Halloween 2012

It has taken me all weekend to narrow down the halloween pictures. I apologize for putting 24 on the blog, but this is kind of my baby book for the girls! We had a fun week filled with halloween excitement. Sunday night, the girls went to our church fall festival for bouncy house fun, dinner and then trunk or treat. Emma quickly learned how the trick or treat thing worked. She never has been afraid of anyone with food in their hand!

 Wednesday was Ellie's class party and then Wednesday night we hit the streets of our neighborhood for some serious candy grabbing. Ellie thought we needed to go to every single house in our neighborhood (which is about 600 homes). We had to cut her off for bedtime though, and she was not happy about that. She showed Emma the ropes, and I think they both will be a mean candy hunting machine next year!

I've never really fully embraced the Halloween thing. I usually decorate more fall, mainly so I can leave decorations  up through thanksgiving. I've never been a big fan of dressing up and doing halloween themed parties. After seeing the effort of some of our neighbors this year, (and a friendly religious disagreement with a patient who believes it's wrong to teach your children about halloween, santa and the easter bunny - LONG STORY ) I will definitely go all out next year. The houses with the most decorations, music and people in costume attracted us to stop and get candy. They looked like they were having a blast, and Ellie was so excited about it! Her comment to her daddy after one of the scary houses was "I'm not scared of nofing Daddy!" It was definitely a fun family night that brought us together for several hours. (In my opinion, God would smile about that!)

LadyBug!

Emma loves a bouncy house - just like her sister!

Ellie and her friend Spiderman AKA: Tripp

These kids were so sweet. It took 3 of them but they heaved and pulled Emma up the slide finally. This is her head peeking up when she finally made it to the top!

Ellie and her best buddy Bo

"you're going to give me that? "

The little rascals

Ellie's preschool class singing for us

Notice the kid to Ellie's left. She was singing so loud he had to cover his ears:)

The spread. And yes, this was supposed to be  a "snack"

Crazy Ms. Jennifer

Me and Ellie with her mouth full of cupcake

Ellie and her Ms. Allison

Rapunzel posing

The jack o lantern

"Come on Mom and Dad, we're ready to go!"

Bundled up and ready to go!

The first house - Emma is not so sure about this

Girl on a mission

Fun Neighbors

This house was awesome. You can see Ellie and Emma clinging to Worth!

Pumpkins

We have had a very busy weekend with tons of activities going on and getting ready for Halloween. We had supper club Friday night with 10 little ones at our house and their parents. We had chili even though I think it was around 80 degrees here Friday night. We can at least pretend it is a cool fall night like we used to have in Birmingham - right? It was so much fun and Ellie and Emma passed out easily Friday night.

Saturday morning, Worth and the girls headed to the pumpkin patch to get a pumpkin to carve (we already had several pumpkins on the front porch, but because of the heat they are rotten for the most part. That night we headed over to our friends, the Barrys, to watch what we thought would be a stressful and disappointing GA/FLA game. Stressful, yes, disappointing, NO! Go Dawgs! I did feel sorry for our friends, the Sheltons (who are huge GATOR fans) because they bought our tickets and I assume Mike was in the middle of A LOT of UGA fans when the gators bit it.

This morning we headed to church and the girls looked cute in their fall dresses, so I attempted some pictures.  It was comical. Ellie wins funniest faces in most of the pictures. Getting them to stay still together and smile in pictures is impossible! Tonight we head to our church fall/halloween festival and we celebrate Halloween on Wednesday so more pictures to follow!

Dance Party

Just another after dinner dance party at the Bowers

Long Week

The last six days have been the longest that I can remember. I will just have to post our week to give you an idea of how it went:

 Monday: We get a call from Worth's family that his grandfather has had a heart attack and was given CPR and brought back to life but was not responding neurologically.

Tuesday: We continue to wait, pray, and worry about Grandaddy Cavaleri. No changes in his condition, not responding to stimuli. Worth's family is discussing options. He's still in ICU in Augusta, GA and it just doesn't look good.

Wednesday: Grandaddy Cavaleri still unresponsive and secondary to his living will, Worth leaves at 5:00am to head to Augusta to say his last goodbyes to his grandfather. I was going to stay here until Thursday morning and then head that way with the girls. I volunteered our family to sell pumpkins at our church's annual pumpkin sale on Wednesday afternoon. It was not the easiest job to sell pumpkins and monitor a 1 and 4 year old at the same time! Thankfully, another lady from the church helped me since Worth couldn't be there, and it ended up being a fun experience and Ellie was even a great helper. Emma just enjoyed climbing all over the pumpkins.

Wednesday mid-morning-Thursday: Worth's grandfather opens his eyes and winks at his wife. Later after his EEG came back normal and he was extubated his first question was: "Where is my pretty wife?" As a family we are praising God for him waking. Our prayers for 3 days had been answered and he was doing fairly well considering. He has a few cracked ribs from the CPR that was given to him (he happened to be in a meeting where a doctor and a nurse were present when he collapsed), but overall he's doing better.

Friday: Mr. Cavaleri is slowly recovering and we are so thankful. On top of all this I planned for a college friend of mine to come visit this weekend with her 2 year old little girl. We cancelled the trip altogether until we found out that Worth's granddad was doing better. Kathryn and Kaitlyn arrived Friday night to lighten the Bowers' household spirits. We had a wonderful weekend with my old friend and her little girl (who I had not seen since she was 9 months old). Worth and I kept Kaitlyn Saturday night so that Kathryn could attend a wedding in Tifton. Our girls had a blast together going to the playground, riding on the golf cart and feeding the fish in the pond in our neighborhood. Saturday night they all passed out to sleep very easily!

 For a whirlwind of a week, it turned out to be a wonderful weekend! We are blessed beyond measure, and so thankful for it! We continue to pray for Granddaddy Cavaleri and his healing. He is still in the hospital, but is being moved out of ICU this weekend into a regular room. He is having a heart cath on Monday to determine the cause of the heart attack. Below are some pictures of our time at the pumpkin patch and our visit with Kathryn and Kaitlyn. 

Looking for "alligators"

still worried about the alligators

Swinging with Aunt Kathryn

My two little monkeys

Snack time at the playground

Sweet Kaitlyn

One of the best shots I could get of the three girls together!

Kaitlyn's curls

Silly Girls

Emma giving Kaitlyn kisses

Kathryn enjoyed the playground equipment more than the girls


 

UGA vs.Tenn

This past weekend we traveled to Athens to attend the UGA vs. Tenn game. Well, Worth actually attended the game and the girls and I made an appearance at the tailgate. It was a fun weekend and Georgia came out with a win - no matter how ugly it was! Emma decided to pretend like she was a newborn again Friday night and screamed all night. I guess she just wanted to prepare Aunt Kate and Uncle Jay for what's coming their way in a couple of months:) It made for an exhausting day for all of us on Saturday, but she seemed to have a blast at the tailgate!I took the girls back to Aunt Kate's and Uncle Jay's for naptime and to watch the game on tv, so several of the pictures are from their house. Our plan is to actually take Ellie to her first game this year when the weather gets a little cooler and it is an earlier game. Emma WILL NOT be attending a game probably until she's at least 10 - we just thought we had our hands full with Ellie...