Fall Activities and Halloween

We took an afternoon and went to paint pumpkins and play some games together. We sure had a fun relaxing time at the pumpkin patch. We were blessed with a beautiful fall.

Niah the Fairy Princess

This is Brityn at the end of the night, she was going through her bucket and sorting it!

Dr. McSteamy aka Amren Mayes

We had the funnest Halloween this year! Since George and I now live in a great neighborhood we were able to have the whole family here for the festivities. We started out by Grandma making a big old pot of food. We all filled our bellies and then hit the road to trick or treat with all the kiddos. We had: MyKenzie (Cinderella ), Niah ( a fairy princess), Brityn (a bumble bee), Tristan (an elk hunter), Jasmyn ( Wonderwoman), Kaneesa ( a kungfu fighter-not pictured, she fell asleep on us) Amren ( Dr. Mayes- or McSteamy as I like to say), Kaden (is MyKenzie's little brother on her mom's side- he was Hulk).

We walked our neighborhood and had so much fun with the kids. Grandma was so kind and stayed back at the house to pass out candy and to take care of baby Aayden. We got tons of candy, some of it full size bars, and the weather was the nicest we've had in years. When we were done trick or treating we all came back here and hung out together. It was just so much fun, I hope to make it a tradition. ( we really loved that Channa, MyKenzie's mom, and her other little boys could join us too, what a treat it was for all of us.)

Mom and Dad played Husband and Wife in Vegas!

George and I had the opportunity to get away from the kids for a weekend and celebrate a couple things. We had our 5th anniversary in September and then my birthday in October. This was our first time away since marriage and my first time away from my kids for the night. We met George's siblings there: Walter and wife Kori from Billings, Sister Margaret from Kansas and Brother Todd from Michigan. We had so much fun and it was just great to get together as just adults and enjoy one another. Many great memories were made. Thanks guys.

Sister Margaret and Sister in law Kori

Sister in laws

Brothers Todd, Walter and George. G is the baby.

Ahhhhh, Romance

Yes, I shopped like a mad woman. But is was so much fun!

Not much to talk about!

Brityn had her first bowl of pudding. She loved it obviously, but was not happy with me when I took away the bowl and didn't give her more.

Kenzie took our picture while we all sat outside the restaurant this summer waiting to eat.

I had one of my dearest friends move away this summer. I guess it gives me an excuse to go to AZ. It was a sad day for me, I will truly miss having her around and going to her house on my lunch breaks. Love you Elise, hope to see you soon.

B has her first ponytails in at 16 months. Way to go B. Usually the back one curls under while the top sticks straight up. It's pretty cute and growing much faster than N's. She didn't have ponies until she was 2 years old.

Vacation to Coeur D'Alene

We took a trip to CDA this summer. We had some yucky weather one day but still braved the outside and went to the beach.

Our next day was great, we took the kids and played in the water.

Ken'z got burried in the sand by her dad. She was a trooper.

My "little one" is getting big and she loved the beach. Too bad she isn't walking yet so the rough sand wasn't so fun on the knees and the hands. She opted to stand at the stroller or float in her turtle floatie. It was fun.

One of my Bestest friends in the whole wide world was so kind and packed up her kiddos and drove 5 hours to meet us in Spokane. So we took the kids to Silverwood and what a fun time we had. Thanks so much Tan for hanging with us and being so flexible! You're the best!

Who doesn't love a log ride!

We are still here!

Well, it has been quite some time, but we are still blogging. In the past couple months we have packed up our old house and moved to our new one. But in the mean time, we managed to have some fun. So here are a few of the pictures.

The Bandits, N and her cousin M- ready to whip things in to shape!

We always love a visit from our good friends the Kornachuks. These 2 girls were born only hours apart. Not so sure if they really like each other yet, they don't see each other much due to distance, but they are both so dang strong willed that we're not sure they can get along.

We took the girls to a lake one afternoon to play. This is B, just splashing around in the water. It was really hard to get her to not drink it.

Mom and her girls on the 4th of July! Dad had to work again this year so we partied til the weeee hours.

Memorial Day Weekend on the Lake

We spent the weekend at Fort Peck camping and fishing. It was quite fun! At one point we docked and let the girls get out and play in the water. They absolutely loved it. It was a very relaxing and fun weekend!

We fished for 2 days straight and the only one to catch a fish was MyK. She caught 2, all the rest of us were at zero. Good thing we brought MyK along to catch our dinner for us.

I don't know what it was about the worms, but the girls loved them. They couldn't quit playing with them and pretending like they were eating them and that they were their pets. Even my N and MyK picked them up and played with them, something I would have never done as a child. Go Girls!

SHE'S 3!!!

N finally turned 3 this week. It has been the much anticipated birthday of the year at our house. She has been talking about it since Feb. when we had Myk's B'day party. So the time finally came for us to celebrate for N. She was so excited, as were the rest of us. Once again, as with the last birthday celebration at our house, I was busy running the show, and therefore we got very few pics, but at least lots of it is on the video camera.

These are pics of her cake that G and I made. Really simple, yet pleasing enough to a 3 yr old. It was priceless when we sang Happy Birthday to here, she sang right along with us. Yes, we got that on video. I'm so happy about that.

This was after cake, when we were getting ready to open gifts. We did a pinata for the little ones and a water fight for the little bit bigger kids. It was very fun. She loved all her gifts and is so happy to have new toys. She is a very grateful child. I was just happy that we got it pulled off. Considering we had had 2 open houses this weekend to sell our house and I was sick the entire weekend with the flu. Anyhow, Happy Birthday to our beautiful little "sweet pea!"

Happy 1st Birthday Brityn!!

Some of the birthday party attendants. All kids in the family. We have lots of little ones in the fam, this was minus 4 others, 2 of which are under 2 years old. I can see our future parties are going to be wild and crazy.

Our party theme was rubber Fireman Duckies. Someone said to me, "so you assume that since your husband is a fireman your children will automatically like fireman things." I say, "yes" to that, and since we have no boys in the casa, George has to get his share of boy stuff in when he can. I quite like the firemen things myself.

I made these duck cakes. the little one is just for B. She didn't dig in too much, she was more concerned about the frosting all over her fingers. This was her first time having sweets and she didn't know what to think of it. Now the sweets have been cut off again.

Our Birthday Girl! She loved her tiarra. I realized that since I was filming the whole event, we have very few actual birthday pictures and none of her eating her cake. That's what happens when I have to take both pics and film. Oops.

Big sister M, with B.

Can you say "Static Cling"

It was a cold day outside so MyK came up with the idea to make an inside fort.
We covered it with a micro plush blanket that we discovered made great static cling.
We had a great time rubbing everyone's heads on the blanket and then watching how much hair it raised. It was great. Even little B's hair stood straight up.

It was a challenge to get N to rub her head on the blanket. She hates her picture being taken so this one was when she wasn't aware that she was static and that I was taking her pic.

This is my little nephew, he loves coming over to play with N and B.

Great!