Preschool Photo 2010

Lilly wanted to share her preschool photo with you that was taken at school...so cute!

Here she is, age 4...

Tough Lesson to Learn

Question: Who thinks data is safe in an external hard drive?

Answer: It's not! ... at least not when your external hard drive is dropped on the floor.

Yes, it was a tough, and expensive, lesson to learn at the Z house. Almost 4 years of photos and video were stored on my external hard drive- a safe place, or so I thought. My little red drive housed all of the precious images of my two little children; and in my ignorance, I thought they were safe. But one day a certain husband dropped the hard drive on the kitchen tile. End result- a broken drive- internally broken so it could not even be recognized by my laptop.

Panic stricken and ready to take out vengeance on a certain husband, I called a local data recovery specialist. After about two weeks, increased blood pressure, contemplation of revenge (or divorce), and many heart wrenching thoughts of never again seeing all of my thousands of photos of my girls, the data guy saved the day. He was able to recover the data from the scratched drive... all of the data... all of the photos... all of the video. Hallelujah! Did I mention it cost a small fortune?

In any case, I am now a subscriber to Carbonite, an online data backup company. Carbonite automatically backs up my computer every time I have an Internet connection for about $50 a year- unlimited data. And, I also have a new system of backing up items to my laptop hard drive and new external drive.

So, for all of you out there reading this post, let this be a lesson for you also. Don't put all of your eggs in one basket. And, don't store all of your data in one location (meaning one house, etc.) What would happen if your house burned to the ground? External hard drives are not meant to withstand impact in any form. Thank you data recovery man for saving my marriage and my sanity! :)

Halloween 2010

We hope Halloween was a fun event at your home; it certainly was at ours. 

After church we visited a local pumpkin patch to pick the best jack-o-lantern pumpkins we could find.

It was the biggest decision Claire would make all day. She finally found the perfect pumpkin.

 And Lilly did too...

Once home, dad helped carve the jack-o-lanterns while the girls watched in anticipation...

Once the sun went down, trick-or-treat time began...

 With all the anticipation of the big event, little Claire missed her nap. Almost half-way through our trick-or-treating adventure, she fell asleep sitting up in the wagon. The poor child nodded her head but managed to stay in the wagon.  I took her home and tucked her into bed while Rob took Lilly around the rest if the neighborhood.

 When Lilly came home, she sorted through her candy and chose only a few items to keep. The remainder will be set by the front door for the Great Pumpkin to eat tonight. The Great Pumpkin mysteriously comes by every Halloween night to take away the candy. In the candy's place he leaves toys. Such anticipation! What will he bring? We will find out in the morning....

Fun at Disneyland

We spent a long weekend at Disneyland. Here are a few photos from our trip. As you can imagine, the girls had a great time! We ate lunch with the princesses.

Can you tell which one is Lilly and which is Cinderella?

 Claire and her likeness, Aurora...

 Here's to a great time!

 

Eager for Halloween

We've had the Halloween costumes for several weeks. When I asked Claire what she wanted to be, she didn't hesitate in saying, "Tink-a-bell." Lilly decided to follow suit and be Tink also, but once we arrived at the Disney Store, she changed her tune. Lilly was immediately taken with the Alice in Wonderland display, and hence, she made her decision. Here are the cuties in their costumes. 

Both girls were excellent at the photo shoot, but this was the first time Claire actually did everything the photographer asked of her. Great job, Claire! 

Here's Miss Alice, as proud as can be.

Little Tink was all smiles. I had to literally tackle Claire to the ground and force her to wear the costume before we left for the photo session.  She pitched a fit and refused to wear the thing, but once she put it in she said, "I'm pretty." Then, I couldn't get it off her until bedtime.

 Here's the happy sister duo...

Here's just a few more because they're cute. 

Don't you love how they have their feet crossed? So cute!

We hope your costumes are ready to Trick-or-Treat!

The Z's are ready to go.

Our Little Pumpkins

At last the pumpkins are here! In an earlier post you may have seen the little pumpkins I made for a few of my nieces... here's the next edition. I custom ordered these larger pumpkins from the same pottery store and spent about 5 hours carefully painting them. Lilly and Claire were quite pleased, especially when we turned on the little lights inside. Out little pumpkins now decorate our entry hall... scaring everyone who dares to enter! BOO!

Here they are glowing in the dark.

 

And in the light...  

Don't let them scare you too!

October fun

Yes, it's still a bit warm in the desert, imagine that. Last weekend the girls escaped the heat at one of the many splash pads in the area. It was still 100+!

 The water caught Lilly by surprise...

 What's the month of October without sugar cookies to celebrate? Lilly and I made these for our friends from church. YUM!

 I captured this photo the other day on a whim. Both girls were in an exceptionally good mood. Usually when I attempt a shot like this one of them turns away or puts on a big frown. Not today, thankfully!

And not a moment later, I took this picture of a storm moving towards us. We've had lots of rain lately which, luckily, has brought much cooler weather.  Storms are always exciting for us since they're so infrequent.

More pictures coming soon!