A Very Happy Halloween

Our Halloween weekend started with a bang on Thursday. We had a very special overnight guest in our home. It was Mr. Seamus! Layla was SO excited!!!

The next day, the four of us had a great time at Layla and my playgroup's Halloween party. Shea and Cassie fit right in and I wish they lived closer so they could be a weekly part of our playgroup.

Below, you can see Layla had such a fun time at the party. Layla and Shea played together quite a bit and Layla's adorable friend Holden pushed her around in the little car. So cute!!!

After the party, the four of us headed to Ryan's school for the Halloween parade. Shea joined in with the parade for a little while and all of the kids were saying, "Hi Elmo!" Both kiddos were so excited to see Ryan and the the two of them ran around like crazy after the kids were back in their classrooms :-)

On Saturday, Layla, Ryan and I went trick-or-treating! She loved walking (running) to the neighbors' houses and loved her bucket. Sorry a couple of the pictures are fuzzy. Layla was moving at a very fast pace and I had trouble getting clear shots.

In between trick-or-treaters ringing our doorbell for candy, the three of us finally carved some pumpkins.

Well, Layla mostly played with gourds from Stephanie's garden, but she was right there with us the whole time :-)

Here are the finished products. Layla helped me take the seeds out of the "J" pumpkin and then she picked out a really complicated pattern for Ryan to carve! He did a great job with it, and I think it turned out so cute!

Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!!!

A Little Pumpkin Is On The Way

Friday night was my good friend Kayte's baby shower. Kayte and her husband Brody are expecting their first baby in December and Ryan and I are SO excited for all of these little babies to arrive :-)

Below are the party planners and the mom-to-be, Kayte. The three on the left all came in from out of state for the shower (New York, California & Wisconsin). The three of us on the right....well we were just minutes away from home!

Here was the set-up for the shower:

Below is a picture (sorry it is fuzzy) of the mom-to-be, Kayte. Doesn't she look adorable?

Below is a picture of mom-to-be, Nicole. She is TEN days away from having her baby and looks amazing and is still so upbeat even at the very end. I was spoiled sitting next to Nicole for the evening and got to feel that little guy kick and move his little feet and booty around. Cannot wait to meet him and see those little feet!

And last but not least, the caramel apples were the favor for the evening. They have been a favorite treat of Kayte's throughout her pregnancy and everyone got to indulge for a night.

Hope you enjoyed my tour of showers this past month or so! It has been so much fun planning and "theming." Now onto meeting these babies!!!!

From Layla to you....

Many more pictures to come!!!

Pumpkin Parade

Today the local pumpkin festival concluded with the big parade. We were not sure how Layla would react to the parade but she loved it, especially the bands and the dogs!

Layla spent a lot of time on Grandpa Verlyn's lap during the parade. He provided snacks and protected her from the clowns :-)

Then Layla headed for some quality time with Grandma Cathy.

Next, Layla decided to be a big girl on a seat by herself. It was SO gorgeous out during the parade. No one could believe it as we sat in our chairs in the sun, too warm for coats.

Then Layla went right back to Grandpa...and her head followed those big horses all the way around the corner!

After the parade, Layla was able to stretch her legs (which just so happened to be donning the pumpkin legwarmers!). Layla enjoyed trying out a golf cart with second cousin Jill and playing in the leaves with our friends Brody and Kris.

Lastly, we checked out the pumpkins with some family members to see who the pumpkin winners were. Layla enjoyed looking at the pumpkins just as much the second time around!

Yeah, Layla's pumpkin didn't do so well in the rain on Thursday. We knew it would fade quickly if rain came because we used non-toxic paint just in case Layla put the paintbrush in her mouth during the decorating process. Although Layla's pumpkin was not a winner this year, another pig pumpkin in the category did win. It had a lot of jewels on it though. The things I don't think of...:-)

Have a great Halloween week!

A Very Froggy Shower

Another baby is on the way! My good, college girlfriend Katie and her husband Josh are expecting their first baby towards the end of November. I cannot wait to meet him or her and also meet Layla's new playmate!!

Stephanie, Amanda, Michelle and I celebrated the baby-to-be by throwing a shower last Sunday.

Since Stephanie loves a theme as much as me, we took the frog theme of the nursery and sort of ran with it :-)

Below are the adorable frog cupcakes Steph made and the frog diaper cake Amanda, Steph and I made the week before the shower.

We had frog and green themed food, favors (chocolate frogs!) and even a frog pool to hold the gifts. Yes, this is the same pool Layla is scared of but it is not Layla's actual pool :-) I just so happened to have an extra one. I hope Katie's baby is not afraid of it too!!

We did have a few decorations, but we mostly decorated Katie's house with baby buckets like the one below. All baskets had a different theme (feeding, toddler eating, health/safety, etc).

Everyone also decorated a onesie for the baby at the shower (it doesn't look like it, but we had varying sizes of the onesies so Katie didn't have 15 newborn ones!). So fun to do and the guests got really creative! The one I made of course had a ladybug on it :-)



The shower was at Katie's house and it was so nice to have it there because we all got to see the nursery! It was so cute.

And I'll leave you with a picture of Miss Layla and her cheesy smile. She was a bit of a wild one at the shower...but lucky for us Ryan was on-call nearby and the good daddy came and picked up little Layla about halfway through the shower :-)

This little piggy...

went to the pumpkin fest!

"Come on daddy, take me to the candy!!"

"I LOVE this bucket! And people put CANDY in it for me!!"

"I didn't know you had to take the wrappers off before you eat the candy. I was so excited, mommy and daddy finally let me have a couple licks of a sucker!"

"My pig pumpkin!! I liked to look at it a lot."

"I loved looking at all of the pumpkins people decorated, especially from daddy's shoulders."