Happy Halloween

Cale as a Bandit Cowboy Ghost

Ty as a construction worker

Mickey Mouse Brock

Bridesmaid Morgan

Brag post

I have to brag, can't help it, I'm proud. Ty my kindergartner started kindergarten books I would say mid to late summer and just finished his math book, woohoo. He has about twenty lessons left in his other books which should take him another couple weeks to finish. It's so amazing to see how well he has done and how fast he's progressed. I'm a proud mama, had to brag!

Pumpkin carving

We carved five of our six pumpkins tonight, the kids each got to draw their own faces and also carve them, I guess all but Brock, his was approved and supervised by him but Daddy did the carving =) I will show the finished product later in the week. We had a great time, they are all heading to bed and I am soon to follow, I have no daycare this week until Friday but so many errands to run I feel like a chicken with my head cut off! Enjoy yet another slide show!

THE cake pictures

Who wouldn't love Thomas or as Brock called him choo choo Thomas as a cake? We took two 9x13 inch pans along with two 8 inch round pans and Don carved them into this amazing Thomas cake. We didn't end up starting decorating until almost midnight on Saturday night and finally went to bed at 5:30 Sunday morning. The cake turned out amazing, we had a great night of talking and it was delicious




The aftermath, Don was so sad he had to cut it up.

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Brock's gift bonanza

Sorry for all the slide shows today but I went a little nuts with pictures taking over the weekend. Brock loved all his presents of course who wouldn't love toys?

Pumpkin Patch fun

We all hopped in Don's "new" Suburban on Sunday and headed to Jefferson to go to the pumpkin patch. We had a great time, snapping pictures, finding nasty smashed pumpkins, and of course the perfect carving pumpkins also. We also found acres upon acres of veggies that were unpicked so I inquired and found out that if we picked them ourselves we got a huge discount so we can home with many pounds of peppers (hot and sweet) and tons of beets. My week will be full of dehydrating, canning, and of course carving.

Brock's Cake

I will post pictures later of Brock with his cake along with him opening his presents but thought I would give you a teaser of his cake!

Sleepy boys

Last night before Don and I pulled an all nighter making Brock's 3rd Birthday cake I caught he and the dog sacked out on the couch. So cute!

Beautiful fall

The beautiful view out my front window.

This view makes washing dishes not so bad except for the writing on the window =)

Look what Don got for our 15th anniversary. Pretty romantic if you ask me!

Hi again!

I feel like I've been totally neglecting the blog lately and I think it's largely due to the fact that I do a lot of status updates through facebook. I have been dealing with some seasonal yucky depression kinds of things that I think are connected to my thyroid so not feeling real well or motivated. I want to be able to keep up on the blog so you can see pictures of the kids and a glimpse of what goes on in our lives. I am trying to keep up on homeschool, housework, daycare, life, and feel like I'm doing a lousy job. Nothing like being transparent, huh? Don has been gone a lot lately which makes all of the things I do on a daily basis seem much more intense because I am doing it alone. All of this being said my goal is to at least take pictures of the kids daily or every other day and the posts may just be pictures but it's my October resolution!

Oh and pictures, a couple weeks ago the kids and I headed up to Hillsboro to visit our friends and went to an awesome place called Out of This World Pizza where I snapped some fun pictures, sure wish it was closer to our house, oh and Morgan met a friend her age that also homeschools and is the second oldest of six kids, they hit it off and have become penpals!

Apple picking

We finally went apple picking on Wednesday, we were able to pick 50 pounds in about half an hour. I hope we can get at least another 100 pounds for more sauce and apple chips. So far we've made 12 quarts of applesauce and we hope to get started on the chips today. Don is gone again, this time in Nebraska, then on to Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico, yuck but I will try and keep up my positive mantra, he has a job, it's a good thing!

The daycare has really slowed down, it's interesting trying to figure out a new schedule when it's just us, we get out schoolwork done most days around 10 and then the rest of our day is open. I don't want to plan a bunch of stuff that costs money but there's only so much we can do here before we're bouncing off the walls, lol.

We finally had to break out the winter clothes this week, it's been getting down to 40 at night and in the 60's as the high so not freezing but much cooler than we're used to. It was so cute to see how excited they all got with their "new" clothes. I still get so excited digging through the garage and not even having to hit a store to buy clothes, YET!

Enough of the boringness that is my life, just wanted to add some pictures and post a little update.

Looks like another week, another post! Another week down of homeschool and still going strong. We were able to can 8 more pints of tomatoes and hoping to do some more next week, finally some red tomatoes. I think our goal for next week is to get some apples picked and get started on applesauce! I made four quarts a couple weeks ago and it's already gone so I can see the demand is high!!! Don and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary yesterday! I can't believe it was that long ago, it's been a wild ride but worth every minute! October 1st also marks the 8 year anniversary of us moving to Oregon, not sure if that's one that we are super excited about but know this is where God has us for now. Our biggest excitement around here has been finding Brock sleeping in all kinds of interesting places lately. He sleeps under his bed, in Ty's bed, but typically on the floor somewhere, hmm I wonder if he's trying to tell us he's ready to move out of his toddler bed?! Guess it's time to start saving for a bunk bed and mattress, huh!

Brock sleeping under a rug in Morgan's room, yes he does have a blanket, he just evidently thought this was more comfortable.

Morgan had a little makeover, I am so jealous of her eyelashes. I may let her out of the house with makeup on when she's 40.