Bragging About My Mom

Besides being a wonderful mom she is also a very talented artist. This is just one of many in a long line of beautiful accomplishments she has done. Check out her new stamp collection here.

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep." -Scott Adams,

Halloween

Halloween turned out to be really fun. Aiden wanted to be a cat, I tried to make him a lion, but they really ended up looking like some crazy lady randomly put face paint on and sprayed their hair. Which is pretty accurate, I had way too much candy to be decorating little faces!

They wrestled (lots of face paint smudges on my floor now) and ran around meowing while we awaited the trickortreaters, we had a dance party in the mean time too. They kept checking out the front window and sprinted to the door whenever the door bell rang.

Lots of cute costumes, little brett favres, army men, and the cutest little red riding hood who would not leave so Aiden just kept putting more and more candy in her bag. Nolen was the door slammer and let people know when their turn was up.

Coen and Ellie

Coen and Dylan

Look at these cute four month old babies!

Fall Festival Fun

Steves mom and her husband were here this past weekend and we all had a blast. Saturday we spent a good portion of the day at the Stocker Farms pumpkin festival. The boys got to dig with trucks in the giant corn boxes, hammer nails, bang as loud as their little hearts desired on pots and pans, jump in the bouncy house, Aiden caught his first fish, they got their faces painted and of course we found some pumpkins to bring home.

The only bad part, the "hay ride". Yuck. Pulled by a smoke belching tractor for 20 minutes out to the pumpkin cannon (guys were impressed, I was not).

Sunday went shopping for signature stamps and log books for our letterboxing hobby. Then we went to Firestation 71 for their open house and the kids got to climb around the fire truck and ambulance.

Fun fun fun. Come back again soon Grandma and David!

Home School Anyone?

Okay, so I am just throwing this out there even though I have a sneaking suspicion that only my relatives read my blog. But hey, maybe you know someone who knows someone who may be interested.

I am looking for a family who wants to home school with me. I want someone who is willing to buy the same curriculum (sonlight looks good to me, but I am open to suggestions). I think it would be great to do four days a week at our respective homes and gather once a week for review/play/field trips etc..

Anyhow, just a shot in the dark that there maybe be some Mill Creek area mom with kids about the same age looking for someone to home school with.

Letterboxing ROCKS!

We went on our first letterboxing adventure today. The tree of life it was called. It was awesome. It is a perfect hobby for one with little kids. It combines the outdoors with learning and clues, and then the reward of finding your treasure.

The hike started out tenuous as everything seems to for Aiden. After we entered the "forest" he became apprehensive and worried. He held my hand almost the entire way. I made the mistake of mentioning to watch out for poison oak -not that I really know what it looks like, and I will be researching it so I can give him accurate information. But then he didn't want to get poison oak, and he was afraid of being left and getting lost.

As you can imagine Nolen was the exact opposite. Running off at first chance, which happened to be the parking lot. Not cool. He is so difficult to hang onto. His feet seem to be controlled by a force outside of his body. They just keep going even when he falls, and rolls down a hill, they seem to supernaturally pull him up and force him onward. Through the bushes, the stickers, the mud, tripping and falling and rolling along. Nolen could care less to have us in sight. He ventures on recklessly without a worry in his little blonde head.

And of course any hike with Steve turns into an unplanned adventure with some sort of obstacle to overcome. After we succeeded in finding our letterbox we planned to take Ellie to the off-leash dog park nearby. Steve likes to rely on his "spidey senses" so instead of going back the way we came and going to the dog park by way of a known path, we followed our leader deeper into the woods. We did find the dog park, but it lay beyond to fences. I am proud to say I can climb fences with the baby in the front pack. Steve tossed the other two and the dog over and we eventually made it, much to Ellie's delight.

So, it was a PERFECT way to spend a gorgeous blue sky, sunny, fall day with the family.