community ed halloween party, daddy-daughter date, pumpkins

whew! another beautiful, fun, fall weekend. i'm torn between being excited for the holidays and wishing we could keep this warm weather and the gorgeous trees forever. before i get to my weekend recap i want to note that friday marked two years since my dad was diagnosed with stage iv lung cancer. wow, how can that be? such a hard, emotional day that was, not knowing if we had years, months, or weeks left with him, but two years later, he's still hanging in there and i hope and pray we get to keep him for a good while longer! 

friday night we went to the southwest community ed annual halloween party. it's so fun taking our kids to it since we both worked for community ed for so many years (and i attended the party a lot as a kid). it was azalea and ashford's first opportunity to dress us for halloween this year, so that was fun! here is princess elsa (before she let me put a braid in her hair...i practically begged her):

our friends becky, jeromy, and their daughter linnea met us there. the girls were so cute in their frozen costumes. they loved being "sisters" for the night. 

we got there early to beat the crowds. here is the gym at the start of the party. within a half hour it was wall to wall people! 

i think the favorite activity for azalea and linnea was the bouncy house. they both went in it multiple times. 

they also played some games like the fishing pole prize one (where azalea had a meltdown because we wouldn't let her go behind the curtain - ha!). they got their faces painted too!

i'm sure you are wondering where ashford was during all this. he was mostly just chillin, the party started at the same time he normally goes to bed, so we were a little worried about that, but he did ok. he mostly just took it all in. my little skeleton: 

the last activity we did was a 'cookie walk'. it ended up being rather traumatic for the 3 year olds that not everyone got a cookie at the end of the cookie walk. we did it multiple times and we had some pretty sad girls who did not win anything in the end. good life lesson for them ;) 

saturday morning, ashford and i met up with my friend kris and her baby boy jacob at joann fabrics to look for some fabric for throw pillow covers for my new living room couch. the couch came with really nice down throw pillows, but the colors didn't go with our color scheme. i was pretty excited when i noticed the covers were removable and i could change them out for something else. kris sewed the curtains and sheets in ashford's room and i'm so thankful she was willing to do another little project for me! i can't wait to see them! while we were out, thatcher and azalea met up with his friend ian who has a 3 year old daughter named kyla. they had a double daddy-daughter date to glam doll donuts and the stone arch bridge area. i'm glad he took these picures, so i could see their fun morning:

sunday morning i took the kids to church. they were mostly good, but azalea started having a meltdown during communion because i wouldn't hold her (i was already holding ashford). she laid down on the ground and refused to get up. never a dull moment with that girl. thank goodness my mom was there for backup. we laughed about it with our pastor after the service. i love that my church actively encourages young kids to be a part of the service...meltdowns and all :) church was during ashford's morning nap time, so when we got home at 11, ate lunch, and put the kids down for a nap, i had high hopes that he would take a long nap, but he had other plans. 45 minutes and he was awake again. i tried for a good half hour to get him back down again to no avail. such a crazy dude! 

after azalea got up from her nap, we went to bachman's to get a pumpkin. the last few years we've gone to a fundraiser at a church near our house that sells pumpkins, but their pumpkins are soooo expensive that we decided to just go to bachman's this year. it was far from a "pumpkin patch", but it did the trick. the kids only sort of cooperated for a picture. what else is new? :) 

sunday night we went to my parents' house for dinner. we had pizza and hung out with them and my brother. azalea stayed for one last sleepover before they head down to florida on thursday. wahhhh i don't want them to leave. i guess we'll be starting up our almost daily skype dates again!