July 4th weekend!

Did we let a little rain spoil our fun this 4th of July weekend? No way! We both had Friday off work - for once - so we hopped in the car and drove down to Oliver winery to meet dad and mom and celebrate both dad's b-day (Happy Birthday Dad) and the 4th of July! Oliver was great. The girls explored the gardens, fountains, trails, and fed the koi. Barclay and I tasted some yummy wine, mom and dad sat outside and chilled with a loaf of french bread.



Then we headed to Four Winds on Lake Monroe for the night. After some chaos caused by bad staff at the hotel, we finally got into our room. We spent time at the little beach they had, and by the pool. It was really relaxing. Then that night we had dinner - paid for by the hotel :) Our plan was to hang out some more on Saturday morning, but it was raining, so we went over to Scholar's Bakehouse for coffee and breakfast.




From there, mom and dad headed off to Aunt Kate's and we came on home for a few hours. We went over to the Jacobi's for their 4th of July celebration. They have a hanger, so the party could stay in doors while it was raining. The girls did puzzles with grandma and grandpa, which kept them perfectly happy! Plus, they had chocolate cupcakes....so we had everything we needed! Once we had a mere sprinkling, no one cared anymore, and the party went outside. The kids LOOOOVVVVVEEED it. It was the perfect July 4th set up. You should see the parachutes of today. The firecracker let's off about 10 parachutes instead of 1, plus, they are not hot and on fire when you go to pick them up. As expected, the parachutes remain the favorite firework. Then John, his brother Tom, and some of the older kids put on a fabulous firework display which rivaled the professional shows. It was amazing! Addy fell asleep during the loudest fireworks. The pictures ended up out of order, but I'm too lazy to move them. The top ones should be down here!

Where have we been lately?????

Checking out the Komodo Dragons at the zoo. Addy called them dragons sometimes and crocodile's sometimes.
Hanging' out at the Fisher's Freedom Festival and the Christ the King Festival.


Celebrating Father's Day

Ronald McDonald House 5k and our yard...finally finished!

Yesterday Lily and I were signed up for the 5k run/walk for the Ronald McDonald House. We were on a team with the Chamness's who are big supporters of the house. The team was called "All for Ellie" in memory of Ellie Chamness, Katie and Jeff's baby girl who passed away a couple of years ago. Well, Lily was ready to go, but she woke up Saturday morning with a super high fever and chills. So her replacement, Addison, came with me instead. Here is a picture of our team with Ronald!

The entire rest of the weekend was devoted to yard work...ugh! We had SO MUCH mulch delivered on Friday that it covered our entire driveway. All Friday night and Saturday after we got home were devoted to mulch! I'm pretty happy with how things look now, though - flowers planted, weeds pulled, trees trimmed, mulch laid...only took until late June to get the yard ready for summer this year :) Saturday night we were supposed to go to a work party and a suprise b-day party, but Lily took a turn for the worse and remained sick as a dog. We couldn't leave her in such a state, so we stayed home and went to bed early.

Today is FATHERS DAY! We are so lucky to have such wonderful dads and granddads in our lives! Happy Fathers day to Barclay, Dad (papa), Peter (grandpa), Matt, Joe and everyone else in daddy land!

Fun Times

This weekend we celebrated a boat load of things, but once again I mainly only have pictures of cute kiddos! Ariana returned home from Korea, Ana turned 30, Mom turned 58, Melissa's sister turned 16 - and yes, we went to the party, plus Henry and Michael (and their parents } were in town. We even missed 2 kid birthday parties here yesterday b/c of all the other festivities. Mid June is very birthday heavy! For mom's b-day, we hung out at home and got her a new wooden swing which looked fabulous hanging from the tree. For Ana's b-day we went to Naked Txchopstics and had yummy sushi. I feel a bit traitorous whenever I go there instead of Ichiban, but it's very good chow all the same. Then we had a family dinner at Betty and Peter's tonight. For Ally's 16th b-day we attended her pool party (Melissa promised it was okay, but I still think we may have crashed the party a little). We did try to stick to the kiddy pool area, but the slide was too tempting to avoid so we ventured over to the main party area a time or two.

