"Showering" Betsy and Chris

Last night, we had the opportunity to shower one of the new moms in our church small group with blessings...

This is Betsy, Chris, and Baby Hannah Grace.
Hannah is a true miracle. She was born in August at just 26 weeks. She weighed just 2 pounds at birth. Today, she is almost 6 pounds and the hope to get her home from the hospital very soon.
We had a great time with wonderful women from the church and some of Betsy's friends and family to celebrate Hannah.
This was my first time hosting a party at our new house and I think it went pretty well :)

Betsy and her Mom

The wall letters and clothesline I made for Hannah

Some of the group

Working on a memory book for Betsy

Filling out "baby bingo" to play during gift opening

Opening gifts

The beautiful cake that one of our small group girls made

The whole group
We had a wonderful time! If you think about it, please keep this family in your prayers as Hannah grows and they prepare to bring her home.

It's a Beautiful Day!

Every year our church takes a week to go out into the community and spread blessings. We call this "Beautiful Day" and there are tons of projects available from cleaning up parks and schools, to doing an "Extreme Makeover" on a home in need, to providing lunches to day laborers, to having a "Prom" for handicap children. This year, our small group chose to "Adopt-a-hero" . We baked a huge variety of cookies for a local police station and then had the chance to drop the off to enjoy. The kids were really excited about sharing the treats and meeting a real policeman.
Here is our own "police line up"

They got their own "police cars" to play with

The whole group with one of the Police Officers

How did it go???

Our photo session was this morning. We looked great! I took some of you all's advice. Emma and I wore cream colored shirts and Ian had a chocolate brown shirt. We were all happy; Ian took a good morning nap and Emma was excited and I (Sara) was actually having a good hair day. We took about 10 minutes of good pictures and then it happened. Emma tripped and bit the dust, scraping both of her knees. Emma was inconsolable Photo session over.... Rescheduling for later in the week. Emma is now recuperating watching her favorite princess movie. Thank You everyone for the great advice! Hopefully good fortune will be with us again when we reschedule :)

Our fall picture attempt

After our hike and cupcakes, we were still trying to find fall leaves, so we headed over to Google with our rake in hand. Unfortunately, Ian had not eaten in a while and he was down one nap, so he was not the most agreeable participant. Hopefully our family professional pictures will go better tomorrow!

Things do not start up well

"Oh, something to play with"

Maybe this is not that bad

Emma's turn....she was in to it!
Then we decided to try to get some with both kids.....

"What are you doing to me!!!!" Emma keeps the smile

Emma gets a little worried with Ian's look of distain

Okay, we are done!

Castle Rock

In search of fall foliage in California, we headed up into the Santa Cruz Mountains for cooler temperatures and hopes of finding pretty leaves for fall pictures. We found only brown, but we did a little hiking up to some great rock formations called Castle Rock

Heading up for a little hike

Emma poses on the rocks

Emma liked finding "holes" to go in

Trying for a family shot...Emma was doing model poses

This was a really fun cave

Great for family shots

Trying to get a good kid shot

Ian's newest trick is screaming

Feel the love!

Daddy and Emma went exploring

Big Smiles

Emma loved climbing in the rocks

After all that hiking, we headed to Palo Alto for cupcakes at Sprinkles

Family Portrait Help!

Okay friends....I don't usually do this, but I need some help. We are having our first family pictures since Ian was born taken next week and I am working on coordinating all of our outfits which I am having a really hard time doing for some reason. We are taking outside pictures (hoping to get a little fall foliage) Below is what I have come up with...

Does it work? I was trying to find a shirt with a little more maroon than red for Ian, but have not found one. Even if you never comment ( and I know you all are out there :) please please please let me know if you think this works so I don't have to stress about it anymore. I could use any advice as far as the color as well as the style. Fashionista Friends, I am at your mercy! (I will not take offense if you tell me to scrap this idea and start over:)

Halloween 2009

When did Halloween go from a one night event to a 3 day flurry of activity? We have had a busy 3 days of parties, costumes, and trick-or-treating with lots of treats involved. Our Halloween festivities began on Thursday. Emma had a class party at preschool in the morning and then we headed off to Google for the annual Googleween Party.

Pumpkin Decorating

Ian enjoyed watching

The finished pumpkin
On Friday Morning, Emma's preschool had a Fall Festival

Emma makes a necklace

Enjoys Cookies

and partakes in the costume parade

Can you tell that she was excited?
(No pictures of Ian for this event because he was attached to me in hopes of a morning nap....it didn't happen)
That night, the church where Emma goes to preschool had a fall festival that included crafts, games, and trick-car-treating

Emma and Kaylie make jack-o-lanterns

Trick-car-treating

some of the cars were really creative

Lots of cars with treats

Emma checks up on Ian
On Saturday, we headed over to a friend's neighborhood to trick-or treat

Ian the dinosaur

Two happy girls and a sad dinosaur

Dinosaur down!

Ready to go!

Happy Dragon

There they go!

She's Pinkalicious!

The sleepy dinosaur heads home

The trick-or-treat dance

The girls created a trick-or-treat song that they danced down the street to

Getting tired

Our Buckets are full...time to head home
A great time was had by all... (To see the entire album, click on one of the pictures)