Dear God

Dear God,

This prayer that I say tonight

Is for my Daddy who must fight

For you see, he is away from me

Keeping his country safe & free

This is the one that I love

And so I ask you Lord above

Please keep him safe while under way

and bring him home to me someday

While he is gone, please hear my prayer

And let him know I will be there

Waiting for him upon the pier

Hoping & praying with some fear

But for all military far from home

I ask you to keep them safe and sound

On their way to where there bound

We love these mommies and daddies that are

asked to fight

So, keep them safe for us tonight.

3 months down, 3 more left

until Daddy can come home

where he's loved best

The Boo Crew

Lily decided she wanted to be Ariel for Halloween this year (big surprise...).

Lily was so excited to go trick-or-treating with Paige & Lexi. The girls had lots of fun running from house to house. There were a few houses that had scary Halloween music that they were afraid to go up to, but other than that they were trick-or-treating pros!

"The Boo Crew"

Pumpkin Carving 2006

Pumpkin carving has become a big thing in our house. This year I thought Lily would want to help us clean out the pumpkins - boy, was I wrong. She wouldn't even reach in to get a few seeds out! That job was left up to Mommy & Grammy. But she did do a GREAT job helping us trace out the designs by poking little tiny holes in the pumpkins along the lines of the stencil. Here's a few of our "masterpieces".

Princess Ariel with her Ariel & princess castle pumpkins.
The finished products!

Boo at the Barn

Maymont had an event this year called 'Boo at the Barn'. They had games, Halloween music, bounce castles, face painting, a 'spooktacular' maze (that Lily finished in record time) and a petting zoo, where Lily made quite a few new friends.

Pumpkin Ring Toss
Lily LOVED this bunny - she kept saying how soft he was & asked if we could take him home.
Say hello to the sheep!
This goat followed Lily around everywhere - even after she ran out of goat food! Maybe he thought she was a long lost relative since they have the same hair do... She thought it was hilarious that the goats & sheep were licking her to eat their food. She thought they were giving her kisses (because that's how Vader gives kisses) and she tried to hug them too.

Lily & her new best goat friend.

Cotton Candy Queen!

It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown

Lily & I went to Cox Farms over the weekend, which is a huge Halloween playland. They have giant slides, farm animals, hayrides & lots of other fun stuff. When she saw this huge pumpkin she said "Hey! That's Charlie Brown's pumpkin!". Lily loved feeding the goats (which I didn't get pictures of because my camera battery died!), and sliding down the many giant slides. They had a show about milking cows & they let the kids try it after the show, but Lily said that was "Gross!" & did not want to try. When we went on the hayride, there was a part that went through a barn - the inside of the barn was set up like a witches house & they had a party going on in there with disco balls & everything! Lily was tapping her foot to the music. When we got out of the barn she said "Mommy, my foot was dancing in the witches house - it was so excited!" :o)

Lily on "the big pony".
(There were smaller ones, but Lily was very brave & wanted to ride the big pony.)

Lily loved that this cow had a flower on her ear & pet her for a long time!Smile & say "HEE HAW!"

On the rope swing "like Tarzan"

Spooky Cookies

We made Halloween cookies today to send to Daddy. Lily used the cookie cutters to cut out the spooky shapes she wanted & then we decorated them. What a mess! You can see the flour Lily got all over her face & by the time she had finished decorating the cookies, her fingers - and her tongue - were black from the colored sugar we used to decorate with! Hopefully Daddy will enjoy them as much as we enjoyed the "samples" we tested for him.

On another note, I have still not been able to get Lily out of her Ariel ballerina dress. Every single morning when she wakes up, the first thing she does is take off her pajamas & put on her ballerina dress!

The Princess & her castle

Lily playing in her room with her "Little People" princess castle.

Mimi & Grant visit Princess Ariel

Mimi & Grant came to visit us this weekend & they brought Lily a new Ariel wedding dress & an Ariel ballerina dress, which transformed Lily into "Princess Ariel" for the rest of the weekend (and every day since).

Here comes the bride...
Even Vader got in on the fun!

Note to Mimi: "Some princesses have to go potty"

Pretty ballerina.
We also went to a going away party for one of Daddy's Sgt's who is being transferred to Hawaii.
We all got together to take a picture to send to Daddy so he won't forget about all his favorite Sgt's. :o)
We'll miss you Sgt Fair!

Punkin Pickin 2006

Lily, Mimi, Grant & Mommy went "punkin picking" (as Lily says) while they were visiting us this weekend. Lily had Grant carry "the most humongous punkin" Mommy would let her take home, even though she found some that were even more humongous - like the one below she's sitting on! We had a great time seeing the farm animals, going on the hayride, having (rubber) "duck races", & bouncing in the bounce castle. Lily loved listening to the live band & her & Mimi danced along to the music. Lily & Mimi got their faces painted together too.

Lily, Mimi & Grant on the hayride

Lily & the "humongous" punkin

One more pic of the cutest punkin in the patch

Math Lesson

Tonight at dinner Lily asked me how many bites of vegetables she had to have in order to get dessert, so I told her 4. She held up 4 fingers & asked "This many?" - I said yes. (She always holds up her fingers to show how many bites she has to take.) She took one bite & then asked how many more bites she had to take. I thought I would be smart & make this situation into a little math lesson for her, so I held up four fingers & asked her if she had taken one bite (and I put one finger down), then what did she get? ...She said "Dessert!!" :o) So much for that math lesson...