Fall Festival Fun

Yesterday right after a wonderful church service we went straight to the local fall festival. 
The first both we stopped at was the face paint

Then we hit the bounce around and the games.  We finished up with an amazing burger and went to the house to rest up for night church.
Great day!  Great memories made!

Halloween 2014.. successful!

Last night for All Hallows Eve 2014 Lyla went dressed up as Elsa from FROZEN. Suprised? There were approximately 658 other Elsa's strolling around..but I am pretty partial to mine, especially since I spent $30 on that dress thinking she might look a little different than every other Elsa...
But..
Arkansas decided to have a cold front sweep in ON Halloween night so everyone was wearing jackets.
The $30 dress.. covered up.. most of the night!

Moving on..

Our town has a wonderful walking trail where all the groups from the High School set up "stations" and decorate them how they want...the kids walk along the walking trail and the High Schoolers just load thier bags up with candy.. It is absolutely wonderful! and safe!

 

 I have to say I am pretty proud of her Elsa inspired hair. We put baby powder in it to make it white then sprayed the hair spray glitter on it. It was magical!

 

 

At the end of the end of the walking trail you go through City Hall.. which was all decorated as The Emerald City. Super cool!

 

Lyla and I would read a chapter from the Wizard of Oz book every night before bed. She was very into it and we finished the book. So to actually walk into the Emerald City was pretty amazing!

 

 

Of course it all started with a Yellow Brick Road. 

The Cowardly Lion turned out to be Lyla's Kindergarten teacher Mrs. Kinslow. This was serioulsy the highlight of Lyla's night....and turned out to be mine as well. Mrs Kinslow told me she tested Lyla's reading level and she scored at a Level 10. Which was Chinese to me until she told me that they START first grade at a Level 6! Wow!! So now Mrs Kinslow is going to let her go to the library to check out her own books to read. Once she finishes reading that book she can take a test on it and then pick out another one to read.

Proud Momma Moment!

 

 

The last stop is the Fire Station.. they had the smoke machine going and you had to walk through the station in the smoke. What a cool picture! 

 

 

 

After the walking trail .. we hit a few safe houses to Trick or Treat at.. then ran by Taco Bell for some late supper. I look over to ask what my Ice Queen wanted and found this: 

 

Halloween 2014... Successful!

Birthday Party at Preschool

In my last post about Lyla's birthday party I told you that we had to do it early.. well this day was her Real Birthday!! And we were getting ready to party down at preschool!!

We had a big day scheduled..
First a field trip to Chuck E Cheese

Then cake and juice for snack time!

Here was our birthday attire....

 

Lyla and Izzy have become pretty good friends since Lyla moved up into the schoolers room.
At Chuck E Cheese every kiddo got around 60 tokens to play games with .. Lyla and Izzy.. played in the tunnels and this cage.. for free.. almost the whole time.

 

We ended up with 200 tickets...thanks to me and my master skeet ball skills...

so we went to the counter to pick out a sucker and some FunDip

 

Woop Woop!! Cake time!!

It was an Ice Cream cake!

It was a hit!

 

 

I think she had a pretty good day.

 

 

Kindergarten Class List ....

It's been the chatter for a while now.... Who is in who's class? Who is your teacher? I hope they get this one or that one... or I've heard this or that about this teacher...

Kindergarten is stressful...
for the parents!!

This picture is of course from about a month ago..

Our class lists went up on a Friday.. they weren't supposed to be out until that Monday... and oh my goodness.. it was all over Facebook!

We got so and so...

Oh man.. I hope we have a good year...

 

So Lyla and I drove down to her "big girl" school...and she looked for her name

 

We found it!

She is in Mrs. Kinslow's class

 

Her cousin Landon had Mrs. Kinslow last year for his Kindergarten year.. so we know that she is already fantastic.. like every other Kindergarten teacher...and I know that she will have a wonderful year! I'm excited to see how much she loves it!!

 

 

Then of course we looked for all her friends names.. to see which teacher they got....

To her surprise.. she had 2 friends in HER class!

Yay!

 

 

Here we go.. Off to a great school year!

Chatting at the fence...

Oh my goodness..What am I going to do with this girl?

My husband went out to mow the yard and the next thing I know when I look out the window I see this happening.

Such sweet summer memories.

Happy 6th Birthday Lyla!

This year we had to push Lyla's birthday party up a little bit so that all the family would be able to be here to enjoy it.. which wasn't a problem with Lyla. We had only a few short days to plan so we did a quick McDonald's Play Place party in a Frozen theme.
For a quick planned birthday.. I think it went pretty awesome.
All the kids had chicken nuggets and ice cream..My mother in law made this awesome Frozen cake...they kids played their hearts out in the tunnels..and they all went home tired!

