Okay, continuing my last post…Travis and I were able to have a date night while my parents were visiting. Part of the night was spent visiting with Anya’s teacher for parent/teacher conference however. Anya’s doing really well in school as mentioned by her teacher and also by the KUMON program. We had her education level checked at KUMON and she’s actually ahead of the curve according to KUMON and I place a lot of faith in their program, its a wonderful way to advance a homeschool education or public/private school, we hope to get Anya involved with it after we sell the house in Cullman because I’m not completely thrilled with the school she’s in. Its highly competitive but without providing any tools to compete or even explanations about why or what is happening during classtime. Anya’s teacher is nice and we like her and she seems to be doing a good job, but there are many things I’m still learning and it feels like most of the time people are forgetting that we are new to the area and are still trying to learn all of the rules and quirks about this area and this school. Many times I feel like I’m missing something and have to continually ask for an explanation about one thing or another. The most important thing though is Anya is doing well and is on “grade level”. We went to eat afterwards at a place called “The Dive” and to “The cheesecake factory” for dessert. Dessert was better than dinner in my opinion, but it was nice to have some time just Travis and I.
This past weekend we took the girls to a dairy farm and bought some “real” butter. They enjoyed it but they also enjoyed riding in the car to get there while eating their honey bbq fritos so…apparently fritos rank as high as dairy farms with our girls!
I have started taking photos for the Collin County Animal Shelter on Sundays and I’m really enjoying that. I get to meet and play with a lot of the dogs and hopefully do a small part in helping them find homes! On the way home this past Sunday I noticed something called “Ghouls on the Lawn” was happening in a neighborhood in McKinney, TX called Tucker Hill – www.tuckerhilltx.com – so I decided to dress Anya up for an evening out with Mommy. She wanted to go as a Ghostbuster again because Mommy wouldn’t let her wear her new Butterfly costume yet. So we headed over to the neighborhood a little before 5pm and had a great time! Anya got half a bag of candy, most of which she won’t eat so the rest of us have sadly taken on the excess Snickers and Baby Ruths for her, what a hard job! She also got to witness Mommy roast a marshmallow, visit a Haunted Graveyard, and watch the Harry Potter “Dance of the Dementors” put on by a local dance company, as well as paint a mini pumpkin and play on the playground! All for free! The neighborhood is styled with many types of houses, but mostly Cape Cod style and they were almost all decorated! Can’t wait to see what they do at Christmas! Here are some more photos!
This house was set up with a monster face on the ramp steps, complete with smelly breath, supplied by a scented fog machine!

Anya braved the smelly breath to retrieve her candy from the monster’s mouth!

Apparently V for Vendetta and Snow White live here…

Anya with the demented bat creature at the haunted graveyard…

Anya with the Mad Hatter and his wife the Bride of Frankenstein…

A really cool fog shot near the haunted graveyard…

Our newest front door resident…a cat that Anya has named Cool Cat.

