Mary's Dreamy Book Adventure!!

 In mid November I was able to have just the dreamiest little adventure when I got to fly to Miami for the Reader's Favorite Awards ceremony!!  It has been so exciting this year to watch "The Poo Poo Fairy" get awards and recognition!  My book got a silver award and the illustration award at the Reader's Favorite Book Review Awards.  But my favorite part has been being able to watch other mommies who are struggling to potty train, having success with "The Poo Poo Fairy"!

When we arrived, we had to track down a Fed Ex store to make copies of a sales sheet for "The Poo Poo Fairy".   To our surprise the Fed Ex store we were brought to was in a Trump Hotel!!  It was super beautiful and I was happy to have stumbled across it...

 Here is the book being displayed at the hotel where the awards were being held!

 Here's the pretty view from my hotel room.  It was fun to be in warm and sunny Miami for a bit!

 The first night I was there I attended a meet and greet where I got to meet and talk to other authors.  I was so nervous...mingling with strangers has never been a string point...but it went well and I met so many very neat people:)

 The next day we got to go to the absolutely gigantic Miami book festival!!  It was the coolest thing ever to see my book being sold there.

 I was so lucky to be there at the very moment that a little girl was picking out my book to buy!! They wanted me to sign the book and pose for a picture! It was pretty neat!

 It was very special for me to be able to spend some one on one time with my awesome brother, Bryan! We ate the Shake Shack there!  Bryan and Wendy took Ryan and I to the very first Shake Shack in NYC when we visited them there before we even had kids!  So this was a nostalgic little visit :)

 This was a very sweet lady who wanted a copy of my book for her grandkids! We ended up giving each other a copy our books!  She was such a sweet and talented lady! I was lucky to have met her.  I hope her grandkids love the book!

This was another particularly nerve wracking moment...when I had to go on stage to accept the award.  Ugh...I am terrible at this stuff and my hair was not cooperating...but it was fun anyway:)

 I needed to snap a picture of the amazing illustration award!  The man who gave out the awards was also an illustrator and drew the art for this award!  He was so kind and raved about our book!  He said he loved it and hand picked this book to win!

 During our travels around Miami was drove past tons of these gigantic cruise ships.  I have never been on a cruise or seen one of the ships in person so I was a little awe struck :)

 Though it was a truly magical trip and I had so much fun, it was so sweet to come home to my sweet family!! This little girl was sick so I was so happy to be home to take care of her!

What an adventure it has been to be invovled in this project!! I am excited to see what 2017 has in store for "The Poo Poo Fairy"!

What?!! Beckham is 7!!

 Beckham is 7!!!  This means next year he will be turning 8 and getting baptized!  I just cannot believe how fast these kiddos are growing up! Beckham is such a sweet and loving kid. He is a great big brother to Elsie and loves to help out is mom and dad!  He is smart and loves science! He is so fascinated with how things work and with how things are put together.  I tell him he is going to be a mechanical engineer one day :)

Beckham has just started to get into Pokemon since all his little buddies are into it! So naturally he wanted to invite his three best friends and have a Pokemon party! I know very little about Pokemon so I tried my best...but I think the kids loved it so thats all that matters :)

Here's the table!  Pikachu made an appearance a lot at Beckham's party since he is now my favorite Pokemon...he's so cute!! :)

I made Pikachu balloons, plates and twinkies for the occasion!

 As the boys arrived they each got to decorate their goody bags with Pokemon stickers!

 Then it was onto the Pokemon training camp...

 There were four different challenges that the boys had to pass in order to get their official Pokemon Trainer certificate at the end! There was "Pin the Tail on Pikachu" (there is a picture of that later on) to master precision!

This game below was to help the boys master their Pokeball throwing skills! Each Pokemon on the poster was worth a certain number of points and they each took turns throwing a sticky ball of their choice at the poster.  Their goal was to get 50 points together! They loved it!

 Next was a Pokemon finding challenge, to master their searching and finding skills! Those Pokemon can be very sneaky! The boys each had a card with 12 missing Pokemon on it that they had to hunt down and throw Pokeballs at! This may have been the favorite activity of the day!!

 Here's my pin the tail on Pikachu game in the background :) I drew him myself!!

 After completing each challenge the boy got to pick out a Pokemon badge!

