Playing in the pool

I know it's been hot this time of year before, but honestly I was hoping that the weather we had the beginning of the week (60's, clouds, breezy) was here to stay :( Oh well, what can we do except embrace the 90 degree heat right?
Jess was here with Ethan and Alayna, so Grady and Ethan had a great time playing together! They were both thrilled when Gracie suggested they all play in the water :) They got naked and splashed around and loved putting their heads under the water that Gracie was spraying for them. So cute! If it has to be hot in October, hearing their squeals of joy made of up for it!

Good Neighbors=Yummy treats!!

After being gone all day yesterday with the babies and Hope in Orange county for my sister in laws baby shower, we came home to a sweet treat! Our next door neighbor Ellen and her daughter Taylor were baking for a community bake sale and gave us lots of yummy treats! She brought us over a box filled with rice crispy treats, Carmel apples and a chocolate cake. The rice crispy treats were gone today after church when the kids shared with all the neighbor kids and the Carmel apples got eaten before I made it home last night :(, but the cake is for me. I managed to take a picture before anyone ate it. Not only did everything taste delicious, they wrapped everything up with cute festive cellophane and ribbons, which just made my day!


Thanks Ellen and Taylor for thinking of us and sharing your yummy treats, they were so tasty!!!

Smores

Original post...Dec 3

So, this has become a new family favorite!

Smores!!!

All summer long my kids would ask about doing smores, but it was roasting hot and I was pregnant and tired and Daddy didn't dare brave the smores alone. So once it cooled down we've started doing smores by our fire pit. It's cold outside, but nice to sit by the fire and we all have fun eating a yummy treat.

If your wondering why I only have pictures of Grady...it's because my other kids were white-trash and only in their underwear or looked like complet rag-a-muffins :) So I figured I better not post those pictures, hehe! You can kind of see Gracie off to the side in the first one and Hope's sitting in her panties also...Oops! We live in Yucaipa, what can I say? :)

Smores anyone? Come over anytime, bring a blankie though, it's kinds chilly out!

Treat from Grandma

Original post...Nov 30th
My Grandma is sooo cute! Every time we visit or my folks visit her she has something for my kids...
After spending the afternoon at the park with her, this is what we came home with.

Grandmas are too funny! The kids thought they were great! Thanks Grandma, we love spending time with you!

Thankful

As Thanksgiving approaches I have been thinking of the many things I am thankful for.

Today I am thankful for...
This was the view driving down the mountain from Oak Glen on Monday. We serve an amazing God who blesses us abundantly with His beauty all around us.

Fall fun

Having everyone home has been enjoyable. It has been really nice to enjoy my Mauma and her company. She was acting silly :)We haven't really had much on our to do list which has been nice, so today we decided to do a fall craft. So if you want something to do with your kids, here is a simple and fun fall craft. All you need is 3 things...

1. Pine cones

2. Peanut Butter

3. Bird seed

and ta-da this is what you get...a home made bird feeder!

I've had these pine cones sitting around for over a year and finally decided to put them to use. The kids really enjoyed it. Be prepared though, it gets kind of sticky :) I covered my table with newspapers so when we were done all we had to do was wrap everything up and the mess was nearly gone, minus the bird seed on the floor! All we need to do now is add a hook (Christmas tree hooks work great) and some ribbon and they are ready to go. We plan on giving them to Grandma's to hang on their patios for the birds to feed on.

I wasn't brave enough to let Grady participate, but he had fun sitting in his high chair eating green beans and watching the other kiddos.

Thanksgiving Kindergarten style

Today Hope had a Thanksgiving program in her class. All of the kids were divided into groups, so that each of them were a pilgrim boy or girl, an Indian boy or girl or a turkey; she was an Indian girl. It was funny this am when I was doing her hair for school, she wanted me to put her hair in "long black braids". he he! I had to explain that her hair was neither black not long, but I could do some braids with some bows and that was good enough for her. :)

She was excited to see us all...me the baby boys, my parents and Mauma all went to see her and then after their program, we had some "pilgrim" snacks like popcorn, pumpkin bread & apple cider. Her entire class was sooo cute and very excited to share. Kindergartners are so much fun!

Grady wanted to wear Hope's costume and thought he was "hot stuff", he's so cute! :)

Mauma's here

My dearest Mauma flew in today from Tennessee! The boys and I drove to LAX to get her. Zach made this sign for her!

I have been very close with my Dad's mom ever since I can remember. When I was in high school(my parents moved to Yucaipa my sophomore year) and in college until I got married, I lived with her, just she and I. We had endless chats and she took very good care of me. A few years back her boyfriend of 8 years died & she decided to move to Tennessee to be close to my aunt and her family. We talk weekly, but it's not the same. It has been over a year since she was here last and that's far tooo long. She's here with us until December 4.

