Taylors Toys...

Little lady has such a great imagination, I love it! She is the one I never have to entertain, I can find her on her own in her bedroom, in an imaginary world talking and singing and playing with her toys and animals and dolls.

I love to go into her room after she has been playing, too, just to see how everything is arranged. I wish I would have thought to take pictures sooner, because there have been some pretty great set ups! :) Here are a few that I've captured:

These are a pair of her underwear on the dinosaur:

I also love to see how she is sleeping and with what she is sleeping when I go and check on her at night. She loves her animals so very much and usually has them all around her:

She also has my quad in her room. I have tried to recover it and put it back on my night stand and she always sneaks in and grabs it and puts it back on her night stand. Well, lately when I've gone in to check on her, she has the book out like she's been reading it!!! (She doesn't know how to read!) :) But I love this girl so much, and love her fun personality and imagination!

And whenever she creates a masterpiece, she makes sure that I get a picture of it:

I love this girl of mine!

The Kanooths...

Out of the Campbell's and Maughans (my cousins) who grew up in Spokane, I'm the only one who still lives in the area. BUT, my cousin, Rachel and her family just moved back up to Clarkston, WA. It's only like an hour or two south. So, every time her and her husband come to Spokane to go to the temple, they asked me if I'd be willing to watch their kids. Of course, I am! My kids love her kids, and they love getting to play with cousins. She has twins, a boy and a girl that are Taylors age and then a baby that is just over a year old. Needless to say, they have fun!

When they came up in November, we made a fort. It was a pretty rad fort, too, if I do say so myself!

And with the toys we have in the living room, the kids were under there playing the whole time. It was great for them and great for me! :)

I told Micah to hop on the ottoman to send a picture to his mom...

They were seriously having so much fun!

I'm glad that my kids will have some cousins to play with since we have no more here in the area!!! :(

Jackson...

This boy keeps me on my toes and keeps me laughing all freaking day! His little personality is totally coming out now, and he is such a ham. Definitely doesn't hide his emotions well, and loves to make faces!

Still loves my sink and loves toothbrushes:

Sunday afternoon lounging, hence the battleship game and the plate of salami and crackers and cheese, and I look over and Jackson has the block container on his head like an astronaut. I love this silly boy!

He had crawled into the office and shut the door behind him, but then got pissed because he couldn't get out! This face kills me every time!

November Crafting...

I realized, and have for many years, that I have so much Halloween decor, and a ton of Christmas decor, but hardly any for Thanksgiving. So, Taylor and I decided to try our hand at crafting some. I found a fun one using coffee filters, and paint, which my girl LOVES to do!

And really, all you have to do is water color the filters in fall colors and let them dry...

Then I cut them out in leaf shapes and strung them on a piece of yarn. It was really so very easy. And Taylor loved doing it. I added it to our window frame along with our gratitude poster that we filled out every night at dinner. This was at the beginning of the month:

Another craft day, Taylor's favorite thing:

And, while she gets her craft on, I get my bake on and it's a win-win. These things go like gold around here. This plate was empty within like 5 hours!

I love stay at home fall days of crafting and baking!

Sunrise Party...

I'm not sure what to think every time we go to a Sunrise family night at the school. It's always just a big mixer. And, don't get me wrong, I love me a good dance and some good music, but I would like a little change every now and then. This is right after 'Let it go' came on and Taylor got into her performance/groove. And she wasn't the only one. All the little girls started screaming!

This boy testing out his stability. He's getting more and more daring every day and I think he'll be walking here in no time! I think the music moves him, because once he was stable, he started bending his knees trying to dance! :)

Daddy surprising Taylor on the dance floor:

And one last big group dance: (this was after we all did the chicken dance!) :)

I suppose I better get used to it, because we still have many more years to come at Sunrise Elementary! :)

Why we love being in the branch...

We love being in the Spanish Branch. I can't believe it's been 2 and a half years already. The sister missionaries asked us if there was a service they could do for us. And they had told me that they had really wanted to rake some leaves. I had no desire to rake our leaves. I'm not much of a green thumb, take care of our lawn type of person, so I jumped on that and granted them their desires! :) I just felt bad because the day and time they could do it ended up being really wet and cold! But, the amazing Hermana's Walton and Robles raked and bagged all of this:

It was super amazing of them and so very helpful. I paid them in yummy hot chocolate, and great company, of course! :)

Another bonus of being in a small branch is just how close everyone is. We really are like one big family. With FHE's being held periodically at each others homes. Tonight it was at our house. WIth the Petersons, Lopez's and Kristina and her family. I love these families so much and will be so sad if and when they leave the branch!

