Halloween Preview

We attended Zoo Boo last weekend. Here is a sneak peak of the costumes at the Matochik household.

Jack being Jack

Cinderella

Veggie-Tales

While we were at Dollywood, we came across a man selling CDs that you can have your child's name inserted into the songs like 90 times. We thought that it was cute and bought the Veggie-Tales one for Emi - for those of you who don't know, Emi is OBSESSED with Veggie-Tales. It is cute the first 100 times you listen to it, but it gets old quickly. Every time we go anywhere, it must be played or she just sits in the back constantly begging for it. It is so sweet to watch how excited she gets when they are singing her name, I must say.

I am thinking about ordering the Disney Princess CD just to give myself a break from Veggie-Tales.

Uncle Fudd's

On Saturday, we went out to Uncle Fudd's Pumpkin Patch in Gallaway, Tennessee with Brian's brother, his wife and their daughter, Rebecca. We had so much fun!

The girls feeding the goats

Walking through the corn maze

Jack enjoying the hayride

The girls with their pumpkins they picked themselves out of the pumpkin patch!

Dollywood

Good ole Dollywood. On our last day in Gatlinburg, we went to Dollywood. We heard it was great and that it was very family friendly. Well, it was great and it was incredibly family friendly, it was also incredibly elderly friendly as well. I am pretty sure that the elderly people out numbered us twenty to one. They have something like 30 musical shows playing 'round the clock and that, we figured out, was the attraction for the elderly. I was almost run over by a hoveround at least 10 times. All that aside, we had a blast and the scenery is gorgeous! They have a section called the County Fair and that is where all the kiddy rides are. They had a veggie-tales roller coaster, so Emi and Brian rode that first. I thought Emi would be terrified, she did have the look of pure fear on her face throughout the entire ride, but she says that it was her favorite ride. When asked if she wanted to ride it a second time, we quickly got a NO!

They are in the orange car

She made "Pinky Bear" at the Build-A-Bear workshop

We had to ride the t-sef (carousel, for those of you who don't speak Emi) several times!

Notice that Emi is hysterical, she hated the tea cups!

Poor Jack, all he did was hang in the harness or sit in the stroller. The only thing he got to ride was the train - and fell asleep before we left the station.

On the train, some "older" people shared a seat with us and while everyone else was enjoying the scenery they were plotting their attack on how many shows they could cram into the rest of the afternoon.

Yikes - I wonder what they are showing at these things!

Mini-Vacation

Last weekend we went to Gatlinburg for 5 days. We started out by leaving 3 1/2 hours late - welcome to my life! But, that was fine because this was our vacation and it was ok that we were not leaving as scheduled, I kept repeated this to myself as we spent an hour driving around Memphis so Brian could get his chik-fil-a and starbucks for breakfast. If things don't go exactly as planned I tend to go from zero to grumpy in a matter of seconds - this is what having kids has done to me. I have become a little bit of a freak when it comes to schedules and planning. I wasn't like this pre-kids, I promise! So we finally got on the road and started the long trek to Gatlinburg - Praise God for the invention of DVD players in the car! When we finally arrived, the mountains and trees were so beautiful and the traffic was soooo not! It would take us about 25 minutes to go 2 miles - scary when you have 2 babies in the car and you are completely out of diapers and formula! We learned quickly that you stay off of the main roads!

We spent our first day at the Ripley's Believe It or Not Aquarium - it was awesome! I highly recommend it to everyone.

Jack and Poppa looking at fish

Emi looking at sting rays

After the aquarium, we drove to Cademan's Cove. Cademan's Cove is an 11 mile driving tour that takes you through the mountains and you can stop at various spots to hike and look at the scenery. There are these old homesteads that you can actually walk through - I love that stuff! Emi's says that hiking was her favorite thing to do, on the trails she would stop and look at everything!

Ohhhh, look at the rock!

Ohhhh, look at the leaves!

Ohhh, look at the holly berries!
Ohhhh, look at the worm!

Ohhhh, look at the squirrel!

It took us an hour to hike half a mile, but she was enjoying nature so we let her look.

Notice, the sucker. Brian and I bought a bag of suckers and would bribe her to do everything. "If you smile at the camera, you can have a sucker!" She probably consumed 50 suckers on the trip, I am surprised that her teeth didn't fall out.

The things you'll do for a little peace, right?

Our Hula Girl

My parents just returned from Hawaii and brought Emi back a hula girl costume. It came with a hula skirt, beaded necklace, flower for your hair and coconut shells for you-know-where. This is a little girl's costume so the coconut shells are the size of quarters, they are a sight to see! When we brought it home, she wanted to immediately put it on so I delegated that to Brian while I was in the kitchen. When she ran in to show it to me, she was missing the coconut shells. Brian said he just couldn't put those on her, he just couldn't bring himself to do it. So, she ran around topless instead.

KK and Emi

Kevin is my 15 year old brother who Emi has renamed KK. Every Monday through Friday Emi, Jack and I go pick up KK from Houston High School and stay with him until 4 or 5. This is my third year of picking him up after school, it has just become part of our everyday routine. When Emi was first born Kevin really didn't have much interest in her but all of a sudden he has come around and does almost everything for her. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I pick him up from school before I get Emi from her school. When we get to Emi's school, Kevin goes straight to her classroom, gets her bag and any papers she might have to bring home, he looks at the bulletin board to she what she did in school that day, gets her out of the classroom, walks her hand-in-hand to the car and buckles her in. When we get to my parents house, he gets her out of the car and takes her in the house and fixes her a snack and he does all of this without me saying a word. I love to see that he is coming around to her. She spends most of her time in his room bugging the snot out of him by misplacing his precious baseballs but he tolerates her and she just giggles when he gets on to her. I love to see the two of them playing together - I just had to comment on that.

Balloon Yo-Yo

We went to the Cordova Craft Fair - lots of fun! They had great booths and I found lots of great things. Anyway, getting off subject. Brian bought Emi this balloon yo-yo that has a rubberband string, it was cute and she loved it. Then we got home and she got the rubberband string completely knotted up in her hair. How she accomplished this? I don't know. She came screaming at me while I was catching up on email that she lost her balloon, oh how I wish it would have been that simple! As she went running off into the next room I noticed it hanging from the back of her head. I tried and tried to untangle the thing, after 10 minutes of her screaming at me it had to be cut out and went into the trash shortly thereafter!