Where Have I Been?

Where have I been? Pouting would be my honest answer. I have been pouting about the fact that I broke our camera lens. Yes, I broke our camera lens that is not even a year old and that we had a garage sale to buy. It's been a very bad year for the Causey's in the camera department. Last year the week before Christmas, Ryan dropped our Pentax SLR camera on the driveway at his parents and it was unfixable. We saved our Christmas money and bought a Nikon SLR. We had it for a few months and Bailey pulled it off a coffee table (onto carpet) and the lens broke. We had a garage sale later in the spring and upgraded our lens to replace the one Bailey broke. Then a couple of weeks ago, Emma Catherine and I were in the Walmart parking lot and I fishing in my purse for my keys and the camera dropped out of my purse. We had been on a field trip that day, which is why the camera was in my purse. I broke the lens. We are still waiting to hear if the lens in fixable. In the mean time, I have had to use our old kodak easy share camera from about 2004. I am thankful that I even have a camera to use at all, but after using a SLR for so long, I am spoiled. The Kodak is SSSLLLOOOWWW and doesn't really take good pictures. Because I've been pouting and fustrated with myself and the kodak camera, I really haven't taken as many pictures as I usually do.

I have tried to decide the best way to post about the things I do have pictures for. Because of the holidays and how busy things are and will get, I am just going to do a long post with pictures of what we've been up to. So here goes...

The week before Thanksgiving we went to a Thanksgiving playdate. We did a painting craft, decorated cookies, ate lunch, and played. We had such a good time being with friends.
At the end of the week, my mom came into town. We always have such a great time when she visits. We went to the YMCA holiday gift market and the girls got to see Santa after we shopped. We also did a lot of Christmas shopping on Saturday. My mom graciously offered to babysit the girls so we could go to our Sunday School Thanksgiving party, and we took her up on the offer. Emma Catherine cried all the way home from the airport when we dropped her off.
Ryan was on call this Thanksgiving so we could not travel. I decided to cook a little Thanksgiving meal for our family. I cooked a 3 lb turkey breast and it turned out really well. We even used our china, which I hate to say we had never used before. We tried to spend time talking with Emma Catheirne about being thankful.We spent Thanksgiving night at Rock City seeing the Enchanted Gardens of Lights. I will post those pictures tomorrow.

Halloween Festvities

Boy last week was busy for us. We had our fall festival at church, a fall festival at the YMCA, fall parties at preschool, and we went trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. We had a great time at each event but by Sunday, we all took a good nap.

At our church's fall festival the girls enjoyed playing the games. Bailey was also fascinated with her candy. She would stop every few seconds to take candy out of her bucket. She also tried to eat candy with the paper still on it.
We enjoyed seeing our friends and going on a hayride.
Emma Catherine was very excited to walk around our neighborhood on Saturday. We decided to leave Bailey in the stroller because she didn't really seem to mind. We would push her up to the door of a house and she would say "treat...please." By the end of the night, Emma Catherine told us she was ready to go home. I think she was tired but I also think she wanted to get home to eat some candy. Let me just say, between all the events we went to, we have plenty of candy. I think some of it is going to have to start disappearing.

Happy Halloween

Another Florida Visit

This past week, we spent the girls' fall break in Florida at my parents house. We had such a good time, as always and hated the week went by so fast. It's always so hard to post pictures because we take so many when we're there, so I'm thinking this is bound to be along post.

We started off the week with a train ride. They have a train at my parents' church and they give the preschoolers rides on Wednesdays.We went to Great Explorations science museum and had a great time. It is really geared toward younger children and both of them had fun.On Saturday we went to the pumpkin festival. It was very hot but we still had fun. We took a lot of pictures with the pumpkins, but unfortunately Bailey wasn't really in the picture taking mood. We managed to get a few though.Saturday night we celebrated my mom's and Lauren's birthdays with the family. Two birthdays means double the dessert. Yea!

The Apple Festival

We just got back from a great week in Florida, but before we left, we went to the Cleveland Apple Festival. We went with some friends and had a good time, even though it was freezing. I think the high that day was only 50 so needless to say, we had to pull out our winter coats.

They had inflatables,pony rides,and a hayride

Visit from Noni

Last weekend my aunt, who we call Noni came to visit us. We had such a good time. We did a little shopping, exercising, eating, a little more shopping, and playing. Noni is very good at decorating so when she is here, we try to have a project. One project was finding some fall decorations for my mantle and for our porch, which was a big success. Another project was finding some picture frames for a picture wall. That project didn't quite go as well, mainly because Ryan and I weren't exactly sure what we wanted and we didn't exactly agree. It was a fun time with Noni and we were sad to see her leave.'

Beauty and the Beast

On Thursday night we took Emma Catherine to the local production of Beauty and the Beast. She was so excited about going, although she thought we were going "to Disney World" to see Beauty and the Beast. She was also excited because we left Bailey at home with a babysitter.
Ryan and I didn't have really high expectations for the play but it was really good. The actors did a great job and the actress who played Belle sounded just like the Belle on the movie. The play was a little on the long side (a little over 2 1/2 hours) but otherwise it was great. Emma Catherine did great during the whole play. See was a little antsy toward intermission but a potty break and a quick snack left her excited for the end of the play.
After the play was over, the characters all came out to take pictures. We asked Emma Catherine if she wanted to see Belle and she said that she did. We waited in line and once it was Emma Catherine's turn, she did this:
She wouldn't really go to her and she wouldn't leave my side. We were a little frustrated with her, but it was 10:00 (2 hours past her bedtime). As we were leaving I said to Ryan, "It's a good thing we're not going to Disney World until 2011." Overall, it was a fun time for us and Emma Catherine.