We also finally made some headway on the yard this morning/early afternoon...I have HAD it with the weeds that I can't keep up with, so I bought some of that weed sheet stuff. I put it down and we will have mulch delivered later this week to cover it up. I couldn't cover everything, but some of the more obvious areas are now weed free. I'm going to try to remember my camera tomorrow for gymnastics so I can get pictures of Lily being awesome. Hope everyone has a good week!

Summer begins!

Hiking at Morgan Monroe St. Forrest with people from work. We did an 11 mile hike and then had dinner at Upland Brewery in Bloomington

St. Simon Festival
Swimming!
Yoga wii -I'm still obsessed, but haven't been playing nearly as much lately, so my obsession is wearing off slowly. I hoped to put a picture up here of Lily doing the tree pose, but it was too blurry.

We've had a pretty good June so far....these are some pics from the last week or so...

This week promises to be activity filled as well. Ari comes home, mom and Ana have birthday, and we're going to spend some quality time with Joe, Mel and the boys before they go back to NC.

Siesta Key - we're back

Just got back from Siesta Key this afternoon. It was quite a drive - 16 hours - but all together a much more pleasant time than flying with the girls! They did great in the car. The weather was prefect while we were there. It rained twice, but both times it was dark so it didn't matter. Otherwise it was sunny and warm. We did just what we planned to do - laid on the beach, swam in the pool, read lots of books, ate lots of yummy food, and slept a lot. It was a good time. We only left the key once to take the girls to this Sarasota Jungle thing - alligators, crocs, big turtles and fancy birds were all on display. They loved it.

KIAWAH ROCKS...United STINKS

Lily, Addison and I had the BEST time in Kiawah for the last few days. We were bummed that Barclay couldn't join us, but we had a fabulous time with Aunt Lindy and Uncle Tim...relaxing, swimming, relaxing, being beach bums, relaxing, bike riding, relaxing. I am Kiawah Island's new biggest fan. It was so much fun to just go to the beach and let the girls run free, exploring and splashing. Really - that's what I'm meant to do with my life...not work work work :) We did the following - got there on Wed afternoon. Checked places out, saw the Angel tree, and had dinner on the back porch. Thurs we went on a long bike ride in the morning. Aunt Lindy rented a thing to pull behind the bike to pull the girls. They loved it. Then went straight to the pool and beach. We stayed there for quite a while. On the way back Lily had her crocs on and we discovered a massive group of alligators by a pond. We had to stop and check them out - there were 8 or 9 of them. 2 of them were HUGE. They were on the shore and in the water...oohh scary! Lily was standing on the bridge with me and kicked her foot and whoooppp...her shoe went right into the water. Oh, she was mad. She wanted me to go get it, but that was NOT happening. Eventually she recovered and thought it was funny that croc ate her croc :). Friday we went to the beach early, then after naps we went and got ice cream and picked up some pizzas for dinner. Yesterday we went to the beach again and then went to the shopping center after showering......THEN we went to the airport. THANKS so much Aunt Lindy and Uncle Tim!