I watched Odalis one afternoon while Maria had a Dr. appointment (found out after that she had the flu!) :( And we headed to Target. We were quite the spectacle with all three children in this cart!

My good friend, Verenice, and her family got sealed in the Spokane Temple in November. It was such a wonderful day and I loved being in the sealing room with their family. She also asked me to help with the kids, so I was in the brides room with the Temple Matron getting the kids ready to be brought into the sealing room to be sealed with their parents. Such a neat experience. I love going to sealings, it reminds me of the wonderful blessing it is for me to be sealed with my family!

Just one more month until Jackson is old enough for nursery! YAY! Luckily he has some pretty big fans in Relief Society, and everyone is wanting to hold him. He fell asleep on my friend, Melissa's lap, I had to get a quick shot:

And we all know Melissa will get her baby fix in any chance she can! :) So here she is at our Branch Thanksgiving dinner holding sweet baby Alina. Sadly, this is the only picture I got from that night!

Most of the time, this is how we roll in Relief Society. He has a 'bop' in his mouth and I have to entertain him any way I can.

There are about a thousand more reasons I love being in the branch, but these are some of my most recent documented ones! :)

Halloween day...

Halloween day finally came!! Yay! :) I was kind of already ready for it to be over with, but we still had lots of partying to do. So, we trudged on...gathering more and more candy! :) We went to U-High's annual trick or treating event. The high school kids all bring a bag of candy, and during their TAP hour, they invite the little ones to come and walk the halls from door to door trick or treating. It is really fun, and the little high schoolers are so sweet, for the most part, to the little kids and just give them handfuls. They always have a ton of candy. We had a great time. Once Jackson finally got a bop (lollipop) he was done for the day. It didn't matter what else he had in his bucket, but was happy.

My little football player and cheerleader. The funny thing about these two and their costumes is that, that very weekend, the Seahawks and the Raiders were playing. ha! :) What can I say, we are a conflicted family...

By the way, I bout that Raiders cheer costume at a consignment shop over a year ago, and have been prepping Taylor (unbeknownst to her) all year so that she would think that it was HER idea to be a Raiders cheerleader this Halloween. I'm such a good mom! :) ha ha. I couldn't pass up $4 for the costume, and then after buying maroon pom poms at Value Village and trying to spray paint them black and silver, I finally found some black ones at Party City for like $2. Too bad I spent like three times that on spray paint. If you've never tried to spray paint pom poms, DON'T DO IT! It is impossible and impossibly frustrating!!!

Here was our whole gang of friends at U-High that morning. I love this little play group group we have going on here. Such amazing women I get to call my friends and hang out with on a regular basis! And such cute kiddo's too!!!

Cute friends, Jackson, Crosby, Paige and George...

Ummmm....this was our counter even before Halloween night began. Sickening! I usually use all the candy that we acquire at things like the trunk or treat and at U-hi to give out at our house on Halloween night. Then a) I don't have to buy much candy, and b) we don't have hoards of it at our house for months and months. It's a win-win! :)

My big tough boy as Marshawn Lynch... (he looks WAY too grown up in this picture!)

My sweet boy as a mini Marshawn Lynch. We've got Lynch fever at our house right now.

Look at my little QB, he's got the stance down and everything!!! :)

And my cute little Raiders cheerleader:

Meg, Marianne and I all met up that afternoon after school to get some cute pictures of the kids. There is a beautiful tree right on the corner in between our houses, and Marianne had had a vision of the kids in their Halloween costumes. They all looked so cute in their costumes, and we looked like a bunch of crazy ladies trying to get them all to look and smile at us in the middle of the road. :)

So glad my kids are growing up with such good friends!

And my three:

Marianne sent me this that she took with her good camera, I only had my phone with me. Yes, Taylor grabbed her purple bat wings to put on with her cheerleader costume! :) Silly girl...

