disappoint.

David got us a mariachi song from these guys who were kind enough to let Benjamin join in. Despite the look of this photo....he did enjoy their rendition of La Bamba.

Hanging out in the market square.

Give him a tortilla and he's good to go.

After a fun evening downtown, we went back to the hotel for more swimming. And we had the pool all to ourselves that night! We even convinced the boys that the hot tub was just a miniature pool so we could hang out in there, too!

We headed home Monday afternoon. Our bell boys were a little sloppy, but we tipped them well anyway. . .

Adios, San Antonio!

{We're} with the Band

Even though we didn't pull a win, we still had a great time at tonight's Ellison game. The band treats us so good! We love sitting with them. The boys pay way more attention to the band than the actual game (sorry, Coach McBryde....nothing personal, it's a little kid thing).

The Band Backers (their booster club) provided the boys with sticks, t-shirts and even a turn "practicing" on the big drums.  Thanks, friends! See you next week when we CREAM BELTON!

Pumpkin Palooza

David was invited awhile back to a speaking engagement this morning. He cooked up a plan (in conjunction with my mom) to have the boys spend the night at my parents' house so I could have a little time to catch up on "work" (it's too fun to not be in quotations) as well as, well....sleep (been lacking on that end lately with the wonderful abundance of "work"). At the last minute, the dates for the engagement were changed, but the boys still had their hearts set on a night at the grandparents'. So, we had some time to ourselves-- YAY!

This morning we drove to Marble Falls to pick them up and decided to spend the afternoon at one AmAzInG pumpkin patch (more like a pumpkin world).....Sweetberry Farms, right there in Marble Falls.

I think most of central Texas had the same idea as we did...it was packed! But, still so FUN! Literally hundreds of pumpkin lovers joined us today. The weather was great-- a perfectly fallish 60 degrees and the rain from yesterday was long gone (although it left it too muddy for the corn mazes, boo). I just feel foolish for never having enjoyed this place before. It is the epitome of autumn. (Aunt Arly, this place had your name written all over it, Miss Pumpkin Pie).

 

I went a bit camera crazy....but didn't even get to all of the cool photo-ops that were set up around the farm. We'll be back next year for sure.

I basically made them take this photo so I could eventually duplicate, copy and paint cute pumpkin cutouts like these for my yard (on a smaller scale). We'll see if I ever actually get around to that one. But, seriously, aren't these adorable?

I just took this one to get a (small) overview of the scene...pumpkin painting, face painting, hayrides, flower picking (gorgeous flower picking for $1 per cup full), scarecrow stuffing and more! They even had the Pumpkin Grill with homemade pumpkin ice cream and grilled corn. It smelled great, but we went to Subway since we are I am trying to stick sticking to my points.

Loved this old truck...running on pumpkins.

Why, oh why won't they look at the camera at the same time?

Looking for the perfect pumpkin.

Miles and miles of orange.

Jonathan the scarecrow

Playing in a horse trailer full of pumpkins

This was their favorite thing...the random horse trailer.

Working on their masterpieces.

Benjamin the scarecrow-- he was so proud that his hands could reach the holes!

Benjamin's perfect pumpkin face.

Lots of paint! It still isn't dry.

Can't wait to return to the farms in the summer for their strawberry-picking season!