Halloween

A couple of weeks ago, we had a Halloween Party at the Fuqua Business school.  It ended up being SO FUN!  There was food, a parade (which, the students LOVED) trick-or-treating, and games!  Good times!

Pocahontas and Belle

Rapunzel and Belle

Most of the Fuqua kids in their costumes before trick-or-treating.

 The students were all so eager to pass out candy to all the kids, and the kids were just as excited! :) I don't think Ruby remembered trick-or-treating last year so she was pretty pumped!

Love Ruby's cute smile right here.

Family

Today (Halloween day) my friend got a small group together to go to the pumpkin patch. Since we already got our pumpkins a couple weeks ago, we mostly played in the hay maze and corn crib.  Fun for everyone!

Ruby threw a tantrum in the middle of the hay maze.  I don't even remember why. At one point, a bunch of older kids ran through it and used her as an obstacle and started jumping over her!  The funniest/worst part about it was their dad or the male adult who was with them was encouraging it saying, "Yeah!  Good job!".  Rube just laid there.

Death glare

Then it was off to the corn crib.  This one has a little funnel that you can put corn into and feed the cows.

This cows eyes were huge!

These corn beds are so deep! Weirdest sensation ever!

Love my Lyla Lew!

And I love my little Rubester.

Sadly, the day ended with one of our friends car breaking down.  We jumped it several times and it just kept dying.

After Belize and I (with the help of a few other men) got Emily's car off to the side, I started heading back to the car.  I noticed Lyla had gotten out of her seat and had her head poking out the window and was sobbing!  I started to run to her and as I got closer I noticed her hand had blood all over it!  What?!?! Somehow, she ended up cutting her hand b/w her finger's and she was freaking out!  Poor girl.  I felt so bad for leaving her there.  Anyway, she was fine and was just scared.  But still, you never know what can happen to your child when you leave them in the car alone for a couple of minutes!

Later today we went to a friends for a big group Halloween dinner.  Then it was off for trick-or-treating in our neighborhood!

A few of the kids we trick-or-treated with...

LOVE Ruby's face here.

 And Wool E. Bull just happened to be our next door neighbor and snuck back to his house to get a pic.  

Ruby was terrified of Wool E. Bull :)

Overall, it was a great Halloween and we are so grateful to have had good friends to celebrate with!

Happy Halloween!

Ruby's 2nd b-day party

Ruby turned 2 a couple of weeks ago.  I was out of town and Nate had finals all day long, so her actual birthday wasn't even celebrated.  When I got back in town, Nate was on Fall Break and so we decided to celebrate her birthday on Sunday, and then have friends over for dessert that evening.  

After church, we opened presents...

Ruby handed Nate the wrapping paper after she tore off each piece. And the only way we could get Lyla NOT to help open Ruby's gifts was to give her a box of nerds to keep her hands busy. :)

These two are so cute and are the best of friends!

Kissing daddy.

 The other day I asked Ruby what she wanted for her birthday.  I gave her a bunch of suggestions (toys, books, a new baby doll, a movie, etc.) and she enthusiastically replied "BOOKS!".  So, I researched the best children's books and ordered several and bought them with the birthday money from her Papa Brian.  Nate and I got her a "Band in a Box".  She likes our present, but she LOVES these books, and Lyla and I love them too!

We set up all of Ruby's presents around her for a picture and she threw her arms up like this...

So cool.

 The book on her lap fell down a little and she straightened it right back up and threw her arms back up behind her head.  She is so funny!

As I said, later that evening we had friends over for dessert.  Ruby had a great time and loved the desserts, but after I told her she couldn't have any more it was all downhill from there.  You see, Ruby must have heard the song and took the lyrics to heart of "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to...".  I don't know if she was tired or if she was overwhelmed with all the people, but she was an unhappy little chick.  Crying because I wouldn't give her any more dessert (she had had plenty!), or that we wouldn't let her go outside and play on her swing, or that I took a toy outside that kids kept falling on, or taking a flashlight away so she wouldn't blind herself as she kept staring into it's powerful light.  Whatever it was, she just sobbed all night long.  Some party, huh?

