A foggy day in Jerome town

Dale had a birthday on Sunday so we knew we needed to have our own little celebration on Saturday. Dale said the only thing he wanted for his birthday was snow. Since I didn't think that would be quite possible (driving to snow takes just a little bit longer) I asked him if he would settle for cold. He agreed and I started planning! Someone had given me the idea to give him this trip for Christmas but since he asked for snow for his birthday I thought this would be even more perfect!

So off to Jerome we went!

We were so happy that we went on Saturday. The weather was AMAZING! We actually needed layers and the town had was completely covered in layers of fog! It gave it an almost eerie feeling. So amazing. 

 Dale could not have been happier! He said the way the roads were set up and the sidewalks and the little   narrow walkways between houses plus the cold and the fog reminded him exactly of one of the areas on his mission! For him to be able to sort of go back in time and remember all these things made the trip even more perfect!

I didn't get pictures of a lot of the old relics they had all over the town but this was funny! Dale tried to see if it actually still worked. Would have been so cool if it had!

I bet the people in the shops facing that old water fountain laugh at all the people that try to see if it works! ha ha

It was so foggy we could barely see in front of us and while we were walking around the curves of the roads not being able to see more than a few feet in front of us was one of the weirdest and creepiest sensations ever!

Before we read the description about this place Dale and I swore it was an old jail. It was the coolest building! It used to be something before it was burned down. It was the biggest building in Jerome so when they rebuilt it in the 1800's they rebuilt it with brick and for a while it was a reception center. And then a hotel before the structure started to crumble on itself!

Or something like that...

The coolest old doors ever! I told Dale I wanted to blow this picture up and hang it somewhere in our house! 

Dale saw these old houses turned Bed and Breakfasts and Dale and I so badly want to buy a vacant one and start up our own. Within the first 10 minutes of the trip Dale said he wanted to make this place our permanent residence! 

I am so glad Dale enjoyed his birthday surprise so much! We will definitely be going back! 

Dale I hope you had a good birthday! I love you! You are the best!

{Enter Cheesy Christmas Cliche Here}

Somewhere along the lines of.....

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Christmas has come alive for this gorgeous girl this year. She has begged for decorations, for "making the tree" and it has been SO MUCH FUN watching her experience something that she might remember as she gets older. The magic of Santa has been a huge part of this years Christmas. Its fun to explain everything and watch her eyes as she soaks it up. 

Dale and I wanted her to have some special time with us doing something special. So on Sunday when it  got to Mak's nap time we put her down and we decorated the tree with just Bug! She was in heaven and she was SO proud of herself!

At first when I saw the bottom of the tree I thought "I will rearrange those when she falls asleep but the more I looked at it the more I liked it! All the tiny ornaments are lining the bottom of the tree and it has a certain charm to it!

Merry Christmas

I Died

Can you see why??

Santa Baby,

Riley Wrote her first letter to Santa the other day.

I was excited to give her the chance to write it herself since she now knows how to write most of her alphabet! 

I told her how to spell the words that she was telling me she wanted to write down and she wrote almost all of them!

(I helped her with a couple s's)

The funny thing about this list is she has really only mentioned (been begging me for months) one of the gifts on here... The leapster.

Everything else she had just decided she wanted as she was writing down the list and I kept thinking... Well, I am glad I am your mother and know you so well... Cuz little girl, this is your Christmas! You are gonna be happy!

A Saturday

Today has been a day. 

You know what I mean right? 

Not bad, just... a day.

It started early in the morning for family pictures. 

(I saw the pictures and even "raw" they are so so cute!)

Family pictures went really well. 

And by that I mean, That NONE of us wanted to kill themselves when it was all over! 

YAY!

I also mean that we had an amazing photographer, (my sis) the pictures are great and the girls actually cooperated for the most part! 

Its the little things people.

Then after our successful photo op. our wonderful photog, again, my sister, agreed to watch the chickies so Dale and I could 

GET THINGS DONE!

We are almost moved, people!

We loaded up a few loads in my car and a few loads in my wonderful brothers truck and got

TONS

moved over!

We still have to move a piano and a bookshelf and clean but that's it! We should be out by Monday!

THEN.....

After we moved almost everything I got the chance to go meet up with friends that I haven't seen in forever!!

The gaweous girl directly next to me I haven't seen in

NINE YEARS! 

She moved to Hawaii just after ninth grade and we haven't seen each other since! We have kept in touch... Talked a lot on the phone wrote letters

(although, i am a horrible pen pal and that didn't last long...)

losing touch here and there but have always managed to start it up again. She has come to AZ a few times since she moved but ALWAYS, no matter how hard we have tried, have missed seeing each other! 

So this was very exciting to finally be able to cross paths again! 

