We celebrated with a reindeer cake - since he didn't shoot a buck, this might be close enough. The green frosting was not my best idea ever but it's the holidays, so at least we had a festive color going on fingers/hands/mouths/lips/teeth.
Abby has received her first BB gun - not sure if it's really more for Tim to kill rabbits in the garden or for Abby, but she was pretty happy to see it.
Megan received a Tinkerbell hair set and we are all the more beautiful now because of it.
And here are the presents before they tore into them.
And by some miracle Megan actually sat in Santa's lap - what you don't see is me taking her up there and talking with Santa to coax her into it. It helps that each child got a present too from Santa. And Megan stuck with the same request - "I want a football."
Then it was on to the little kid gift exchange - Abby and Megan are waiting patiently for the green light to open their presents. We now have a couple more Barbies to add to our mix, they were very excited.
Here's the post opening photo of the little kids. Most of them have run to their parents to get their presents out of the boxes so they could play with them right then.
Sunday we spent the day in Collinsville, IL for our nephew Theo's 2nd Birthday. The theme was Fire trucks/Firemen.
An out of order photo - Abby with Santa in Carrollton. Also a miracle that she is sitting in Santa's lap, she watched a couple kids get some presents ahead of her so I think that was her motivation.
Theo and Tim's birthday's were celebrated on Sunday.
After presents Betsy and BJ had set up for the party to go to the Collinsville Fire House for the kids to check out the trucks.
Abby and Megan enjoyed all of it.
Here's all the kids, Theo had a new fire truck he carried around the whole time.
Our birthday boy!
I believe there was some taste testing going on as well - Megan's mouth is a little too red.
Sampling after we were done.
All thumbs up from the Schmidt girls. As Abby said "these are the best cookies" and I can't argue with that.
After the cookie decorating (and outfit changes as the girls thought they needed to pick out their own clothes) we headed to Bass Pro for our annual meeting with Santa. Many of you will be disappointed that the girls actually liked Santa this year. It was a little sketchy while waiting in line, Megan needed a little coaxing and wouldn't take off her coat like she was ready to bolt. Abby went straight to the reindeer (last year's spot) and Santa asked her a few questions and got her interested in talking which in turn eased Megan into it. So there is a photo without crying and Megan asked for a football and Abby a dolly.
Some outdoor posing with Santa's sled.
And ending the night with a little adorableness. Ahhh, I love Christmas, and it was the most pleasant Santa visit we have ever had. It was a good night.
They each put on their own ornaments - Abby even shared since she has about twice as many as Megan.
And then the finishing touches - which includes rearranging the ornaments everyday and clustering random things under the tree for "decorations", like stuff animals, a pretend curling iron and hair dryer, you know, "decorations".
The first tooth.
This is the pillow that the tooth went in that night (present from Aunt C and Uncle T).
And just to make things a little more complicated Tim decided to use up all his tomatoes that finally ripened and make salsa and can it. He chose Jalepeno Salsa out of my canning book. I think my house and hands still smell like jalepenos/onions/garlic.
The final product - I was feeling a little proud of myself with my canning skills. Tim tried some and said it was pretty spicy so I can only imagine how it will taste after it sits for a while.
And the photo of the missing tooth. Sunday night the other bottom tooth came out so the Tooth Fairy came Sunday night also to our house. Abby put the pillow back up on her shelf so I'm guessing no other plans to lose any more teeth soon.
The cake for the daycare party, it was good, all 2 times we we ate it yesterday.
Some of the girls from daycare getting ready for the party.
She had another party with some friends at Bonker's that night as well. What better way to come off the sugar high than to run around for 2 hours? I thought it was a good plan at least.
Celebrating with the Schmidt family at the hotel from the wedding this past weekend - and yes, those are our rainbow cupcakes we made and they were delicious! Grandpa Schmidt is threatening to tickle her.There are many more things to add to the list but we'll just leave it at that.
Happy Birthday Abby - we love you!!
Abby had her Preschool Halloween party today that I was able to attend. I happened to find a cute Pooh Bear on the way (not so cute in the photo) that came with me.
Snow White and her goodie bag.
Winnie The Pooh (at a happier time).
Then we have a shout out to the Davenport family as they welcomed Ella Cate on Friday. As usual the girls fought over holding her and taking turns but it's only because they love babies so much. Good luck to their cousin Kitty when they see her at Christmas - she is going to be overly loved the whole time.
