Dinner time story

Tonight Lyle had to work late so the kids and I were doing dinner on our own. I finished cooking and had made their plates. Ella was on the computer and Luke was in his room with his cars. I asked if anyone was ready to eat and I heard the usual, "No, not yet!" come from both of them. So I called back, "Fine, I will just eat by myself then." I sat down and about a minute later Ella came over and sat down. She said, "Mom, I know that it is more important to spend time with your mom than it is playing the computer so I want to come eat dinner with you." Melted my heart! Oh, how I hope she always remembers that!! About 2 minutes later, Luke comes bouncing in and says, "Hey, why didn't you get me for dinner?" That boy!!

Capturing that little smile

The big news around here is that Ella has her first loose tooth! So, I decided I better get a good picture of her pretty smile with those perfect little baby teeth before she looses one and those big crazy looking big kid teeth start coming in....I am not ready for this!! Her big tooth is actually already coming through on the inside of her mouth behind her little teeth. Looks like its going to be braces for us!

Caring Ella

Unfortunately, I am going to have to have some major dental work done soon but fortunately I have a very sweet daughter who has vowed to take complete care of me afterwards. She has been praying for me every morning during her class prayers (no, it is not that serious but she is very concerned) and she made me this sweet card. Can u tell what it says? I love that girl!

A shout out to Aunt Ava and Uncle Bob!

Hello Aunt Ava and Uncle Bob!

We hope you are having fun in Washington on the beautiful river! We love your new house! Thanks so much for sending the letter with the updates. We are so glad you like the blog and get a chance to read it. I have been reading your blog as well and it seems like you guys are staying very very busy. It looks just beautiful there. Hopefully some day we will get a chance to visit!
Love you guys!

Fun Autumn afternoons

                        
Autumn is beautiful here. It is so nice and cool outside. We decided to take advantage of it this afternoon by heading out to the new park that opened up downtown.

This park has biking and walking trails that extend out over the river. The kids had fun running down all the different paths.

      
                              

A new bridge opened up going across the river. Ella was a little nervous at first since the sides are sort of opened up and she could see straight down but she eventually got over it.

The kids ran all over the park.

But the best part by far was sliding down the hills on cardboard boxes. They had a blast! It was hours of FREE fun!

Happy Halloween

from a scary spider and a sweet fairy princess!

Originally we were going with an insect theme this year, Ella a butterfly, Luke a spider. But Ella ended up being a fairy princess and she couldn't have been happier. She loved her bright costume and shiny shoes. I thought she looked great....Lyle of course frowned at the makeup but told her she looked beautiful!

Luke was also very excited about his costume. He loved creeping around like a spider trying to scare people. It was so funny!

           He is eating pizza in this picture. I tried to get them to eat something besides candy....I quickly gave up though:)

We had a really great night! We wanted to really draw a crowd this year, so we quickly threw up some Halloween lights and I had Lyle light the fire pit in the front yard. It definitely worked! We had lots of kids trick-or-treating us! Lauren and Craig came over to share in on the fun. Lauren and I sat by the campfire handing out candy while Lyle and Craig walked the kids around. Lauren and I drank some warm brandy apple cider and even made s'mores! The kids came back with buckets of candy and finished helping us hand out candy. It was a great Halloween!

Ella--she says the funniest things

Yesterday afternoon, I was driving the kids home from school. Ella who had been quiet in the back said, "Mom, you know how when it is your birthday and you are supposed to make a poster with pictures of you and things you like on it for school?" I said, "Yes". She continued with, "Well, on the part where you are supposed to put what you want to be when you grow up, I want to put 'I don't know yet'. There are lots of things I am interested in being right now like a vet, a teacher, an artist. But I am just 5. How am I supposed to know right now what I would like to do when I get older. I might be interested in different things." I said, "Well, OK." Sounded like she had put some thought into that so I just left it at that. It made me laugh.