Get this saga - I officially LOVE Kiawah and HATE United Airlines. I should note that on the way to Charleston our luggage didn't make it and the airport delivered it in the middle of the night on Wed night/Thurs morning. Well, yesterday our flight was supposed to leave at 4:52. Here's the saga that followed 1) we learned initially that there would be about a 20 minute delay. No big deal - I would still have a one hour lay over in Chicago and get home by 9:00. 2) We board the plan at what appears to be on time - 5:15 ish. We sit and sit on the plane and eventually an announcement is made that we will not be taking off until 6:30 b/c of bad weather in Chicago. Sit on the plan for one hour and 15 minutes with squirmy crying toddlers. 3) At 6:40 the pilot announces that we will now not be taking off until 11;30 b/c of problems in Chicago. We deboard. I will now clearly miss my connecting flight 4) I stand in a loooonnnng line to figure out what the heck is going on and how I can get home. At 7:30 I make it to the front of the line (the girls were absolutely angelic and sat in chairs playing with their new toy turtles the whole time). 5) At the front of the line I am met with a lame faced dude who volunteers no information other than " we can't get you to Indiana tonight". I asked a million questions and eventually learn that at 7:40 a plane was leaving that went to Milwaukie and then to Indy. I did not have time to board that plane b/c stupid United did not figure this out themselves and had me wait in line for 900 hours. They couldn't get me to Cincy, couldn't get me to Louisville. I'm about to cry and leave the line. 6) I take the girls to the bathroom then go back to the line at around 8:00 (by now, they have announced that the flight to Chicago will leave at 10:00 - this was eventually changed to 9:30). I ask when the earliest flight from Chicago to Indy is and am told that it is 9:00 am. Dude told me that my only option was to "find a place to stay in Chicago" until morning. Now I'm super ticked and ask if THEY can find me a place to stay in Chicago. I'm then informed that United in Charleston will not put me in a hotel in Chicago and I'd have to wait until I got to Chicago to know if rooms were available and if they'd pay for them. Clearly not an option b/c Barclay would have to be to Chicago before I'd know if we'd get a flight. 7) at this point I'm about to cry and leave the line again to call husband. Barclay says he'll drive to Chicago to pick us up at midnight ish, but is peeved like I am! 8) I go back to the line to tell them that I need my luggage taken off the plan in Chicago and not sent on to Indy. Girl is now at the counter with Dude and girl ROLLS HER EYES at that request. Now I'm ticked ticked ticked. I stand and watch as they make appropriate calls and give bag description to make this happen. 9) Girls remain angelic - it's a miracle! 10) We board the plan and take off for Chicago. There is a lightening storm. So now we are flying but risking our lives! 11) plane lands at around 12:00 and both girls are sound asleep. 12) We have to walk through quite a few terminals all across the Chicago O'Hare airport to get to the United baggage claim. In order to get there, I need Lily to walk, but she is EXHAUSTED, crying and practically sleep walking. I go to the United counter and ask if they can send a golf cart and explain the situation. They say no, and that there are no golf carts at that terminal. they make no additional offers to help. I buy Lily candy to attempt to improve the situation! It helps a little. 13) We get to baggage claim and WAIIIIIITTTT as everyone else gets their baggage and ours never comes. Barclay gets there. Ours isn't coming. We go to the customer service line - it's 12:30. It takes an hour and they eventually retrieve our bag, but not the stroller. 14) At 1:30 we go to the car and leave Chicago. We get home at 4:00 in the morning. United did none of the following - reimburse for luggage fees, find our stroller, offer to help in ANY way with hotels, transportation, information, even drink vouchers. I will never ever ever fly them again and I hope none of you will either. It was by far the worst experience we have had with an airline. However, it did not spoil our trip. We have great Kiawah memories. Here are some pics....

Happy Easter everyone!!!!!

We hunted eggs, went to church, mowed the grass, flew a kite, chilled on the back porch, and went to Grandma and Grandpa Wong's for dinner. Good Easter.

Happy Birthday Addy B!

Addy turned 2 on Thursday and we've spent the last few days celebrating with her! On Thursday she had a party at her day care and got a new Barbie in the mail from Uncle Matt, Aunt Taryn and Gabe. She wouldn't share it and it caused Lily to declare that when she turns 4, she's not going to share her new toys. Then we went to Chucky Cheese and also opened the present from Po Po b/c we didn't think we'd see Po Po this weekend. Barclay and I decided that Chucky Cheese isn't really our bag. The girls liked it, so next time they want to go someone else can take them :) I had the day off work on Friday and Barclay got to come home early. We got a lot done in the morning and by 4:00 who showed up???? Abbie, Blake and Po Po! We played the wii and went out to dinner. Fun times. Addy's big b-day party was today. Grandma Betty and Grandpa Peter, Gi Gi and Aunt Lindy, Aunt Ana and Uncle John, and Po Po all came. Addy had a Dora cake that she picked out herself. She got a wagon and sat in her wagon to open all of the other presents! She had the best time and said "ooooh" with a growling type voice every time she opened a present. Grandma and Grandpa even got her her very own toy laptop so she can be just like Lily! What a lucky little girl. The party is over for the day and the girls are napping....resting up for the Easter Bunny's arrival in the morning. Thanks to everyone who helped Addy celebrate her birthday! I also had to throw in a picture of our easter egg painting extravaganza. The girls actually did an impressive job - no eggs got broken, no clothes got stained, there were no tears - amazing. We put smiley face stickers on some of them. Have a Happy Easter Everyone!

