Too cute to spook

The last couple of years we haven't really gotten into the Halloween thing with Isabella being so young. We've gotten the costumes, taken her picture, and that's about it. But this year it's a whole different story. She absolutely loved her Butterfly Princess costume, her Princess candy bucket and her ballerina slippers, and she looked beautiful!
She had a great time at our church's Fall Festival this year where she got to wear her costume for the first time, play lots of games, have her face painted (by her mommy), and eat tons of candy.

But quite honestly, the highlight for Isabella was being able to go door to door, say Trick or Treat and get free candy. You wouldn't believe how quickly she caught on to this new concept. By the time we got to the second and third house she was an old pro. We really enjoyed walking around our neighborhood with our friends, the Padawers. Madison was dressed as Ariel, from The Little Mermaid, with the big red hair and everything. They looked seriously cute.
In other news, we had our ultrasound this Monday, and thank God everything looks great so far. We were able to see the little heart, lungs, kidneys, stomach, hands, feet,... well, pretty much everything but the baby's face, being that is was on its side or its belly during the entire procedure. And yes, I did mean everything. I am pleased to inform you that we are having a baby BOY! Yeah! We are so excited. Even Isabella seems pleased with our news. I think she would definitely struggle if she had to share her princess status with someone else in the house.

Fun at the Patch

So we finally made it to a pumpkin patch this year with our great friends the Padawers. We have been postponing our trip because it's been so hot and my idea of a pumpkin patch visit and a hay ride usually involves jeans and warm, cozy sweaters, not shorts and T-shirts. Since we got there in the morning it was still somewhat "chilly", but unfortunately it wasn't long before the temperature was up in the 80's.

We kicked off our adventure with a hay ride out to the fields where we got to pick our own pumpkins right off the vines. Then we headed back to the "farm" to play in the playground, ride the train, pet and feed the animals, roast marshmallows and jump in the moonwalk. A funny thing that happened was while Isabella and I were posing for a picture in front of the goats, one of them decided my hair looked good enough to eat and took a big ol' bite of it scaring me to death and making me jump a good ten feet. I seriously do not remember the last time I moved that fast.
I think the girls would have been quite content to stay there all day, but we finally convinced them that the adults were hot and hungry and that we needed to go get some lunch. But it was a very good day filled with so much fun and a whole lot of laughter.

I must confess

Isabella had her school pictures taken last week, and I must confess I was petrified. Why?, you ask. Well, here lately when you ask her to smile for the camera she loudly says "CHEESE" and makes the scariest looking face. And I know I'm her mama and I love her to death, but when I say scary,... I mean scary. Scary like "Chucky the doll" scary (please refer to exhibits A and B below):

Exhibit A ~ Here's Chucky the doll:Exhibit B ~ Here's Isabella looking "Chucky-ish":
Due to this small issue, we actually had some impromptu smiling practices/sessions at home before her school photos were taken. Needless to say we got this look from her more than once, and every single time her daddy would praise her by loudly exclaiming "Beautiful!". Seriously?!?! I could have killed him every time he did because I just knew all of her pictures would end up looking like that.

Anyway, today was the big day, the day we got to pick up the pictures. I found myself walking towards the table with quite the array of emotions going on inside me: anxiety, anticipation, fear, dread of the unknown, uncertainty. I gave the lady Isabella's name and she pulled out her pictures, she then looked at me and said "Oh". Oh? What is that supposed to mean? The first thing that popped into my mind was CHUCKY! Then she says "You're going to have a hard time choosing". Phew,...

The pictures were stunning. I picked 6 poses from a total of 10 available and absolutely loved them. I'm pretty sure we're going to use one of them on our Christmas cards so I'm only going to share a couple at this time. These are scanned copies so they are not as good as the originals, but you get the idea.

Yeah, no Chucky doll here, just our beautiful girl who constantly keeps us guessing.

I don't ever want to forget,...

So Scott and I were talking about a funny thing that happened in the car on the way home from dinner Saturday night. Just a few days later and we're already struggling to remember ALL the details. But we've finally managed to piece it together and it goes a little something like this:

At Hannah's birthday party all the girls got one of those funky straws with lots of loops in their cups. On the way home Isabella pulled her straw out of her cup and since it was so dark she was having a hard time getting it back in the right spot. So she asked her daddy for help. Scott took the straw put it in the cup and gave it back to her, to which she enthusiastically responded:

"Good job, Daddy! I'm so proud of you!"

Scott and I looked at each other and started laughing. Of course, as you can imagine, her daddy instantly turned to mush. Not that it takes much,...