We are so glad she's here and looking forward to being together and my kids getting to really get to know her.

Trick-or-Treat

The kids love getting all dressed up for Halloween. I have to admit, although I hate how much candy they get, it is sooo much fun to see them all dressed up in their cute costumes. (Wesley is cowboy,hehe!) We got all dressed up and headed to Trinity Church for their Halloween Happenin'. There was so much for the kids to do, booths to play games, food to eat, face painting, a cake walk, a treat trail, a magic show, live music and plenty of candy to be eaten. We met my parents there and they provided some reinforcement for the troops :) We saw lots of friends there too! After over an hour we decided to head home(it turns into a zoo).

Hope and Grady both got their faces painted and Hoper was excited because the painting lady was dressed as Minnie Mouse too!

Zach and Grace wanted to stay for the magic show and Hope wanted to trick-or-treat in our neighborhood, so the big kids stayed with Nana & Papa and the other 5 of us made our way down our street for Hope to trick-or treat.

Zach is Darth Vader. He was upset though, because he didn't have a light "saver" hehe!Gracie is Sharpey from High School Musical. Not very many adults knew who she was, but the kids did. Like the hand motion? Jamesy was encouraging her to pose :)Minnie Mouse...need I say more? She is sooo cute. I had to make her ears at the last minute because the Disney store was sold out (I made a trip to Inland Center after checking on online and seeing they still had them in stock. Only to find out that the online system doesn't accurately portray their stock. Arggh!), but they turned out pretty cute. Thank goodness for hot glue guns :)This puppy says, "woof, woof" or "CoCo" (our dog's name is CoCo) depending on when you ask him. He was a little taller than I had thought, but I guess I should know that...look how his shoes totally hang out the bottom. Oh well, he was cute anyway.

It was a fun night for us all and ended with WAY too much candy! I think we've mastered the candy divvying though. Once we are home, we dump every one's bag onto the floor and start to sort it. Each kid then gets to choose as many pieces as they are old, so Zach got to choose 8 pieces, Gracie 6, Hoper 4 and Grady 1! I'm sure at some point they'll beg for more, but for now it works:) Last year we then dumped the remainder of the candy into our bowl and handed it all out ! This year we didn't have our light on, so we now have a bowl full of candy that I'm sure James & I will eat too much of! :)

Hope you all had a fun night!

Happy Halloween

We decided to bake some Halloween treats!

I'm sure after tonight I'll have lots more pictures to share...

Our small group annual Hallo-Wii party

Last night was our small group Hallo-Wii party at the Odenbaugh's house. We all got dressed up and enjoyed hanging out, dinner and a little Wii, only this year we pretty much skipped the Wii. Just in case you were wondering what each of our costumes were...Megan was an 80's chick, Jeff was a 50's chick, Carmen was an Asian princess (Mulan?), The O's were Tarzan and Jane and JT was their monkey :), Matt & Jess were gangsters, I was a pirate chick and James was my prisoner. Oh...we brought CoCo and she was a queen. I'll have to take her picture with her costume on. Below is all us girls.

The boys...Tarzan with his prized monkey :) Here's Jeffy holding our little ghost Wesley :)

We always have a such a fun time getting to dress up, plus Leighann made yummy dinner and dessert with hot apple cider, oh and she gave us each little treats. (Thanks, Leighann)

Now onto the kid Halloween on Friday. I think we're headed to Trinity for Halloween Happening, but we'll see. I'll take lots of pictures I'm sure! Until then...Enjoy the festivities!

The happy little pumpkin

Jess and Ethan were over so we thought we'd try my pumpkin & hay backdrop out and get some pics...haha! Ya right! Ethan wanted nothing to do with it and I think I might have instilled a fear of pumpkins in him for years to come :) Sorry Buddy!

Take a look...

Cute pumkin

Want to see a cute pumkin? Visit sugarpiepics.blogspot.com!

Hope's first fieldtrip

Riley's Farm...well, really it was at Los Rios, but Riley's owns and operates it, as it has for years. Anyway, Hope was excited that no other kids got to go, just baby Wesley :) She was so cute and wanted to hold my hand and proud that I was with her on her field trip.

We learned all about apples, made apple cider (This is the cider press they use to make fresh cider. The kids each got to put in apples, they got peeled and pressed and poured into a gallon jug to make yummy fresh apple cider! Mmmm!)and picked pumpkins in the patch. We even got to meet Johnny Apple Seed :) It was funny to hear the questions they had for the 24o year old man...hehe! They really thought it was him, too funny.

I absolutely love old barns. I love how this picture turned out!

Going up to Oak Glen reaaly makes it seem like fall, even though it was roasting down the hill! I'm looking forward to taking everyone else up there too. We love picking apples at Riley's and getting cider donuts at Snowline. I love fall or autumn as Jess would say :) Enjoy whatever little bit of fall you can!