Over due for an update, I know! So, I’m guessing you are wondering what the subject is…I was listening to Clint Black’s song “Spend My Time”. Love that song. “So I’m gonna spend my time, Like it’s going out of style. I’m moving the bottom line, Farther than a country mile.
I still have hills to climb, Before I hit that wall. No matter how much time I buy, I can never spend it all.” How we choose to spend our time is probably one of the most difficult balancing acts of life, but I choose to spend most of my time with my husband and my girls. Whether we go to the mall, to a chili festival, or to a dairy farm – I think I make a wise investment in my time. So…update time..
Anya’s Birthday was a lot of fun! My parents came to experience a small taste of Dallas for 6 days and we had a great time while they were here. Travis and I even got a short date night! They came in on Thursday and totally surprised Anya because she had no idea they were coming that night, they walked in and she had a priceless little face! Arwen was happy to see them too, but she was a bit more shy at first, she was quite into watching “Scooby Doo” when they came in and Arwen does not like to be interrupted from watching one of her movies. Friday was Anya’s 7th birthday…on the 7th, her very special GOLDEN birthday. She went to school like normal, I took cupcakes for her class, and my Dad and I had lunch with her and her friend Jackson D. That night, we let Anya open her presents…she got some money from Uncle Stephen (that she has already used at Build A Bear), a Lite Sprites wand, Lite Sprites swing, Garfield game for the Wii, Scooby Doo game for the Wii, some clothes, and some stretchy hand things that she loves! We took her to a place called Gatti Town, which is a lot like Chuck E Cheese but better, in my opinion. It had a carousel, carnival games such as day at the races and water shoot, bumper cars, and even a pirate ship…in addition to all the video games and air hockey. Pop Pop won her a stuffed Garfield doing the water shoot game. They also serve a pizza buffet so I think she had fun on the night of her birthday. We didn’t go until almost 8pm and even though it was a Friday it was not crowded, which made it even better! We also went to the Texas State Fair the week of her birthday. I kept her out of school one day so we could go and it was a really nice fair, but it was really expensive. EVERYTHING goes by coupons/tickets there. Even food. So if you want a drink…that will be 8 coupons/tickets please and the coupons/tickets are .50 each. Want to ride the roller coaster or the Bobsled ride or even a log ride 10 coupons each person! Kid rides varied from 5 tickets each to 12 coupons/tickets each. The games you had to buy a little card for and each game attendant scanned the card to play games. Most of the games were the equivalent of $2 to $5. The very first game I played, I won! It was the shoot the water game until the balloon pops. It was a full house so Anya got her choice of prizes…she could have had a huge dinosaur or a pillow pet, but she opted for a medium sized pink dolphin. Pink is the color of choice with Anya right now. We bought with our coupons probably 5 drinks and I brought Arwen’s water bottle so she could drink more easily and luckily we had the stroller. It was kind of sad for Anya though because she wanted to do so much but after we had spent $60 on coupons/tickets just for rides we couldn’t do anymore, just didn’t seem worth it, and Travis didn’t ride anything. I rode 2 rides with Anya and 2 rides with Arwen. Anya and Arwen rode 2 rides by themselves and Anya rode 2 rides by herself. It was a fun day, but also an expensive and long one. We bought some cotton candy but that was all the food we bought with our coupons/tickets. I did see the fried bubblegum but after watching several other people buy it and not like it I decided to save those coupons. We heard it tasted like toothpaste because it was actually a fried marshmallow flavored like bubble gum apparently. And man did they have everything fried! Fried BBQ Ribs, Fried Salsa, Fried Beer, Fried Bubblegum, Fried Oreos, etc., etc. If you wanted it fried it was at the Texas State Fair…okay, I have to color with Arwen so stay tuned for part 2 of this post…”So I’m gonna spend my time, Like it’s going out of style. I’m moving the bottom line, Better than a country mile.I still have hills to climb, Before I hit that wall. I won’t go quietly into that dark night. There’ll be no more burnin’ daylight. I’ll be living in, Every moment that I’m in.” What a good song, but I wish I could stop humming it already!

So, Arwen has had enough this weekend. All the fun she can take! We took the girls to the Dallas Galleria and a computer show underneath a bridge in downtown Dallas, which that was an experience trying to find! Then, Travis ventured out into Plano today with both girls to go to two more computer stores…yes, he’s determined to have these girls be the hot computer babes one day at all the gaming conventions, but they will actually be able to play the games and not be just a booth babe. Very few people have any idea what I’m talking about, but as the wife of a computer geek and video gamer, I have had to relinquish my battle on this. The girls love spending time with Daddy and they are both very intelligent so I’m happy for them to be learning about computers. Arwen can already use an IPAD and we don’t even have one…she just goes into any computer store and starts swiping and clicking away on the tablet things! Anya is highly skilled at computers already as well and games! She’s definitely like her Daddy in that respect. I was very excited when we went into Target last night though…Anya proclaimed she wanted to look at clothes! Yay! She’s going to be a shopper like her Mommy after all too! Back to Arwen’s tantrum, we walked to the Italian restaurant in our little hamlet and Arwen did not want Italian food tonight apparently so this was the result…
After about 10 minutes of being very upset, she finally decided her Daddy’s shoulder was the best place to finish her sniffles and promptly fell asleep while Travis attempted to eat his delicious lasagna. Very few places are as comforting as Daddy’s shoulder.
While they were away I managed to do…wait for it…HOUSECLEANING! Yes, me! And man did I get a lot accomplished! Mopping, which by the way I hate ceramic white tile and why the hell would anyone put that throughout their house without good cause, I have no idea; I also folded laundry, dusted, cleaned up the playroom, and watched Friends while hanging up the clothes…not too shabby for Allison!