We got our group of girls together and had treats and just talked for a few hours! 

It was so nice!!

It had been a while since any of us girls had seen each other so it was fun to catch up!

Fun day!

Little Girls

These are the faces I love to wake up to!

They are goofy!

Long winded

Its been a while and sadly I have not a whole lot to blog about. I do have a couple things that I want to record on here, however, in the move I have seemed to have misplaced the cord for my camera somewhere... Great.

I am sure its just somewhere in limbo.

We are still sort of in 2 places right now. Our move is going very very slow. Its frustrating but we should be HOPEFULLY done by this weekend. We basically just need to move a piano, some small stuff and clean. I think I just hate asking people for help because this is the 9th time we have had to ask people for help and I am sure everyone is sick of helping us.

I hate helping us! HA!

But we finally got our internet hooked up yesterday and that has made us happy!

Um... Its December 1st?????

This has snuck up on me.

We have almost finished our Christmas shopping and that is nice to think about! The girls presents are all bought and now we can focus on gifts for just Dale and I and getting our brother sister gifts taken care of! We are getting there!

Except I also have a birthday to shop for too! Dale has a December birthday and I am trying so hard to make sure it doesn't get forgotten and lost in the Christmas rush like it has the past few years. I will succeed!

This season has been fun because Riley understands more about whats going on and we have done a Christmas-y things and she has had a lot of fun with it. ( more on that later)

That's all for now I think until I have a cord for my camera to so I can put a couple pictures up here!

Post

This is going to be really special.

You should be sitting for this.

You are?

Fabulous!

We are moving!

This week!

This will be the EIGHTH move in FIVE AND A HALF YEARS for Dale and I.

Packing sucks.

Honestly though, we are super excited for this move.

Lots of good things are going to happen.

That's it!

Aren't you glad you were sitting?

Halloween in Pictures

Here is our Halloween in mostly pictures.

 Riley loved carving her pumpkin this year. This girl has a thing about her hands being dirty ( just like her mom...) so I was really surprised when this is the reaction we got after she started pulling pumpkin guts out...

 She did so good at preparing the pumpkin for the carving. She poked every single hole for that cat pattern and even helped me carve out the moon shape. 

 Mak just stayed in her highchair, ate food and was cute.

 She is very proud.

 Dale figured out that if he turned his weird pumpkin upside-down that it would stand up and he could carve this crazy one-eyed thing into it. We both thought it was the perfect pattern for this particular pumpkin!

 After nap time we got the girls all dressed up and TRIED to take pictures. I am not good at it... 

Bu either way they are cute!

This was the best shot i could get of her cute bunny behind!

We had fun showing off our costumes and  going "Trunk-or-Treating"

Witch is Witch

Riley had her preschool Halloween party and parade yesterday and she was so excited to be able to ACTUALLY wear the costume that I have been teasing her with the past month! I was not going to let her ruin that outfit that I had shed blood sweat and tears over until it was time! Yes there was literally blood sweat and tears. The blood and the tears coincide very well. not to mention the tears of frustration that the stinkin' skull and cross bones with the bow caused me...

I am having flashbacks, lets move on...

She was adorable!

I tried to give her a little bit of a witch face but she wouldn't let me do much, so I just used some black Halloween makeup around her eyes. If I had my way and she wouldn't have been scared of her reflection in the mirror (yep...) I would have painted her green!

It was so cute watching them walk around in a circle singing all the fun songs they have learned in preschool this month.

They were all very cute!

I can't wait to get both the girls in their costumes and take them trick or treating!

"Pumpkin Patching!"

Dale and I, in the 5 years we have been together and the four years we have had a child with us, have never bought a pumpkin. Unless fake pumpkins for decorations count, which I am sure they don't. Its very sad, I know! But this year with Riley Bug being 4, I decided to make it fun! Something maybe she will remember. We packed up the girls and went to a pumpkin patch! We told Riley Bug what we were doing and she got so excited and said

"We are going pumpkin patching!"

So cute!

I tried to take pictures of them together but they both just wanted to run around and play! Mak tried to lift a few pumpkins and Riley just climbed over all the hay bails and after we let them run around a little my parents came and we picked our pumpkins and left!

This is the face of a happy child who just picked out her first pumpkin!!

Welcome to the land of the misfit pumpkins!

This is how the Whipple's buy pumpkins! Dales is the one in the front that will only lay down Riley Bugs Pumpkin is the perfect one in the back on the right and mine is the slightly misshapen one on the back left! Dale and I, apparently, love the pumpkins that no one else will look at!

*Thank you Jamie for helping me get these dang pictures on here!!!

Is it me?

Blogger wont let me add pictures to put up a new post.

Very frustrating