What I am most Thankful for

While I am thankful for many things these five people are at the top of my list {love them}.

Chinese Tea Garden {take 1}

While Noni and Popi were here we discovered this beautiful place, looking for things to do in the area with just the girls (O was in school).  The train stops right out front so we got off and decided to explore a bit, well worth it. (all photos taken with the iphone so please excuse the lack of quality)

train ride at Brackenridge Park

Fall iphone picts

Since I almost always have my phone on me I get a lot of random photos that way.  Unfortunately I forget about them and don't plug my phone into the computer nearly enough.  Here are a few random iphone picts that have been "living" on my phone.

Can you believe they sell pumpkins for this price?  Sure the toddler must be included for that.

The St Thomas Pumpkin patch (kids school last year)

Yes my kids were at the pool in October, crazy!

How cool is this costume?  The girls loved it.

I can't believe she actually sat long enough for the face paint

How creepy are they?  At the Pearl farmers market on a saturday before Halloween.

Keira was totally in awe, she was the only one who would even go close.

Basil soup

My garden didn't do so well this year, it's so hard to actually grow stuff in this heat.  My basil did do awesome and I had some big beautiful plants that I was oh-so-gently taking care of.  We use a lot of basil in cooking, esp in Kevin's pasta sauce and homemade pesto right before the cold weather hits.  Cut to wednesday afternoon while I was making dinner, the girls were playing outback:

Yes, that's all my delicious basil in our firepit being turned into "basil soup".  I took the photos from the porch so they didn't see me, the damage had already been done so I just had to catch them on camera.  I wanted to cry but also had to laugh because when they knew I was mad they took it all back out to "plant" in the garden again.  Of all the stuff in the yard they could have made into soup they just had to choose my basil....  Isn't the last picture hysterical, Keira is mad at me for looking at them, huh.

Halloween 2012

This year for Halloween we had an army guy, witch, snow princess and stubborn toddler.  This neighborhood is the BEST place to trick or treat.  People go all out, sit outside with all their decorations and goodies and give out tons of candy.  There are so many kids running around everywhere it was actually hard to keep track of the four of ours.  I think O counted his candy and he had over 200 pieces and that was after I had confiscated all the sugary junk (non-chocolate).  The kids get to keep some and we donate the rest to a local dentist that in turn sends it to deployed troops (I'm sure they need the sugar a whole lot more than my kiddos).  I think they would have kept going all night long if we had not persuaded them to come back to the house and start giving some of our candy out, they had a great time.

O scores some for Norah, what a nice brother

O and Miles, best buds

Norah wants in on the candy, didn't take her long to catch on

Pumpkin Carving 2012

This year the kids upped the ante on our pumpkin carving skills.  Fin picked snow white, Keira picked a bat-cat and Owen picked some crazy church on hill spooky scene.  Not wanting to disappoint Kevin obliged and started with Finley's pumpkin, it took a lot longer than they had the attention span for.  By then end I think Kev and I were the only two left interested in the pumpkins, until they were all done of course.  I think next year we'll stick the good old jack-o-latern..

Can you see snow white?

I totally spaced and didn't take pictures of the other two pumpkins, I think we were just happy to be done carving the darn things.  All that work and they lasted about 2 days in the heat down here before they starting rotting and falling apart, sheesh!

Chinese Tea Garden

We've been in and out of San Antonio for over 7yrs at this point and we've never ventured into this place, until a few weeks ago when Noni and Popi were here.  We decided to bring Kev here today so he could check it out.  It's such an unexpected place in the middle of the city, small but really pretty. O was at school so we just had the girls with us, they're always game for anything.

Seeing as I am so far back with the blog I figured I'd start with today and work my way back, heck I haven't even posted the kids Halloween photos yet.  I'm gonna do a better job keeping up, promise!