A BIG day!

 I am a new Auntie to a baby niece.  My sister, Kalin, had a baby girl this morning; Leila 6lb. 3ozs.  We are very excited and the kids made "Happy Birthday Leila" signs.  We can't wait to meet her.

 After a rainy soccer morning, we got to go to a Halloween party!  We have Spiderman, Snow White and Cinderella.  They were bouncing off the walls, raring to go!  (They really didn't want to smile for this pic).

 Kent and I borrowed some friend's costumes and we were set.  Last year we went to the same party and we were the ONLY grown-ups not dressed up.  This year I was grateful that Stephanie let me borrow some outfits.....however, ONLY the host and hostess were dressed up.  The best part was Kent's face as families kept walking in and NO ONE had costumes on.  Two of my friends thought the best part of the night was seeing Kent dressed up.  :)  They don't really know that he is a "wild and crazy guy!" 

Thanks for a great time Chris and Jackie! 

A Little Adventure

First of all, who can help me with my header pic?  It is HUGE, I can't figure out how to change the size. 

Last night I had my book club.  We read "Half-Broke Horses" by Jeannette Walls.  It was wonderful, this is also the author who wrote "The Glass Castle".  I liked "The Glass Castle" better, but the other one is def. worth the read.  Anywho.....last night at book club I was telling them a story and I forgot to put it on my blog about Green Bluff.....

After our glorious apple picking and pumpkin looking, Kent and I decided to take a different way home.  It was a beautiful day and we didn't have anything on the agenda (for once).  We took off in the opposite direction of where we had come from.  We ran in to TONS of traffic that was heading to the Harvest House, after 30-40 minutes of waiting in a traffic jam (where we were perfectly content, the kids not so much), we started winding our way around the beautiful hills.  We kept driving and driving and the kids kept asking, "Where are we going?  When are we going to be home?"  I know all of you moms and dads can picture it.

 I kept saying, "We're having fun, we are just going for a drive." 
"Yeah, but WHEN are we going to get there?"

 After about another 45 minutes to an hour we had turned onto a gravel road, which was our only choice at that point, and realized that it indeed was a dead end.  You would think that if there were school bus stop signs it would continue to go through, it was when we saw school bus turnaround that we knew it was probably a done deal.  At this point, as we were turning around, the girls had fallen asleep (YAY)  and Brayden was near tears with panic.  Can you tell we don't do too many spontaneous things around here?  B seriously thought something tragic was happening because we were just driving to nowhere!  I had to keep reassuring him that we were having fun and we were going on an "adventure!"

 Thus, this is how my opening ties into this rambling.  In "The Glass Castle" they are constantly going on adventures, there whole life is one, big, long adventure.  I have decided that my insistence on a scheduled day/life, and constantly having to be on time or early, with everything written on the calendar may need to become a little more lax.  My husband may need to stop making spreadsheets of daily activities.  :)  (gasp now Kent).  I have to say, with three small children it is VERY necessary to be organized and always have a plan of attack, but I am really going to try to take it as it comes, and try to have more ADVENTURES, maybe then my kids won't fall asleep and/or start crying.  :)

P.S.  We ended up going home the same way we got there.  There is no through road that goes East from Green Bluff.  None that we could find anyway, but I am still counting it as a successful adventure.

Fall Days!

Fall is by far my favorite season!  I love the beautiful leaves, the crisp air, the sun shining (but me not sweating), new cute boots, sweaters, hats, scarves, AND the kids are in school. :) Plus I love, love pumpkin flavored everything: coffee, donuts, bread, cake, pie, crisp.

This morning was a perfect Fall day to visit Green Bluff!  We loaded up the van and headed North.  We stopped at Walter's Farm.  We checked out pumpkins, apples, the wiggly worm, animals, pies, cider, mazes, who knew there was so much to do?  Kent has lived in Spokane for almost his whole 35 years of existence and this was his first trip there!  I went on Brayden's pre-school field trip for the last 3 years, so I already knew how gorgeous it was up there!  Luckily today it wasn't windy and the sun was shining bright!

