Home Sweet Home

Last night, we pulled into the driveway after a week-long trip to California. We had sooo much fun...Legoland was a big hit with our children, we loved Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, enjoyed scrumptious meals cooked up by Nana (especially our Thanksgiving feast...yummm), had a blast celebrating Micah's 5th birthday, practically ate up our newest niece Wren (it was especially cute watching her & Gabe discover each other...he even sucked on her pinky finger!), and especially appreciated all the time with family and friends (and i'm hoping to add pictures later...could you email me some, Dad?).

While there, my super-talented SIL Wendy took some beautiful pictures for us. It amazes me that she is such a wonderful mother to her 2 kiddos & has also managed to create a successful side-photography-business this past year, Blue Lily. Anyway, here's a sample:


You can find more here.

As a side-note, our cat Creamie is FAT, thanks to my ingenious plan for her during our vacation. To save our neighbors the hastle of having to shoo her into the garage each night, i placed two LARGE stainless steel mixing bowls out there. i filled one with cat food; the other with water, adding a 2x4 for her scratching pleasure, and making sure her cat box was filled. Then i shut her in the garage & drove off for 10 days of sun & relaxation. Clint & i expected to catch a glimplse of a wild-eyed cat charging out the door of the garage when we pushed the button on the opener. But she just slowly meandered out, about twice the size we left her. i'm glad she's alive & well, but i think it's time for a diet now!

Caught in the Act

I walked into the living room because I was curious why Jonah was reading aloud. This is what I found:


I guess it's hard to find an audience around here. And I guess Gabe's pretty lucky to have such a sweet older brother! He was captivated.

We were bored

...so I transformed little Miss Autumn Mae into a piggy with a piece of Scotch tape

and she built houses of straw, wood & bricks using our dining room table and a few quilts


then we re-enacted the story of The 3 Pigs.

Who needs theme parks!? :)

Happy Halloween!

i love TJ Maxx Halloween costumes! That's where i picked up Micah's knight outfit. They all had a ton of fun dressing up (well, maybe Gabriel was oblivious to his cuteness.)




ok, so maybe our dragon's not so scary after all.


jonah wore this as a newborn. It was fun to see Gabriel in it this year.


Like, are you gonna eat those tots?

Autumn & Micah's jack-o-lanterns. (a straight piece melted off the bottom one, which was Micah's...my fault.)

Jonah carved his all by himself this year. How fun!

Clint's Frankenstein jack-o-lantern...what a masterpiece! i was impressed!!

The little ones had fun during the day when we went trick-or-treating at the grocery store. Papa Murphy's also gave them free mini-pizzas...a surprise when we went in to buy a Jack-o-Lantern pizza to make for dinner. Jonah got to play games at school with the other first-graders, and Clint kicked off his new ultra-strict school term (the kids were taking advantage of his lax policies, so he's laying down the law). Apparently, a student snuck behind him during class to post this bumper sticker on his desk:

pretty funny.

Hope your halloween was loads of fun, too!