Circus Saturday

I bought tickets to the Ararat Circus about 6 weeks ago and the kids have been super excited about it ever since.  Colin has had a countdown to "circus Saturday" for a while.

We went to the 10 am show and we got there a little over an hour early because we heard they had lots of fun things to do before the show started.

Here we are before going into Municipal auditorium.  Brian went to park the car, it was such a lovely day out the kids didn't even really need their jackets!

 We got suckered into buying a program because you could get the clowns to sign by their pictures...

 Pretty much a waste of $2, but we did get a chance to win a bike...

of course we didn't win...

They had elephant rides before the show started and in the intermission.

We decided it was totally worth the $10 for the kids to ride on an elephant.  I mean, come on, who can say they've riden on an elephant?!

 We thought the kids would chicken out, so we watched from afar for a bit, then promised them cotton candy if they followed through.  

 They had a great time and had no fears getting up there.

 And as promised...enjoying their cotton candy

 We had so much fun at the circus!

Colin's favorite part was the tigers and Maggie liked the motorcycle riders in the circular cage (however, she didn't get to see them because we had an emergency bathroom break!).  They had acrobats and camels and random filler-time stuff like clowns and singing.  

We left at intermission.. it had been a long morning and the kids really needed a rest!

Here's a video of the kids on the elephant

And lastly...

Brian finished staining the deck this week.  Looks great!

Now we can get our grills and furniture back up there for the winter.

Deck staining

Brian and I finally got around to staining the deck last weekend (and randomly throughout this week).  We know it's pretty late in the season to do this, but we have had some unseasonably warm days and we have been waiting for the deck to be ready to stain.  Up until recently, the wood would still repel the water and bead up, so we couldn't stain it. 

But, we picked a beautiful natural color that makes it look wonderful!

Here it is, in the process of staining...

It really looks great, not as dark or red as this picture indicates

This one is more like the actual color (the front part of the railing isn't finished yet in the picture)

I got the wonderful job of hand-painting the railings and Brian and Dave did the surface of the deck.

I will get a better picture of the finished product tomorrow, when we get back from the CIRCUS!

I have some very excited kids!  Can't wait to ride the elephants :)

photo dump

We've had a great last few weekends, doing nothing super important, but getting things done for the fall.

Brian spent last weekend getting the Christmas lights up and ready to go.  It was a beautiful day and he pulled out a bunch of new lights he got on clearance last year.  Can't wait to see what our house looks like all lit up!

Friday of last week we had a great little evening spending time with my childhood best friend's parents.  They live in Chicago but were driving through KC and stopped by to say hello.  They haven't changed at all and we had so much fun catching up and going out for pizza.

I sure missed my friend Erin, but I'm sure we'll cross paths soon (hopefully!)

The ladies after dinner on Friday

 The boys

We've gotten bit by the Christmas bug around here.  Colin just loves "reading" the toy magazines that have come in the mail recently.  He's circled just about everything in there so we have some narrowing down to do!

 Studying hard

 Raiding the Ninja Turtle aisle at Target

Last weekend on Saturday, Grammie and Grandad grabbed Mags and cousin Olivia for a morning of fun.  They signed up for a Tea party with the Princesses and the girls had a blast (so did Grandad, I'm sure!)

 The girls got glitter in their hair and a special tiara and princess cup, and Grammie got them each a pretty bow for their hair.  Maggie even came home with a certificate deeming her Princess of the Court.

It's official...Maggie's a princess!

Our neighbors emailed me some crazy pictures of the boys from a couple of weekends ago...

I had to share!

Can't believe it's November already...

pretty soon it'll be finals week and I'll be posting pictures of Tiff's baby shower!