Pumpkin Patch

I volunteered to go on the pumpkin patch field trip with Abby's class.  It was a long day as it rained basically the whole time.  At least there was a smelly barn for the kids to play in with a hay maze and slide.  But alas, I survived and I Abby was glad I was there and now all the kids know "Abby's mom".

tractor ride out to the pumpkin patch

Looking for the perfect pumpkin!

Abby's friend Sydney finds one.

Abby finds her pumpkin (they picked little ones because they had to carry them).

The corrugated slide!

Hay there!

Blake Island guys trip

Chad took Jamie, Otto, and Isaac to Blake Island for 2 nights at the beginning of October (crazy huh?). I couldn't have pulled it off but Chad said it went pretty well!

Abby's Ballet class

This year Abby has been taking ballet/tap classes on Tuesdays.  Parents are only allowed to watch on certain days and only from outside the door (it's a really small studio).  So I finally got my chance and took a few photos, she looks so cute in her leotard and skirt!

Sept wrap-up

Wow, September was such a busy month for us.  We started off Labor Day weekend with some work on the house - Chad scraped and repainted the East wall of our house and I peeled off all the wallpaper in the downstairs bathroom.  We had a BBQ on Labor Day and that was a lot of fun to have friends over and entertain as we hadn't had time for that all summer.

Two days later, Jamie started school and Abby had her pre-conference with her new teacher.  Abby started school, then Tristan the next week.  That weekend we decided to do one more day out at the lake (and boy was the water already cold).

The next weekend was pretty easy-going, Tristan had a cold and cough so we let him rest up.  We went to a BBQ after church on Sunday at Evergreen Park.

My birthday came up last weekend and that was a lot of fun and now finally we are coming up on the final weekend of Sept.  I've spent the last two days gathering items for a community Rummage sale down at our church and it feels good to purge so much stuff that we hadn't even used since moving 2 years ago!

What does October hold for us?  Well, Chad comes home from working in Everett today so thankfully he will be here all month! We're having a get together with some old friends this next weekend and maybe doing a few fall portraits with some other friends on Columbus Day.

Chad plans to take Jamie and Otto to Blake Island for their annual guys trip sometime this month. 

Late in October is where it really gets fun (or stressful, depending on how you look at it).  Abby's birthday is the 30th but that's the same day as their school carnival so maybe we will have to do her birthday the weekend before? So we have the school carnival and her birthday, and then Halloween the next day, and then the very next day I am taking Abby to Everett to see Disney on Ice for a girls trip. We will use Chad's hotel points to get a room at the hotel where he stays for work and I'll let her skip school the next day!

So that, combined with the fact that now the downstairs bathroom is only half done and my garden has been neglected for half the summer, it feels like a lot of stuff coming up. Good thing I have a new espresso machine, I'm gonna need it!

On Jamie's first day Tristan insisted that I make him a lunch too so I made one for Abby as well and we had a picnic at the park.

They had train rides in the mall.

Grandma took Tristan on it and he LOVED it!

bowling

We were supposed to go bowling after Silver City on Saturday but since that didn't work out we ended up going on Sunday instead. The kids had a blast. Tristan stood watch over his ball when it wasn't his turn and the most exciting thing for him was waiting and watching for his ball to show back up after bowling it (he could care less how many pins he got down).

They gave us a ramp for Tristan to roll the ball down.

They gave us a 6 lb ball so he could {kinda} carry it.

go!

Jamie got a strike!

The dude.

Tristan's favorite part!

Waiting...

Don't you want to see how many you knock down? Nope!