It's Starting to Feel Like Christmas!

Christmas Crafts Are on Their Way...

We went to the Twiddy's house on Tuesday to make GINGER BREAD HOUSES. It was a lot of fun. I think William had the most yard decorations....Oh, no a Christmas Hoarder! I'm in trouble now!!
I was amazed at how much fun Hailey had... I didn't think that she would really be that interested, but boy was I wrong! She wanted to put every piece of candy that was in her bowl on her house or in the yard.
I didn't have my camera with me, so I had to result to my camera phone which takes horrible pictures. Any movement....And you will end up with a Blurry Picture. Hmmm....I did manage to get a few that weren't too blurry. Nicholas Did his after school a few days later...I wasn't going to get away with the little kids doing something fun with out him getting to do it too... Thanks Ladies! I had a great time too getting to spend time with my friends! The kids seemed to get a long pretty well and stayed out of trouble until they decided to jump on the bed...

Its off to the pumpkin patch we go...

How Could We Not Do The Wallup in Puyallup?

In one of the exhibit halls this year they had leather working that the kids could try. They each made a leather patch. Nick picked a wolf and William picked a monster truck of coarse. It's fun to see all of the collections and talent that people have. One of my favorite exhibit halls is where the photography is, but we didn't go through this year.
There was a really cool Astronomy collection. If we didn't have three kids I think I would have taken a little more time to look. They had a large telescope that the kids looked in; when they looked inside they saw themselves. The owner of the collection said something like who is that monster? Making a joke of sorts when the kids looked in.
We didn't eat lunch as we had planned on eating all the yummy fair food. This year we had corn on the cob..........smothered in butter. Mmmm.... Ice cream and candy apples among other things.
We bought tickets for the kids. The boys each picked two rides and Hailey wasn't really big enough to ride, but they let me(I didn't even have to pay for it). That made me smile... I didn't want to have to deal with a toddler who wanted to ride, but couldn't. Nick choose to do the Big Slide and a Roller coaser...That's my boy! I love roller coasters and I can't wait until he is big enough to ride with me.
William chose the cars and an air-plain ride that went up and down.
All in all we had a pretty good day.
Nick was being a good brother and made sure that Hailey stayed out of trouble when she wasn't in the stroller. I thought this was just too cute not to post. She wanted to walk most of the way. William on the other hand, we practically had to force him to walk. I think we kept him in the double stroller a little too long and it made him lazy.
Hailey was all smiles...
We also saw giant pumpkin carvings...Amazing art! I'm curious what they carved these 2 ton pumpkins with...

Back to School...1st Grade!

On the first day of school Nick was anxious to get out the door to the bus...He was super excited about going to first grade. At the end of kindergarden he said"three months until first grade, I can handle that." He handled it alright. Now he talks about second grade and he isn't even a quarter of the way through 1st grade.

Nicholas with some of his friends Dylan and Kden on the first day waiting for the bus to come.
Nick rode the bus to school, but I followed to walk him to his classroom. After all it was the first day of real school... I know he didn't need me to. It is more apparent everyday how independent he really is. I just wanted to share that day with him. I'm having a hard time letting go. So is William...But it is so cute how both Hailey and William want to go to the bus stop to get Nick. Sometimes they are reminding me before it is even time to head out the door.

Eat those greens...

Here are some of the goodies that came out of our garden this year. We also had strawberries although not too many this year. We also had pea snaps...But they disappeared as fast as they were ready! Those are my favorite!! I was kind of disappointed that we didn't have more because it looked like we were going to have way too many. I think we had six full squares full... We attempted cauliflower, green beans, bell peppers, pumpkins, watermelon, corn and a few others. Early on we had a frost that wiped out some of the plants. We had to replant... Then we had a bad case of slugs. We didn't know that we had them for quite some time. We just thought the new plants weren't growing. One night after dark we headed out with a flash light and a container of salt... We took them by surprise! I thought we had a few here or there, but when the light hit they were everywhere. It was kind of fun... I felt like I was defending our garden against evil forces. Ha, ha. Kind of corney I know... We hit them with the salt and the top layer of skin seemed to melt off and you could see a slimy substance left behind. Part of me felt sad that we were killing these things, but they were sabotaging our veggies...

Visitors...A picnic @ KOA in Kent

Wednesday night we were getting ready to go camping... There was an unheard message on Greg's phone. We listened to it, and it said that Grandpa Smith was going to be in town the next day @ the KOA in Kent and that they were going to eat a dinner. Some of the cousins and a few of his nieces would be there. So, we postponed our camping trip until after the 4th... Which was a good thing because we were able to scope out our campsite instead of booking online blindly.

It was really great to get to see everyone... The dinner was great! Hamburgers grilled to perfection! Unfortunately the hot dogs were too frozen to even begin to grill... They tried to break them apart, but they were just to solid. We had pasta salad, chips and dip, salad, brownies, and few others. I think the funniest part of the whole night was when the picnic table almost tipped over on us...
There were three of us sitting on one side and one person on the other... The ground must have been somewhat uneven because when the one person got up, the whole table started to flip... I think I screamed louder than anyone (which was kind of embarrassing). We all grabbed on to the table and someone sat on the other side again... Disaster averted!
The kids had a great time playing at the park. They had a giant checkers and chess board. The boys made up their own version of the game. Of coarse Nicholas always seemed to be the winner...Occasionally he would let William knock out one of his pieces. Hailey's favorite part was swinging and playing in the dirt.
It was really great to get to know some of the cousins a little better. We plan on getting together soon. Especially, since they live a lot closer than we thought. They live right across the street from one of our favorite summer spots... Gene Coulon Beach.
William seemed to take to abby quite well...

Boogaboo!!

Kindergarden Graduation

A surprise treat to ride in for graduation... Our neighbor Logan drove 10 kids to and from the graduation. All the kids looking great in their little suits and dresses.


We were all standing around waiting for the kindergardner graduates to finish getting ready... One of the dad's said, "I'm just worried about Nick! He's already asking the girls how he looks in his clothes." I had to laugh at that... It was exciting watching the kids get ready for graduation. They were so excited to get to ride in a limo! Some of the parents were talking about how this was an early picture of what prom was going to be like. I didn't want to think about that... That is still so far away!
Inside the limo... They had a blast with all their friends laughing and making lots of noise. Nick said the best part of riding in the limo was... getting to listen to music.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a good picture during the graduation. It was in the gym and the lighting wasn't that great. It was a great program. They sang a few songs. My favorite was the kindergarden song... I tried to have Nick recite it for me later, but he said he didn't remember all of it.
Here is a few of his friends... Dylan, Tera, and Riley. This was his classroom and his assigned seat through out the year.
This was his wonderful teacher Mrs.Udstuen. She did a great job with all the kids this year. She also did a great job with the graduation program. Congratulations Nicholas!! You will soon be a first grader... His words "Only three months until first grade...I can handle that!"