The very last challenge was to practice searching and catching all at once!! The boys had to find all the balls and/or balloons that had a tiny Pokemon on them while jumping!!  The boys were all amazing at this very difficult challenge:)

 After picking out their last badge, it was time to go inside for some lunch after all that hard work!!  All Pokemon inspired, of course!

 Next...the awards ceremony where each boy got their official Pokemon Trainer certificate! Haha this was great, the boys took it very seriously!  They got a Pokemon bracelet as well

 By this time, all the boys were aching to see Beckham open his presents!!

 Here's the cute little party group:)

 Beckham was also so happy to receive a CD player from Gma and Gpa Dick!! He was absolutely thrilled and has been listening and dancing to it non stopped :)

And of course, we had a delicious ice cream cake in Beckham's honor!!

 We just love this awesome little guy!! Our family just wouldn't be the same without him!!

Happy Fall Ya'll...Prepare for a Fall Fun Overload...

 We have been having some super fun Missouri Fall fun!!  It is a well known fact that Fall is my favorite time of year. So, the Dick family tires to soak up all the "fall"ness we can before its gone.

We got to go to the annual UCM Homecoming parade again this year with our dear friends! We went with them last year and it was fun to compare the pictures of last year's parade when all our kiddos seemed much younger!

I had to throw in this picture of goofy Elsie building a fort in her room.  This is her smile for pictures these days- haha! We are going to have to work on that before were have any portraits done!!

 There are two cute little pumpkin patches near our home that we thought we would explore this year.  This Pixie pumpkin patch was just darling!!  They had all sorts of delightful pumpkins with lots of character to choose from!

 And some great carving ones as well...

 Jane and Beckham would have spent the whole time on these cool riding toys if we would have let them.

 The corn pit was Elsie's favorite!!

 Jane and Beckham were super excited to help out with the pumpkin launcher! Beckham got to load it with a pumpkin...

 and they both got to pull the trigger!

 That pumpkin shot so far, we couldn't even see where it landed!

 Elsie was totally enamored with the animals.  There were chickens, baby goats and a horse!

 After days of listening to Beckham beg to carve pumpkins we finally got down to business!! Ryan was gone so I was worried about doing it alone, but to my happy surprise the kids did most of the work all by themselves!

 And Elsie added lots of hair to Beckham's pumpkin!

 They turned out pretty awesome if you ask me!  IF you look closely, you'll see that Jane gave her pumpkin braces, since she was soon to be getting braces herself :)

 Elsie got to attend a Halloween party of her very own with some sweet friends! She was excited to wear her Elsa dress!

 All the food was Halloween themed!

 And there were Halloween games, too!  She had a blast!

 With the beautiful Fall weather abounding, we have hosted many a neighbor kid at our house, so I had to snap a picture of the cute bunch of neighborhood kiddos!!

 We also got to explore Buckeye acres pumpkin patch!! This was place was very neat, too!  The kids got to help with an old time apple press to make cider! They thought it was super neat!

 Beckham would have done it all day..

 There was a rickety...yet fun seesaw that the kids thought was pretty cool.  I remember loving these as a kid so even though it looked a little scary I let the kids have fun on it...and everyone survived:)

 For Halloween Jane was Ray from Star Wars, of course Elsie was Elsa from Frozen and Beckham was so excited to be a super spooky skeleton zombie which we got from the neighbor boys- haha! Boys will be boys :)

 Our ward trunk or treat was simply spectacular this year!!  The lady in charge went all out on the decor and the result was amazing!!

 Ryan and the young men were in charge of the doughnut eating game!!  Ryan and I both wore our high school student council sweaters!! It brought me back to the good ol days for sure :)

 Some more fun decor...

 This room was my favorite with spooky floating candles!! It was amazing!

 There was face painting, a cake walk, a costume contest and so much more fun fun fun!!

 Here I am with my dear friend in her amazing Maleficent costume!!

 We got to have even more Halloween fun when we had a spooky halloween dinner with our dear friends and neighbors!!  I made these melted witch cupcakes for the occasion!!

 Here is the Halloween spread!

 I loved attending both Jane and Beckham's school Halloween parties!  Beckham got to play a lot of fun games...

 He even helped Elsie play, too!

 Here is Beckham at the snack table with his best buddies!!!

I had a few pictures of Jane's school party as well but they didn't seem to go through.  But it was darling as well.  I love Halloween and we had a blast this year!  I can't believe another Halloween has come and gone...time just won't slow down so all we can do is try to savor every amazing moment we have!!!  Happy Fall Ya'll!!