We had such a wonderful Halloween and hope that you all did too! Fall is my absolute favorite time of year with the leaves changing, the smell of the cool breezes and the upcoming holidays! We can't wait for Thanksgiving! Love to you all!!!

Halloween Spooktacular!

Our fun Halloween week continued on Wednesday night with Olivia's Spooktacular dance recital. They performed as dead ballerinas - every mom's wish right? Livvy is such a wonderful little dancer. You can tell that she always pays close attention to her teacher.

Livvy and her cousin Kinley at the recital.

Livvy and her dad waiting for the dances to start! Aren't my little look-a-likes so cute!

Livvy and Lexi's pumpkins that they decorated. Doesn't Livvy's remind you of the guy from the movie Goonies? "Hey you guys!"

Our little family!

Mine and Livvy's matching legs - Note to self: Don't ever wear this costume again - it's hideously unflattering!

Matt and Bre came as the Beckhams (David and Victoria) and Ella was a cat. Ella was a little scared of some of us in our witches costumes and wouldn't come close to us.

Loved the tattoos Matt!

And Jed or should I say Larry, was Larry the Cable Guy. He is always being told that he looks just like him, and I've never really thought so, but the resemblance was a little scary that night. It's kind of funny though that Jed's the one with the farmers tan! Get 'er done!

Lexi was a cute pink leopard and her costume was so warm that she slept most of the night.

Sweet Olivia?

Livvy was finally tired of being a Disney princess and wanted to be something scary and she was! By the end of the week we decided that she was the scary vampire bride.

Luke was a lunch lady, Dallas was a witch and Jessa was a volleyball player, Kinley a belly dancer and Devree a butterfly.

Is this really what a girl would have looked like in the Gines Family? Nice legs!

Family Halloween Party

We started out the week with a Gines Family Halloween party at Tim and Lori's with the rest of the fam and it was so much fun! The highlight was definitely the costumes, but the grandparents had also planned a lot of fun activities for the grandchildren. Grandma Lori was the wicked witch with her dry ice porridge followed by pin-the-nose on the pumpkin, then guess how many candy corns (which Lexi won), dinner, and at the end - a mysterious treasure hunt. The treasure hunt was outside with a lot of prizes that ended with the pumpkin patch in grandma and grandpa's yard where the kids got to choose their pumpkins and decorate them. Thanks again everyone for the fun memories.

Grandpa Tim was the funniest old man ever! And Grandpa Doug was the prettiest grandma while grandma Betty was a great road worker. We obviously have some serious issues with cross dressing in the Gines family!

My blogger pledge: I promise to be a better blogger and post pictures at least once a month. In the near future I also hope to be able to be a little more creative with my blog so it's not so boring. But baby steps - it may take me a while as I'm still new at all of this. Thank you to all of you who have KINDLY motivated me to start blogging - this will be fun!

Carving the pumpkins at Becky's

Our beautiful Alexis! She's already smiling and talking! Thank you Emily for the last two pictures - you're also a wonderful photographer - is there anything you can't do?

Just this last weekend we headed to a pumpkin patch with some of our friends. The kids had a great time playing on the pirate ship, running through the maze and picking out their pumpkins. After that we headed back to Becky's house where we continued the fun Halloween party by having dinner, carving our pumpkins and then having some delicious desserts made by Jared (Becky's husband). It was such a great time - the only thing missing was Jed! We love you and missed you tons babe! Unfortunately he was down opening up the new building.

I have the greatest group of girlfriends here and we have a girl's night once a month where we get together without our families and talk, eat yummy food and work on different crafts or projects. So thank you to Becky, Rachel, Emily and Melissa for all that you do for me & my family and for helping me stay sane! I always look forward to our nights together and truly value our friendships! So here are two of our crafts - the first was our family home evening board and the second was our banner or sign (thanks Emily and Becky for helping me finish the second one - this was just a couple weeks after Lexi was born) See mom and Cassy - I can do some crafts ! :)

This is Debra feeding Lexi while we cleaned up - one of my best friends from high school who I haven't seen in years! It was so great to reconnect with her.

I loved this picture of Lexi's face - she looked so annoyed with us!

On the evening of October 5th we were blessed enough to have our wonderful family and friends with us as we blessed Alexis at our church building. Olivia and the other children that were present sang "I Am A Child of God" which truly sounded like an angel choir, then Jed blessed Alexis with her grandfathers, great grandfathers and some of her uncles. After the blessing myself, mom mom, my aunt Becky and cousin Cara sang our aunt Kelly's song, "Teach the Children" (or maybe it's called A Child's Prayer?) accompanied by my grandma Bear. The spirit was so strong and it was definitely an experience we will remember for a long time. Thank you to all of our supportive family and friends - we love you so much!

Alexis Ann Gines

On Sunday August 31st, 2008 at 3:41 P.M. a beautiful baby girl joined our family. We named her Alexis Ann Gines (We are going to call here Lexi). Lexi weighed 6.9 lbs. and measured out at 19 inches long. A special thanks to all those who have called and all those who have kept us in their prayers.