Halloween and Snow!

Well, I'm starting with pictures from a week ago...our first snow. As I'm writing this, it's snowing again. A little nastier this time. We have a birthday party planned for Mac tomorrow night, and he was praying that it wouldn't snow so they could play outside. However, the weather man is right and we'll have to come up with some indoor games. Here goes...


Our first snow last Wednesday. We started our day with breakfast at McDonalds. Our family tradition to go out for breakfast on the first day of snow. We didn't have much time for more than McDonalds...maybe next year.


Elly in the snow with her two buddies that I watch Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, Eli and Mia.


Carving pumpkins. Mac's template is on the wall.


The finished product!


The kid's in their costumes with a crazy camera setting. Mac's a wizard...but not Harry Potter, 'cause everybody's Harry Potter (sometimes he's a little too original for me!), Nate is hockey player and Elly a nice warm, pink butterfly.


Met up with our friends for a great Halloween night of catching up and trick-or-treating. Notice Nate's roller blades.


Nate rollerbladed the whole time and was a sweaty mess by the time we were done.


Today is our lull day between Halloween and Mac's B-day. It was spent raking leaves before the storm hit and blowing up balloons, which is what Sam is doing now. Mac remembered waking up to balloons on his bed and thought it would be fun if that happened again. :) I'd better go help...

Hope you all had a happy Halloween!

Life since the first day of school

So my goal is to have more frequent posts with less pictures...but right now that's not happening. I have to say, my blog is one of the first things to go when I get busy. Hopefully that will change. Here's some times from early September...


We headed to Colorado Springs over Labor Day for the annual hot air balloon festival


Always a favorite to walk amidst the balloons


...and eat donuts. Mac, Nate and Elly with the Ballard boys.


The Ballards. The kids have a hard time comprehending that we can drive to see their cousins, but still can't just hop over every day.




I think Nate spends 50% of his awake time with a helmet on these days between skateboarding and biking. He's trying to perfect his ollie right now. Not always with a snake in hand though...


Of course, Elly needed her turn to hold the little guy. This was around 7 in the morning. Nate and Elly are always ready to play. I'm pretty sure Mac was still in bed at this point!


We had a birthday...


Nate didn't understand why daddy didn't have a party when he has friends. I told him that it's not as a big of a deal for parents to have parties...although it also made me think Sam does deserve a party...so maybe his wife can get on that sometime!


Elly and I went to a dairy farm with my friend Meaghan and her two boys. I'm excited to be doing things that are more for Elly's age. I did all that with the boys, but Elly has been overlooked for stuff the boys like now. It's good to be having time with just Elly and focusing on her for a bit.


Watch out Elly. The goat liked to chew on her coat.


Elly and the cows

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Finn and Elly have a great time together. Even talking to cows...


These mama cows pump a lot of milk!


Puddles are hard to lay off of... Check out more dairy farm pics by my fabulous photographer friend, Meaghan's blog.


We went camping this past weekend and the boys came home from school on Thursday to find a canoe on our truck. Mac immediately recruited his brother and sister to catch worms for fishing. Darn cute...except the boys always have homework to finish up on Thursdays. I love watching the boys work together, so for me, boys catching worms for a fishing trip easily trump spelling words and the homework routine I'm trying to establish. We had a late night of homework after the sun went down...


How's this one look for size?


I'd like to say this was the end product, but the boys were sure they could get hundreds more.



We did go camping this past weekend and had a great time. The kids kept busy making a fort, fishing, canoeing and riding bikes. The adults hung around the fire as much as we could because it was cold and raining all day the first day. It was miserable enough that I didn't want to get my camera out of my pocket and hand out of a glove. Hopefully I'll have pictures from others to post soon though, because it was beautiful and we did have a great time...despite the weather.