Happy Halloween!!

Jeff's off fishing this morning. McKay's headed to a birthday party. Dinner's planned and all ingredients bought as are supplies for an extra special Halloween treat from me. While McKay's off partying today, the girls are headed out to do some thrifting-mostly to find an extra piece to Jeff's costume. The school parties and parade are done and were successful. Thanks to that (and other parties) our costumes were all finished way ahead of time. Sophie if finally healthy and can go trick-or-treating with her sibs tonight. I think Halloween should be on Saturday every year. :)

Happy Halloween!!!!!!!

So happy I could cry

This morning I headed out on what seemed to promise to be a frustrating yard saling morning. I was going to a sale out in Draper and thanks to classic Utah road construction, I ended up taking a 15 minute detour to my first sale. Then I hit every red light possible but just barely missing the green. (Are you feeling my frustration?) I was debating about turning around, but see I had this dream. So I kept going. Eventually I made it to the yard sale (sorry to the trucks I cut off mid day dream). It wasn't a huge sale and I was already an hour past opening. But guess what? Dreams do come true. I drove the whole time dreaming of finding this little gem, and expecting if I did find it to pay much more. I think my eyes popped out of my head when I saw what I was looking for just laying there with a sticker saying $20 Doll + Book. That's right my doll savvy friends. I found an American Girl doll. Elizabeth to be exact. I seriously almost cried. I did jump up and down and scream when I got home and relived my fortuitous moment. Lyndsi gets what she wants for Christmas (so don't mention this great story in front of her please) and Jeff and I don't have to pay full price.

I also found this other great little item to stash away for Christmas.

I {heart} yardsaling!

Life

It's crazy busy around here. Lots of laughing and lots of tears. A lot of learning going on. Kids developing talents and mom is trying to right along side them. The house varies between company ready and disaster relief required (with not much middle ground). The husband is the best. Party planning abounds. As do the remnants of my craft projects, out of season clothing and festive decor waiting patiently for it's turn to be displayed. Food's getting good and dishes are stacking up. Just like the laundry. The treadmill's in fine working order thanks to that man of mine signing me up for a Halloween run. New calling came through. Good friends save the day. And my sanity. Several times over. I make mistakes. Lots of them. When they happen, I feel like an ostrich. Medicine is a good thing. So is eating breakfast. I should use both more. Did my hair for the first time this week since Sunday (and then only because I had to). Am still cavity free. So is Sophie. My only 3 yr old to reach that milestone. "A Hot Dog" was the first book McKay read. He did it tonight. Smarty pants. I miss Lyndsi. She's gone too long at school. Life isn't perfect. It's quite complicated and frustrating. Sometimes it downright sucks. (Yes-I did just say that). But mostly it's good. And I'm okay with that.

Fall Fun

I love fall. I love going to pumpkin patches. This year my friend Anisa told me about a fun one by Hobby Lobby that had not only the pumpkins, but some tractors for the kids to play on and a little corn maze. The best part was that it was free! All of it. We rounded up some friends to come with us. The kids tore the corn maze at least 2 times each. They tried out every tractor (somewhere around 8), looked at the kittens that were there, watched some Irish dancers while listening to bagpipes (a pretty spur of the moment performance I'm sure). The pumpkin prices were reasonable so I let the kids each pick out a small pumpkin. Both my friend and I were so glad we did this.

Other things we're looking forward to this fall: Fall Festival at the District, family parties, trick-or-treating, fun costumes, falling leaves, sweaters, pumpkin pie and all things Halloween!

What are you up to this fall?

Ramble, ramble, ramble

McKay started soccer last month. His first game (pictured here) you couldn't pry the smile off his face if you tried. Ok. I guess some of it got lost in the concentration of the game. BUT-whenever I wasn't behind the camera he had this huge grin spread across his whole face.




Sophie also had a new beginning-dance! I love little girls in pink tights. The first class she was a little clingy, but she played along as long as mom would dance with her. (I'm sure that was lovely to see!) I wondered if she would do it at all until the teacher started their warm-up music. The first few notes to Mickey's mousercise was all I needed to know she'd be just fine. She is loving it and doing as well as a 3 yr old can in dance.





Off the topic of firsts....

I've been working around the house. Nesting I call it. Not for a baby but for fall. I think my subconscious has realized soon my little clan will be spending a significantly larger amount of time indoors. My very conscious mind realized I must be organized and cleaned up to accommodate that. :) So I've had a little bit of fun buying baskets for my bedroom closet, fabric to dress up some throw pillows, added a new bookshelf to the family room, figuring out what to do with the old one....I even washed all the bedding-sheets, baby blankets, animals, etc. (Not usually a one day event) and then remade the beds with the addition of a quilt for cold winter nights. There's so much more to do still.

The End of the Road

Seattle was our last official, picture-taking, vacationing spot of our trip. We met up with Jeff's sister and her family to hang out at Gas Works park, the zoo, Ballard locks, the beach, and of course Pike's out door market. Woodland Park Zoo:

The zoo had an awesome bear exhibit. We watched 2 of these guys for wander all around and play in the water.

Right by the bears were the otters. The only otters I've seen are PB&J Otter (remember that Disney show a few years ago?) They were beautiful to watch in the water and so playful!

For those that don't know (I didn't), Ballard locks are where they raise/lower the water to let water craft go from the fresh water lake to the salt water sound. The lake happens to be several feet higher than the sound. They also have a fish ladder there so the locks don't interfere with the salmon run. Lucky for us we were there at the perfect time of year to see them. We could watch the salmon jumping. We saw them swimming. Then we went down to the fish ladder viewing area and watched them try to swim upstream.

Seattle had one beach. We couldn't have a day without the beach by this point, so we went. This is a view of the Olympic Mtns. where we had just come from.

When Jeff and I went to Seattle a couple of years ago, his brother-in-law took us to the library at the U. of Washington to show us the Hogwart's room. This room is gorgeous. Since McKay is very into Harry Potter right now, it was a must-see.

The kids enjoyed picking out their own souvenir at the market. I liked all the free samples the food vendors showered on us. :)

That's it! Hopefully I haven't bored you all to tears by this point. :)

The Rest of the Olympic Penisula

Hang in there. Just two more picture posts (including this one), and then 14 days of vacation will have been documented. ;)


The day we left Forks was the day we got a real tasted of typical Forks weather. It didn't stop us though. Jeff wanted to stop at Lake Crescent. I'm so glad he did. It was soooo beautiful. While there we hiked to Marymere falls. Half way up to the falls it started raining. By the time we got to the falls it was pouring. We didn't care too much. :)

Marymere falls:

One of the cool bridges we had to cross on our hike:

Jeff at Lake Crescent. We are so coming back here.

We also went to Port Angeles. Most of the things we were looking to do were closed for the season. We walked around some piers for a little bit. We found some jelly fish and sea stars in the ocean. (I thought that was pretty cool).

The kids had fun looking at ships from the pier:

Here's our sea stars we found:

After that, it was off to Sequim where we were staying the night. Jeff had read about this state park where you could walk out to an island. If it were just a bit shorter than an 11-mile hike round trip, we probably would've tried. We did have fun hiking down to the beach, playing on the drift wood and even skipping stones in the ocean.

Jeff: Throwing McKay in the ocean.

Sophie's reaction to Jeff throwing McKay in the ocean. (We never got tired of this and laughed every time. Parents of the year? In the bag!)