Happy Halloween!

Abbey wanted to be a fairy this year and she wanted her build a bears to be fairies as well but we couldn't find outfits for the bears so last weekend we headed out to party city to look for something else. She found this adorable Mother Nature costume and looks so cute in it we just couldn't resist. Here are a few photos of before and after Trick or Treating.

Daniel took her Trick or Treating in his mother's neighborhood with his nieces and nephews, They all came back loaded down with goodies. It was nice day but the weather was a little too cold to stay out for long.

Abbey

This month just seems to be flying by. Our schedule has been jam packed. Thankfully we are finally settling in with the routine of School. I've even stopped following the bus to the HS. LOL Abbey's 13th Birthday camping trip went well ... even with the rain off and on. School functions, meetings and outings have taken a bite out of the month and quite frankly most of them were a waste of time. Daniel has been working 70+ hours a week so we hardly have time with him, that makes me sad and grumpy. Mother's almost daily doctor appointments are at least giving me a lot of reading time, I've finished 5 books this month. lol I'm hoping the rest of the month will move a bit slower and give us all time to catch up. Here are some photos from the month. Thanks for looking!

1. Abbey with Daniel at our favorite Karaoke restaurant to celebrate her "Almost" Birthday.
2. Abbey the some of the girls at her Birthday weekend camping trip.
3. Abbey looking so grown up at one of Mother's doctor appointments.
4. Abbey with her Summer reading project. They had to either make a book jacket or a puppet of one of the characters. Hers is Kira from Lois Lowery's Gathering Blue.
5. Abbey at her Choir skate party.

Abbey's 1st day of 8th grade.

Abbey started 8th grade today. She was a little nervous this morning but ended up have a pretty good day ... basically they just sat around in homeroom all day. One if her best friends is in her homeroom class so she was happy. lol Tomorrow she'll start her classes at the High School and be bussed back for her remaining classes at the Junior High. All the back and forth makes me nervous, but I'll try to calm my momma bear over protective instincts and just wait to see how it goes. I can't believe my sweet baby girl is turning 13 next month!!! I'm not sure where the time went but oh boy it sure went by fast!! This year for her birthday she wanted something a little different and since you only turn 13 once we are throwing her a big weekend camping / birthday party at Garner State Park. We've arranged for three connecting camping sites and so far have a guest list of 8 little girls for the weekend and about 40 friends and family for the celebration on Sunday. Now the fun begins ... shopping for the party, making invitations and thinking about playing in the nice cool river!!! :-)

Abigail and Ella

This adorable little one is my new niece Ella, she's my baby sister Elizabeth's new baby. She was 30 days early, weighs 6.3 and is 18 inches long. She's so tiny, like one of Abbey's baby dolls. Abbey was over the moon happy to have been allowed up to my sister's room to visit and hold Ella. Elizabeth's baby shower was supposed to be tomorrow. lol Ella just didn't want to miss out on the fun.

Abbey and Bebe

This sweet little "My Buddy" baby doll has been in our family since 1985. My brother Joseph moved to Georgia, and he was so lonely over there that he would make the trip back to Texas nearly every weekend. So my sister Anna Marie bought him this My Buddy doll for Christmas ... to keep him company. Well, he still came home nearly every weekend but now Bebe, the doll, was coming too. LOL One day our father fell asleep with Bebe in his arms and Joseph didn't have the heart to take him back to Georgia. So he lived at Daddy's house with three girls that bought him baby clothes and sat him in the living room watching TV with Daddy. When Daddy passed Anna Marie took Bebe and every so often she lets him "visit" us. LOL When the kids came to spend the 4th weekend with us, we brought along Bebe. :-) I love these photos of Abbey and Bebe ... I have some just like this from when she was about 1 and almost every year after. When Bebe came home with us this past weekend, Daniel said I know why Roo likes to baby her dolls, you still do. :-) Yes, I do. lol

Abbey's card for Unscripted Sketches and a blackout!

Abbey and I spent a bit of time in the evening playing in our craft room. She made this card from the sketch provided by Unscripted Sketches. Too cute!!! We had just taken this photo and were trying to decide what we wanted for Dinner .... when the entire neighborhood had a blackout. It was just before 7pm. Our electricity stayed out until about 1:20 am. Ugh boy oh boy it was hot! It was 103 when the lights went out and only dropped to 92 by 11 pm. Luckily Daniel and I both have a weird thing for collecting flashlights and lanterns so we had plenty of light in the house and some to loan to neighbors. Daniel was working so Abbey and I played Upwords and Mancalla a few times, ate sandwiches for dinner and drank a lot of water. lol I had her take a quick cool shower and then I put her to bed, really late about about 11, because it was just too hot to sleep. I sat on the edge of her bed fanning her with a large piece of cardboard until the electricity turned back on. It was kind of funny really, when it turned back on. I had been humming and then thought well, I'll say my prayers now, because I was getting really tired, and when I finished I was talking to God in my head and said God, I know this is selfish of me but the baby is just too hot and I'm worried about the elderly in the neighborhood. And as soon as I thought that, buzzzz! I could hear the AC kick on and the lights went on. :-)

Museum

Since my sister Anna Marie and her children didn't go with us to the Museum last week so Abbey and I decided to pick up Jillian and Bryce and head over there today. I love this photo of the kids on the Hertzberg Circus Museum Elephant. I remember climbing on every time my baby sister and I would pass the Circus Museum downtown as we walked from one bus stop to the next to ride to her apartment. Sadly the Museum closed years ago but the Witte now has this adorable elephant at it's front doors. It just received a new paint job last week and luckily it's all dry and available for photos.