Windsong Egg Hunt '09

Saturday was the neighborhood egg hunt. Here are a couple of pics of the cool kids on the block - Lily and Lilli, Addy and Brodie

Happy Birthday to wii :)

We had so much fun this weekend! I took Friday off work for a mental health day (much needed). Took the girls to the Children's Museum. Check out Lily's face with the magnifying glass - too funny! We went early and it was a good thing...this is the line when we left. I've never seen it like this EVER...must be the spring break crowd staying home.

That night, Barclay brought home a WII for my birthday. Best present EVER. Ever ever ever. We started playing on Friday night and really didn't stop all weekend. It was cold and rainy so it was a great indoor activity. It was my personal mission to get the top score in EVERYTHING. I did pretty well until Abbie came to town. Last night Barclay and I went to dinner and to the Pacer's game. While we were gone, Abbie proceeded to take the top score in soccer, downhill skiiing AND hula hoop. Unbelievable. Not only did she get the top scores, she made them unreachable. I'm so mad. Ana and Barclay liked the tennis best. I'm no good at the wii sport stuff, only the wii fit. This is the two of them playing tennis. Ana had the top score for a while in a balance game, but I overtook her eventually :)

Spring is here!

I am so glad that the gloomy months are finally behind us. We had great sunny weather this weekend, which was much needed for our states of mind. Both Barclay and I had really rough weeks at work and were completely bummed by the time Friday rolled around. As it turns out, though, the weekend was pretty good. Here are some pics.

Just sitting around....

These girls are fans of little people sized chairs....

Photo updates....

What do we do when it's cold outside (other than work every single live long day...)...?
We've been...
playing with new bath toys....

baking angel food cakes (with strawberries of course)


digging up the hot tub, aka "money pit" (well, John did it anyway)

and we keep getting sick! We can't seem to have a whole week where everyone is healthy! Today Lily was stricken. I don't know what it is, but I know she's not keeping food down and took a 4 1/2 hour nap! Poor girl. Isn't it cute that she cant' help but smile for the camera even when she's sickly?

The good news is that it's supposed to be 60 degrees here this weekend! THANK goodness!

Another Sunday night....

For whatever reason, I didn't have our camera with us at all this weekend. It was chock full of activity, so I wish I had...but oh well. Lily was sick on Friday so Barclay stayed home with her in the morning and I stayed home in the afternoon. I already had a doc appointment scheduled for myself so I brought her along with me. Turns out we're both healthy (I haven't been having a heart attack for a month, I'm just super stressed hence the heart burn, elevated blood pressure and fatigue - getting old rocks!). Lily just had a bad cold. Apparently only 2 kids made it to day care on Friday so there must be some sort of virus going around.

Yesterday I went with Jessica to see Tony Dungy and some others speak at a motivational type speaking series. It was fabulous. There was one speaker named Bill Dallas who was my favorite. I was so intrigued by his story that I think I'm going to buy his book this week - it's called Lessons from San Quentin. He was a big financier/mortgage guy in the San Francisco Bay area who was convicted of embezzling and spent 5 years in prison. As much as I am a complete pessimist about the prison jail experience (from my experiences, I've yet to see a person spend a significant amount of time incarcerated and come out reformed...and these are parents with a huge motivation to reform. All we see at work is recidivism recidivism recidivism). Anyway, I digress...I'm buying his book...maybe it'll make me an optimist again.

Then we went to Kai-Wen's birthday party at Bounce Zone. Lily jumped like crazy despite her cold. Addy was a riot this time around. She really knows how to jump now and was very impressed with herself! Plus, nobody barfed from all the bouncing this time, so that was a plus!

