Fall Leaves

We attempted to take our own family portraits this year with the beautiful fall foliage. We feel bad for our poor families out in Utah and Wyoming who are dealing with a bunch of snow so we thought we'd take advantage of our 60 degree weather in November and take some pictures. We went out before work one day so it was really bright and we just used our little tripod. We found this spot when Adam and I were walking one morning. It happens to be just across from the park on the road to the dump. We got a few strange looks as people drove past us with their pickups full of trash but we didn't mind.

Transportation Museum with Grandma Julie

We had so much fun when Grandma Julie (or Grandma Nana as Charlie started calling her). We went to the lake, drove her up to the transportation museum in Roanoke-(Charlie LOVEs choo-choos), bought some heirloom tomatoes at a street fair and forced her to ride the crooked road to the Mabry Mill. We made a yummy southern dinner complete with corn pudding, collard greens, grits and the tomatoes we bought. It was pretty good for our first time. We loved having her come visit and can't wait until she can come again. The boys got lots of good guy bad guy playing in and were pretty sad when she had to go home. I'll post more pictures once she posts them on shutterfly ;)

September Birthday Fun

At the last minute, we decided to throw Jack a birthday party with a pirate theme. We passed out some invites Sunday and his B-day was tues.

Lots of our friends from the branch came over and we cooked some kiddie Pizzas and popcorn for snacks. We started out the night decorating bandanas, but they couldn't wear them because silly me- I forgot that the fabric paint takes FOREVER to dry. So they all wore them home instead.

Check out the candy flying through the air...

Charlie was in heaven eating and waiting his turn for the Pinata. He went missing during the pinata part and Adam found him in the house polishing off someone's cake they had left on their plate- what a good little cleaner-upper...

Laura was the brave soul to take on the job of holding the stick while the wee blindfolded ones ran around swinging a big stick.

Almost to the end of the treasure hunt...

laura created the cutest poem for the treasure hunt with each verse leading them to the next clue for their pirate treasure. It was a pretty good poem- second only to her gutter poem from the 4th grade.

Blowing out his candles on his pirate cake.

His pirate party was a success. We hid treasures in the sandbox which we are still finding. I hope it was memorable to him- I think it was, he's already asking when he can have a birthday again.

September is a very busy month. the next week, we had Becky's birthday which thanks to packages from Grandmas got to be extended for several days- Thanks Guys- We absolutely love getting packages and mail from you!! I got what I'm pretty sure was my first ever princess party complete with tiaras for everyone!!! (good thing my boys are still young enough to wear tiarras... maybe the next one should be a girl...)

Thank you Dad for all those fun boating trips!

Today I gained a new appreciation for my Dad's 25 plus years as a scout/ youth leader for church. We just got home from taking our young men and young women out for an end of summer boating day. One of my counselors called last minute to say she couldn't get any of the food we needed, so I had to run buy it all not at Sams. We bought a barbeque and barbequed hot dogs for a cookout. Then we went down to Philpott and tubed and kneeboarded. There wasn't enough room so me and the kids had to play on the shore for an hour or two which was totally o.k. with them because they love the beach. I think everyone had a good time. At the end of the night we had one popped tube, one ripped tube (brand new- we bought it for this outing) a broken flag, a broken boat floor, and a rock chip in our van (from a rock someone accidentaly threw). The kids and I rode back to the dock on the popped tube and I can say that I think I now know what an enima feels like- yuck! Then we loaded up to head home, and after what I consider to be a significant sacrifice of time, $, and resources only one youth thought to say thank you as he drove off.

I always thought that my Dad just loved the youth and felt like a kid when he got the privaledge of taking them out on the boat. Yea, his scouts broke stuff occassionally, (like the several vans we went through when I was a kid) and they sometimes did dumn stuff like throw rocks for no good reason, but he loved them like they were his own. I don't think that I ever thanked him enough for taking me out on the boat as a teenager either. I'm starting to think that it might have been more of a sacrifice than I realized at the time- either that or my Dad is a little more Christ-like than I am. Probably both.