My two football players:

And two BFF's, a dinosaur and a football player:

That night for dinner and trick or treating, we headed over to the Nelsons house. It was so fun, lots of yummy food, pizza and lots of little friends. Then we went out and trick or treated in their neighborhood. It was so much fun. Even though I had a little allergic reaction to a cashew in a salad. I thought that I had picked them all out, and I hadn't had an allergic reaction in so long, I was being too lax, and just got so sick. So, I took Jackson home and we handed out candy and Ben took the other two out with our gang, and they had a great time.

All the crew heading out for some candy:

Oct. 30th...

The day before Halloween Taylor had the show and tell for preschool, and it was their dress up day since Halloween was on a Friday this year. I love Teacher Barbara so much. Taylor loves her so much, and she loves Taylor, so I'm happy. She always tells me how much she loves Taylor and how she's just so fun to have in class and so happy all the time. I had to stop in on their class to see my sweet girl show her treasures.

That night Ben had offered to take all of his guys that work for him to Scarywood, which is what Silverwood does at Halloween time. So, it was just me taking the kids to our branch/ward Halloween party and trunk or treat. I had actually gotten Ben two tickets to go, he had always wanted to go, and I thought he'd take a friend. But none of his friends wanted to go, but his guys at work did, and so he got a few extra tickets, and they went. The Pines ward was really the ward that  put this on, and they invited us, so I really had no idea what all it was. I thought it was just a trunk or treat. And it was, that is what I participated in. Here was the really cool back of Sonia's van. Complete with Adrian wrapped up in a spider web:

The McComb's family was on our other side, and they were all decked out in superheros...

I still had my dad's Avalance at this point, and this guy and I sat ont he back and once again, he was the worst helper ever. :) I had glow sticks and treats galore to keep him occupied, and of course, hejust wanted to jump down and follow the big kids everywhere.

I was just about to leave to go home when the trunk or treat was over, and someone said that there was hot chocolate in the back of the building, so we meandered over there, and it was a whole freaking Halloween festival going on! It was amazing, I had no idea it was going to be such a party.

Me and my friend, Odalis:

In one of the game rooms they had doughnuts, and this boy was in heaven...

Major sugar rush meltdown turned into knock out, and he crashed in his car seat on the way home that night.

I tried to get him straight into his bed when we got home, but that didn't happen, and the other two were so hyper on candy, they woke him up. Ben was still gone at Scarywood, and I was stuck with three sugar rushed, hyper, tired, wirey kids. They were seriously going to crazy in our kitchen that night.

And before I knew it, the clothes had come off and a dance party had started. I don't know where these kids came from, but they are crazy!

Let's hope we can survive the actual Halloween day!

Carving Pumpkins...

We finally got around to carving pumpkins on our own. Ben always brings out the big guns, and the kids always think it's pretty cool. 

Tucker was very serious about his carving this year. It was fun to see his concentration...

I don't even know what to say about this boy. He's in the stage where he makes most things pretty difficult. But that's why we love him. I confined him to his high chair which he was not happy about, but I did give him some googly eyes to put in his pumpkin.

The clan...

Man, I love this brood of mine. Nothing shows their personality quite like this picture below:

Ben came home with this handsome fellow, and we put him up front and center of our pergola. Tucker was scared to death of him, and wouldn't even walk by the thing. Taylor on the other hand, walked right up to him and said, 'I'm not scared of you!' It was really cute.

We are officially ready for Halloween!!! :)

Halloween dinner with the Campbell's...

I thought I would try my hand at the soup in a pumpkin recipe that Meg made for us. It's pretty easy and so delicious. So, while my mom and Angie and the boys were here, I planned a fun Halloween dinner.

This is the look Taylor made when trying to help me squeeze out the sausage onto the pan. That face killed me.

Then she realized we were laughing at her, so she started to ham it up.

Putting the soup in the oven!

Cute cousins...when Angie and the boys came over, we ate our soup and decorated some cookies .

Even Chase was smiling, so I had to document it. It doesn't happen often! :)

Kathryn brought cookies and decorations and we had a great time!

Triple Play with the Campbell's...

Angie, Carter and Chase came to visit at the end of October, and it was fun to have them here. They came with us to watch Taylor play soccer up at the park in Morningside. Here is cute Carter snuggling on Jackson. It had started to get so cold, so we were bundling up.

