Mid Week Review

We have spent the last few days resting up from all the Halloween and Birthday madness. Thanksgiving madness will be here before we know it. We have also spent this week cleaning up and packing away the party decorations. Brookelynn has spent the week scattering all of her new birthday gifts and new clothes around the house. She has changed her outfits at least twenty times in the past four days.
I still don't know why she felt the need to wear this for a half an hour tonight...

Devin is getting packed up for his weekend trip to Gatlinburg.

Tomorrow, I am off to Nashville to experience "Christmas Village" for the first time. I am kind of excited to go. This is supposed to be the number one Christmas craft fair around.

Enjoying the Journey

We spent the last couple of weeks preparing for today. Brookelynn and I made invitations a couple of weeks ago.  This weekend she told me that she wanted to make a banner for her party, so we did.  She also picked out all of her ice cream bar toppings and placed them in serving glasses.  She has been soooo excited this weekend.  I told her that getting ready for the party was half the fun and that she should take time to enjoy all the preparation too (and she did).  I explained that we shouldnt always look forward to what we are trying to achieve, but instead we should enjoy the journey of getting there.
We woke up to a blustery morning today. Decorations were blowing around and swaying with the wind as we sat decorations out. We got most everything set up before church and the winds died down quite a bit before the party. It turned out to be a beautiful day for an ice cream social. Brookelynn had lots of family and friends to come and celebrate her "double digits".
This year, she invited four classmates, and all four of them were able to attend. She had a great day! We had potato sack races, jumped in the bounce house, played bingo and made ice cream sundae's. 

Brookelynn's banner kept blowing around. I thought I had better get a picture while it was staying still.

John Casen had fun on the bounce house too.

TTU Homecoming Parade and Bee's B-Day

Today began early with Stroker taking Devin to the barber shop by 8am. Brookelynn and I hung out a few decorations for tomorrow's party since there was no chance of rain in the forecast. By 10:30, we were at Tech watching the homecoming parade.

Here are some of the floats.

 This was one of my favorites.

 This one was cute with the faded out Awesome Eagle. This costume IS ready for retirement.

 Of course, the traditional student mob came through. 

 Where's Waldo?

 After the tech parade, we stopped by to pick up Brookelynn's cake for her party tomorrow. We also stopped by the Sports House to find out what's up with the city league basketball team. Devin signed up a moth ago and we haven't heard anything. When we got back home around 1pm, Mildred stopped by to show us Bee's cake that she had picked up for his birthday. It was a cute fish, just not the age appropriate fish that we expected. Bee turned 57 today. We were kind of expecting a bass or something along that line. None-the-less, it was cute and it was a fish. Brookelynn noticed that they had written the name "Dee" instead of "Bee".  She has a good eye for attention to detail.

We spent the evening at Mildreds. We got home in time to bake a batch of cupcakes for Brookelynn's ice cream social. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day.

Five on Friday

1. Brookelynn opened her birthday gifts from us early.
A new comforter for her bed... and 2 new pair of shoes.

2. The lawnmower died and had to be replaced. Uuugh...Just in time for the last mow of the season.

3. I finally received my new debit card in the mail which makes me feel a little better. 

4. The bank still hasn't replaced the money from the fraudulent charges to our account yet, which makes be feel worse.

5. The TTU Homecoming Parade is scheduled for tomorrow morning. Come hang out with us on Dixie...across from the old $1 Theatre.

The Big 10

Sunday is Brookelynn's birthday. She and I made these invitations for her party and mailed them out last Friday. Everyone should have received theirs by now. So far, the weather forecast is calling for Sunny and almost 70 degrees. We plan to be outdoors again this year, so hopefully Mother Nature stays in a good mood through out the weekend.

Punky Power

Halloween came and went like a flash.  We spent the evening on a trick-or-treat hay ride. There were six kids total. Punky Brewster, The Queen Bee, Woody from Toy Story, an Indian Squaw, Cleopatra and a Vampire Princess.  The kids hopped on and off that trailer a hundred times from house to house and door to door. We ended the night at Faith Fellowship and just barely made it as they were shutting down. Brookelynn and Libby literally got the last two pieces of candy at a couple of the trunks.

Today, we drug our rears out of bed the best we could and carried on as usual. Oh yeah, I had to go by the bank to sign affidavits for the debit card fraud because all those USPS.com charges posted to my account this morning. Uuuuugggghhhhhh. I also took Cletus for a groom today so that he can come in and sleep by the front door at night. It has been getting kind of chilly these last few nights and he knows that he can't come in until he is clean and groomed.
Tonight, we went to Sparta and had dinner at El Tapatio with my sister and brother-in-law.
Tomorrow, I take mom to the dentist.