Afterward we went over to Brent and Angie Toney's to let the girls hang out with the Toney boys. We're attempting to arrange marriages early. The boys are very cute so I think the girls will be pleased with my decision :) Then last night we went to Ichiban for John's birthday. It was the usual Ichiban experience - delicious, but the service was no good and the girls behaved in less than stellar fashion.

This morning I taught Sunday school again. We had father Bill come by and the kids were hilarious with their questions. They mostly wanted to know what happened to their dogs when they died. THEN, when the girls were napping this afternoon I finally went to see Slum Dog Millionaire! I've been trying to see it for a while now. It was FABULOUS. Very best movie I've seen in a long long long time.

I blew another crock pot dinner - it basically turned to mush and was disgusting by the time the 6 hours of cooking time were over. Gross.

And in other news....a few recent funny quotes from the girls....
Lily was asking me about some picture and I couldn't figure out what she was talking about. She said "Mom, you know, the one where you swallowed me!". She apparently thinks that's how she got in my belly when I was pregnant with her. So funny!

At dinner tonight (my mush meal), Lily cried at the site of it and said "I don't' want broccoli, I want the Backyardigans".

Addy has also been talking up a storm lately. She's starting to combine two words - most often "Lily too." She's always got her sisters back and wants to include her in everything. She also said "I pooped" all the time...mostly she hasn't.
That's about it from these parts...I'll try to post some pictures later this week.

Happy Valentines Day

I hope everyone had a Happy Valentines Day. We did....Addy went potty on the potty for the first time yesterday. She's taken a real interest in Lilian's potty time. Addy follows Lily to the bathroom and says "potty" every time Lily goes in there. She often sits on the little potty while Lily is on the big one. So we were eating breakfast and Addy said "potty" with no prompting. So I took her in the bathroom, put her on the potty, and voila! #1! She hasn't done it since, but she is aware and that's the first step. If she's potty trained before 2 I'll be the proudest mama.

Friday we hung out at home and got Thai carry out for dinner. On Valentines Day we gave the girls their cards and candy, which they ate and ate and ate all day long. They had so much candy yesterday that I hid it from them today. We ran some errands during the day and Barclay made a fabulous dinner for us last night. We watched Somewhere in Time last night. The most low key Valentines day we've had a in long time, but it was nice.

After Sunday School today we went to the Children's Museum. It was a crazy zoo today. We went to see the new lego castle exhibit...it was highly overrated (either that or just flat out too crowded). At one point, after we'd been there for only 45 minutes, Barclay said "this is like the Lord of the Flies, get me out of here". So off we went. We've been vegging out at home again this PM ( I LOOOOOVVVEEE being unscheduled).

During the week things have been so incredibly crazy that it's been nice to have a couple of unhurried weekends in a row. And yes...Abbie...I know I have no life if I put pictures of my kids on the can on my blog!

Snow Dudes

Today the girls and I set out to build their first snow men. It was just the kind of snow day I love - hot and snowy! The weather was up to around 40 degrees and the sun was shinning bright. After church we went to the zoo to check out the animals without the crowds (again confirming that winter is the best time of year to visit the zoo). It was neat b/c some of the animals (namely bears and seals) are so much more active in the winter. Then we grabbed some lunch and headed home to build our snow men. I intended to only build one, but the second snow ball I built was too heavy to lift, so it turned into a second snow man base - hence we have two. So you may note that the girls are kind of hap hazardly dressed in snow gear - that's b/c we got HOT. The hats came off, the coats got unzipped, we didn't even bother with snow pants. All this hard work and bright sun made us down right warm. The only thing that stayed on the whole time was the gloves.

Go Cardinals!

SNOW!

We got hit with a major blast of snow overnight, and as a result both Court and day care are closed. So we have an official snow day - yeah! Anticipating as much, Barclay and I brought some work home, but it's really nice to not have to drive anywhere. The guy is here right now fixing our furnace - it only costs a trillion dollars (boo!). Earlier I took the girls out to play in the snow like they'd been asking to do all morning long. Suprisingly they didn't like it very much at all - I think it's because we don't have a sledding hill and the snow is too deep for them to walk in. Really - it comes up to Addy's waist. So here's a picture of the girls being very unhappy at their immobility in the snow.

