We had a little Halloween Party last weekend. We played traditional Halloween games, like donuts-on-a-string and bobbing for apples, both big hits with the kids.
Can you guess who we are dressed up as?
Nat and Bren get in on the HP action too.
Today at lunch Brendan announced that he has four foods that he doesn't like:
Tacos in a shell
Tacos in a bowl
Lemons that aren't cooked
Dirt
Thank you, Brendan.
What is it about thumbs that help a baby fall asleep? We just love this little kid!
After 3 days of a grumpy, tired, drippy, sweet baby....A great big front tooth finally poked through for Amanda! Four down, over a dozen to go!
I love those big uneven, tooth grins!
Today's feature was a "Truck Petting Zoo"
Funny how a building full of strangers can turn squabbling siblings into best friends.
Two seconds prior to every single one of these pictures, Amanda was smiling a picture-perfect smile. That's two seconds too long for our digital camera. 
So one of Brendan's jobs is to put his clothes away after they are folded. You might say we have a little work ahead of us.
Here are a few shots from our last soccer practice. It is a good think the season is over because it has been pouring rain here all week. 
Natalie having fun being chased by a ball.
Ezra acting like an assistant coach.
And the team with their trophies at Pizza Caboose. What a great group of kids!
Anyway, the debate I'm having is whether we encourage Natalie to play soccer next year or not. She did great, and we love seeing her exercise and get the wiggles out before bedtime. But at what point do we step back and let her choose her sports 100%? My thought is that if we give her the choice, she will ultimately pick what she likes most and do better at it. If any of you experienced parents have any thoughts...let me know.
After a few very late nights and a very long Saturday, the deck is finally in! We used to have a Jacuzzi built into our deck, but it was too much of a temptation for a certain 4 year old so we gave it away. We were left with a huge hole in the deck which finally got filled in!
Note how well Natalie is holding the nail for spacing between boards.
I can't tell you how many boxes of screws I went through to build this thing. Even worse, I must have taken 30 trips to Home Depot. I've never built a deck before!
Yesterday we took a short break from deck-building, paint-choosing, and Home Depot-trekking to go buy our pumpkin. Like every one else, we buy a pumpkin every year. But we have never had an experience like this before!
We headed to a farm about fifteen minutes away. Yes, you read that right. FARM. Not the grocery store, not an empty corner lot that once a year becomes a pumpkin and Christmas tree store. A real farm.
Kettle corn kept us happy while we waited for the boat to take us across the lake.
View from the boat
They're still growing!!!
Nat likes this mini
And the winning pumpkin is . . .
Amanda inspects it
Happy with our choice
All aboard the train to go back to the parking lot
Yes. I am caving. I am giving in to the intense pressure to "blog". Ezra got this page started and has made all of the posts so far. He has convinced me that this is a great way to keep in touch with our family and friends who are oh, so far away. So, thanks to him and plenty of pressure from 99.9% of my friends who already have blogs, here I am. Now what shall I write about? Oh, you want pictures too? Hmm . . . .
Read more...So we've brought in 18 square yards of dirt to the backyard (or should I say we've been lazy and hired someone to do it?). The rain is starting up, but there is still hope we can get the grass in soon. Can you see us playing soccer back there?
One tradition (ok, so we've done it twice) we have on Conference Sunday is to let the kids prepare any thing they want for one meal. They choose the food, drink, everything else. This year they prepared ham and cheese sandwiches with a salad.
You can see my sandwich below, note the two slices of ham. Lisa only got one. Apparently the kids made their sandwiches first and noticed only three slices remained. Good thing Lisa noticed the plentiful number of slices on their sandwiches and made a quick, covert switch.
Brendan's Salad also came out extremely well. Two handfuls of carrots first, a few pulls from a head of lettuce, and whatever it takes to cut a tomato with a butter knife.
Posts
All Comments
