Happy Halloween!

This was the first year we actually went trick-or-treating (as opposed to going to a carnival)...and the kids LOVED it. They had so much fun and were SO cute!

The Loot!

Costume Parade

Joel's school had a little costume parade and performance on Thursday. They paraded through the sanctuary of the church (where his school is held) and then sang a bunch of fall/halloween songs. It was so cute!

Maren is getting ready for Halloween too...

Happy Birthday Greg!

We celebrated Greg's 36th Birthday on Tuesday! It was very low-key since Tuesday is his long day at work and he doesn't usually get home until almost 7 on those nights. So I made his favorite meal (Ginger Beef), and then we had a Blizzard Cake from DQ. He got a new fish tank (thanks to everyone who contributed to that!) and the kids made some cards and paintings for him. I will post pictures of the fish tank when he gets it all up and running.

Help blowing out the candles!

Happy Birthday, we love you!

Scrap Weekend

Last weekend was the long-awaited trip that Emily and I had been looking forward to for months! I flew down to CA and we stayed in a room at the camp and scrapped our little hearts out. We did emerge from our room for food at the conference center, short walks and even a trip into Santa Cruz for frozen yogurt. We are lucky enough to have WONDERFUL husbands who watched the kids while we were "away" for THREE nights!

This was our scrap area...very small (we shared the card table!!) but there was another room with bunk beds, so we were able to spread our stuff on this bed and leave it all out all weekend!Despite the small space, we were both very productive...I even kept pace with Emily, which for those of you who have scrapped with her know that this is a great accomplishment! :)
It was wonderful to spend so much time with Emily, and I got to see Violet and Brian quite a bit too. We miss them so much, but look forward to many more visits together!

Grandparents

I am blessed to still have 3 of my grandparents living. My mom's parents (Grammie & Grandaddy) live in Tacoma, just about 1/2 hour from here. The kids & I went to visit them last week for a morning/afternoon. It was a lot of fun to play with play dough, talk, and share a meal together. Just a few pics:

(My battery ran out before I could get any of Grandaddy. Next time!)

Spooner Farms

We went to the pumpkin patch a couple of weeks ago with our friends the Farringtons. It was a great farm with lots of fun kid stuff to do. We didn't actually get pumpkins, but had a fun morning anyway!

Pumpkin maze...there were all these HUGE pumpkins laid out and the kids could climb all over them trying to get from one end to the other. Joel & Julia were too fast to even get pictures of, but the littler girls were a bit slower :)

Water pump duckie races....they could have done this all day!

They were coloring in this barn, but I loved that they used pumpkins for seats!

Julia, Joel, Maren & Madeline

September Recap...

Since I am so far behind, I'm going to put ALL of our September pictures in this one post...

This is the park that is right behind our neighborhood (within easy walking distance). We love to walk or ride bikes there.

Our neighborhood is so kid friendly - the kids ride their bikes and play outside as much as possible!

Joel started school this month...he's doing Pre-Kindergarten at a great little school. He loves it so far!

Field trip on the first day of school!

His coat hook :)

They got to make apple pie during apple week. It was really yummy (he shared it with us!)

Greg and Todd have gone fishing a couple of times - starting at 4am!! This is dedication, or insanity, depending on who you ask :)

We went to Portland for Dean's 2nd birthday and to see family there. It was a fun and quick trip. It's nice that we can get there in 3 hours now, instead of 9!

Fun with Great Aunt Ruth!

We also spent a good part of a day with Carolyn. It was so good to see her again (we miss not having her a part of our daily life!)

We went to the Rose Gardens and enjoyed the beautiful weather and roses!!

Sweet friends. Maren was almost asleep on Carolyns back.

We found these ballet slippers in a box of clothes from Christina and Maren has discovered her love for dancing. She calls them her Balleray slippers.

We got to celebrate Grandaddy's 88th birthday at our house! We had a nice afternoon and evening with them and Mimi & Del were there too!

Happy Birthday!!
Three generations of beautiful women - if I had been in the picture, that would have been 4!!

We had such beautiful weather all month - we spent as much time outside as possible (it won't last much longer here in the NW!)

Mt Rainier (taken from our neighborhood the park). This mountain (volcano!) it is huge and gorgeous and I am amazed every time I get a glimpse of it!