October At-A-Glance

October came in with a whimper (Aggies lose to Arkansas) and out with a BANG (Halloween!). As I decorated my house for the fall and for Halloween, we watched the Aggies squander another first half lead. UGH, is all I can say. Luckily, the Aggies were back to their winning ways by beating Tech in Lubbock and Baylor at home. (Wish I could say that about the rest of the games.)

Back in SL, we were busy with our own little football star as Jackson’s flag football team played on Sunday afternoons. He has really enjoyed playing this year. He got several tackles as a rusher and even made a completed pass for a touchdown as the quarterback this past weekend. We can’t be more proud.

We also attended a family wedding this month. Congratulations again Alison and Jason! It’s always fun to see our cousins and aunts and uncles that we don’t get to see all that often. We’re all looking forward to our family Christmas in December.

October at St. Laurence means the Church Bazaar. Luckily, we were only attendees this year. Kenny has been a Bazaar chairperson the past three years and has worked his tail off prior to and during the Bazaar. This year, we had the Baylor game on Saturday and Jackson had a football game Sunday afternoon, so we were able to attend the Bazaar Sunday morning for a little while. We rode some rides, played some games and had lunch there. Then it was on to the flag football game.

The fall also means “spring cleaning” at our house. And I teamed up with my sister, sister in law and mom to have a garage sale in EC. We made a good bit of money. Money I get to spend in Canton! WOOHOO!!!

After the garage sale, we made our way to Victoria to Candace and Shelby’s baby shower. They are so cute and so excited to be parents. It was great to see the other Priesmeyers. Here’s Jackson with his cousin Justin. The shower was in a barn turned trophy room. Needless to say Jordan was terrified the first hour we were there, but eventually got used to the animals. Jackson loved it, and even got to tame a bear.

And as I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve been slammed at work. Luckily our deadline was postponed a bit (which is never good in the world of IT), but I’ve still got my head down and elbows up trying to get everything completed by the new deadline.

Kenny has been busy too. He had several successful projects go out the past few months. Owning your own business is a lot of work, but it’s very rewarding. He’s doing great and the business is growing. I’m so, so proud!

October ended the way it began in terms of Aggie football. The Aggies gave up another halftime lead to the Missouri Tigers to lose in Overtime. What a disappointment. UGH, again.

Halloween was great. Jordan and Kenny started the day on a field trip with Jordan’s school to Dewberry Farm. She was soooo excited! And Jackson was jealous of course. Then they both had Halloween parties in the afternoon. We went trick-or-treating with one of Jackson’s best buddies and his family. We had burgers and candy… LOTS OF CANDY!!!

Happy Halloween!!!

Just a quick picture of the kiddos prior to trick-or-treating last night.

Thanksgiving Program 2010

Jordan's Thanksgiving program was the Friday before Thanksgiving at school. She was an Indian during the little play that they did. Then the classes sang Thanksgiving songs. After the program, we all sat down to a Thanksgiving feast. YUMMY! This was the first year that Jackson was a spectator in the audience. I think it was a little weird for him.

Pumpkin Patch

While I spent a much-needed day with my girlfriends, Kenny took the kids to the Pumpkin Patch in EC. They picked up my nephew Reed on the way. This is always such a fun event for the kids. There's lots to do, and we really look forward to it every year.

They get their faces painted...


And jumped in the bounce house.


I think Jack would've stayed here all day.


The kids had another great time at the Pumpkin Patch!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

We've got such a busy week, that I probably won't have a chance to post anything until next weekend, so Happy early Thanksgiving! And Thanksgiving wouldn't be complete without Some pilgrims....

...and some Indians!

(Sorry for the dark pictures. Maybe Santa will bring me a new camera.) The daycare program for J & J was last Friday. The pre-K kids did a small skit and then they sang some songs and even rapped one. After Jack's class rapped, the pre-school class sang a few songs. Jordan came and sang with the pre-school class (her class T-giving was the day before). Then both classes came together and they sang "This Land is Your Land". They sang the song a 2nd time, and the parents had to join in too. We finished up with a turkey meal with all the trimmings. The kids had a ball. And my turkey cookies were gone in record time!