Anyway, she loves this s'more dessert and so we used that in place of a cupcake or cake.  She loved it!

The dessert spread...

S'more bars, Nutella fudge, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, and a white chocolate raspberry cheesecake.

I'll do an official Ruby's 2 birthday post in a couple of days, but I'm waiting on a cute pic of her from our family photo session. :)

Family Outing

Nate has been on Fall Break this week and we have LOVED having him home and having some good ol' family time.  The other night we decided to have a night out as a family and go bowling.  We were really excited about this and Lyla was PUMPED!  So, we went to dinner at Applebee's and headed to the bowling lanes.  We walk in around 6:30 and they told us there wasn't any open lanes until 9pm.  On a Tuesday!  

Lyla was heartbroken and couldn't understand why we couldn't bowl when she saw so many chairs open.  She didn't quite understand that there weren't any open lanes and that the chairs didn't matter.  Still, she was so bummed.  So instead, we went and got some frozen yogurt and did some "practice" bowling at home.  

Love Lyla's cute smile here.

Practice bowling included 6 sippy cups and bottles, and a ball.  The girls loved it so I'd call it a success!

S'mores

Tis' the season of Halloween and it is one of the most stressful times of the year for me.  I always kind of hoped that I would marry a man who loved to go all out and dress up in really great Halloween costumes.  I was not that way, but I was hoping my husband would step in for me and help make our kids Halloween memories so fun and memorable.  Let me just say, Nate is not that man.  However, for all the wonderful qualities he possesses, his lack of care for Halloween can be easily overlooked.  :)

However, it does NOT fix our problem of figuring out costumes each year.  It seems my favorite costumes of others each year are the really elaborate ones (not always easy on a budget), or the really clever ones.  Like Jim on The Office, when he was paper one year and just put 3 holes on the side of his shirt. So simple, yet so clever.  Anyway, so when I thought of my idea of our "Family Costume",  I was pretty excited.  Simple, clever, and cheap.  

So, here we are... S'mores.

However, my cute idea ended up being not so cute in the end!  Here is why....

Ruby the Marshmallow: It turns out that marshmallow's don't glue on very well to t-shirts.  A lot of her marshmallows ended up either falling off or being eaten.  While playing a game at some point during the night, Nate looked down at the girls and found them chowing down on a marshmallow.  Also, Ruby was running and fell down and ate it pretty hard, and where she fell there was a smeared marshmallow on the ground.  Little children AND Ruby all kept trying to eat her costume.  And don't worry, the glue stayed on the shirt.

Lyla the Hershey's Bar: This little girl was walking candy.  There was a point where they were trying to get a big group picture of all the kids.  This cute little girl next to Lyla was looking normal until she saw Lyla's shirt.  Her eyes lit up and she stood up immediately and started to try to pick off her candy bars.  Lyla, not wanting to be rude, just stood there with this expression of "HELP!" on her face and just looked helpless until I came to the rescue.  It was hilarious.  And by the end of the night, she started pulling off her own candy bars and chowed down.

Graham Cracker's: Well, let's just say you can't really sit with those things on... or put on a seatbelt.  And at the end of the night, I picked up Ruby (which eventually resulted in marshmallow residue all over) and she looked at my graham cracker, leaned in, and took a big fat bite of it.  I was laughing and told her not to do it, which of course made her want to do it even more.

We ended up having a really fun night despite our disastrous costumes.  And we definitely have some more awkward photo's.  My children have the most adorable smiles and are so stinkin' cute, but when they get a camera in front of them, they turn into Chandler Bing.

Ruby looking awfully surprised.

Lyla looks horrified, like my camera just turned into a slithering snake.