Crafting and Stamptacular Sunday Challenge

Abbey and I spent most of the evening playing in my scrap room. She's quite the talented scrapper and is becoming more and more sure of herself when it comes to card making. Today she helped me do a bit of catch up image coloring. The canvas is for the Stamptacular Sunday Challenge ... Red, White, Blue and a Star Too. She's base painting the canvas we made into a little 4th of July decoration for her door.

Garner State Park

Daniel, Abbey and I decided to beat the 100 degree heat and head to Garner for the day. We thought about camping but since Abbey wants to go shopping tomorrow she was quick to vote no on it. The first photo is of the two of them snorkeling, they are looking for fish to use as bait. eww. The second photo is of Abbey jumping off the swinging rope into the water. She loves doing this and it makes me so nervous that we now have a sign to signal she is okay after each jump. Yes, I'm over protective. :-) The last photo is of Abbey, of course. lol just being adorable floating around in the water.

Abbey and Holly at the Witte Museum.

Abbey and I went to a movie this morning and then to Barns and Nobles to pick up two more books from her Summer reading list. She is just flying though them and in another week or so will be at the end of her list. The only problem with her reading them so fast is I have to read the books first because last year one of her books was about a little 11 year old girl who was murdered by her Uncle keep her from telling that he molested her!!! Good Grief! NOT a book I want my little girl reading. A few of the books on last years list were not books I'd recommend for a middle school child. Good thing the 8 we've read so far were all pretty good. Only 11 more to go and she can get back to her her own choices.

Anywho, The photos for today are from the Witte Museum. We had invited my sister and her children to the Museum in the afternoon so we left the book store and headed home for lunch and to call her. She decided they'd skip this time so we invited Holly, my other niece to join us. The girls had a good time and even let me get a few pictures taken. lol The first is a picture of Abbey outside the Museum acting silly. :-) The second is of the girls having a cookie break and the third is of my sweet angel faced Holly as we waited outside of her mom's shop to take them home. We had dinner at Elizabeth's and played Barbie dolls for about an hour. It was a nice day. I only wish it wasn't so hot! It was another day of over 100* temps. Ugh. Luckily tomorrow, Daniel, Abbey and I are heading to the river to play in the nice cool water.

:-)

The Heart Breakers.

Today was the Talent show at Abbey's school. Abbey and her two friends, Lexie and Melody, danced to Listen to your Heart, techno remix. They called their group The Heart breakers. Abbey was the singer ... of course. lol This is a quick picture I took before they headed out to the stage. They were soooooooo cute and the kids loved it.

I'm sorry to say the video is pretty bad. :-( I was helping in the choir room I didn't get the best seat for the show and was stuck with some heads in the video and not enough time to program my camera for a decent video. Oh well, you can still see the three totally adorable girls doing their thing. :-)

Final Choir concert and awards night

Tonight was the last Choir concert of the year and a small awards ceremony. Abbey received two medals, for her solos. And one very special red medal from The SA Children's Choir. The ones she's wearing are both for Outstanding achievement ... the most 1st place wins throughout the school year. The white one is from the school for her grade level and the other is from the school district for the combined JH and HS Advanced Choir. Only three red, white, and blue medals were given throughout the district. She is holding the red one that was for her being invited to join the San Antonio Children's Choir. As soon as I took this photos she took them off and shoved them in her pocket. LOL On the drive home I asked her if she was embarrassed to wear them and why she never put the red one on ... she said "Not really but you and everyone make a big deal out of it and it's like bragging" What??? Me, brag ?!?!?! hahahha YES, ME!! And it was a big deal. :-) Side note ... she was happy she got to wear her "Together We Sing" shirt for a second time ... the Principal wouldn't allow it for Spirit Fridays because she said it was teasing the other kids that didn't go. WHAT?? Seriously! I think that's where she gets the bragging thing from. Anywho, I'm off to admire fellow bloggers scrappy things.

Abbey

Abbey has a week of free dress days at School, because she bought her Year Book. She's been excited about it for weeks. :-) I tried to remind myself to take a photo daily of her looking oh so cute! But things got in the way on Monday and by the time things were settled down she was bathed and ready for bed. So today ... I made sure to get one. She looked super cute in the adorable outfit she put together. She was a little disappointed when one of her teachers told her how happy they were she still dresses like a little girl. :-) Compared to what I saw at School today ... I'm thankful she still lets me help pick out her clothes. LOL

NISD "Together We Sing" concert

Daniel and Abbey (her sweet cheeks are all rosy from the dancing) at the NISD Choir's "Together We Sing" concert. Over 800 kids sang and danced to some of Broadway's best musical numbers. They all did such a great job learning a dance to 9 or 10 songs in just a few hours. I took some video as well ... I'm just not that computer savvy and I need Abbey to show me how to share a clip with you all. :-). So look forward to that tomorrow. hahahha Have a wonderful and Blessed Sunday! Hugs, Christine Oh how funny, I just noticed Abbey is Daniel's height ... she was standing on the bleacher seat next to him. lol

1st place!

These silly photos were taken after Abbey's Solo Choir competition. She won First place out of about 300 of the Advanced Choir kids. She was too excited to stand still right after and all those photos were blurry with kids jumping up and down. As we were leaving I saw this statue and she immediately wanted to sit on it ... of course! Luckily, because I was afraid of being caught! lol, it was not stable enough so she posed with it instead. In the second photo she wanted it to look like she had horns! She is giggling so hard right now as I type (of course we all know she is on my lap ... always!) She said oh and my handbag is on my horn, I'm ready to shop. hahahaha silly thing.