Thanksgiving at the Beans

We played a fun game called...

"How Many People Can You Fit In My Mom's Dining Room?"
Starting from Left Top, you've got Kenzie (my cousin) and her hubs Garrett, Haley (my cousin) and her hubs Luke. My grandpa and grandma Bean, My grandma Delmont, Uncle Randy, Aunt Cindy (dad's sis), Dylan (cousin), Dustin (cousin), Wes, Me (empty chair), Avers, and Brittany. Zane and my parents lost the game... I am going to have to start clicking the camera on number 2 because this kid was smiling so precious, but as soon as he heard 3, he did this... We let the food settle for a little and then it was football time. Here is our team of 3.25 trying to figure out how we can get past a team of 4! In action... Then it was game time...

Black Friday
I just couldn't do it. I didn't even look at the sales. I heard people talk about how they saved $20 on some item though. Standing in line for hours in order to save $20?? This doesn't seem worth it?? Then I heard people say how they went but the things they wanted were already gone! I'll stick with ebay, amazon, or craigslist!!!
We enjoyed hanging out with my mom's dad and his wife for a couple of hours instead!! Then it was dirt bike time!!
Wes bought a couple of toys from an auction last month and my parents have a great yard to ride around on. My mom and dad have never ridden (nor have my sister and I). I'm not too good with changing gears, but I got it down good enough to ride!

Backyard Hiking Time

Walk through the tree's at the back of the yard and this is what you get. I couldn't believe how low it was. The water was black because it just stagnant puddles. I used to swim in this!!

You always find awesome treasures down there...

We found an area that was deep enough to skip rocks! Zane has an awesome wind up, but needs to work on the follow through...

Avery was able to figure it out and get two skips!

climb over to the other side...

and find some vines to swing on!!

More treasures... a hollowed out fallen tree, a big crawdad (that blends into the background!)... and cool tree roots... We ended the hike with finding some mistletoe...and taking a slightly awkward photo...

Great trip as always. Here are video's of the new toys...

The kid's $10+new battery toy is having issues. When we came to my parents in October, it worked great and they rode around a lot all over the grass...

After bringing it back home, it started to only work on the road and not the grass. When we took it back to my parents this time, it wasn't even working. I wonder if the charger is not working well enough to charge it? Any mini dirt bike specialists out there?!

Playing A Little Catch-Up!

Happy Super Mario 6th Birthday Austen!!
Last Saturday, my little nephew got older. I hate it when he does that...
Zane didn't care about the chocolate but went straight for the gum. The flavor of this gum lasts exactly 10.3 seconds and then turns into a flavorless piece of plastic that kills your jaw. If only Trident would make gum balls...

The kiddo's stayed the night with Austen before the party. Apparently Zane wanted two spikes in his hair and Amy never says No!!! My kid's fascination with being a rock star doesn't appear to be going away anytime soon.

The greatest gift EVER...a quick Walgreen's card and a check! Nothing like waiting until the last minute...pretty sure he didn't even know what a check was.

Nov. 11th, Avery performed a halftime show at the OC boy's basketball game. I put up the video's on facebook, but forget some family only read my blog. So here ya go...

I really thought she would get nervous and not want to go out there but she tore it up! So proud!!

I couldn't believe that during a 15 second cheer, someone just had to walk across the court. Apparently they needed too...

Same with the dance. I'm sitting on the front row with my arms extended clearly video tapping. I see a student approaching. We make eye contact. My eyes communicate "See my camera? Yep. My daughter's out there...wait 30 seconds please." He blinked and proceeded. I accidentally said "Seriously?!?!" as he walked by...

Being out there kinda made me want to run out and tumble across the floor. I sure do miss that part of it but I'm pretty sure my back doesn't.

Avery's First Level 4 Gym Meet

Intersquad Meet.
11-17-11 5:00-9:00pm.

This was a very informal meet that was just for practice. It may be her only meet this year, depending on if she gets a couple skills she doesn't have yet. The coach said she is allowed to compete the events she has, but I'm not sure I want to pay a meet fee ($90) if she isn't ready to compete on everything.