This picture was taken right before an epic crash with Tucker and Carter. Tucker had brought his scooter to play on while Taylor was practicing, and while we were distracted, Tucker and Carter had started getting a little crazy with the scooter. OK, not too crazy, but Tucker was riding really fast on his scooter, and Carter was running right next him, and got a little too close. Somehow they collided and Tucker flew up over his handlebars, and crashed on the ground, and poor Carter, I think just face planted it straight to the concrete pathway. So, we had two screaming boys. Tucker with major scrapes and burns on his legs and Carter with a HUGE goose egg on his head. I felt so bad for them. Boys just being boys! Luckily they both checked out OK.

We also went over to Triple Play while they were here. We got to hang out with Lexie and her kids, too. I hadn't been to Triple Play in so long. It was fun! It was practically empty so we had the place to ourselves.

This boy is so fun, I just love watching him discover and enjoy the little things. He's so animated and gets excited about every little thing he can find!

Jackson was a little hesitant at first going down the slides, but eventually he go the hang of it.

After swimming we went and played a round of mini golf. We couldn't leave without playing a round of glow in the dark mini golf. The kids loved the idea of it:

And we had quite the handicap with this guy crawling around all over us! :)

Oh, Jackson Part 2...

More Physical Therapy shenanigans! :) This boy cracks me up!

I swear that the opening in that Danimal Yougurt was so small when I gave it to him, I think he ripped it open more. Either way, I looked over, and I don't know how he did it in such a short amount of time, but it was literally ALL OVER HIM!

I really have no idea how or when he did it, it's almost like he's magic, but it was EVERYWHERE!

The boy loves to be naked!!! He crawls all over my bed with that naked bum, and gets into anything within reach! And I just love those curls!!! Am I finally going to get a curly one?

More therapy with Ilene, just cause we love her so much! :)

Interesting note about these pictures, is that you can see his shoes. $30 freaking shoes I had to find him, that were wide enough to fit his FAT feet. I have never had or seen a child with such fat feet. I finally found some at the rack that opened up wide enough to fit them in, and spent more than I would on shoes for myself. They better last a looooooooong time!

I just love this Jackson boy. How did our family ever manage without him???

Life in October...

Life is good in October. The weather gets colder, so we can bundle up and drink warm drinks and yummy delicious soups. It's also a time for husbands to cut your daughters hair. Oh, your husband doesn't randomly cut your daughters hair and ruin it? Only mine. That's strange. I came from out of Jackson's room one night putting him to bed and Taylor was in the hallway with wet hair. Just out of her shower. She looked at me like she was guilty of something. Then I went into my bathroom where Ben was cleaning up something and he looked like he was guilty of something. I looked at what he was cleaning up and it was a ball of hair. Isn't usually the kids who cut off chunks of their hair themselves, not the adults??? :) It wasn't too awful, but it was definitely an inch or so shorter on one side. He said that he was just going to do a trim and then it kept getting shorter and shorter. I had to make an emergency visit to Meg, and luckily she was able to fix it pretty easily. I snapped a picture, and this was the beginning of the end of my phone. All of my pictures were blurry no matter what. But, I also just wanted to document this kitchen because I have spent many an hour in that kitchen while Meg works her magic! :)

Tucker also got his school picture taken, and I was so happy with the way it turned out. Such a handsome boy!

This was the first year that we didn't have to do a retake.

Also, one night at gymnastics Tucker was playing on my kindle, but I had also asked him to keep an eye on Jackson so I could watch Taylor practice. I looked over and saw this. Not so good at the watching his little brother part, but I'm sure he's killing it in the kindle game!

Our fruit flies were SO freaking bad this year. I don't know why, even well after the summer was over, there were so many flies. Everywhere. It was so so so annoying. I had set up some apple cider vinegar traps and you can't see it well from this picture, after just a few days this thing was FULL!

Tucker drew this awesome dragon and I wanted to document. I actually want to frame it for Ben for Christmas along with drawings from the other two kids, as well. We'll see if that happens. :) Tucker loves drawing dragons, and I just loved this one and the colors.

This lady leads a rough life. She gets to go to cute cupcake shops for lunch. This is my favorite cupcake shop in Spokane (and the best) called Sweet Frostings. It's downtown, and my friend Heather and I make frequent stops downtown just to go there. It is seriously the best and the cutest shop ever. I want to have Taylor's birthday party there this year. Maybe I'll just have a party for myself there! :)

Family home evening with daddy one night. I love Taylor's face in this picture, it looks like she is getting in trouble or something, and maybe she is, I can't remember!

