Well, this year is quickly coming to a close. I thought I'd take a minute to wish everyone a safe and happy Holiday. We are going to be spending the holidays in Woodstock this year. We didn't think we'd be able to, but we are still here in St. Louis so we can spend Christmas with my side of the family. I am excited to be in Woodstock, it's been a few years since we were there on Christmas.

Well, lets see what's going on in our lives. We are actually happy to be home the last couple of weeks, since we have been traveling quite a bit lately. We are still here in St. Louis while Jake works on his project for work. I am starting to miss our house. We were in Houston 2 weekends ago and the girls didn't want to come back to St. Louis, they were very happy at home playing with the kitchen set that they haven't played with in four months. I'm ready to get home and start on some home projects. We'll see when we actually get back to Texas.

Maddie is definitely ready to start preschool, I'm so excited for her to go to school, I think she will just love it.....I hope! Madelyn has informed us that she wants to be a teacher when she grows up. She says she wants to teach little kids how to read, which is funny because she can't read yet. The girls are starting to play better with each other. The girls do fight quite a bit, I hope that gets better. They are so fun to listen to when they don't know I'm listening. The things they talk about just cracks me up. I'm so glad they have each other. I never had a sister so i kinda get to live vicariously through them.

Maddie and Olivia with their friend, Owen.

Happy Halloween!

Madelyn and Olivia are geared up for a serious sweets safari

Grandma King Makes a Great Recliner...

...and an excellent water cooler

Boo!

Spooooooky Princesses

Some quality pumpkin carvings light up the apartment.

What could be scarier on Halloween than a couple of baby-blue clad princesses out for a night of hell-raising and candy consumption.

Madelyn and Olivia get excited for pumpkins.

The zombie prom queen and her sidekick, Princess Elvis

A few recent pics

"I'm ready for my close-up."

"Holy crap! Flying marketing!!!"

Our Family Portrait: barefoot and all

Erin and Olivia after a long day

Madelyn's Big Number 3

We were in scenic Woodstock, Illinois last weekend; the site of such historic events as the filming of Groundhog Day, Jake and Erin's wedding, assorted nativity scene thefts, and, of course, Dick Tracy Days. We found ourselves back in what I consider to be the cradle of modern society for yet another monumental occasion: Madelyn's third birthday party.

We were glad to have so many friends and family gathered together for the party. All of Erin's family was there and a few delegates from the Bice clan made their way up from Texas as well. Both Madelyn and Olivia went nuts over her SpongeBob cake, and all the kids at the party made specific requests for various parts of SpongeBob's anatomy...and Aunt Sarah made sure to get her NC-17 request in too.

Madelyn and her cake

Madelyn extiguishes SpongeBob

Madelyn and her Snow White dolly: a modern day Pinkie and the Brain

...and after you finish eating you can use the cake to clean-up household spills...

Olivia "Cat Lady" Bice takes her kitty on a tour of the playground equipment

View from St Louis

Greetings few and far between readers...

Life continues on here in St Louis. I've somewhat adjusted to not sleeping at night and staring at lots of rust during working hours. On the plus side, however, we do have a pretty nice view from our apartment here.

Jacob Bice: Simpsonized!

For my upcoming cameo in the Simpson's movie, I had to appropriately alter my appearance.

You can too at www.simpsonizeme.com ...Enjoy!

New Jammies in St Louis

Well, this is my first post on here in nearly a year. This can be attributed to the fact that right now work requires me to work between 8PM and 5AM, which gives me some time during the day to work on many ancillary projects that have fallen by the wayside over the past year (such as this blog and those journal papers I keep talking about).

There's been big excitement in the Bice household lately: New Jammies! We were out at the mall and Erin and I made the mistake of ging into the disney store with the girls in tow. We're lucky we left with only pajamas. Nonetheless, the countdown towards the family vacation in November continues.

Madelyn and Olivia model their new bedtime threads

"Thank you daddy for outfitting us for hard sleeping"

In other news, many of you know that my work in St Louis has extended to the point that I was able to convince my clent that there was a benefit to relocating me and the whole family temporarily to St Louis. Thus, we will be in the city of the arch until the first of November (at least). We are excited about being back in the midwest and the opportunities for seeing Erin's family and some of our friends still at Purdue that it affords.

Aren't they sweet....?!?

Grandma King sent Maddie and Olivia some everyday clothes to wear.