Thansgiving was at Carlie and Adrian's house this year, and it was fantastic! Good job Howe's (and Grandma Sue, too!) We packed as much as possible into our four day weekend including a date night, bowling, rollerskating, a movie, and the stomache flu! Fun, Fun, Fun!

The kids ate very little of the Thanksgiving feast. They instead, consumed an entire bag of tangerines and enough fruit to stock a small town grocery store!

Sadly this is one of the few pictures of Aunt Mindy we got. As she was one of the unlucky recepients of the flu (Amelia was the other one). So that we would not have to witness the suffering, they locked her away in the basement -no really they did.

Daddy and Lola enjoying some downtime after the bigt meal.

Checking out pictures of themselves on Grandma's phone! Can you even imagine doing that with your Grandma?

The nice thing about 3 year old bowling is that there is time to run back over to Grandma's arms and wait and watch the pins fall.


Even Amelia got in on the action!

I got uninvited to accompany Lola out on the floor. The first of many, I'm sure! Such is the life of the mom I guess!

Team Winter!!!

It took our "little" group an hour and a half to bowl one game. Everyone was tired but happy by the end!

Carly Jo and Lola are good friends. They've been good friends since the beginning (they're two weeks apart). In less than a month Carly and her family (Joe, Robin and baby Cy) are moving to New Mexico. So we are trying to spend lots of time together between now and then. Friday, Robin and I caravaned to Boise and took the girls to the zoo and Hobby Lobby (for the Moms).

As you're going in the entrance to the zoo, you pass by this fence and on the other side is a rather large giraffe slide.This is baby Cy. He is four months old and the only boy in our troupe.
When you're three a big slide is just as exciting as any wild animal.

To the Kimble family: Thank you so much for your friendship it means so much to us. We sure are going to miss you guys! But on the upside we can't wait to visit and see New Mexico.

Love you guys!

Cassidy, Lola and Amelia

Sweet Mountain Music

Three weeks ago we went to the library for story time. It was fabulous! A Swedish family of 3 were in town visiting relatives and came to the library to play their instruments for us. The Dad palyed the cello, the Mom played the viola, and the daughter played a 1/2 size violin. They played music to the reading of the Three Bears. Afterward they showed us their instruments and told us about them. They even showed us the first violin that their daughter learned to play on. It was a 1/32 size, it looked like it was made for a doll. The family was super nice and let the kids try it out. I may be a little bit bias (of course), but it seems to me that Lola has an aptitude for music. She kind of goes into a trance and concentrates so hard on it, the lady even said she was impressed and that we should look into getting her one of her own. This lady plays for the Swedish orchestra as a career so she knows what she's talking about! (I'm smiling as I write this because I could see that she was impressed but maybe she could see my pride. Who knows?)

An Ice Cream Alley First, Again

Our girls love ice cream and it is so exciting to me to get to take them to ice cream alley for the first time and fun everytime after. This summer was Amelia's first time to the Alley and we weren't disapointed!

Waiting in Line
Waiting for Mama to put in our order. Picking grass while we waited for our ice cream to be scooped.
Still waiting. If you haven't ever been to ice cream alley you should know some afternoons the line is so long and splits and winds and sometimes the whole experience is a half an hour at least.
Lola did her own makeup when we were getting ready to go to town (ooops) - but it was just ice cream and really it was pretty cute.

We didn't hang around the courtyard to eat our ice cream because it was a particularly busy night, there was a motorcycle rally or something going on in town and apparently a lot of bikers like ice cream, too. So we strolled around down town.

Under the Big Top

So sometime this summer (aside from our coast vaca) we did find time for fun! The circus came back to town-it's been two years (I think I blogged about it last time, I'll have to look).

Look at her face and hands this is cotton candy and dust, thankfully I remembered how dirty you get under the Big Top and wore jeans instead of khakis. (Plus I brought a whole tub of wipes.) Rarrrrr!
Yummm, cotton candy!
Oh, yah everyone loves cotton candy!

Lola even got to go on a pony ride!!

PS This was back in July. Yeah, I'm gonna try to catch up on blogging :) .

What I've been up to...(Among Many, Many Other Things)

The spackling makes it look so much worse than it was! Really!!!Notice the ET head-looking light fixture in the before pic. Ugh!
I found the new light fixture at Target after seeing the almost same one at Pottery Barn for three times the amount. Yeaaaahhh!!

Our bed is in the living room while I finish painting our bedroom. The plan is fresh paint in every room of the house (except the girls', it was just done).

I wish I had gotten better before pictures-not that before was bad, it was different and I didn't know I was gonna love the after this much! More to follow ( I swear!)

Tiny Dancer

Did you ever see the episode of Friends when Phoebe was talking about how sweet it was that Elton John was in love with that guy from Who's the Boss? All the friends looked at her like she was crazy and she sang "Hold me close young Tony Danza..."

That cracks me up.

This is different.

Lola is our tiny dancer. She loves it. She listens to her teacher. She is learning. She is so happy and at the end of every class she comes out, lays her head on my lap, looks at me with sad, serious eyes and says "Mama, I don't want to stop dancing."

My Best Friend's Wedding

The weekend before our Oregon Coast trip the girls and I headed down to Boise for the weekend. Brian Giacomino (Paradis) married his sweetheart, Jenn on June 12. They asked Lola to be in their wedding. I promise I did not go crazy like Julia Roberts character in the movie. In fact I was so inspired by their wedding that I got this crazy idea to propose to Tahoe and we could renew our wedding vows next year on our 5th anniversary. So I asked Tahoe just to make sure (no one wants to have a proposal shot down-even if you are already married.)

"Hey, what would you say if I proposed to you?"
"We're already married."
"I know that. If I proposed to you what would you say?"
"I don't understand the question."
"Just tell me yes or no. If I asked you to marry me would you?"
"Well, yeah. Sure."

And then I woke up. ;) Uggggh.

Anywhobedo...

Their wedding was beautiful. I can't wait to see the pictures! I forgot to charge my camera battery and only got a couple pics (before the party even started).

Lola was the flower girl and Mathew (Brian's son) was the ring bearer. They held hands walking down the aisle. It was sooo sweet!

Jenn picked out Lola's dress and because nothing makes me happier, I asked if she would mind if I got Amelia the matching one. Obviously she didn't! They were black satin with pink rose petals inside tulle skirts.The day before the wedding Brian went out with his groomsmen to play golf and Jenn had a spa day with her bridesmaids. So I took Mathew, Lola, and Amelia to the zoo. It was a lot of fun. It was our first time to the Boise Zoo. Mathew was our tour guide and we were pretty impressed. I loved watching Lola and Mathew together-it made my heart happy.

These pictures make my heart happy. Don't they yours? We gotta make memories (really good ones) so that when times are tough (as sometimes they are) we have something to look back on, give us a smile and hope, and get us through to go make some more really, really good memories!

Do you know anybody in these pictures? Do I have pictures that you don't or maybe you took some of these pictures? Are you smiling as you look at these?