Cruella, Dalmation and Friends

Cruella de Ville and her pet dalmation

The mean Cruella face.

The joys of trying to get BOTH children to look at the camera at the same time. Boy, is digital photography nice!

Cruella and her theme song.

Full length Cruella.

Thanks to my cousin Kelli for the costume loan!
Ruff, ruff.



Friday was our church's fall festival/trunk-or-treat. We had a great time... yummy chili, fun games and lots of candy.
Snow White, Texas cowgirl, Witch, Cruella, ButterflyFarmer Geo with a full grown watermelon
Its amazing you can still miss from the 1 ft distance.

Face painting from my friend Tovi. Lucy chose a spider on the cheek.

In line for pumpkin bowling.


A little help from Ron. :)

One-eyed dog, farmer with one tooth missing, and a happy Cruella with a full bucket of candy!

Elise's first bites of cereal

Here's a post for the grandparents. :)

Elise is 5 months old! She has two little bottom teeth and can roll from her belly to her back, but not the other way around. And why would she? She hates being on her tummy. We started her with rice cereal last week. She wasn't so sure about it, but seems to like it better now. Tonight George said she kept grabbing for the spoon... more, more! But not in this video!

Visit from Mom and the Aunties

My mom and three of her sisters came to visit for Columbus Day weekend. It was so much fun! These gals are goers so we packed in as much fun as possible. In addition to the regular San Antonio stuff, we did a few things that I'd never done here (which is always fun). If I were to sum up their trip in two words it would be EAT and SHOP! Sounds like a great vacation to me! Just notice how many of these pics are around a table... ! George was working all night shifts this past month, so he slept during most of the daytime activities. I'm sure he was really sad to miss out on all the shopping. I gotta give a hand to my two girls... they did great with all the running around. Partly because they were constantly entertained and partly because I've trained them to be great shoppers! :)

Some of our non-photographed activites included a historic ghost tour of downtown SA, boat tour of the Riverwalk, shopping at the outlets, a quick trip to Market Square for food at La Margarita, IMAX movie of the Alamo, listening to a few numbers of the accordian festival on the Riverwalk, and a visit to the LDS temple. Whew! I had a great time teasing the aunts for bringing their jackets to most places... its still in the 90's here... a bit different from UT fall temps. I also loved that they sang songs to Lucy as we traveled in the van ... in four-part harmony!

In front of one of my favorite restaurants, "The Gristmill" in Gruene (basically pronounced "green").

This place has great atmosphere and yummy, yummy food. The only sad thing is that they were out of my personal favorite, BBQ ribs. I guess that gives me a good excuse to go back.

Passing the time on the porch of one of Gruene's cute little shops while some of us were shopping.

Grandma looks stumped.

A bed & breakfast place in Gruene
What a sweetheart!

Gotta get a pic by the Alamo.

Elise and her favorite perch.

Lucy had enough of the Alamo...

... but was happy once she had chips at Boudro's. I think they have the BEST homemade guacamole! They make it tableside and I've tried to copy, but never can get it quite right.

One of the new things we did was a Sunday mariachi mass at mission San Jose. I thought it was quite interesting.

Below is a pic of breakfast at the Guenther house. Afterwards we walked around the King William historic district and looked at all the cool old German houses and walked the Riverwalk from there all the way to downtown SA. Its only about a mile, but I've never walked the whole thing and it was beautiful!

Ok... you might think these next two shots are a bit random, but my aunts never got to see my clean bedroom. So, in case any of them check my blog... here it is! Since George was working nights and slept in our bed during the day, Elise slept in my closet at night, and my own lazy/forgetfulness, it hadn't been cleaned for a solid month. Too bad they didn't get to see it clean in person! I guess they'll have to come back! :)

Love you mom and aunties!

I Love My Mummy!

With our many fun visitors, Lucy seems to need more entertainment lately. :) Today I decided to make pumpkin treats (basically orange rice krispie treats with apple cinnamon cheerios instead of the krispies and gumdrops for the stems). I'm not a fan of dry rice krispies, so I didn't add as much cereal. Ummm... I think I should have followed the recipe a bit better....they were pretty dang gooey. I dipped Lucy's hands in butter and told her to dig in to the bowl and make a pumpkin ball.

Always got to sample a bit...

Elise is pretty smart... goes right for the candy bag!
Yum!

They turned out more like Pumpkin blobs... but....


still good enough to eat! (Although she said the gumdrops were her favorite part!)

A few pics from today's music class...

"Five Little Pumpkins"

"There's a spider on my neck, on my neck..."
This was one of my favorite parts of class today. Our story time leader Rachelle wore an orange wig to read the story of "Humbug Witch" by Lorna Balian. I need to buy that book! It was so cute. Watching the kids faces during the whole thing was pretty funny.

I also took a video of the kids dancing to "Dem Bones" but it seems like whenever I start recording anything, both of my kids stop doing whatever was really cute and just sit there. So, I have lots of lame video footage. But at least you can see some of the other kids dancing...

Basketball Belly

quite the belly... and its only going to get bigger in the next six weeks!

Now you see it...

Now you don't!

I could hide all sorts of things behind there!

Spending time with Jackson (and his fam)

We've been lucky to have the Fillmore's (our good friends from Omaha) visit for a few weeks. Lucy had constant entertainment. Of course, she needed some "its nice to share" and "its not polite to yell at our friends" reminders, but on the whole, they did real well playing together. She's keeps asking when he's coming back and now seems to have forgotten how to play on her own. :)

Here's a few photo highlights...

At the park...Jackson: "Don't forget to check your blind spot!"

"Crazy woman driver... I'm outta here!"

"Maybe she can cook better than she drives."

"Mmmm... rocks for dinner!"

I think they like Jigglers better!

Stroller rides... Elise is not happy unless she is in motion.

School time... making a "fire" with tissue paper.

Elise loves to eat her dresses.

Elise: "Hey! Don't push that dress down... even if we're playing peek-a-boo!"
Chloe surrounded by toys and covered with an umbrella in case the roof leaks.


Swimming/popscicle buddies

Yep... its mid-October and still warm enough for popscicles to melt. This day temps were in the 90's.

Mini-town beauty salon
Gotta look good!

Come back soon Fillmores!