I guess cuz the blackmail worthy pictures are out there already...

... I might as well post about it.  I'm not going to deny it, I looked absolutely ridiculous in front of a large group of my peers in a very classy locale.  Here's the story behind the pictures.

Back a while ago, amidst the hustle and bustle of the Halloween season, a friend of mine

turned the big 3-0.  Together we decided to celebrate with a little beauty pageant and so the first-ever "30, Flirty, and Fabulous Pageant" came to life.

Each contestant/attendee represented a "title" in our beauty and poise competition.  As a full-grown adult who is only familiar with toddler pageants, I represented the title Miss Understanding.   

(This was my attempt at making a plus-sized adult cupcake dress.  I had to harness my inner bedazzler.  To complete the look I wore fake hair and fake lashes and perfect the crazy smile stare.  Before I left the house Miss A told me I looked "bootiful").  

Each lady was asked to model their beauty gown (homemade, found at the thrift store or from the far reaches of their closet) while their "bio" was read.  Then we each demonstrated our poise and whit by answering a question of my choice.  Everyone looked FABULOUS! and it was so fun watching everyone take on their titles. 

  

After dinner, the evening continued with a short talent competition

 

(I chose to do a classic western wear and ended my routine embarrassing myself with an attempted heal stretch).

and of coarse crowing, including the super-duper uber grand supreme title. 

 And of course, a birthday celebration is not complete without a little cake. 

So if he wasn't a _________ what was he?

I just realized that I never finished posting about our Halloween season (and yes it is an entire season around our house).  I previously mentioned that although he wore a pirate and firefighter costumes to various events, E would want me to mention that was NOT what he was actually was for Halloween this year.  E was actually a GHOST!

  I guess where I should pick back up with our Halloween story is the Saturday before Halloween. I managed to finish up his costume, experiment with a cupcake idea "borrowed" from the great Loralee Lewis

 

and take a little visit to a pumpkin patch (where we rode ponies, 

feed animals, took pictures

 , 

played games

 

and of course picked pumpkins

 ) 

all before heading over to the church chili cook-off, dance

 

and trunk-or-treat.

 .

I apologize for my horrible run-on sentence.  I'm trying to get through this whole wrap up before it's time for me to prep the dinner table for Thanksgiving dinner.  

After our adventurous, and really busy Saturday, we wrapped up one of E's favorite times of the year at the Storybook Forest.  It was a little bit of a sell to convince E that although he's never been traditional trick-or-treating, it would be worth missing out another year to visit the storybook forest.  E--"a real forest?" "is it spooky?", "is it Haunted?", "Are there ghosts living there?".  Luckily he and his sister were so excited once we arrived that he didn't even care that it wasn't really spooky or haunted.  They were so memorized seeing all the storybook stories come to life that they had to be reminded to collect the candy along the walk.  

   

We finished the night up eating candy, playing games, taking a hay ride, siting by the fire making s'mores, 

 

running into some friends, and then winding down with a little story time.  And I guess that wraps up our Halloween season.

   

Thanks to my little ghost and princess for making it so memorable. 

 

A little random catch up

Like I said in a previous post, I finally cleared out the card on the camera and did a little organizing of photos on the computer. Here are some pics that I came across that I missed posting in the past.

On labor day we took a little trip to the local amusement park. Miss A cracked me up when she'd get excited on a ride and exclaim "I'm a big girl!"I guess I never posted a picture of my completed Mary Poppins cake. I kept meaning to take a better picture, but it will probably never happen so this one will have to do. And speaking of cakes made for the Tulsa Fair, I forgot I had captured E in his cake baking and decorating element. And I also caught him red-handed, um I mean black mouthed after he polished off some of my cake supplies. While I'm posting pictures of cake disasters, here's a recent one. The cake started off like thisAll that needed to be added was the 3 in the "13" and the feather toppers. That is until I got a call that the bottom tier had completely collapsed and the middle one was looking a little sad. So after I finished this cake I got the fortune of remaking the bottom two tiers of the pink zebra-striped mess. The incident almost made me retire, but for now, I've just resolved that I will be personally delivering cakes from now on. And lastly, I can't believe I never posted these pics. I don't think anyone has ever made drinking root beer so fun.

Fall Break 2011

Seeing as this is our first year being on a public school schedule, we've had our first taste of Fall Break. The district gave the kids 2 weeks off. What did I do?-- sent E to Mother's Day Out with Miss A. It's not as bad as it sounds though since he'd been wanting to spend some time with his best bud Dax who was there too.
E did end up with a real break when we all went down for a little weekend getaway. Our first stop was at Great Wolf Lodge were we swam our little hearts out. The kids loved going down the slides but more than anything they spent HOURS in the wave pool on their "boats" living out a variety of pirate, attack, cast-away, sea monster type scenarios. What's funny is that the wave pool was E's favorite thing when we went before he was even 2.

After a good splash we warmed up and the kids got dressed up to do a little trick-or-treating through the hotel. E would want me to mention that he was already a pirate last year so he wasn't going to be a pirate this year, but he agreed to wear it because Mommy barely finished Miss A's costume and didn't have a chance to make his before we left town.We swam again the next day and then headed to the Legoland Adventure. Once again E was in heaven. There were more Legos there to play with than you can imagine. We helped make some blocks, were in awe by the DFW metroplex made entirely of Legos (and being invaded by skeleton zombies in honor of Halloween), had fun riding the rides, and enjoyed the 4D movies. But by far the best part of our visit was watching our kids Karaoke.
Our trip continued with a little visit with some friends. The brilliant Kelly arranged for us to go to the lake and roast hotdogs and smores around a campfire. The kids were great sports. They actually did most of the work setting up the campsite and collecting wood. We enjoyed the beautiful weather, fun stories and great company as we communed with nature. The kids were all in heaven.Before we left the big D we met my mom at the Arboretum to see the Cinderella pumpkin village. (by the way, Miss A was obviously influenced by our trip to Dallas and insisted on the purchase of her sparkly pink boots as seen in the picture below).

Miss A let her inner princess come out. She took a ride in her royal pumpkin coach,Then my little princess and her royal guard (he's actually marching back and forth in the pictures to protect the castle) made themselves at home in the Beast's castle. I love seeing my knight in shining armor and our little princessWhen we got back to town, E finished his break with one more week with his sister and his best bud. The week ended with the annual costume parade and carnival. My kids cracked me up in the parade. While most kids just walked around following the kids in front of them, Miss A walked past people and gave them a little princess/parade wave, and E came up with a little routine lifting his hat up and down (and once again I should note, he was not going to be a firefighter for Halloween).