SCORE!

 

Does anyone else HAVE to lick the icing off the birthday candle?? It is either a family tradition or just a southern thing.. because I remember doing it when I was little. This year I found her a number 6 candle holder that lit up and blinked.. it was pretty stinking cool!

 

We only invited 10 friends to this birthday party since it was kind of quick deal.. but I can not believe how blessed she was with presents.. you would have never thought we had only 10 guests.. we filled our trunk up in our car with presents. Wow!

We have great family and friends!!

 

She got a ton of toys that she loves.. and we couldn't wait to get home and put our new Frozen bedding on our big girl bed!

 

How precious is this picture? This is Lyla and her best friend Addison...

Total girl secrets going on here.

 

Teddy Bear! Who doesn't love a new soft Teddy Bear! That comes with a matching night gown just like yours!!

 

Perfect ending picture.

This is exactly how her birthday went!

Exciting

Loved

Fun

Perfect!

 

Yay!!

Don't mind the mismatched socks

she picked them out herself

Floatin' down the river

Brewer Family Float Trip on the Illinois River

 

Look at this cutie in her life jacket and sunglasses...

That is how you pull off a life vest and make it look good.

I've only been floating one other time. It was when my husband and I were dating and we went with the church. He was still "chasing me" so he paddled the whole way and I just rode like Ariel in the Little Mermaid. It was a Southern Fantasy.

So I was excited to go again and this time take my daughter on a float trip.

You had a couple of options:

You could choose to have a raft, kayak, or a canoe.. we chose a canoe. Somehow I got in the back of the canoe which means you are the person that practically steers the whole boat.. which gave my husband a great opportunity to do some fishing while I was busy steering.
Honeymoon period.. Over!

Learned my lesson: Always get in the front of the canoe!

You could also choose to do a 6 mile float or a 12 mile float. Since we had the kiddo with us we chose the 6 mile. It almost felt like it was to quick.. we wanted to keep going. So next year we are going to try the 12 mile.

It was a great day. The weather could not have been any better. Summer in Arkansas is hot and sticky.. but that day it was nice and cool. Just Wonderful!

 

We packed a picnic lunch and some snacks so along the way when we would come across an area where we could pull the canoe up.. we would stop. We did some fishing, some relaxing, some snacking.. Just hanging out together. I found out my baby girl loved herself some Moon Pies.

Such a Southern girl!! 

 

I can't wait to go again next year. I will be in the front of the boat.. I will pack my own lunchbox of slim jims...and I will take it slower.. not worry so much about having everything we could possibly need.. and have a good time!!

 

Memories Made!



Sweet Dreams.

 

When baby girl pushes away the iPad to lay her head down..

She is exhausted!!

 

Sweet Dreams little one.
Momma loves you.

 

 

Birthday and Backpack

Since Lyla has started preschool..she has developed two pretty awesome friends. Addison and Darah.
They all fight like sisters... but then can't function without each other. Recently it was Darah's birthday and she had her party at Chuck E Cheese!

All the girls were excited to spend some time together .. outside of school.. just playing and having fun!!

Here is Lyla and Addison.. ready for Cake!

Darah is turning 5! What an awesome cake!

Present time! Darah opened up Lyla's present first.. which was a big deal to Lyla for some reason. I guess there is some sort of status symbol in getting your present opened first! I did take quite a while wrapping it and putting all the curly ribbon on.. so I'm glad she enjoyed it!

We got her a HUGE coloring book of Doc McStuffins.. and a DVD.

After the party I had to run by Target to pick up a few things and they already had all their back to school stuff going up.. so we swung by the school section to look at backpacks...because we all know that is also another status symbol of school.. You HAVE to have a cool backpack.

 

I , being the uncool mom, went to the backpacks that had the princesses or Barbie on them..

Lyla went directly to this one!

OMG!

Rainbow Spikes!

 

and her daddy approved!!

Not that I have anything against rainbow spikes but I just can't see my lovely little daughter walking into Kindergarten with a Rainbow Spike backpack...so I told her "Let's look around"

 

*fingers crossed that a FROZEN backpack crosses our path SOON..

I think that will be the only thing that will change her mind**

The clouds in Arkansas

I've always been one to lay and look at the clouds. I love them. I do remember as a child looking at the clouds and trying to figure out which animal they were shaped like.

I'm also a lover of storm clouds. There is something about the seriousness, the power that beholds a storm cloud.

 

In my book.. It is hard to beat a good ol' southern storm. Just a thunderstorm.. nothing rotating... some thunder, lightning.. just to clear the air. It's ironically peaceful.