OK, I had no idea I looked so homeless on this particular morning. Hermana Judd and Hermana Quinn came back to Spokane for a visit, for a quick weekend trip. Hermana Judd called me and wanted to see me, so I told her I'd feed her. I really wanted to take her to Cda for dessert at the resort, I always told her I would take her there if she ever came back to visit. It was something they couldn't do as missionaries. Anyway, we didn't have time for that, so I made them breakfast one morning, and I invited our current missionaries, Hermana's Walton and Robles. Hermana Judd had trained Hermana Walton, so I knew they wanted to see each other. It was so much fun to have them all at our house. I love all of these ladies so much! I was so busy making breakfast, I made them a breakfast casserole and also we had a yougurt parfait bar. It was so fun, but I didn't have time to get ready, but I thought that since it was breakfast, I could still be in my PJ's and it would be fine.Anyway, once I got this picture back, I realized how homeless I looked. Oh well! :)

My mom was here visiting to see Angie and the boys and my other sister in law, Kelli sent her this picture from their ward Trunk or Treat, I believe, of my nephew Gage. I made her send it to me, too because I thought it was so freaking cute!!! So, here is cute Gage in his robot costume. So darling!

Also, while my mom was here, Ben and I snuck away for an overnight getaway. Finally celebrating our anniversary. We stayed at the Red Lion downtown right on the river. It was so perfect and a great little getaway. I love getting to spend some time one on one with my hubby!

When we came back from dinner, this was literally the ONLY spot left in the hotel parking lot. And the two knotheats on either side had parked way over their lines. So, Ben, being the man he is, decided he needed to teach these guys a lesson. We had to turn in the mirrors and I got out before he parked all the way in, and then he climbed out his window. But we got in! :) I wish I could have been there in the morning to see how these guys got into their cars! :) ha ha. Only my husband would go to such measures to make sure these idiots paid for their bad parking jobs.

Also, while my mom was here, she brought with her a blanket that was found at my grandma and grandpa's house. It say, Ida Paddock, that is my great grandmother. My mom's mom' mom. My grandma's mother. We aren't sure who made it, but she wants to find out when it could have possibly been made. So, she brought it up to my sister's grandmother in law who is really good with things like that. 

I loved all of the bold, rich colors in the quilt.

Another norm for our life right now is headphones during church. How many kids can say that they have to wear headphones to church? They dont typically last very long, but eventually we will either have to go back to an English speaking ward, or I'll have to teach my kids more Spanish. Or they'll have to wear headphones for the rest of their lives to church. 

This stinker is just causing havoc during church. That's all he does.

It's a good thing he's so freaking cute, and I get this smile out of him every now and then, or I'd be tempted to leave him on the side of the road somewhere! :)

Teaching Tucker the fundamentals. Eventually, I'll be letting him take over on diaper duty! :)

And I'll leave my October post with this awesome face. He is such a big TURD! Always has to sit in the sink while I get ready, and always has to play with toothbrushes.

 

 Also, this month Jackson decided to lock himself into my dad's truck while we had it. The two big kids had practice for the Primary Program, so I thought I'd head to Walmart with just Jackson one Saturday morning. We weren't in there very long, but luckily while I was in there, I happened to see Emily Christensen. So, we come out, and I give Jackson my dads car keys to play with while I unload the cart into the back go return the cart. I had his door open, but as I was returning the cart I all the sudden heard the car door bang closed, no biggie, and then all the sudden a beep beep. Jackson had locked himself inside the truck with the keys he was playing with! My phone, wallet, everything were already in the car. I talked to him through the window hoping he would accidentally unlock it again and I could open it quickly, but no luck, he continued to play with the keys, he locked the doors over and over and over again. And eventually the keys fell on the ground. I was pretty panicked at that point and I'm sure people thought I was crazy for talking to my baby through the window. So, I ran back in and found Emily, she was just finishing up checking out. She came out to the truck, and gave me her phone and headed to her house. She was going to get Tanner, so she could have his phone, go up to my dads house, get the spare set of keys in his kitchen and come back with the spare set. In the meantime, I was to hang out with Jackson. He eventually got so sad that I wasn't coming in the car and started crying and it just broke my heart. But I spent that half an hour singing to him, and playing peek a boo with him, and he eventually calmed down. I'm pretty sure he was super confused, but he was happy as long as I was talking to him or singing to him. And sure enough, about a half an hour later, Emily, my savior, came back with the spare keys. I feel so lucky and blessed and thankful that she was there and was able to help me! What would I have done without her??? Heavenly Father was totally watching over me! And I learned my lesson about giving Jackson the keys to play with. I have to remember that not all cars have the sliding doors that don't shut!!! :)

 

Family photos of the kids...

