A Tungate Halloween

We had a fun Halloween at the Tungate household! Aunt Sarah and Uncle Carl kept up with their tradition of taking the kids to the Science Spectrum Spooky Science Carnival on Friday evening. Ally and Branson had a blast! We kept Ella with us, but she'll be going next year when she can do a little bit more. After the carnival we decided to go ahead and get our "trick-or-treating" done so we wouldn't have to get dressed up and out in the cold two nights in a row (and since we only trick or treat to family houses anyway, it worked out to go on Friday). Anyway, the kids got WAY too much candy and had tons of fun and got to be home to pass out candy to the trick or treaters on Halloween night. :) Ally was dressed up as Fancy Nancy (my mom made her dress), Branson was a robot, and Ella was a ballerina!
Oh yeah, Ella turned 18 months old on Friday! I can't believe it! I'll do another post about her later with her 18 month pics. :)

Long time no post & Ally's 1st lost tooth

I've majorly been slacking off in the posting department so I'm going to try and get caught up in a very quick manner. I'm not sure what order my pictures are in so I'll just give a quick run down and you should be able to see which one belongs where. I'm finally posting Branson's first day of Super Kids pictures. He looked so cute and proud. He's loving school again this year and they just had their first field trip to the pumpkin patch yesterday so I put in a couple pics from that too. Nothing new has really been going on with Ella lately; she's still trucking along getting into everything and being cute. Ally, on the other hand, has had a big week. She told me on Tuesday morning through some tears that she had a loose tooth. I felt it and it was hardly noticeable, but it was loose. When I asked her why she was crying she just said, "I'm afraid it might hurt." We calmed her down and left it at that. After school we got some apples for snacks in hopes that she would forget about it and bite down on the tooth and help it out a little. She did okay with the apple and the tooth kept getting more and more loose, but she refused to let me help her or to even try to see if it was ready to come out. Wednesday night my mom and dad both tried to get her to let them help her get it out because it was totally ready by then, but it was pretty dramatic and they ended up giving up not because the tooth wasn't ready, but because Ally wasn't ready. Thursday after school I was determined to get that tooth out! She was still really dramatic about it so I gave her a "pep talk" and she calmed down a bit and decided that she would try to get it out on her own. I "coached" her on what to do and it was really just hanging on by a thread, but she was just too scared to actually get it out. When Adam got home from work he helped me convince her to let me get it out and I got it right away easy as pie. She was crying and when I said "I got it!" she said, "I didn't even know it! It didn't hurt!" and all was well in the Tungate household. She didn't even get freaked out by the blood and it actually bled more than I expected it to, but just for a minute. Then she called everyone in our family to tell them and she was so proud. The conversation for the rest of the evening revolved around her "loosed tooth."

Randomness

First of all, I guess I'm a bad mom because Branson had his first day of Super Kids this past Tuesday and it was actually a relief to me to get him out of the house for a little while! I did take pictures of him ready for school, but haven't even downloaded them from my camera yet. I'm slacking off, but I'll get there eventually.
I cleaned the kid's rooms this week and that was no small chore. It is absolutely ridiculous how much junk and trash they had in their rooms! You could hardly even see the floors. I threw a ton of stuff away that could be hazardous for Ella to play with and separated all the "girl toys" from the "boy toys" and organized them in their rooms to try and reduce the chaos. Branson had a toy box, but the girl's didn't so I got on-line and searched for toy boxes and found one on sale at Target. When I got there and found the one I has searched out, there was a different and better one right next to it on the shelf that was on sale for cheaper than the one I was going to get! It took me almost an hour to put the dang thing together, but I did it and now the girl's toys have a home.
Do you ever get those feelings deep inside where something is stirring for a major change? I've had one of those feelings for a little while now, but haven't really figured it out yet. I've always been a sentimental person, but I guess a lot has happened this year that has caused me to feel like that; I turned 30 in June, my oldest baby started Kindergarten last month, and a friend of mine lost her little sister just a couple of weeks ago. That's enough to do it, I guess. This is how we grow.
I'll try to get my stuff together and post some pictures soon. I've got a really busy weekend with the Cowboy Symposium starting with a show tonight at 5pm and there will be 4 more performences tomorrow throughout the day. It makes me tired just thinking about it, but it will be fun and singing is always a good release!

Ally's 1st day of Kindergarten!

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Well, we made it! Ally was so excited yesterday and it was really cute! I was worried that she might get a little nervous and not want us to leave, but much to my surprise she didn't. We helped her find where to put her backpack and lunch box and then she blended right on in. We had to get her attention to tell her "bye" and once we did, she never looked back! Adam and I struggled, but we made it without any tears shed until we left the school! I'm so glad he took off work for this!
I was a little scared about going it alone today, but it was okay and actually went much more smoothly than yesterday. It's all downhill from here!

Kindergarten Open House

Last night was Open House for Ally's school and we went to meet her teacher and show her around a bit. It was pretty crazy because every student brought their entire extended family and their dogs (not really, but it was packed and pretty chaotic)! There was no organization to it whatsoever so it was a little overwhelming for her, but she was still excited. The woman in the picture is her new teacher, Mrs. Allison and she seemed really great! I think it's going to be a good year!

Ella's 15 month pics and more pictures...

Ella Jean is 15 months old! She's really growing up fast! We thought she would NEVER start walking, but finally she did at 14 months. Now there's no stopping her from getting into any and EVERYthing! She talks non-stop in her own little garbled language; it's hilarious! She is still stubborn about everything and doesn't do a thing unless she wants to, including talking. She can say several words and even more names, but like I said, only if she decides she wants to at any given time. Her favorite thing to say is, "hi!" and she says it in a very squeaky, enthusiastic way. She's just oozing with personality! She does use a few signs also, but once again, is very stubborn about using them. Wonder where she got all that stubbornness from?! :) Enjoy the pics! Oh yeah, again, my mom made the girls' dresses!

Keely pics

A while back I mentioned that I wanted to get into professional photography and I've been practicing a lot since then. These are a few of the ones I've done of my new niece, Keely that I thought turned out really well! I'll be posting more later of some faux bridal pics I took of my older sister (since she's the only one I know who still fits in her wedding dress!). :)