Thanksgiving Weekend

Well, my Dad, Sylvie, Sylvie's Mom Julie, my brother Zach, and my sister Chloe came into town for Thanksgiving. We went straight from the airport to the Ales for Thanksgiving dinner. There we were joined with Gregg's brother Brian, his wife Jody, and Gregg's Dad Ron. It was really fun. The weather turned really cold just for Thanksgiving and the weekend. It went from 80 to 40! So we took a chilly trip to the zoo before the anticipated rain on Saturday and Sunday. Then we went to my favorite restaurant on the river walk at night while Alyssa was brave enough to stay home with the twins(16 months old), Leanna, and Emily. Alicia was nice enough to come over and help her too! Then on Saturday we took the Brunet girls to the movie "The Enchanted" while Julie watched Chloe and Zach. Then we ate at Chillies - YUM! On Sunday we went to the children's museum and out to eat in the historic town of Gruene.

The Grandparents were In....

Well, we had an 18 day whirlwind visit from Grandma and Grandpa Brunet. Even Uncle Paul came in for a week! Emily did get the stomach flu in the beginning but thankfully, no one was yet visting overnight at our house. Emily also had another ear infection a few weeks before that! Well, I actually took off for a few days to go to Michigan. I saw my family and a couple of friends (Billie and Nico). Everyone I saw has younger kids than me and I was noticing how much more work that is! But, they do grow up fast! Meanwhile, back at home Grandma and Grandpa were in charge while Damien was at work! Almost all the pictures here are from Grandma's camera. Grandma loves to take pictures and since I haven't taken any I had many to chose from. You can see that Grandma was able to take Leanna to school and snap a shot at the door. She also go to have lunch and volunteer in Emily's classroom and get a shot of Emily playing outside on the playground. She even went incognito to the football game and got some undercover photos of Alyssa cheering. Alyssa wouldn't want anyone she knows to know that she actually has parents or a family! But nonetheless even Uncle Paul made it to the game. And what is that I see them eating in the picture....? Something their mother would never get them! Also, what is going on in Leanna's bed while I was gone? What is on her head? And what is with the balloons? You can see Damien's fun project he did with the girls - making a headboard for Leanna.
The one picture I did take is the one of Damien entering the attic. We smelled a dead rat. And he did some research on how to find it, made me go up in the attic with him with the flashlight, and searched under insulation - lots of it! But then he found it!!! Really Gross, I have to tell you!

All things Halloween!

O.k. I have finally got to my blog! I guess the latest was the Halloween "season." Phew now that we are done with that we need to gear up for Thanksgiving and Christmas. We successfully got through the first nine weeks of school! It is going by so fast! Alyssa made all 100's in her four main classes! But she needs to work on improving in one elective - journalism. She's having too much fun in that class apparently! Here are all my pictures. Leanna is wearing gross teeth in the top one. Alyssa is getting harder to photograph. The ones I have are the ones she took with her friends! The one with Alicia wearing the make-up was funny because the next day I woke her up at the last minute for Sunday school and she couldn't get the lipstick off because it was my long lasting lipstick! She looked so funny! But then we realized you could use make up remover.
For Halloween, we had fun at the nearby pumpkin patch. Then we went over to an outdoor garden with our friends McKenna and Hayden where they had a maze and moon bounce. Then Emily and Leanna both had costume parade the SAME day at their different schools. Which made for a very hectic morning! As you can see, Emily was a fairy and Leanna was a dragon. However, Grandma is in town and got her a cute witch outfit too which we took her picture in. Also, we had a fun Halloween party to go to at Hayden and McKenna's house. Then we had lots of fun trick or treating in our neighborhood with the Ales boys and girl (picture in the pumpkin bag) and the Grandparents. Leanna quit half way through though and said she was going home by HERSELF. So, Grandpa had to trail her so she couldn't see him all the way home.