I've been so busy this fall taking pictures for everyone else, that I FINALLY snuck in a few minutes to take pics of my own brood. And it literally was just a few minutes. With a lot of bribing. We went out one day after school, and lasted just long enough to get a few good shots. Then Fro-yo after. I just wanted a good one for the Christmas card.

This was my favorite:

My handsome big boy: (who did MUCH better than our photo shoot this summer)

My darling big girl:

And my stinky little man:

ooops...someone needed a haircut. Probably should have done that before pictures, oh well! 

But that smile gets me everytime! :)

I just loved this beautiful profile shot of my girl:

This is more like what I was working with :

And another cute one, but they were pretty much done at this point:

I love these babies of mine so much! How did I get so lucky???

Halloween Shenanigans...

I love to decorate for holiday's and seem to have a ton and ton of Halloween stuff. I love to display it in fun ways every year. I just think it's fun to get festive. So, we decked the house out:

We made treats for our neighbors:

And we ordered pumpkin pizza any chance we could:

It's such a fun time of year. I know Halloween isn't for everyone, but I just love to have fun with it!

Noche de Talentos...

Our branch had a Noche de Talentos. I was in charge of a 'photobooth'. Well, I wasn't in charge, but I was the photographer. 

Our cute sister missionaries, Hermana Walton and Hermana Robles:

My sweet little lady:

Jazmin, Taylor and  Odalis...

And that cute Jayden:

I was here hanging out with these guys while the performers were all performing. But these little ones kept on coming back and back...

Ben did grace us with a harmonica performance. He of course, was the star of the whole show, and everyone just loved it! :)

My cute friend, Carmen and her daughter Zoey...

My other beautiful friends, Sonia, Maria and Antonia....

Of course, Owen was there with us...

Owen, Tucker and their friend, Jesse Hix all dressed up...

We tried to get all the group of ladies together, and then we had  Ben take a picture, and honestly, this is the best one he got!!! Can you believe that?! I was so bummed! But I sure do love all of these ladies!

Our branch knows how to party!

Oh Jackson...

This boy cracks me up every single day. He is getting so independent, and wants to do EVERYTHING on his own. I love his enthusiasm for everything right now.

In particular, his eating....

At least someone likes my chinese chicken salad...

And he's always willing to share...yummmm......

His faces, they kill me!

And, he's still in physical therapy with Ilene. I love Ilene. This face while working out with her, is so funny to me. He is getting so sick of working out with her, but he's still not walking, so he still has to work work work. It is so fun to get down there and help her with him. She moves him all around and he yells at her, and gets frustrated, but I know it's good for him, so we plug along!

Not loving the exercises so much, but he has to get stronger...

Oh, that cute smile though!

Beautiful Northwest Fall...

I love the fall and I love being busy with photos shoots and fall evenings outside. 

I was out at Finch Arboretum one evening taking senior pics and it was just the most beautiful fall evening.

Of course, many many beautiful fall sunsets...

Another evening I was out in Mica doing a family photo shoot, and it was just so beautiful...

These are some of my favorite places to shoot...

Of course, we ourselves, had a yard full of beautiful red leaves that the kids were more than happy to 'help' me rake. They did about two minutes of work then spent most of the time jumping in them getting them all over the yard again.

There is this one bush/tree right on our way to take Tucker to school every morning. Every day I would oooh and aaaah over it, and finally one day Taylor said to me, mom, why don't you just take a picture?! So, I did! It is seriously so beautiful. I can't wait for the fall again, and to ask the owners what kind of plant it is. 

I love our beautiful Northwest Fall's

Halloween Kick off dinner with the Mortensens and Dabell's

We had our annual Halloween kick off dinner and pumpkin painting party at the Mortensens. This year, the Dabell's joined us. It was so much fun! Megan doesn't do carving, so they always paint. Which is just fine with me. Although, Ben is a carver, so he usually does that with the kids at some point, also. I'm just happy with pumpkins on my front door step, I don't really care what's done to them, as long as they are festive! :) This year we had the usual spray paint and decor items, but Abbey brought these cute polka dot and striped nylons to put around the pumpkins that made them so super cute! That Abbey has so many cute ideas! :)

I love Avery, and I love how sweet she is to my kiddos--Tucker, I think really believes that Avery is his sister sometimes! :) And she treats him like an older sister, both good and bad, which I love! :) It's good for him!