Pumpkin patch

Apple orchard

We picked Granny Smith apples so I can make apple crisp.

 There wasn't a ladder in the orchard where we were picking and all of the lower apples had been picked. 

 Good thing you don't need too many apples for apple crisp.

Happy Fall everyone!  Kent just made cheese chowder, I better get started on the crisp, what a perfect Fall, Sunday evening!

2 hours and 15 minutes!

2 hours and 15 minutes, two mornings a week these two darlings go to pre-school! Which means I have 4 and a half hours a week by MYSELF! Well, technically I will be working one of those mornings, BUT the other morning I can be all by MYSELF, if I so choose. :) Oh yeah, they had a great first day, they love school and Ms. Jenny! But I already knew that would be the case. :) Elizabeth First day of pre-school!

Danielle

Homework already!

Decorating for Halloween. Making "spiders."

It's a DONE deal!

This stubborn little girl is: Potty trained!

She decided one week ago that she was going to wear panties... end of story, no accidents, like it aint no thang!

Orlando cont'd

Cousins, cousins and more cousins...

EPCOT

Danielle

Ellie and Brayden visiting Mexico at Epcot.

Cocoa beach! Ellie riding the waves!

Swimming in the pool at our pink house in Orlando. Really, we could have done this all day, everyday and the kids would have been THRILLED!

Hollywood Studios

Grandma, Brayden and Uncle Pete

The green army man from Toy Story. He was hilarious, he was standing as still as a statue and jumped out at a girl walking by. I thought she was going to pee her pants, she was so shocked!


Mike, from Monsters Inc. Dani was not a fan of the characters, this was the closest she got on her own.

There was an animation class that taught us how to draw characters. B loved it! First we drew Tigger, then we HAD to go back and we got to draw Donald Duck. Do I see a career in his future?

The Phillips family with Jiminy.

Ellie didn't grow over the weekend, she is still 39 and a half inches tall, just missing the 40 inch mark. She was such a good sport about sitting out on the big rides while everyone else hopped on. While we were waiting, a nice guy from the ride gave her a triceratops mask since she was too little.

The Tree of Life

Tomorrow is our last day here. I am ready to get out of the humidity, but sad to have our vacation be over. The kids have done an amazing job, just a few tears here and there, but honestly I have wanted to have lots of temper tantrums just because of the heat and humidity. Thank goodness the parks have not been too crowded and we haven't had to wait too long in lines. I guess most of the kids are in school, crazy.

In Orlando....

I took my kindergartner out of school for eight days for this... A family reunion in Disney World!

I sat next to these weirdos on the flight out, notice how dark it is, it was 5:30 AM! They did great though!

Water slides at the resort! The kids could have stayed and done this for the entire week! So fun! (Thanks Saundra and Jason, we had a blast)!

We bypassed this Chinese place for lunch, but I had to laugh, not sure what they are implying here.

Downtown Disney and Buzz! (We missed you Shelby).

Downtown Disney, so much to see!

Goofy's candy shop! Grandma bought some deliciousness. Rice crispy treat, with milk chocolate, M&Ms and white chocolate drizzled on top. A little bit of heaven!

Kent wanted to borrow Brayden's hat for a while, so handsome!

Aiden and Ethan came to visit us at the condo!

Magic Kingdom! The crane kind of detracts from the majestic view, but we still loved it!

Cruising down Main Street.

On Splash mountain! Brayden was very concerned!

Brayden and Ellie. Danielle has not been near any of the characters yet. She stands a fair distance away, or lets me hold her while standing next to them.

In jail with Zurg!

We are having tons of fun! So much fun that we are all totally exhausted and worn out. We still have FIVE more days of fun ahead of us. We have seen lots and visited with lots of family. I think I may use this blog to prove to Brayden's teacher that it IS a family reunion and I am totally justified in taking him out of kindergarten for 8 days! (She didn't have a problem with it, it's my guilty conscience, but we are having too much fun to feel bad about it)!

There will be more posts to come....so many pics. to share!