Abby's birthday

Abby's birthday party

Abby decided to have a Candyland birthday party this year.  Her birthday was on a half-day at school so we just had a few of her friends over for the afternoon.  

We used balloons and wrapping paper tubes to make giant lollipops.

Chad made holders for them out of scrap wood!

We also made our own candy land trail and we used the cards out of the game to let the kids play with themselves as the game pieces.

Gingerbread man jello jigglers.

Decorations!

And more decorations!

I had a candy station setup so that the kids could fill up their goodie bags before leaving.

And this was the prize bucket - the kids picked out a prize as they each finished the game.

My hard candy decorations :)

 

And for the grand finale - cake!

The kids completely demolished the cake after I was done serving.

For dinner we had over mom and dad and Abby got to open up her presents from the family.

Fun things from Sydney!

Tristan can't wait to see.

A Boogie board from Grandma!

A bike from mom and dad :)

Sept and Oct misc

For my birthday this year Chad and I spent the night at the Clearwater Casino after dancing to some great live music from New Jack City. The next day Chad helped me to make pizza for dinner and mom and dad brought over an angel food cake for dessert.

While Jamie was visiting Carrie, Jason, Sydney and Makenzie in Texas the rest of the family took a mini boat trip to Poulsbo.  The only problem was that Tristan came down with croup and mom and dad had to come and pick him and I up so that we could go to the ER (everywhere else was closed).  They quickly got us in and after a chest x-ray to rule out pneumonia, they gave him a dose of steroids and sent us home.  I took him home that night with a new humidifier and the next morning he was doing much better.  After picking up his prescription, we headed back out to Poulsbo to see Abby and Chad. After lunch I left with the kids while dad helped Chad bring our boat home!

It was a beautiful day so we took a walk down the boardwalk.

In the middle of September Chad had to take a business trip to Japan.  Here are some pictures from his walk to the plum grove.

Tristan and I took the ferry and lightrail to meet Chad at the airport.

One Friday evening Jamie and I built a vinegar and baking soda rocket with a kit he had gotten last Christmas.  On Saturday morning, we took it to the school field to try and get it to take off. Kristy, Pat, Lulu and Ruby were with us to watch too!

On the first try I got baking soda and vinegar all over me.  On the second try I held the rocket sideways but the pressure still blew the stopper right out!

Finally Chad got the thing to go up a few feet (a far cry from the 100 ft that the box proclaimed)

Kristy and the other kids stood back.

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Dad and the kids during a Monday night football game.

Pat helped Chad take the boys (Jamie, Tristan, Otto, and Isaac) on a guys trip to Blake Island.  Sounds like it was an, er, interesting time.

 the ferry at night

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Jamie was in a class play (he's far right) as the narrator (in Spanish)

Tristan was thrilled to take his big brother to the airport.  He was not so thrilled when he couldn't get on the plane with him.  Jamie had a great time and did great on the plane by himself.  Read more about his trip here: http://www.sydkad.com/blog/jamie-visits

 

Halloween

Halloween seems to sneak up on us each year since Abby's birthday is the day before. We had yet to even buy our pumpkins so when the kids got home from school we went searching for pumpkins. Apparently, that is no easy task on Halloween day. Safeway was out of pumpkins. Midtown market had a few but they looked small and terrible. Finally QFC had a bunch still out and they were only a $1 each - score! So we started carving our pumpkins and when Chad got home he helped out too. I was a mean mom and stuck Tristan's hand into the guts of the pumpkin. I was just trying to tease him but he started to cry and I felt terrible. After the pumpkins were out we ate dinner and got the kids dressed up. Chad went trick-or-treating with them while I stayed home for other trick-or-treaters. After that we took the kids to see great Grandma and finally onto Grandma's house where we got lots of candy and yummy popcorn balls.

Jamie and Abby were dressed up for costume day at school - Jamie wanted to be lawyer and Abby wanted to just dress-up fancy.  They chose to wear these things instead of their real costumes because they were more comfortable and because they aren't allowed to wear any capes or hoods or accessories to school.

You can see Tristan's little "sweet" tattoo that he got at Abby's birthday party.

Rapunzel

Jedi Knight

Dinosaur monster again this year (don't know what we'll do next year when this doesn't fit him anymore!)