Cute BFF's:

Meg made her delicious soup in a pumpkin. Jan made it growing up, and it is delicious! It's the perfect way to start the fall. Then the decorating began, which, funny enough is when the men folk discovered something really interesting downstairs that took them down there for the rest of the night! hmmmmm....

Abbey and Meg prepping the pumpkins for some spray paint. I have gorgeous friends. And Ellie with her big pumpkin, I think she named her Big Mama.

Cute kids, Tucker, Owen, Mason, Luke and Taylor:

We can't leave out Avery and Ellie:

After pumpkins, Abbey made the BEST apple cider and we were all in heaven. It was such a fun and perfect evening with great friends!

And here the kids are the next day with their finished products. You can see the kids got pretty creative with their pumpkins. Sometimes I have to force myself not to interfere, and just let them create how they want! :)

Hit by a deer...

I guess it's better said, that I hit a deer. John Fairbanks opened up his mission call the first week of October, so, of course, we were there. Spain-Barcelona Mission! Yeah! We were so excited for him, and he had a little get together at his girlfriends house and it was so fun, and he leaves for the MTC on March 8th, I believe. Funny side story, the whole night I kept on getting introduced to people, like his high school friends, and people would ask me how I know John, and I would always say, well, I'm John's mom's husband's daughter...blah blah blah. FInally after a few times of this awful introduction, I figured it's just so much easier to say that I am John's step-sister. Still sounds so weird and feels so weird to say it, but that's what I am and that's what we are, so I better embrace it, right? Anyway...I was driving home around 8ish, so it was dark already, Ben hadn't come with us, so it was just me and the kids in the van. We were actually practicing our Primary Program parts. So, I was kind of looking in the rear view mirror at them a lot in the back. We were on 32nd, so it wasn't even a very rural area, and all of the sudden, right around 32nd and Best, I looked up and BAM! Right before it happened, for a split second, I saw the biggest deer I had ever seen. It all happened so fast, I didn't even know what to do. After it happened, I saw the deer skid to the side of the road, then jump up and run off, so I knew it was ok. My heart was pounding, but the van was still running, and seemed to be ok, so I thought, well, I'll just head home and check it out there. And honestly, because I couldn't see anything from where I was sitting in the drivers seat, I thought that maybe everything was ok. I even told the kids on the short drive home that last time I hit a deer, that the only thing that happened was the drivers licence was bent, so maybe that's all that happened this time! HAH!

We pulled into the driveway that night, and I went out and took a peek, and honestly, my heart dropped! I couldn't believe the damage! You know in cartoons when cars get smashed, they always show them with like a shot smoke coming out of them, and making a hissing noise. That is exactly what my van was doing when we pulled in. I don't know how we made it home and how I hadn't noticed anything was wrong! There was even deer hair all over the place (gross!) Ben said he thought it may be totaled!

Another funny side story to this story is, remember how I had to borrow my dad's truck at the end of August/beginning of September for a few days, well, after this happened, I called my dad in Alaska. I figured that since he was in Alaska, it was perfect, I could use his car for a while, while mine was being fixed. OK, back story... Kathryn's son Andrew was in town for a few months until his wedding at the end of October, so while he was here, he was driving Kathryn's Toyota. And since my dad was out of town, Kathryn was driving my dads truck. And, because he is my dad, Kathryn told me that every time she talked to him on the phone he would ask about his truck and she said that he could just tell that he was counting down the days until she got her car back. Just because he is a car guy and very particular about his cars. We always tease him about it. So, literally, that weekend, Andrew was heading to California for the wedding, and Kathryn was getting her car back. She was just going to wash it and clean it out and put it nicely in his driveway to await him until he got home. Then this happened. I called him, he called her, she brought me over his truck, and I was the proud owner (ok, borrower) of his avalanche once again. I could tell it was killing him. What we thought was going to be just a few days to repair (and actually we were kind of hoping they would just total it out) ended up being like THREE weeks worth of work. It was so ridiculous, but I guess that's what $5000 dollars worth of damage takes to fix. All in all, I'm glad that we were all ok, I'm glad that I was able to drive home and I'm so glad that I had a generous dad to loan me his truck for that long so we didn't have to rent a car. That totally would have sucked!

