School Pictures

Pretty cute, huh? I have some for the family I will mail out soon.

More pics and posts to come soon. We had a really busy week last week!

Dallas Fall Festival

As you can see, Eli is a chef for Halloween this year!

Meredyth and Baird were so sweet to invite us to our 2nd annual Dallas Women's Fall Festival. They do a great job with this event. They have everything you can think of for the kids...face painting, balloon man, musician, clown show, lunch, etc. We really had a nice time and appreciate such good friends.

SNL

Will anyone watch SNL tonight? We are going to Joe T's with some friends and may have to Tivo it. Tell me what you thought. I hope they are not too mean to Sarah. Even if you don't like her, you have to give her kudos for trying to have a sense of humor about herself.

I did NOT write the following blog, but thought it was good:

Wow. Could Tina Fey have been any more arrogant, petty, and childish? If Palin gets elected she's leaving the planet? Democrats are beside themselves because Sarah Palin, a down-to-earth, real person with more governmental experience than the guy her opponents are running for President - has clicked with the American public. They are frothing at the mouth because none of the usual epithets that get tossed at GOP politicians are sticking. Now comes Sarah Palin, educated but not excessively intellectual, confident but not arrogant, accomplished but not aristocratic. As beautiful as JFK was handsome, but it matters not at all in the way she carries herself, as her polticial convictions are what drive her. "No experience!" Democrats charge, yet Palin has been in public office four years longer than the guy they say is qualified to be the leader of the free world. Everywhere she goes crowds show up and they love her. Sarah Palin talks about how much she loves watching Tina Fey, how funny she is, and Fey returns the compliment with hatred and vitriol. Tina Fey, get over yourself. To paraphrase Laura Ingraham, "shut up and act."


I know my family will be so happy when this election is over so I will stop blogging about it (me too, I am exhausted just thinking about it so much).

Anyway, feel free to disagree or tell me what you really think. I know who I am voting for, yet will respect your opinion if different!

State Fair of Texas

Aaron had the week off from the bank and we decided to take Eli to the state fair in Dallas yesterday. Aaron was a little grumpy about going - we haven't been in about 10 years - but I think he had fun in spite of himself. Eli had a good time, though I am not sure what he made of it all. He got to see a dog show and go to the petting zoo. He also got us to take him on these paddle boat swans...you should have seen us....we looked ridiculous! It was pretty funny.

I was kind of harsh about our lack of fall here in North Texas so I have to say we have had some very nice fall weather lately! It was actually a bit chilly yesterday which I love this time of the year.

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday dear Aaron, Happy Birthday to you! And many more...






Love, Stacey and Eli




(The cake is an experiment. Hopefully Aaron will like it! It is vanilla cake with raspberry jam and raspberry cream cheese frosting. It is always harder to bake at home than at the restaurant. I didn't have any extra white icing to do any sort of decoration so it is kind of sad.)

Stepping into Fall

I never knew just how much I loved fall until I moved from Kentucky to Texas (has it been 11-12 years already??). Kentucky has an absolutely beautiful fall....the way it should be. Vibrant, colorful leaves and crisp fall air...ahhhhh - real football weather! In North Texas, there is virtually no fall at all. High temps are still reaching close to 90 degrees and it is mid October. It will probably stay that way until a blast of "cold front" hits us out of nowhere and drops the temp 30-40 degrees in one day. And that will only last a short time before temperatures cycle back up in this bipolar roller coaster that is Texas winter. It is a little bit depressing, I have to admit. I am still not used to it.





But, we have to make the most of it, I guess. We will pretend it is fall, as demonstrated by the pumpkins and candy corn sitting in our flower bed. I am going to let Eli decorate the little ones later (if they don't rot first, ha). Fun! Oh and in honor of fall....here is another recipe:



Pumpkin Crisp

2 (15 oz) cans pumpkin
1 cup sugar (or splenda!)
3/4 cup evaporated milk
3 large eggs
1 t ground cinnamon
1 t pumpkin pie spice
1 t vanilla extract

Crunch Topping:
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3/4 cup quick oats
3/4 cup walnuts, chopped
2 T flour
1/4 t cinnamon
6 T butter, melted


Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8" baking dish or even a pie dish.

Whisk all the filling ingredients together and pour into the prepared dish. Sprinkle with all the combined crunch topping. Bake 45-50 minutes.
Serve warm with whipped cream and cinnamon if desired!

Eli

Eli is showing off his dinosaur boots (that his Honey gave him) before school. Not sure why he had to have the Nemo and Dory that morning...that was kind of random. He spotted them in the closet and decided to pull them out for the ride to school.

Eli is finally taking an interest in going on the potty. Yay!! He is not potty trained by any means, but he has started to randomly ask to go to the big potty. He (and we) are not very consistent yet, but we will get there soon. I put him in a pair of "big boy" Thomas the Train underwear yesterday while we were at the house. He promptly pulled them off and put a pull-up diaper on! What the heck??

Can McCain/Palin Make a Comeback?

Well, I still love our girl, Sarah Palin.







I am scared that Obama might win the White House. I don't trust him at all for a whole host of reasons that the media won't even discuss (think radical political groups and a long history of anti-American sentiment - really research it). And for he and Joe Biden to say it is only "fair", and our "patriotic duty" to pay more taxes makes me so mad! Wait...let me get this straight....I get to do most - if not all - of the work while someone else gets to sit back and take my tax dollars for doing nada? How is that "fair"? All Aaron and I do is work to pay taxes already. Are we not contributing enough? Believe it or not in some parts of the U.S., $250k does not a rich person make. It certainly will not ever make one rich in Fort Worth, TX.

I am well on board with giving back to our community, our church, and people in need! But I don't think giving it to the government to redistribute to our "welfare nation" is the right way to go about that. It disincents those of us who work hard, very hard, from wanting to keep at it. And when you look at it closely, what Obama is saying is very misleading...of the "95%" that he keeps claiming will receive a tax break, 44% don't even pay taxes right now. And probably most don't pay all that much. So the small business owners who are trying to scratch and claw our way ahead (like me) will be the ones feeling even more tax pain. Sounds really good.

I was really wrong about Gov Palin, though. If I ever thought she was "just like me" in any way that was just incorrect. While I feel she probably can relate to people like me more than other politicians....she is nothing like the average "hockey mom" that she likes to talk to. Us mere average women could not have handled what she has gone through and still be soldiering on, courageous, determined, and all the while smiling. Yes, she has had a big learning curve, but she is so much smarter than the media gives her credit for. (Everyone forgets that Obama has been campaigning now for more than a year and a half, coincidentally the same amount of time he says it has been since he last spoke to Bill Ayers.) Just because Palin doesn't give the standard Washington political "speak", and just because she tries to relate to the mainstream, it does not make her stupid. Someone once likened her to our future...to America's future Margaret Thatcher. That is how I would like to see her anyway. That is my hope.

One interesting dynamic about Sarah Palin is the hate filled emotion that she generate from so many. It is one thing not to like someone, or to disagree with someone politically, but so many people really, really hate her. I think it is b/c she is Christian and doesn't believe in abortion. She scares people who cling to our self-centered, celebrity driven, Scientology and Kabbalah (sp) and "anything else goes", morally bankrupt, and ridiculous world. Remember that evil HATES the light, and maybe, just maybe, Sarah Palin is walking in the light (of Jesus).


John 3:19-21 "This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."