She got her best score on vault...it was an 8 something
(The coach kept score cards to record them and planned to give them to us today, but we are skipping to watch a friend perform in Annie!! We'll get the score card Monday.)

Next best score was beam. She get's so nervous on beam and is a little less confident up there. She got a 7.8 I think? She went overtime and had a few missteps.


Floor is her favorite and would be her best score, however a few weeks ago she decided she could no longer do a round-off back-handspring without spot. It's so frustrating to me since she used to do it all the time. She will do it when they are practicing, but when she does it with the routine, she wants a spot. Erg. Hopefully she gets over this quickly, or I might go crazy!! Her score was a 6 something.


She got a 6 something on bars also. Its the hardest event for most of the girls in level 4. Once we get these two skills she needed help with, we'll compete at a real meet!


I realllllly wanted to be a kid again and run out there and tumble on that floor. Being out there brought so many fun memories to my mind. I LOVED watching her and I think she did great!!
Good job Avers!!

Photo Shoot at GG and PaPa's

I LOVE FALL!!
Here is the best cousin's picture we could get... Here I am climbing our tree to tie the big rope swing. You can't tell by the picture, but there weren't many limbs from the ladder to where I had to get. VERY scary. I had to hike my leg over my head to where I was doing splits on the tree in order to get to this point. I. Was. Sore.

It sure made a fun swing though!! This plastic toy kitchen was ours when we were kids! I love this playhouse and can't wait to camp out in it with the kids! While in Bartlesville, we decided to hit up the Kiddie Park's Halloween festivities. We saw a mad scientist show...got arms painted, rode rides, and had a good time! Here are some other pictures I took of the kiddos

Zane got sick of taking pictures pretty quickly and started whining...but Avery loves taking pictures...

Trick or Treating Times Three

Saturday 10:00 am- Crud they still don't have costumes.
Two days before Halloween, I asked Amy if she had a costume we could borrow. BAM. Dinosaur. Good thing Zane liked it! Avery was more tricky. We started going through her dress up stuff and pondered being a dancer, cheerleader, gymnast, but then found this witch hat. I figured I could hurry and run to hobby lobby and make a tutu to match. I had a few other ideas for the costume, but ran out of time. We were barely ready in time for Storybook Forest (mainly because of a soccer game and then a shoes and tights meltdown which aunt Brittany's tights and Avery's old Jazz shoes fixed the problem thank goodness).Sunday at 4- Austen's Church Halloween Party.
All kinds of fun things there! Free drinks, peanuts, and popcorn along with hamburgers and hotdogs to purchase.

There were a few games inside...

but the real fun was outside! The animal people were here. This time they got to also see a baby alligator! They rode horses, got their face painted, and jumped on big bouncy toys...

There was a Photo Booth...and a free ride that we were all too scared to do...

Sunday at 6:30- Our church's Trunk or Treat.

Most creative trunk...

Cutest costumed couple...

Best makeup job's...the fake nose was awesome.

My little poor neglected witch was a little jealous. Oh well.

Best set up... We made a round of games in the gym, ending with the Pop Walk. Going until they each won a pop. FUN FUN Day!
MONDAY NIGHT
HALLOWEEN
We went to see the infamous Halloween Witch and her spooky house. The kids were a little freaked at first but slowly walked up to her! We were then invited inside!!!
(Zane decided to wear his last years costume this time)
They had drinks to grab and a huge table filled with all sorts of goodies. Should have snapped a picture of it. There was even a sign pointing out the bathroom. We could have just partied there all night, but decided to hit a few houses down the street. Here is a terrible picture of the house. Much more amazing in real life. There was a big spider outside that the kids took a picture with and freaked out when the head moved! On our trick or treating journey, we saw many amazing decorations.
Zane was scared of this table!! And totally freaked out by the gorilla! He gave me his bucket and said "here you go get the candy!" This house had a little courtyard you walked through to get to the front door and those lights say ENTER IF YOU DARE! One day I actually want to decorate my house. This picture is so foggy because they had to walk past decorations that blew smoke! That was the greatest trick or treating neighborhood I've ever seen. Amazing and our buckets were overflowing just going down two streets.