Outside fun...

We had to get out and savor every last minute of sunshine we could. September for us means that the fall and winter weather is close upon us. It means we don't have many more days to play outside.

I spy a little Jackson, can you?:

There he is. Not sure why the face, but I'm sure glad I caught it on camera! Probably putting something in his mouth like usual! :)

Savoring every last summer evening we possibly can; Eating dinner outside. Taylor and her bestie:

Watching/coaching Tucker play some hoops:

Oh man, this boy kills me sometimes! He wants so desperately to be a big boy and do the big kid things, but refuses to use those legs of his!

I spy a birdie on the very tippy top of our house!

After school crusing in the green machine...

Tucker is such a good big brother. I just love these two together.

An amazing fall sunset we came home to one night at the end of our cul-de-sac.

And these are just with my little point and shoot camera!

And then just like that, we were out playing one day and I found this:

Our green leaves turned red and began to fall. I sure do love the summer, but I also love living somewhere where we get to experience all seasons, and I love the fall to. So, bring it on!

Random September fun!

One of my most favorite things about September:

This guy started crawling up the stairs! Still won't go down them, but he sure loves to go go go, finally! :)

Here is Jackson doing his pose during one of Tucker's soccer games. Funny thing about this picture, is that it is the only picture I took while Tucker was on the Spokane Soccer Club Shadow league. For some reason, he would go right up by this lady and do his little pose. Another bonus of not being in the SSCS league is that we don't have to travel all around Spokane. This game was so far up North, I felt like we were almost in Canada! I'm so not ready to drive 45 minutes for 8am soccer games with three little ones right now.

Jackson was just having a great morning one day playing outside with his toys. I couldn't help take some pictures...

and making some awesome faces...

Of course, the time of year for some beautiful cloud pictures. Still can't believe it's already fall!

My inheritance from my grandma and grandpa. My beautiful vases. I put them on the window sill in my office because Ben didn't like them on the mantle. And the sun shines through every afternoon through them so beautifully! I love it!

I think Jackson was a little excited to be at Chuck E Cheese! :) I can't even remember why we were there, but we were! :) ha ha

And look, they still have that summer glow!

My friend asked me to watch her son one day after school and then I found out it was pirate day at Krispy Kreme. If you went in and ordered your doughnuts in a pirate voice, then you got a free doughnut, but if you actually dressed up like a pirate, you got a whole dozen for free!!! The place was packed with pirates!

YUP, we got THREE dozen doughnuts for FREE! I, of course, sent one home with mitch, but that left us with two dozen which was way too many. But oh, so delicious!

We saw some friends of ours in the parking lot who didn't have costumes, so we made the kids change right then and there. It was so fun. She has 6 kids, and we somehow managed to outfit all of her kids! :) Thanks to Tuckers 5th birthday party that was pirate themed! :)

Apparently Tucker is already planning parties behind my back. I found this note. AFTER he wrote it, he casually asked me if he could have a party on Saturday at 1:30. And apparently, this was only the first of many invites he was planning on giving his friends at school. Yeah, that didn't happen! I guess I need to keep a closer eye on him!

One day, my friend Delphia asked me to watch her kids while she went to a dr. appt. Her son is in Taylors preschool, so I had both of them, then dropped the big kids off at preschool. Maggie, Jackson and I were just going to hang out, but then I remembered I had an appt. to get my oil changed. So, we went down, and I called Kathryn and she said she would pick us up and we could go to lunch while we waited for my van. So, after the van went in, and while we were waiting for Kathryn to come and pick us up, we just chilled in the parking lot of Jennifers Auto for a few minutes, and I didn't want to worry about chasing these two around, so I just sat them in their seats and we read books! :) It was pretty cute.

I took this picture of Taylor before church one day and for some reason it reminds me of my 90's teenage self. Maybe its the choker necklace, I don't know. I see it and see myself! :)

The girl who works for Ben, she answers his phones and schedules his appointments, served her mission in Poland. Her and her husband went for a two week vacation in September, and they brought us back a whole basket full of fun Polish treats. All delicious, of course! :)

I can't believe it's already October...These months are just flying by! But that means the start of the holiday season, and that's always a good thing! I love the holiday's and I'm ready for them to begin!