Want this?!?

Enter the challenge up on {From the Journal Jar} and our favorite gets it, plus some! We are adding a new item for every scrapbook page posted, so this can get pretty big! Come and play!

This is me...

Bekah is starting her 3rd week of preschool this week and she is still just as excited if not more about it than she was on her first day. They talked about families today and she made this little creation-and said it was me...do you see the strong resemblence?

One of the best things about Halloween...

Pumpkin shaped sugar cookies! This has to be Chad's most favorite treat, maybe even more than vanilla ice cream. I like the decorating part, but I can't eat too many of them-Chad and my kids don't have that problem though!My mom and Tabitha were on a baking hiatus last night to make some halloween goodies to send to Trae in Quitar. They made these, pumpkin bread and the richest brownies you have ever eaten!
If you are a major sugar junkie you should try these, they are a Paula Dean recipe-You put greased foil in the bottom of a 9x13 pan, put half a brownie mix on the bottom , place 3 king size symphony bars side by side on top of the batter and pour the rest of the brownie mix on top. Then bake-the candy bar gets melted inside and has bits of toffee too. SOOOO rich, I could barely eat a tiny square of one, and I like rich desserts. A little tip, they are a little easier to eat after they have cooled down, they don't seem soooo creamy and rich that way!

What a load of....

What do you get when you get about 200 geese on one big area of lawn besides a whole lot of poop? 2 insanely happy kids! They have no fear, they chased them forever until all the geese were in the water, and that was A LOT of geese. Bekah was right next to them and didn't even flinch when they would take off-me, scared senseless at the dumb things, (bad experience with a goose at Adventure Land Park as a kid). I tried not to let my fear get in the way of my kids having fun, I just didn't get too close to take pictures!

Not so Merry Merrytime Musuem

On our walk on the waterfront we stopped at that Merrytime Musuem-which is just an old boat that is docked on the waterfront and they have turned it into a musuem. It costs $5 per adult, luckily the kids were free. It had some interesting things and a few wheels for the kids to turn, but taking a couple toddlers aboard, you couldn't really read or look at any of the history on the boat. Plus it was just kind of a disorganized mess all over the place. The kids had fun though, climbing the stairs and pretending to steer the boat-so unless your kids are HUGE boat fans, I wouldn't recommend paying the entrance fee-you can walk aboard for free, you just can't go inside. On the other hand, the movie Maverick was filmed there, so it has some pictures of what they did to the boat to make it look like an expensive gambling ship, so I guess it would probably be a little cooler if you were actually able to read and look at some of the stuff in there without chasing after a 1 year old who thinks it's a good idea to go swimming in the Willamette!

Saturdays Market Blues

We went to Saturday's Market with my mom and Tabitha while Chad was off playing golf with some chiropractor buddies. Usually I love this place, with all the bustling and different people to watch, but I just couldn't get into it this time. My kids were being a little difficult-I know Topher looks happy in that picture, but it's only because I was tickling him to get him to stop throwing a fit about being in his stroller. Bekah was alright, just a little cranky, she got woken up from her nap in our new car! (Oh yeah, we got a new car Saturday Morning, I will take some pics and post them later). After our short shopping trip and some delicious philly steak and cheese sandwiches we headed over to the waterfront for a walk.

From the Journal Jar Challenge #1

Our challenge site is finally up! This is not just for scrapbookers either! Check it out, we pull out a journaling prompt from our journaling jar every Wednesday, and you can either scrapbook it or blog it, and then leave your link on the comments to your post! There will be a fun scrapbooking prize for our favorite page! So join in the fun-PLEASE!!!!
{From the Journal Jar}

Paintin Pumpkins!

It seems we have been collecting these mini pumpkins all month, so we finally decided to do something with them. I decided this year to not get big ones and carve them for three reasons- one, my kids are too young to help carve. two, it is just so messy and three, because we live in a complex that I'm sure the pumpkins wouldn't last through the night without being smashed. Plus I just really like to play with my paints! Apparently so does everyone else!Christopher and his pumpkin were turning into the incredible hulk. As soon as his pumpkin was nice and green he turned the paint brush on himself. He had so much fun and made such a big mess-but that's why I love acrylic paint-it just wiped right off the table and right off his skin. He was so proud of his little creation.I think Bekah actually made one to be proud of! Look how cute that little face is on that pumpkin! It makes me smile just looking at it! This girl has got some artistic skill if you ask me! Am I just biast or is that one adorable pumpkin!Tabitha was over-and there were plenty of pumpkins to go around. After I snapped some pictures of everyone working-she got a hold of the camera and when that happens-just know there will be lots of self portrait shots to follow-luckily she's pretty darn cute, so she can get away with it! Okay-and then there was me-I know I am looking a little scary-I hadn't slept for the past 2 nights reading Twilight and then New Moon, and I was laughing before these pictures were taken. I am known for not being able to keep my eyes open when someone takes my picture-(ask my cousin Jackie, who took my senior and wedding pictures), I was trying so hard, and the pictures always resulted in me with huge wide eyes, crying eyes because we were all laughing so hard and lots of closed eyes. I don't know why it is so hard for me to not close my eyes-and it's not all the time-but once it starts, it just doesn't stop. Finally Chad and his "totem pole", he loves doing this kind of thing-don't let him fool you. He was just as into it as the rest of us. He cut a hole into the bottom of the smaller one so they are connected. hee hee hee-silly guy!

There were 5 in the bed...

