More birthday

The party was the night before her actual birthday, so on her birthday morning, she got to use her special princess dishes and open one present that I had forgotten about the night before...

Can you tell she has a fat lip? She had a spill on her bike (daddy got ambitious and took off the training wheels) and banged herself up pretty good. Ah, the joys of being three...

The present she got to open was from Amit, and it was a face and hair painting kit!!! I am so glad we had an artist in residence! (Mimi was here for a couple of days...)



Are we done taking pictures yet?! Joel got in on the fun, too!

Mimi also did some fun watercolor painting with them...she wrote messages and drew pictures in white crayon, then when the kids painted over them it showed up! They had a ton of fun doing this...thanks Mimi! And thank you, Amit, for the face painting kit, it was a hit!

Maren is 3!

Monday the 2nd was Maren's 3rd birthday! It seems like so long ago that she was a little 5lb 2oz newborn. She is still small for her age, but makes up for it in spunk! She is a crazy little whirlwind of energy and attitude and is a joy to our family. Here are a couple of pictures from her birthday... We had a fun little dessert party with Julia & Madeline...the kids played hard for about an hour (getting out ALL the toys in both of the kids' rooms!) while the adults got to sit and talk. Then we all had ice cream and Maren opened presents. It was just perfect for a 3rd birthday party.

She didn't want cake or cupcakes, just ice cream. So I gave her three little scoops and put her candles in them! I also made brownies for anyone who doesn't like or can't eat ice cream - Joel & Mommy.

She got some new pens and paper, Crocs (fake ones), some cute clothes from Mimi, and a new baby doll and book from the girls. She also got some money from Grandparents (Nealon) and Aunt Ruth and got to pick out some toys at the store! She chose a little Dr kit, a polly pocket and some play jewelry...she had a wonderful birthday!

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