Gump

I couldn't turn this video so it was right side up - so sorry for the sideways viewing. And no, we aren't counting on a full ride for this one :)

MLK How I Love Thee

There are times when I looooovvvveee working for the state...and Sunday night January 18th is one of them. No work tomorrow - whoop whoop! It's been a good weekend so far. Friday night Barclay stayed home with the girls and I got to go to Ichiban for Sushi (my favorite place). Saturday Barclay worked and I took the girls to the Children's Museum, again making good use of our membership. They're in a phase where they want to visit one or two "exhibits" and spend all of our time there. So this time we spent all of our time in Playscape and at the play houses by the Carosel. Last time it was playing with the dinosaur play tables and with the Chiluly glass exhibit. Then Saturday night we went to Brugge in Broadripple. It's a pretty cool place and it was the first time we'd been there. This morning after Sunday school I did a quick errand at Target and then took a nice long nap. Tomorrow morning I have a guy coming out to try to detect the source of the leak in the sunroom so that the hardwoods can be repaired (keep your fingers crossed that it's an easy fix).

Here goes nothing....

Here's to hoping that this week is much smoother than last week! Last Saturday Addy got a really bad ear infection. Barclay took her to the doc and got antibiotics, which was great, but she didn't sleep much all week long. She woke up several times a night and slept restlessly the rest of the time. Poor girl - I think her ear was just bothering her even after she got on meds. I also got sick as a dog on Sat night with flu like symptoms. During the Colts game I got the chills so bad that I went to bed (even before the game was over, so you know it was bad!) and didn't get out of bed again until Monday morning. On Monday I started my new job so I really had to force myself to get to work. Needless to say I was a mess, but by Monday at least it had turned into bad cold symptoms so I could manage. Work was insane ( I could go into all the changes, but I'll spare you all) and I was struggling to keep my head above water. Well THEN, poor Lily gets the same thing I had. She got a bad fever on Wed night/Thurs morning. I took her to work with me and we thought she was better. Then she took a turn for the worse on Thurs night. So she was out of day care for 2 days. Friday I capped off the week with a cold sore and a trip to the dentist. Finally by Saturday we were all feeling a little better. Barclay was the only one spared - we're hoping he doesn't come down with anything this week!

To top it all off, our house continues to "break". Our fixed hot tub started leaking again last night and our warping wood floors are becoming a big project too. I had the floor guy come take a look. He said it'll be easy to fix once we find the source of the water problem. Apparently water is somehow seeping in under the wood - so we never see water, but there's water nonetheless.

Tonight I've been up since about 1:00 with a "to do" list a mile long running through my head. I figured I should just get out of bed (now that it's 4:30) and get started on it! Keep your fingers crossed that this week is less eventful than last!

Lily-ism 12/31/08

We were sitting in the kitchen cracking nuts and eating them. I'd point out that one was a walnut, one was a hazelnut, etc. Lily brought me one and said "this is a donut". Ha!

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year....fa la la la la la la la la

. We kept busy this year, as per usual. For once, Dad was home from Libya, Matt and Taryn were in town from the DC area, and Joe and Mel were home from N.C. I don't remember the last time everyone was together in the Haute and we've never had all 5 of the kiddos together before. So we celebrated on Christmas Eve with them. We tried to get a picture with all 5 kids before leaving for Mass. You can see how that went....Lily really is in that picture. She just just hiding behind Matt and Gabe. Christmas day Santa came to our house (oohh the girls were excited), and we had the Wong family Christmas in the afternoon/evening. We had a delicious dinner. Ari was still in South Korea and couldn't make it home for Christmas - she was missed, but thanks to modern technology, we were able to talk to her on Christmas Day as well. Here are some pics from last weekend.

Day care is closed this week so I'm home with the girls (working part time b/c things are so crazy at work, but also getting plenty of much needed QT with the girls).