And we love each other again......
These were our rally towels from Game 6 (yep, Tim and I were there.....jealous, I thought so). It was an amazing game to be at and the fact the Cardinals fought back several times to win it was crazy. The atmosphere at the stadium was unbelievable. I'm not a big fan of night games on school nights, that go extra innings....but I'm glad I was there. 
Sunday was pumpkin carving day - you can see the girls hard at work...which lasted about 2 minutes for Abby. Megan kept more at it. But first our sad pumpkin story - some kids stole one of our pumpkins over the weekend before we carved them thankfully. We were actually at home when they did it, and Tim thinks he saw them drive away. So we had to go get a new one Sunday after church. Abby was a little mad that people took our pumpkin. I guess it was a good one that I had bought them so big they could only carry one at a time.
Our finished product - Tinkerbell
And Micky Mouse.
I have been meaning to take the kids for a while and just honestly have slacked on it. So we've been going on Monday's after work for an hour or so. Abby has a challenge to read 25 books a month for preschool to win a personal pizza so this has helped fuel our reading numbers. They also have computer games (pictured above) and handy bigger keyboards. We rented our first videos last week as well. There are always new discoveries when we go, even a book about the public library for kids to explain everything.
Here is the outdoor playground - and yes it's a gravity conveyor. As someone who works in a distribution center I found it to be entertaining. It was also the kids favorite slide.
More sliding before we hit the pool.
We did a little shopping after we checked out - and the kids could not resist the bull. Our reason for shopping was to get Megan some big girl panties! Yes she has almost conquered potty training and to celebrate (or motivate) the final stage we let her pick out some panties. She is doing great and we're excited to be out of the diapers/pull ups for good.
This was some Chicken/Steak house off of the main road that the kids were very excited about. They also have cows on the roof and in the restaurant. So we decided to join the tourists and eat there. You can see we are under the chicken - and much to Abby's disappointment, it did not lay an egg.
Yep - it's just a pie, and not as pretty as the one I made last week but still tastes so good! It's a mix a Mutsu and Jonagold apples and Abby's comment was "Best Pie Ever!" - which made my heart melt as she is a picky eater.
Here is a wonderful picture of me canning applesauce. One other thing about October is it's Breast Cancer Awareness month - so I'm sporting my pink shirt in support! Tim managed to snap this picture.
Here's my first helper of the afternoon. Megan could rock the foley mill! She was all about it, and as long as you held the bowl in place she did just fine. Although her enthusiasm would come and go to help, she had fun.
We moved the operations outside as we needed more burners for keeping the applesauce warm and canning. This year we used the turkey fryer to cook our stock pot and canning pot on (don't worry I didn't actually use the turkey fryer pot - I don't like my applesauce with a hint of turkey). It was a pretty good idea and helped with the process - plus with the size of the canning pot my stove didn't handle it that well last year. Next year we'll see if we can borrow the neighbors to help the process. Abby's taking a crank at the applesauce - her help was limited this year. 
Random photo - this was Abby's first birthday party from someone not in daycare. So that meant no invite for the Meggers (insert drama and fit here). Thankfully Megan went down for a nap and we sneaked out of the house. She wasn't that happy about it - but got to go fishing as a compromise.
The finished product of all of our labors (about 5 hours worth) - 11 quarts and 12 pints - last year we only made 6 quarts so you can imagine how many more apples we had this year! Even with all the sampling :). We have a small sample in the fridge for dinner as well. If I can keep the kids/Tim out if it until then.
We had to check in on the Slenker's on Friday night - the kids can't share a toy but they can all share a chair!!
This past week I was in Las Vegas for a conference and just wanted to share a few photos. Conveniently the conference ended at 4 PM each day so I got plenty of time to walk around. I always love the Conservatory at the Bellagio with their natural garden sculptures.
In honor of October/Fall - there was some blurb about the amount of carnations in that pumpkin on the right but I don't remember the exact number - it was A LOT!
Then of course the fountains. I was actually leaving the hotel so this is from the back of the fountains - a different view, but still amazing.
And last but not least - another Abby dove hunting photo. Yes she is actually holding the doves! I was pretty surprised to get this photo from Tim as you wouldn't really see me holding dead birds but Abby was all about it and I got a detailed version of the whole process and how she wasn't scared and you hold them from the legs or the wing because Daddy shot the head......I'll let you imagine the rest. Tim was thrilled though and Abby can't wait for deer season.