Gobble, Gobble

The Thanksgiving program at daycare is this Friday the 13th. They have a program where the kids sing songs and then there is a full all-out Thanksgiving meal with all the trimmings. And of course I thought it would be fun to make turkey cookies. So while we watched the Country Music Awards Wednesday night, Kenny and I iced almost 2 dozen turkey cookies. Jackson put his request in that 1/3 had a red eye, 1/3 had a yellow eye and 1/3 had an orange eye. So I didn't disappoint. We did make an ooops and do the gobbler(isn't that what it's called???) orange instead of red. I don't think the kids will know the difference. I'm sure my dad will though!

This was the best one because I did the color along the full tail. I was accused of being "chinchy" on some. :-)

Stay tuned for pictures from the program!!!

Finally Home for a Full Weekend

The weekend was somewhat of a blur. Kenny drove to New Orleans to see a good friend Friday, stayed the night, and drove back home on Saturday. I don't think I sat down until supper Saturday night. The kids kept me busy, but they were really good except for a Play-Doh incident at 9am that morning. I did a TON of laundry and packed up the Halloween decorations from inside the house. We hadn't been home for a full weekend since I don't know when, so there was a LOT to do. Then when Kenny got home, we put the pumpkins up from outside and pulled out our turkey. Jackson and I also planted some pink colanchoe plants along the back patio while Jordan supervised.

Oh, and I want to show you my bird of paradise blooms that I cut Saturday morning. Aren't they cool?!?!? I decided to enjoy them inside of my house instead of having to search for them through the windows outside. They also blend very nicely with my autumn decor.



Jackson had a big day today. He got rewarded with an outing to see Astro Boy because he had 4 out of 5 "greens" last week. (He gets a color at the end of every day that tells us his conduct was for the day. Blue is the very best, but green is the next best and is still awesome... at least to us.) His behavior had been "iffy" at best since they started the color system in September. So we were very proud that he did so well last week. This week we're going for all greens. And who knows, maybe he'll even get a blue one day. I can dream, right??? :-)

Carving the Pumpkin

Jackson picked the biggest pumpkin he could find at the Pumpkin Patch a couple of weeks ago. So last night was the night to carve it. And what do you carve a HUGE pumpkin with??? A Dremel Tool of course! It works great!



It took a couple of hours, and it turned out great! The pumpkin is so stinkin' big, we could have two figures carved in it. The spider was for Jackson and the cat for Jordan.

Cats and Bats and Pumpkins, oh my! (and a ghost)

The kids have their Halloween parties at school on Friday, and I knew I wanted to make cookies for them. So Jackson requested cats, bats, ghosts and pumpkins. Kenny was feeling a little left out because I never make cookies for us at home, so I made an extra batch of pumpkins. I baked and baked and baked. For like 4 hours. Then Sunday night we outlined the cookies, and Monday we filled them in, and then Tuesday we put the finishing touches. I say we because Kenny is a good helper. He can't sit idle when I'm doing something creative. He did the more creative jack-o-lantern faces.



So I bagged up the cookies for the parties tonight, and put the rest up for us to munch on thru the weekend. Maybe tomorrow I'll have a break. But it was fun, and I really enjoy it. It's a nice break from the corporate world.

Zoo Boo!

We went to the Zoo for some family time on Saturday. They had a lot of neat activities for the kids in honor of Halloween. And the weather was perfect to be outside.

Here's "Movie Star" watching the lions.


They each got to pick out their own pumpkins and decorate them.




They had a mural that kids got to help color. Jackson didn't want to leave.


He even autographed it.


Jackson rode the carousel. For some reason Jordan wasn't very fond of it, so Jackson rode a second time with her ticket.


We also met up with my friend and her husband and 4 boys! Yep, you counted right, 4 boys! :-) But not the guy in the Oilers jersey! LOL!


We rode the train right before we left. When we were getting in the car Jackson already asked if we could come back and visit the zoo. We had a great time!

Oh! I'm sure you're all wondering what happened to Jackson's head. Well he walked in to the corner of a wall at daycare Friday afternoon. It broke the skin, and he's had a big ol' goose egg since. It's nice and greenish-purple tonight (Sunday).

More Pumpkin Patch

Aunt Dana sent some more pictures from the pumpkin patch on Saturday.



This one is my favorite! I think she brought these two pumpkins home.

Pumpkin Patch!!!

Saturday we visited the Pumpkin Patch. Jackson kept looking for the biggest pumpkin to bring home... and I think he succeeded! Jordan liked carrying around the little-bitty pumpkins. Here's a pic of them cheesing for the camera. As you can tell, they were having a ball!