...and the little one said, "Roll over"...That is one of Bekah and Tophers favorite songs and when I saw this picture it just reminded me of it. I couldn't get them to all look at me, but you can tell they are having fun hanging out on the top bunk in the playroom. We had Jordan and Jaycie over on Tuesday and Bekah had school, so Mandy was a life saver and picked up Bekah. Rilee and Jordan were having lots of fun playing dress up and house while she was gone, and when she got back she brought Taylor in to play for a bit. The kids all had so much fun together. I love having all these kids around that are my kids' age-and their moms ain't too bad themselves! How lucky we are!
{Thanks again Mandy for the favor and for the books-I'm waiting on the third one! But patiently because I did enjoy the nights sleep I had last night-although for some reason I was dreaming about vampires and werewolves hmmm......} :)

Catchin up Blog!

SO I took a good week off from Blogging-it was an eventful week last week, and an emotional one, so I had to prioritize and blogging was not one of those things at the top of my list! (Sorry mom!)

Bekah had a great first week at school and is adjusting well to the new sleep schedule, I am having a harder time I think! I do love that the kids are going to bed lots earlier though!

We went to a fantastic story time at the library with "Mother Seuss" and Bekah got to assist her in a magic trick-which she thought was pretty much the coolest.

I hosted a girls fondue/bunco night on Thursday which I think was a big success! We had 13 girls here, and had lots of fun, eating and playing and gabbing. Thanks for coming everyone!

Tabitha came in on Friday night and will be here until after Thanksgiving, so I am excited to have a friend here again and the kids are super thrilled to not only have their aunt but also their "cousin pup" Charlie here again!

Sunday after church, my mom, Tab, the kids and I were out for a walk and looked at a few houses in her neighborhood that were for sale-there were some beautiful homes over there, and if only I could mix and match some of their features my dream home would be in that area! There was this cute wall in one of them with 2 shelves and we convinced Bekah that they were kid shelves and that there was one for each of them.

Today was such a nice day, I spent it sitting outside reading "twilight" while the kids played and laughed and got filthy. I have a bunch of random pics, and I will try to be better about blogging this week, so I don't have to hear it from my mom every day! (She is a hypocrite-she never updates her blog-and she has TONS of cute pics of my kids that I haven't even seen-but whatever!)

First Day Jitters...

...it's 8:50am. Bekah has now been at her first day of school for about 55 minutes. Time is going by soooo slow. She gets out at 10:30-which I thought was a short school day, but it seems so long to be away from my baby girl!

She was so excited this morning. She had a great attitude, especially for being woken up at 6:30! I took a couple pics of her on the front porch and she was being so silly-just posing and being cute. I got to the school and all the high school students were waiting to help the kids inside. Bekah clinged to my hand and wanted me to bring her in, (and I wanted to bring her in too, so I wasn't pushing the issue in the least!). We went inside and the students helped her find her name tag and put it in the slot and then they brought her into the playroom, she looked scared-she was the first kid there, so I don't blame her.

I left feeling a little uneasy about it, hoping she wasn't in there crying. When I got to my car, I saw the Youngs pulling up with Taylor, I pulled around, and decided to go in with them to check on Bekah and make sure she was having fun. I had nothing to worry about. She was playing with blocks and having a great old time, talking to a high school student. I had her show me her cubby, (Taylor was hiding in hers by that point-a little overwhelmed for a minute, she did get up and start playing by the time I left though) and then Bekah went back to playing with blocks and barely gave me a second look when I said goodbye. Now if I can just get over MY first day jitters! I can't wait to go pick her up and see how her first day was!

Chicken Run

We went to Jordan and Jaycie's birthday party today. It was a costume party, my kids were so excited for the test run of the chicken costumes. Topher has tried to put it on every morning, so when he saw that I was putting it on him-he was ecstatic! They had the cutest little kids there in the cutest little costumes! The birthday girls looked adorable! Jordan was Tinkerbell and Jaycie was a little witch. They had a little costume parade, (Topher was just excited to run down the pavement) filled their bags with candy, ate lots of sugar cookies and capri suns and played on the playground. I couldn't get any pics of Jord and Bekah up close, because they were off and running together most of the time-I love that they have become little buddies now that they see so much of one another. Hopefully a lifelong friendship-(because I love her parents!)

Canby Pumpkin Patch...

...our new favorite pumpkin patch! This was great! My mom and I took the kids out this morning.

You get on a little train that takes you out to a fun little petting "zoo"-the kids LOVED it! Topher was chasing the chickens all over the place and even a gigantic turkey! I am surprised the thing didn't turn around and attack back! Luckily it was a nice turkey (his name was lucky) and after it settled down from Topher chasing it, it laid down and let the kids pet it. Bekah made best friends with a couple of 4 month old pygmie goats and was pretty sure we should have some of our own. Topher liked the goats alright, but really enjoyed the rabbits-he tried to pick up this gigantic one, and when that didn't work-he tried to ride it! My mom has those pictures!

After about 10 or 15 minutes at the animals, we loaded back up on the train and it took us through the "haunted tunnels"(had a couple bat cut outs and some not too scary masks-perfect amount of scary for my kids)-and then the train took us out to the pumpkin patch. Some really cute picture opportunities and a gigantic hay tower. My kids surprised me on that-Topher not too interested in climbing it-Bekah-couldn't get her off it! She wasn't scared a bit! She got clear up to the top and yelled down at everyone that it was her house, but that they could climb on it if they wanted.

Then we loaded back up on the train and it took us to the barn where we could buy pumpkins and other veggies. Such a fun trip! If you want something different than Suavie Island-go here. I'm not sure on the address, but if you drive out to Canby, head toward the river and the ferry, you will see signs for the pumpkin patch.