Trick or Treat

Well we made it! Another year of junk and costumes and craziness done. I actually LOVE Halloween, it is one of my favorite "holiday's" and this year was pretty fun. We took the kids over into my parents neighborhood. They live in a larger area with more homes. One house decked out their entire garage with a haunted house - we waited in line and went through it. Ethan is now asleep on my bed.

Ryleigh was a "Disco Diva" this year. She has white go-go boots and everything. It was a pretty great costume. She was getting lots of compliments. She originally was hoping to be "goth" - ick - I am glad she changed her mind!

Spencer is Anakin Skywalker. Does this look familiar? Yes, it is the same costume that Ethan wore last year. Boys are so easy! They want to be the same things every year!

Ethan is Venom - look familiar? Yep, you guessed it, this was Spencer's costume from last year. Nice. Recycling is always good.

Livy was the Pumpkin. My mom made this costume for me on my first Halloween and then all three of my brothers after me wore it on their first Halloweens and all 4 of my kids have worn it on their first Halloween. It is a fun little tradition that hopefully will continue to be passed down. Well, off to bed for me now. goodnight.

Pumpkin Carving

Today after school we carved our pumpkins. We had wanted to do them earlier than the day BEFORE Halloween but time just got away from us. I think it was worth the wait because our pumpkins turned out fabulous. In the above picture Dan's pumpkin is on the left, then Ryleigh's, Ethan is Darth Vader, Olivia has the Mickey Mouse on top, Spencer has the traditional one and then mine is the Jack on the right.

So, last year Spencer was the one crying and freaking out about touching the goo. This year he planned ahead and plugged his nose. Ethan on the other hand ALMOST had a melt down but thankfully was able to overcome.

Ryleigh is getting so big! Of course she was talking on the phone while carving. She is so cute.

Here are the kids pumpkins and mine (Dan waited until later to do his because he was busy helping the kids with theirs when the rest of us were doing it!)

These last 3 pictures Ethan took. I love to see the world through the lense of a 6 year old.

Hood River

About a week ago we took a family trip to Hood River with my parents and my sister and her husband. It was a lot of fun. I was sorta dreading this trip (no offense mom) because it was my one day off from work that week and I was totally sick. I had been running a fever the night before and every 4 hours (or whenever my dayquil wore off!) so I was a little bummed to go at first. We ended up having so much fun! It took about 2 1/2 hours to get there but we made several stops along the way. Most of these pictures are actually taken along the stops. One of the stops was at multnomah falls. It is absolutely beautiful. Here are the boys looking at the falls:

Livy was enjoying herself as well. (I don't have any picture of Ryleigh so I feel kinda bad, but

that dang girl is such a busy body that I can't ever get her in a picture.

Me & my lil brother Chad.

Here we all are! wow....

We stopped at an orchard in Hood River and picked lots of apples and found some killer pumpkins! This is one of them. This guy weighed 45 pounds!!!! I can't wait to carve him tonight. Pictures coming soon!

Catch-up

Our computer got a little sick last week and so I was unable to post some stuff, so this is a little late but still important. It is amazing at how much the computer dictates our lives (mine at least) it is amazing when you can't check you bank statement and you actually have to rely on what you have written down and you can't see your calendar to know who's birthday you missed and you can't check all your friends blogs to see how they are doing because calling them and actually telling them you care just seems like too much work. The computer is so amazing yet scary at the same time. My little week of no computer has taught me a lot and that is that I should NOT rely on my computer. And to all my friends on my blog list - I really do care about you all and I check your blogs regularly to see how you all are!






So anyways, on October 11th Spencer got baptized! This was such an amazing day full of family and fun! Dan's mom and dad and little brother from Arizona were able to fly out for the event and Dan's gramma Kaye was already in Oregon visiting us and Dan's sister April was able to drive down from Portland. My parents and brother Chad were there and so was my sister Andrea and her husband Greg. I think it turned out to be a really fun day for Spencer. It is not very often that the middle child gets an entire day devoted to them and so he was soaking up all the love.








Football ended for the boys. It was a GREAT month for them. They learned a lot of basics about the game and we were surprised to learn that BOTH of them LOVE the sport. Spencer was a little apprehensive about playing it at first but he really ended up being a great player. They usually had him is as a receiver while Ethan usually played defensive end. In their last game Spencer scored a touchdown and Ethan prevented the other team from scoring 4 times!! We are so proud of them.

In November we start wrestling. I brought home the singlets that the boys will be wearing in the matched and they both looked at me like I was crazy! I can't wait to watch them with this sport.

Blurb

I am SUPER excited today. My blog book finally came in! I say 'finally' but it really only took about a week. But still! I am NOT a scrapbooker. I tried, I really tried. But I think I like to buy the embellishments more than I like to use them, so I would end up with scrapbook stuff and nothing to do with it. So I decided (after reading about a friend that did this) that turning our blog into a book was the next best thing - and now that I see the finished product - it IS the best thing. I used the website http://www.blurb.com/ and they walked me through everything - they even uploaded my blog into their site. Then I can change the coloring or layouts or whatever. It was SO MUCH FUN! I decided that I am going to do one a year and this one is 2007 (I can't wait until January so I can do 2008!) The only part that takes time when I needed to go back and find some of the original pictures because it needed a larger file size, but overall it was AWESOME! The cover

Some pages from the inside.

I know you want one now!

School Pictures

Well it is that time a year again. Time for those horribly amazing school photos. I love them because they are so cute but at the same time I hate them because they always look so.... school picture like. Here are the kids this year. Sorry grandparents - I only ordered one 8x10 of each but don't worry we will be doing family pictures soon - it is almost time for Christmas Cards! yikes. Ryleigh 5th Grade
Spencer 2nd Grade
Ethan 1st Grade

Party Hardy!

Spencer is going to be turning 8 on Monday so last night we had his birthday party with his buddies from school. It was really funny to watch and see how different they all are. Just watching them you know who will be the jock, class clown, weird-o.... when they get a little older. But for now they all get along surprisingly well and they were so well behaved. We had a slumber party and it was easier than when we had a slumber party with Ryleigh's girlfriends. Boys ROCK! Cake Yummy!!
Breakfast yummy!

Football

This year we decided to branch out of our Baseball bubble and put the boys in Flag Football. It has been really fun to watch. They are natural athletes and we could not be prouder. They boys are on the "Beavers" and have a pretty good little team. Starting them in Flag Football has been great because they are kinda learning the basics of football but next year I am going to be on the ball and get them in Pop Warner!
Ryleigh and Olivia are such good sports to sit and watch the games and practices. Ryleigh is a book worm so she always has a book with her and Olivia is great as long as we bring her a snack!

The Harvest

We had a very successful garden this year and since the summer has come and gone we have been told that we needed to pick all of our left over tomatoes (even the green ones - they will ripen on the counter) so they don't split and rot. So, now we have quite a few. On Monday my mom and I are going to make tamales (green corn with tomatoes - yum!) and tomato sauce with them! I think I am going to stew some also and can it!