A spooky time of year

We had a wet Halloween this year. It hadn't really rained since about May, but the week before and of Halloween was filled with storms and buckets of rain. Sadly a few favorite traditions got rained out, but we managed to still celebrate with lots of fun and friends and family. Grammie made some adorable festive skirts that the girls loved wearing and one of their favorite days of the month was eating Dinner in a Pumpkin at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Another popular day was spent right here on our own street. The girls loved seeing lots of their buddies at our annual neighborhood Halloween party where they bobbed for apples, won cupcakes at the cake walk and participated in a scavenger hunt.


The highly anticipated Halloween night was no disappointment as well. We had some of the cutest witches in town and the girls were beyond thrilled to wear makeup and even some false eyelashes for Isabelle. Both girls left to trick or treat with Ben and Tara but after a short while, Tara and Olivia returned so that Olivia could pass out candy instead. Belle and Ben pushed on for another 30 minutes or so before they returned tired and with more candy than we could ever eat. Our neighbors continued to party for hours, but by 9:00pm all 4 of us Cosbys were tucked into our beds exhausted and filled with sugar. Happy Happy Halloween.

S S S September!

September was full of highs and lows! The highs were wonderful and included after school activities starting back again like soccer and ballet filling the days of our weeks up quickly. We went downtown with Aunt Tara for the Broadway production of The Little Mermaid and I traveled to Southern California with the Bees to celebrate Grandma Glo's 60th birthday, Disney style. However, with the joy of the highs came some pretty yucky lows too. We said goodbye to some favorite family friends, the Droz family, and although we celebrated with an awesome goodbye party the tears quickly followed. We also spent a good portion of the month sick in bed. Little Livi seemed to catch every single thing that her Kindergarten class came across and she and Belle both missed several days of school with strept throat, throwing up, bronchitis, etc. Adios to September and hopefully to germs for the season. (Wishful thinking.)

I'm just going to play play play play play...

Shelly and I heard that Taylor Swift was coming to Houston with her 1989 tour in October 2014. We immediately bought tickets in the nosebleeds and kept the secret from our girls for almost an entire year. We listened to the 1989 album a thousand times and finally it was September 2015 and time for a wild girls night out. All six of us were excited and we made it downtown and parked quick and easy and made our way to our seats way at the top of the Astrodome. Vance Joy and Shawn Mendez opened the show and half way through their songs, we headed down to get some snacks and stretch our legs before the big show began. The girls were dancing and singing along at the bottom of our section getting their wiggles out when we were spotted. A lady approached me and said "I am with Team Taylor and she really wants some young fans down in front, would you all like to please follow me?" It took me a few minutes to process what she was saying and then my jaw dropped. Really?! She gave us tickets and we followed her down and down and down until we were entering the ground floor.  (We were walking on home plate.)  We kept passing security who waved us by and finally we were escorted to our seats ON THE FRONT ROW. WHAT??? It was totally unreal and the girls were screaming with excitement. Shelly and I were laughing at all of the people watching us as we passed them thinking "wow, how much did they pay for those seats" as we led our 9 and 5 year olds to the closest seats at the biggest concert of the year.

Before we knew it, the entire arena went dark and up popped tons of dancers and Miss Taylor Swift herself singing Welcome to New York. It was seriously the most amazing moment and we had not even caught our breath yet. For the next 3 hours, she sang every song we knew and changed costumes and danced and put on a show like we had never seen before. There were special guests and fireworks and smoke and we had a front row seat to it all. The girls sang at the top of their lungs and felt so special and lucky being so close to all of the action. At nearly 11:00pm (on a school night ) Taylor sadly said her goodbye and we all made our way to the car exhausted and with our ears ringing. It was surely a night to remember and one that we may never be able to recreate again. Wow! Thank you Team Taylor for the night of a lifetime!