Life with our little family of 3...

I can't believe it's been 2 months since my last post! These last several weeks have been so busy that I just haven't made the time to update. This morning I realized I really needed to update since the last picture I posted was of Emma's pumpkins! As you can see we've been busy! Enjoy!

Emma was able to fulfill a dream again this year by dancing in The Nutcracker. Even better was that she got her dream role of a party girl! When she found out that she was a party girl, she said Ms. Stephanie must have read her mind! It was a crazy, busy but fun week! This year I was more involved backstage so I was able to see everything that goes into a production like that. It was beyond what I could have imagined! Everything from making costumes, to moving them to the theater, to setting up, to fixing costumes, making more costumes during the production to cleaning everything up! Let alone all the choreography and dancing! The girls start practicing in September. Emma had a rehearsal almost every weekend from the end of September until the production in mid-December! But it all paid off because she did a fabulous job! Emma is to the far right running to the party.  I cried at this point when I realized she was first to dance right behind Clar...

We participated in our Fire Department's Santa Sleigh again this year. The Santa Sleigh is part of our Giving Tree Project. For this portion of the project, the fire department takes Santa, some firefighters and a fire engine to our local neighborhoods to collect non-perishable food. For the Giving Tree portion, we adopt families with our local elementary school. We then divide the food we collected to give to the families. We also shop for gifts for each of the families. It's such a great project! We are able to provide food for several weeks as well as new clothes and toys for the families. This year we were very fortunate that we didn't have any rain the first week of our Santa Sleigh. However we weren't so lucky the second week. It down poured on us! Poor Santa got soaked! So much so that the kids couldn't sit on his lap when they visited since he was soaking wet! Despite the rain, we had a great turnout!  Merry Christmas to all! An...

We had a great, relaxing Thanksgiving this year with family and friends. We had gpa, the Hs and Alan come hangout for a day of food, football, food, shopping the ads and friendship! This year Emma made her "famous" fruit salad. Robert made his Sausage Dressing.  Sammy found himself a friend. He loved Alan the minute he sat down! He jumped on his lap and rubbed his face all over him. Then laid down for his 37th nap of the day!  Yummy! 

It's hard to believe Emma has reached a turning point with no going back...double digit #10. She is growing up so fast. She is quickly changing before our eyes. This year she invited 10 girls to spend the night for her 10th birthday. That would mean we would have 11 girls + 2 adults sharing ONE bathroom! Yikes! I was a crazy night but fun was had! 10 girls in one little living room getting ready to watch "McKenna".  Even Mac made himself comfy!                 After! Phew!  All ready to go!  Happy Birthday Emma!

It's that time of year again! Pumpkin time! We brought home some pumpkins from the fire department's safety day. So we had a little fun with them! Emma was really into her pumpkin this year. She drew out the picture first. Then she got to work. It's a very cute, happy guy! I found a cool design on Pinterest that I just couldn't resist! No it's not a pirate... it's a Minion from Despicable Me! :-)

Our family assisted with the fire department for it's annual Fire Prevention Week Safety Day. It was a day filled with popcorn, hot dogs and fun activities! Emma made many, many bags of popcorn for the kids... After all her hard work, she had a little fun with dad... Then she got to demonstrate some rescue equipment... It was a good day watching all the kids visit Sparky, rotate the various stations and enjoy the yummy popcorn Emma made!

We recently attended Cascades Camp's Labor Day Family Camp. We had a good time relaxing and having fun. The camp had great food and lots of activities. They had a guest speaker but after the first night, we decided to skip out on the rest of the sessions and just do family stuff! We took a trail ride together. This was Emma's favorite part! Especially since she got to ride her favorite horse from camp, Maverick!  Emma learned to paddleboard! She did great!  Next time we decided we need to do this in Hawaii!  Robert and Emma took a canoe ride during a couple of the morning sessions. The lake was very quiet and peaceful.  Emma had some "down" time contemplating life. :-)  She was brave and decided to climb to the top of this and jump off!   Then her bravery led her to this...  A 700' long zipline that was over 150' up at some points! (More on this later) There were two 700' lines....

Emma has found a new side of her that loves thrills! We are so proud of her trying new things. She decided she wanted to try the paddleboard at camp. She was almost a natural! Then she decided to step it up a notch and try this... Nothing like seeing your baby fly away dangling over 150' above trees and there isn't anything you can do to help! But she was hooked! And did it a few more times before they closed! You can tell in her face as she comes down the second line how happy she is! I wonder what she'll try next!

I recently purchased a picnic basket for $2.50 at the evil box store. I bought it not for a picnic basket but more of a all purpose carrier. It always seems I need to cart stuff in and out of the car. Such a library books, snacks, etc. I saw this and thought it would be a great way to carry stuff since it was lightweight and cheap! Unfortunately since it was from evil box store, it soon fell apart. I was pretty disappointed since I had high hopes it would be my next greatest thing to make life easier for me! But the cheap plastic "pins" kept popping out which led to the reinforcement stakes to cause the basket to collapse. Which then led to it just being a big pain! Then I had an idea... What it I made it more fun and functional! So it began with this... And then I did this... I poked holes through the bars that kept it upright. Then strung some ribbon through it to help keep it in place. But I didn't stop there... And ta-da! Fun meets f...

I am not sure how in the world I married into a family like this...

We are experiencing some unusually hot weather this week. It's been in the upper 80s to mid 90s. Too hot for us Northwesterners! We decided to head down to our beach to try to stay cool. The kids had a blast! They spent over 6 hours playing in the water!  They swam... Built sandcastles... And worked on perfecting the perfect jump... In order to make the biggest splash... This is what summer is all about!