Not so sure about Santa

This year I decided not to take pictures with Santa at the mall. I really don't like the mall Santa's here at all and they charge entirely too much for a picture. The best Santa I've ever seen is at the Stonebriar Mall, but that is in Frisco and we don't live there anymore. We have a program here in Hutto that my church helps run every year called Orange Santa. To raise money for this program we did two different nights of pictures with Santa with all the proceeds going to buy gifts for the kids that we help. This first night, our friend John was Santa and he does a great job. I thought for sure Peyton would sit with him figuring that it was John and I would just have to explain that he was helping Santa out that night. Well again, she was having none of it. This is the third year in a row that she hasn't liked Santa....I even told her it was John and she still wouldn't go near him. Ryan on the other hand was trying to grab his beard and pull since he and John are buddies and I'm sure Ryan recognized that he knew him.
My mom runs a daycare program for the school district here in Hutto and she had her own Santa come to school to do pictures with all of her kids. She told me to bring Peyton and Ryan up to her school and try again with pictures but I didn't have very high expectations. Especially since Peyton protested as soon as I told her what we were doing. I asked why she doesn't like Santa and she looked at me as serious as could be and said "I just don't trust him mommy!" Where in the world does a 3 year old come up with that? I guess I'll have to tell John that Peyton thought he looked a little shady! :-) Anyhow...to my great surprise she decided to cooperate with the 2nd Santa try and smiled for a great picture. But as soon as the picture was taken, she was outta there. Grabbed her candy cane and headed for the door with no Santa chit chat! The picture of Ryan was taken one second before he launched himself out of Santa's lap and started crying. So now I have a picture of each of my kids with Santa for 2008! Hopefully next year we'll all look forward to the experience!

gingerbread fun

I have always seen the little gingerbread kits at the store, but hadn't felt like Peyton was old enough in the past to try one. Well, we bought one this weekend and she had a blast putting it together. It was a challenge keeping Ryan from destroying it every few minutes as we were building it. I didn't succeed in keeping them from eating the candy though...they were both eating it as fast as we were putting it on the house. So we had a big sugar high at bedtime but other than that, it was great! Looking forward to doing it again next year!

My sweetie pies

It has been a long 2 1/2 months with Brandon being gone. We have about another month until he is home for good. He has been able to come visit more weekends than I expected so that has been nice. Unfortunately he won't be home this weekend though and I'm a little bummed. Peyton has really had a hard time with it this year. She is a bit of an emotional roller coaster these days. She really misses her daddy. She understands he is in Dallas, but I don't think she really gets why he is gone. Hopefully his job will be really slow in December and we will get to spend lots of time catching up. As hard as it has been being a single parent the past few months, I still have really been having the urge to have one more baby. Ryan is getting so big..I can't believe he will be 2 in March! My dear friend Gina just found out she is pregnant and my friend Stacy is about to have her first baby so I have babies on the brain. Brandon unfortunately does not have the same desire. Any time I mention it he scoffs at the idea and really won't even discuss it with me. We have one of each and they are great...why make Ryan a middle child...they both drive you insane everyday...he has a whole list of reasons why we don't need another. I suggested that we both think and pray about it because I would like to make a decision around Ryan's second birthday. I'm not getting any younger and I don't want a huge age gap between the kids and a new baby. Plus, with Brandon's crazy time of year every year we have to kind of be specific about trying so I'm not due during that time. I would love to have another girl! Anyhow...don't know why I am putting this all out there, but there you go! I'm just really praying right now that if it isn't God's plan for us to have another that he will totally kill that desire in me. If it is though, I hope that he changes Brandon's heart and I hope something happens within the next year. My babies are so awesome, how could I not want another. These pictures are from this morning. Peyton is really into tinkerbell and little mermaid right now. She woke up and came downstairs with her tinkerbell wings on looking so cute. She said she went to sleep as Peyton and woke up as tinkerbell this morning. I love these kids!

Halloween

So this will be a short post. This past week has been a blur with Halloween and all the other stuff we've had going on. We had a trip to crowes nest farm which I didn't post about although will try later since I got some cute pictures. Brandon got home Friday afternoon and took the kids trick or treating Friday night while I worked at Treats on East Street at our church booth. We had a good time serving the community and things went very smoothly. Then I left early Sat. morning for our first ever women's retreat at Camp Buckner in the hill country. That was an amazing experience as well that will be it's own post. We had a halloween party two weeks ago that was a blast as well along with tons more pictures. As you can see, I'm a little busy these days so maybe if I'm having any trouble sleeping at night sometime soon then you will get to hear all about. As for now...I'm frantically trying to finish all the day to day stuff that I can't ever seem to do while the kids are awake. They are napping early since the lovely time change this weekend now has them getting up sometime during the 5am hour the past 2 mornings! So I will leave you with a few costume pictures. Brandon, Ryan, and I were pirates. Peyton was also suppose to be a pirate but decided (after the pirate costume was already purchased) the she really wanted to be little mermaid. That is what she is everyday around here since that is her absolute favorite disney princess but I guess she couldn't give it up for one day and match the rest of the crew. She is a cute Ariel though and we just pretended we captured a mermaid! Hope everyone had a great Halloween!

Marie-Therese Gown GIVEAWAY !!!!!!!

Marie-Therese Gown GIVEAWAY !!!!!!!

Wow! This dress is amazing. Check it out!

cutie pie

We got haircuts this past weekend. Peyton got about 6 inches cut off and it looks so cute. I probably could have had them do her bob a little shorter, but I'll know now for next time. I was just really nervous about cutting it short because I love long hair on little girls. My mom always had me looking like boy with my short styles and I hated it. But, I think this style shows off her adorable little face. Ryan had a little more cut off than normal and I think he looks older too. They are growing up so fast!

Odessa and Back

I know it's been a long time since I have blogged. To be honest, I havn't had a lot of wonderfully positive things to say the past month so I thought it better to just not blog. Nobody wants to read a lot of "poor me" crap so sorry for the drought! September has been rough being a single impatient parent of two extremely needy and energetic and rebellious little ones. Brandon was out of the country for the first week and half and then in Dallas for the rest of the month and that is pretty much where he will remain until closer to Christmas. This is his crazy time of year that happens every year and I always know it's coming but still hate it! Anyhow, he is hopeful that this year he will be able to come home on weekends and I am praying that that will work out. He was here this past weekend to keep the kids so I could go to Odessa for my little brother's wedding.
Steven finally got married to a girl that he's been dating for almost 3 years. I really havn't gotten to know much about his new wife since they live in Odessa and I had met her 2 times before the wedding. Her name is Heather (she's in the red wedding dress) and she is really sweet. It was a really fast weekend...I flew in late Sat. night, they got married Sunday afternoon and I flew back Sunday night. I think they had a good time and I was glad that I was able to be there for the wedding. Here are a few pictures. For those of you who have never been to the wonderfully beautiful town of Odessa, the picture of the oil rig was what our hotel balcony opened up too. We could admire it anytime we looked out our window!