Kinley's Costume party

Kinley had a little Costume party in her class at school. It was so much fun. First the kids had a parade to show off their costumes. Here is Kinley posing with her favorite friend and cousin! Kinley is not a big fan of school but being with Abbie makes it bearable.

They played pin the nose on the Jack-a-lantern and hoop the pumpkin. Then they made spider snacks out of donuts and pretzels. It was pretty cute. Kinley just loves Mrs.Josie. She is a great teacher.

Lions, Tigers, and Bears! Oh MY!

This year for Halloween Maddie had the idea of dressing up like the Wizard of OZ. Caden was our not so cowardly Lion.

Kinley was our sweet little Dorothy.

Maddie was Glenda the Good Witch.

Cinderella, Abbie, joined us for trick or treating in our neighborhood.

Granna and Granddaddy came along.

Here we are putting on a little blush.The girls were super stoked!

Caden loved his costume. He would not take the hat off.

Here are the girls at the first house.
Here is Cade at his first house. He loved it.

He wanted to get out and visit at all of the houses.

Here is lil' Abbie. Love the earrings!

Uncle Reg pulled Cade in the wagon.

Check out his little tail.

We went trick or treating at the barn.

Mimi had some great treat bags for the kiddos.

Here is the whole gang at Aunt Penny's house.

She even made yummy popcorn

balls for the grown-ups!

We ended our night at Cari and Joel's new house.

We made our first visit a memorable one!
Uncle Terry and Aunt Lisa were there too.

They even had a treat for Capone.

Caden soon discovered the candy stash!
It may have to slowly disappear this week!

....I think I'll go work on it right now!

Date with Granna

Each year for Maddie's birthday, Granna takes her on a special date. She looks forward to it all year long! This year was extra special because they stayed in a hotel! Just the two of them. Here a few pictures of their time together.

Here is the movie star waiting outside the hotel!

They ate at the Wild Fire Steakhouse in Georgetown! One of my favorites, my birthday is in September Granna!Granna even let Maddie drink some of her coffee. Here is her reaction:

The hotel had a indoor pool. Maddie practicing her cannon ball. They went to see High Musical 3 the day it opened!
Maddie's favorite was going to the Inner Space Caverns and seeing the bat the size of a chicken nugget. Here she is with Granna in the cave.

The gift of time is the best gift of all. Thank you Granna for making Maddie feel so special!

Pumpkins!

I am so behind in posting about school events! We went on a field trip to Sweet Berry Farms the week we studied pumpkins. It was a lot of fun. The kids went on a hayride, stuffed a scarecrow, painted pumpkins, had a relay pumpkin race, shucked corn, and ate homemade ice cream.

Maddie's favorite- Being with her friends.

Kinley's favorite- painting the pumpkins and eating ice cream

Cade's favorite- All the PUMPKINS and milking the cow!

Here a few shots from our day together.

Here are the girls shucking the corn.




Caden eating his picnic lunch.

Maddie in the relay race!

Kinley walking in the tunnel.

Family Pictures

We just got family pictures made with my friend Tanya. We finally got one of the five of us along with Reg's family! We also got some individual shots with Kinley and her mom and dad. Something we have never done. Poor middle child! Here is a link to the slide show. Enjoy and turn up the volume.
http://cozyimpressionsphotography.com/Brooks/

Maddie's Scavenger Hunt Party

I had a ball planning Maddie's birthday party this year. She decided on a scavenger hunt theme. We decided to invite her whole class along with a few other friends. There ended up being 27 kids! So we decided to have it out in Mimi's yard.

For the invite, I bought file folders and stamped CONFIDENTAL across the top. Then I put a label on each invite saying the child's name: Secret Agent Madison Billingsley

The invite read like this:

Dear Secret Agent-

You are invited to take part of a very special mission. We have carefully chosen the top agents to be a part of this event. We request your presence at the celebration of Secret Agent Billingsley's 6th birthday. You are to report to: 622 South Baker Circle Leander TX 78641 on October 17, 2008.

The mission will begin promptly at 4:30. If you chose to accept the mission: contact kristibillingsley@gmail.com

Pizza,cake, and drinks following a successful mission.

Before the party, I divided the kids into five teams with five members each. Each team was assigned a color. I bought t-shirts for their team color. I ironed on their names on the front of the shirt. Here is the back of the shirt

I wrote up ten riddles for each team. I color coated the clues so that the kids would read the clue for their team and then move on. I hid the clues all over the yard. Here is an example:

Animals with wings visit me a lot.
Especially when the weather is hot.
They wash their wings and get on path.
Have you guessed, I am a (bird)____.

Did you guess bird bath?

Here is my favorite part. My friend Tiffany helped me make a fake cake out of Styrofoam. We put icing on it to look real. Here we are about to eat the "fake" cake:

The kids did not have a clue that the cake was not real. Then I tried cutting the cake, I even had them try to help! I then let them know that someone had "stolen" our cake and replaced it with a fake cake. Check out their expression, along with my own:

I had five adult team leaders come out dressed in black coats and sunglasses. They called out their team members and gave them their shirts.

We explained that their mission was finding the real cake. Then the kids started the scavenger hunt. Here they are discovering clues throughout the yard:

The real cake was hidden in Tiffany's car. She did an awesome job decorating it. Here it is:

And here we are counting out the six candles!

After cake, ice cream and pizza, we had a devotional. I talked to them about how we are all agents for God. Our mission is share God's love and spread the gospel. We talked about the Great commission and read a few scriptures. Then we had a quick prayer asking God to prepare us for our mission in life. Here are the kids in the devotional.



I had one final game. I hid six clues in the yard. As a group, we used special tools to discover the answers. Someone them required a magnifying glass and others a mirror. This scavenger hunt ended with discovery of the pinata. The kids then took hitting it the pinata.

It was a really fun party. The kids loved it which made all of the hard work worth it. At end of the party, the kids came running up to me saying "Let's do it all again" I guess that means it was a success!