Fall so far

 Halloween ~ Jango Fett, Little lamb and a Barbie Princess

                                             Sweet Baby T 6 months and all dimples!

                                        Monkey's first Grand Prix pinewood car!

                                             A tired Baby T after trying to crawl!

                                   Monkey without his mask on, heading out to school.

                                                  Peanut at her school party.

                                      Sweet Baby T all ready to go to Peanut's party.

                                               Peanut's Fairy Tea Party birthday

                 Monkey and Peanut on their first Big kid ride at the fair.  They had so much fun!

 Monkey wanted to go on the Zipper and I went with him.  His shoes fell off and were hitting us in the head the whole time.  I had to put an arm around him so he wouldn't go flying out from under the bar.  When the ride attendant asked him "How was it?" Monkey's response?  "That was the worst decision EVER!"  Man I love that kid!

                                                  Peanut's new love...Soccer!

                                                                  My Girls!

                                               Apple picking at the apple orchard

It's hard for me to believe it's already the first week of November!  The warm days of August seem like it was just last week, but the falling leaves on my lawn are showing me that it is more like a distant memory.  

I love summer!  I love how my kids wear their tank tops and flip flops and go running out into the yard laughing and smelling of sunscreen.  But when the leaves start to turn color and the air takes on the crisp smell of autumn, my heart lifts and soars.  I LOVE fall!  I love the crisp, cool mornings that break into warm afternoons.  I love apples and the cider that we press.  I love pumpkins and harvest.  I love getting my children ready for Halloween.  I love celebrating Peanut's birthday and our anniversary.  I love Thanksgiving and celebrating my amazing husbands birthday.  There is only one thing that I don't like about fall.  It is the rain that starts and is never ending and the gray that comes with it.

My kids love fall too.  Thankfully!  They love the leaf piles and all the bugs that they find.  They love the cider and apples and school.

I am thankful for autumn and it's change.  The breath of fresh air that it provides.  

Here are some pictures of our adventures and the fun that the kids have had.

July and August

I feel like summer is slipping by so quickly! In 2 weeks Monkey will be starting 1st grade and in September, Peanut will be starting preschool 2 days a week!
This has been a CRAZY, hectic month!  I can hardly believe we are going into our second week of August already!  We ended July by going on a camping trip with my parents, to Leavenworth, for the weekend.  We left Monkey with them for his week alone with Nana and Papa, to head home with "our girls".  It's a fun thing to say, "our girls".  Not something that I thought that I would actually ever say.  I always figured I was going to be saying, "our boys".  But God has blessed us with 2 wonderful and absolutely beautiful girls.  Not to say that "our boy" isn't wonderful too!  Anyway, after we dropped Monkey off we got on with house projects.  Because what do you do when you have one less child around?  You get projects done!  So we painted our upstairs bathroom and put in new cabinets and finished it in time for Jeremy to drive 1/2  to meet my mom with Monkey.  He came home and my friend Andrea came 2 hours later with her two kids to stay for 3 days! Phew!  Then 3 days later we packed up to go to CB to go and spend time with the inlaws.  They will be in CB for a month.  Grampa got to meet Sweet Baby T for the first time and I think he may have fallen in love with his 3rd grandchild!
It's been a fun month so far with more to come.
I am realizing that my children are growing up.  They still have quite a ways to go, but Monkey is 7 and as I look at my sweet baby who has already figured out how to roll over from her back to front and front to back (at 3 months), and how she  is trying to scoot already (at just 4 months), and Peanut at nearly 5 has mastered the art of humor, I am reminded how quick life goes by.