Tonight we're doing absolutely nothing for New Years. That's okay, though. Barclay is going to cook us all dinner and we'll shoot off some fireworks on the back porch. I don't think either of us are up for a night on the town since we've been so busy lately! For those of you who are partying it up (Abbie and Ari), be safe and have fun!

COOKIES

"Tis the season....of Christmas Parties

We've been attending quite a few Christmas parties lately, but the best one is always the day care party. The party was at Bounce Zone again this year. Picture a giant room full of blow up bounce houses, slides, climbing walls, maze's, etc. The girls are CRAZY for the place. The best part is that adults can jump too when you rent the space. So Barclay and I also joined in the fun. Lily is hard to keep up with in that place. She zips around and didn't stop for an hour.

On another note - it's also the week of projectile vomit. On Monday I picked the girls up from day care and was holding Lily on my lap when she let loose and hurled all over me and her - coat, hair, clothes, etc. It was terrible. My coat barely survived. Then last night, Barclay was holding Addy and all of our coats when Addy projectile vomitted all over him! WHAT IS GOING ON?!?! So, as we speak, the coats are again getting washed. I'm not too hopeful that they'll be okay this time. The funny thing is that the two parents that saw the incident on Monday also witnessed last night's incident. The girls are actually fine - I think it's a stomach virus that just lasts for a minute. 2 of the other kids at day care had similar incidents this week. Gross.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here are some pics from Thanksgiving weekend. We had everyone here on Thanksgiving Day (no worries, Betty did most of the cooking, so it was delicious). Then on Friday we celebrated with the extended Haley family at Aunt Carla's house, and had cake and ice cream for Mike's 2nd b-day on Saturday.

RAAAHHHHRRR

11/15 weekend

On Friday night we had a few friends over for a pizza party. Lily and Addy got to pal around with Gabby Chamness. I talked about her as "baby Gabby" so I think they were a little caught off guard when she was walking :) Anyway, it was fun. Gabby hurt her little cheek on an unsafe corner in my house (SORRY Gabby), but I think that was the only injury. The night before that, Addison hurt herself really bad on another corner (Gaby was the corner of the TV stand, Addy's injury was on the corner of a wall). These walking wounded children make me so nervous!

On Saturday, mom came over to spend the day with us. We went to the children's museum. The weather outside was terrible, so all of Indianapolis was at the Children's Museum. We still had fun, but it was CROWDED. Then we checked out the Monon Bell game on TV and Depauw walked all over undefeated Wabash -go Tigers!

Saturday night we went downtown to a 30th b-day party for one of our friends at Chatham Tap and were still home by 11:00 or so. Now it's Colt's time!

Fun Times..

On Thurs, Barclay and I went to a benefit for the NCLC. It was pretty cool b/c the benefit was at Lucas Oil Stadium. This was the first chance I'd had to see the place. The key note speaker was the new athletic director at Notre Dame. His name alludes me, but he was a fantastic speaker. He was formerly with Baker and Daniels here in Indy. Anyway, we didn't get to tour much of the stadium, but we did get to walk down onto the field. Check out the only picture you'll ever see of me in the front row :)


Then last night, I went to the Damar Bingo night. My friend Jessica from work and her husband John came with me. This was the first Bingo night they'd done and it was pretty fun. Beer and bingo.One picture is me very sad b/c I almost won. The other pic is Jessica very happy b/c her husband won some Big O tires - go John!

Happy Halloween!

Beads!

I cleaned out the coat closet yesterday and the girls discovered my stash of mardis gras beads. Their choices made it clear which one is going to be the more challenging teenager....I already knew :)

Happy Birthday Baby Gabe

Matt, Taryn and Gabe were in the Haute this weekend b/c Tiffany (Taryn's sister) got married on Saturday. Of course we couldn't let them be so close and not see them, so we spent the weekend in Terre Haute as well. On Sunday we celebrated Gabe's b-day party. All of his little friends came by to wish him a happy birthday and he was the only one who didn't freak out when it came time to share the toy car....good job Gabe! See you in less than 2 months! I didn't get many pics b/c Barclay didn't bring the new camera until Saturday night and I"m still learning how to use it.

We love Fall Fun!

Picking out our pumpkin (s)....