Farewell Pumpkin Spiders

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!! I love this time of year. I had to take a picture of Nathan & Hannah's punpkin spiders before I put them away until next Fall. They had SO much fun making them. We went to Michael's with the McDaniel Girls and completed them at home (thanks Deanna for lending the supplies) and they were so proud to have created these pumpkins. But now we are making way for Christmas and going to get our tree soon!

Here and Now

Here we are now. Wow - 7 years and 3 kids later. Where does the time go? It just hit me the other day, 7 years!! We need to cherish every minute with these kids while they are kids. Prelude to a New Year's Resolution I think! So we had a nice anniversary dinner. We wanted to go out and enjoy dinner and a movie alone, but there wasn't anything in the theaters that we just HAD to see, so we decided to just go out as a family. We had dinner at Tahoe Joes - our FAVORITE place to eat. We snapped a few pictures with our new camera. (yay for after Thanksgiving Sales!)

4 Score and 7 Years Ago

Minus the 4 Score . . . here we were.

Happy Anniver-
sary Babe.

NOT Waterproof

I was hoping my camera would "air out" and be fine, but it was not. I did, however, manage one last picture. . . .

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We are thankful that each of you are a part of our lives. We had a lazy morning and ended up over at Royce's grandma's house (G.G. and Aunt Mary's) and had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner. Turkey and Pie followed by some hot tub time and then...the demise of my camera. But that's OK, we have much to be thankful for.

Forts and Mud Painting

I think the kids had a fun week "off" this past week. I was worried about Thanksgiving vacation because Nathan loves school so much. He kept asking what day it was. We filled the week up with parks, play dates, building forts and painting with mud, plus a little relaxing and a lot of reading. Fortunately for Nathan, we got to play with his friend Avery (a girl he is particularly fond of) for two mornings in a row. Above are a few pictures from the week.

I just love this face

Found this picture from when we went to the State Fair in Sept.

Sam & Erin

If you've been around us at all since July, then you probably know right away who Sam & Erin are. If not, you can update yourself by clicking my first Blog Link to the right. Now that I'm caught up to November with this blog, I am looking at the only other photos I have uploaded right now. A trip to Palo Alto that I took with my step-mom, Debbie and aunts Jan & Karen. A lovely woman by the name of Karen made an awesome quiche luncheon in honor of Erin. We drove down and spent time with this amazing woman who married my cousin Sam. I hope she doesn't mind me sharing all of these photos, I will have to ask! There's a picture of several of us in the kitchen of the house where Erin is staying. That wall is a wall of refrigerators! Pictured are my aunt Jan, Aunt Karen, Erin, aunt Kelley (Sam's mom), Debbie and then myself. Below are some random shots of the day as well as a picture of the huge house where Erin is staying and the walk back to the hospital across the street to continue visiting with Sam. When I think of Sam and our visit this day, what comes to mind is a verse that goes something like, "He who began a good work in you, will complete it." I know that is not in the right context, and someone will have to tell me where that is, but I think of it because God is working mightily in Sam & Erin. Love you both.

Halloween 2007

This year, we chose to go up to Christ Community Church's Fun Fall Fest and Trunk or Treat. It was a lot of fun. A lot of people though. The kids played a ton of games for candy and then we went through the Trunks and they were really neat! Afterwards, we drove to our final destination: Grammy & Papa's house, which is tradition, and had our family picture taken (above) and they were happy to see the kids in costume. Below are some more pictures from the night! Checkin' out the loot! We had one big candy bag this year to split between the three.

Costume Parties

Nathan and Hannah both had parties at school for Halloween and dressed up. Below are pictures from both classes. The other Snow White is my friend Audrey's daughter, Faith. Hannah's friend Esther was Dora the Explorer, but she's hiding behind Hannah in the first picture. Nathan's class did a parade throughout all of the classrooms. The Kindergarten were the only ones allowed to dress up on campus. Thank you Tracy & Dave (Avery's parents) for taking great pics of Venom/Nathan for me!!

The Pumpkin Farm

Right before Halloween, we had our annual Pumpkin Farm day (3rd year in a row, I believe). We love the Pumpkin Farm on Auburn Blvd. because it's just down the street from us. We did a train ride, a hay ride, fed the goats, went through the cornstalk maze, played on the pyrimid of hay and some of us went down the slides and through the haunted barn. We also looked at tons of pumpkins and scarecrows. I captured a few of these moments in the pictures below.

How about this big one Dad?OK, this one'll do.

Cute Cousins!

Also in October: Well we spent the day at Jeff & Lisa's house, had dinner, the kids had a blast and then we threw them all (yes, all 5!) in the tub. We hadn't planned on that, so we borrowed some jammies. Here are a couple of adorable kiddos in jammies and spiffy & clean! From left to right we have Preston (1), Jackson (2), Lincoln (4), Hannah (3) & Nathan (5). We should have switched Hannah & Lincoln and then they would have been standing in order of their age. It was tough to get them all to look though, so I'm lucky to have gotten this shot before my camera battery ran out. :)

Dewey's Fall Festival

In October, we also attended the Fall Festival at Nathan's school. It was quite an event! Near the end it got a little hectic. We were able to get a nice polaroid of the family (I'll try to scan in later) and the kids played all kinds of games for tickets and won prizes. Here are just a couple of pictures, though not really good ones, to document the event.

Hannah's First Field Trip

We went to the Pumpkin Farm with Hannah's preschool. It's kind of a blur and she was pretty tired, but I do have a couple pictures to show we did it! Here she is with her good friend, Esther and one of their teachers. Below that one she is sitting at the snack table. Esther had already gone home, but her friends "Lilah" and "Tayla" (Delilah & Mikayla McDaniel) are just down the table from her.

Preston at the Park

Mid-October: I took the kids to the park to play one Sunday afternoon (to get away from football for a little while). I hadn't taken any pictures of Preston swinging yet, I think his first time I didn't have the camera or something. So here he is and he LOVES it!!