Collateral Damage

I was raised poor, and at no point in my adult life have I hidden that fact.  While I assure you that it was the first thing that I would hide when I was a child...I am quite proud that we had nothing growing up and that I have built this life.  There is still some damage from being poor, like the fact that I can't buy generic items at the grocery store.  But by far the most "damage" that I deal with is being raised Jehovah's Witnesses.  Sometime I don't even realize the things that I still carry with me, like when Adam asked me if we were taking the kids trick or treating this year and before I could stop myself I blurted out "Ummm no, we don't need to go house to house begging for candy just to have it tested at some independent lab for safety."  Oooopps.  At this point Adam is looking at me much the way that Joe looks at me for the Santa debate.  But it's hard for me to encourage things that I have never experienced.  Luckily I don't think Joe wants any part of trick or treating either so we have compromised by allowing Austin to dress up and help hand out candy.  :-)   Cheers...here's to my long therapy list!

We hosted a pumpkin carving party on Sunday but I spent the time making shrimp Po' Boys and barbacoa beef for lunch for everyone so I didn't have the chance to carve, but I managed to sit down and knock a princess one out two nights ago.  Although it looks horrible now so I am hoping to have time today to carve out a couple more for the front porch for the trick or treaters.



 Last Christmas Laura sent us these amazing aprons and Austin loves to just wear hers around the house.  So of course because everything has to be "even Steven's" (as we call it), Tyler wants to wear an apron too.  So I managed to fold mine up into this configuration so she can wear it around.  It obviously makes her very happy. :-)



My Little Monsters!

When asked for the last month what Austin wanted to be for Halloween she always stated a monster.  Anyone that knows this little girl of mine knows that she was not referring to a scary monster but rather a giant fluffy fun monster (because she hates scary things).  It was quite a task to find a monster that would work especially since the movie Monsters Inc. is pretty old (which would have made perfect monsters).

Austin was busy "Rawring" the camera!

 

Tyler was not too keen on her hat piece of the costume, so there were some tears involved.

A Whole Bunch of Pictures!

We played hooky from work again and hit the lake during the week on Friday.  Look at that little DiFabio face.

 

And then of course the classic Crystal face.

Joe and Tyler were feeding the ducks some leftover bread from lunch.  Currently they are sitting in arguably the best seat in the boat it's the front starboard side and when you take off it feels as though you are flying.  This is the seat that Tyler and I normally sit in while Austin sits in the seat next to Joe and Co-Captains the boat.  Joe pointed out that he had never sat in that seat before (and it dawned on me that since he drives all the time why would he have).  So I took over the wheel for sometime and let him and the girls fly.  While I can assure you that I am naturally a nervous person so my stomach does back flips while I am commanding the ship, I am getting better at it. 

 

We had a birthday party for one of Joe's friends kids at the Little Gym, the girls had an absolute blast.  Here's Daddy and his girls.

 

I just love the determination on her face here.

 

Little goofball trying to get on the balance beam.

For the first time since Joe and I have been together we went on a hike with Jeremy and Adam and Jeremy's son.  The first part of the hike had me cussing pretty good under my breath especially since Joe and I each carried one of the girls in a backpack but sure is pretty up at the top.  The kids are attempting to pick out just the M&M's from the trail mix. 

 

Here's the view from the valley at the end, this area is called "The Garden of Eden".  And we were enjoying a true Blue Bird day in Colorado.

Wish you were here....

The general status-quo for the boat is Tyler spends the whole time making this odd sound that is reminiscent of a cry-scream to let us know that she is uncomfortable with the current speed and wind.  And Austin laughs and hollers like the boat ride should be illegal.  At one point Joe powered out of a cove and we took off across glass like water only to have Tyler whimper and Austin shout "Go Captain, Go!".  It made me laugh pretty hard.

I took these pictures at lake and while it may have taken approximately 200 to get these few I thought they were good enough to post.

Birthday Present

Joe guessed amazingly well for my birthday and got me a completely bad ass camera. I have always had to borrow a friend and their camera to take pictures for Christmas and such so I am extremely excited to learn how to use my very own Nikon. Here are some shots while I was playing around in the yard with the girls.

The girls hanging out on the grass.  Austin with her unruly hair...as always.

 

 

We have this really great bush in the backyard that I planted this year that has these gorgeous yellow flowers on it most of the year.

 

 

This picture is just a general shout out to my grass...look at that, no brown or dead spots left. :-)

 

 

Ol' Mickey Blue Eyes.