The only picture I got of Lyla with these good friends of hers.  They look happy, huh? Lol! Another awkward photo.

Another uncomfortable smile from Lyla.  She still looks pretty cute, though.

"Funniest Costume" award goes to: Dane and Matt

And "Hottest Couple" award goes to: Maegan and Landon.  Is it really fair to have so much good looks in one couple?  I mean, really.

 Our trunk...

Love this smile of Lyla's with her daddio.

 We made this Spider Toss for a Halloween party we had at Nate's school and thought we'd put it to good use at the Trunk-or-Treat.  The kids loved it!

Aaaaand another awkward photo.  Love E's expression though.  :)

 Overall, it was a fun night!

Pumpkin Patch + Awkwardness

I'm just going to say it... this last weekend was ROUGH!  Nate left for Seattle Thursday night and came back Sunday night.  During this long weekend, we had a million activities that I was at least a part of, and doing it all without my man was a lot harder than I thought it would be, and just not as fun.  Life is just better with Nate.  Thankfully, I had some late nights watching Downton Abbey with a friend that I swear, kept me sane this weekend.  Anyway, the reason I am bringing this up is because my pictures for this post are so awkward and/or out of focus and I was too lazy to change camera settings for each scene.  You'll see...

Anyhoo, although this weekend was a little hard, the girls and I did mange to have some fun.  Fuqua Families put on a big Pumpkin Patch outing that was lots of fun.  There was a lot of hay, hay, and more hay.  There was even a hay ride, a corn maze (which we didn't do), face painting, animals, and a giant corn crib with a slide.  And you even get to pick a pumpkin off the vine.  It was great! 

Here are some pics of the fun and awkward event...

Lyla playing on the hay play area that had a big tube slide going through it.

You may not believe it, but these are the best shots I got of the girls...

Awkward #1

The best smile I got from Ruby.  Awkward #2

 I promise, she really did like the pumpkins...

Lyla loves friend time....

Love B's face in the background!

 Me and the girls....

Not Lyla's best smile and man, I need some lipstick!... Awkward #3

The girls on the hay ride...

Probably the most awkward picture of them ever... #4

 Lyla was really excited to feed the goat.

Love that her ponytail curls all by itself like that.

 They got their face painted...

Cute Ruby... she has a love/hate relationship with spiders.

And please prepare yourself for the amazingness of these next two photo's.  I have idea what Ruby is doing...

Awkward #5

Awkward #6

After painting faces, we headed over to the corn crib.  These pictures aren't as awkward...

Cute Lyla

They were very serious about trying to bury this boy in corn.

Despite the scowl, she had a lot of fun.

Probably one of the most natural smile I got from Lyla all day.

She loved getting buried.  

Anyway, at the end of the day, the girls pants were FULL of corn kernels.  After we left, we went over to a friends for lunch and accidentally unloaded all the corn that was in their pants.  Lyla's corn fell out when she went potty there (and she didn't even clean it up, they found it afterwards!) and then Ruby's fell out when she laid on the floor and turned a certain angle and out came like 15 corn kernels all over their kitchen floor.  So gross and so embarrassing!  

This is how Ruby walked with all the corn kernels in her pants. It was hilarious! 

Awkward #7.

Anyway, after we took naps from the Pumpkin Patch outing, we headed over to the Duke Business school for a Fall Festival where you could carve or paint your pumpkins you got at the patch, eat yummy Fall food, and play some games.  It was really fun!

Please excuse the blurry iPad pics...

The girls got their other cheek painted.  

And the absolute highlight of this event was the donut game.  They attach a donut to a string (don't worry, they change the string for each person), and the kids can't use their hands as they try to eat the donut.  My girls thought it was the greatest and funniest game ever and they both begged to do it a second time, which I happily agreed.

Awkward #8

Awkward #9

Anyway, it was a really fun day full of awesome activities but we sure did miss Nate-dawg.