Hoarders

I feel like I should be on the show, Hoarders.  If you haven't been to my house lately, like in the past week, you may not understand this statement.
Because Jeremy is finishing the basement we moved most of what was stored there into storage, but there was plenty that didn't make it and is now "stored" in our dining room. 
As we prepared for Sweet Baby T, our things started multiplying.  Baby swing, bouncy chair, changing table etc.  Sweet Baby T is sleeping in  our bed since she has outgrown her Moses basket and we don't have the room to put her into anything bigger!  So our solution to get her into a pack 'n play in our room is not an easy one.  It means moving a lot of things and creating space in a small house with no space.  How?  Well....here goes.
In order to get a pack'n play in our small bedroom, we need to move our dresser.  In order to move our dresser we need to move the hope chest which holds all of our towels and linens.  In order to move our hope chest we need someplace to put the towels and linens.  In order to get a place that can house these we need to get a vanity and cabinets for our bathroom.  So right now my amazing husband is getting the cabinet and countertop ready to be installed.  SO back to the episode of Hoarders.  My entire bathroom and all of it's contents, excluding the toilet, is in our kitchen or on the dining room table!
All of this so our sweet little babe can sleep in her own bed!  Phew!
I need to go and paint some trim.

A visit to Nana and Papa's

Jeremy is down in Twin Falls this week and Peanut had been staying with my folks at their place for the past week, so I packed up Monkey(who is actually old enough to pack up his own things now! Yea!) and Sweet Baby T and headed over the pass and drove to their house.
Sweet Baby T slept the whole trip with a little sip from a bottle fed to her by her big brother, and then she proceeded to fall asleep.  For those of you that don't know how long of a trip that is, it's 5 hours!  I drove with the two of them for 5 hours and it was AMAZING!  Love that baby girl!
We arrived Friday evening and then drove the 2 1/2 hours on Sunday to go see my niece J, in her dance recital.  She is so beautiful!  J took Peanut back into the dressing room with all of the big girls to watch all of the preparation before the recital.  Peanut loved it!
Tuesday we  went to Pike Place Market, and to see Uncle Bobby at his office.  Atleast we will tell Bobby it was to visit him, but really it was for the free parking since he works a few blocks from the Market!  Just kidding Bobby!  The parking was just a nice benefit!
It's been a good visit and I think the kids are having fun.  Sweet Baby T is along for the ride and doing well.  It's hard to believe that she is soon going to be out of the "newborn" stage.  She is blowing bubbles constantly and cooing more, she has discovered her tongue and is constantly trying to shove her fist in her mouth.  Still a really laid back baby and a happy girl all around.

Rainy Day play

Today's forecast was nothing but grim.  To top it off, we are at my parents house which the kids are a little bored with being inside.  The plus to this though is that they have a huge yard.  So as soon as the sun broke through and the rain paused, I sent them outside.  They were probably outside for about 20 minutes and I looked out the window because I suddenly realized that the sound I was listening to was a torrential downpour!  The heavens opened up and came down in HUGE raindrops.  I go to the sliding door to help the kids in and I find them laughing and completely soaked! Monkey's comment, "Mom!  I love playing in the rain!"

Broken studs and Star Wars

On Friday May 21, Monkey turned 7.  To say that he likes Star Wars is a mild understatement.  The greatest invention in his opinion is when Legos started making a Star Wars product.  He is in heaven.  He loves Legos and can spend hours putting together and playing with them.
His request for his birthday this year was a Lego Star Wars party.  If you have ever looked into this, you will find that you can get Lego things and Star Wars things but no Lego Star Wars!  I found a silicone cupcake mold of Lego bricks.  I was very excited about this!  I knew Monkey would think it was cool!  Usually, I make a yummy homemade cake, but this year I actually opted for good ol' Duncan Hines.  I am actually thankful I did.  My first attempt at making the Lego brick cupcakes resulted in a runny gooey mess and so it was on to round two.  My second attempt the cupcakes worked, but in getting them out of the mold the little Lego studs didn't make it out alive.  So, It was now midnight and I had yet to come up with a suitable birthday cake for Monkey's birthday party.  So what did we do, we went to bed and like any mom does, my brain went into overdrive in trying to come up with a Lego cake for the next day.
I used a bread pan for the "bricks" and York peppermint patties for the Lego studs.  After baking 6 cakes in all, it turned out well and as Monkey exclaimed, "Mom, this is awesome!", it was worth it!