The Pumpkin Patch

What is Fall without a visit to the pumpkin patch? The kids had a blast seeing all the animals and picking out pumpkins. BJ was his crazy little self and ran around giving all the pumpkins hugs. And chasing the chickens around. And trying to climb into the calf pen. And not coming out of the hay house. Okay, okay, enough about him. It was such a beautiful day, and we came home with a pile of pumpkins to eat and carve. We carved them a bit early this year since we are going to spend Halloween in San Diego! I'm sure I'll have a lot to post about when we get back.

I just remembered...

One more thing that I forgot to mention in the last post. The little incident of the crickets. Oh yes, the crickets that I had just bought for our lizard, released into my bedroom. Fun fun!

Here comes trouble

A good portion of my day lately is spent chasing around this little munchkin. He really likes to get into trouble-- way more than Ammon or Talia ever did. Just a sampling of what he's done lately: Bitten the tip off of a purple marker (see above), dumped a cup of flour into the dishwasher, climbed into the dryer, climbed down into the window well, stolen and lost all the kids' toothbrushes and toothpaste, left the phone off the hook many times, lost my credit card that he stole out of my purse, climbed behind the computer and gotten tangled in the cords, eaten plenty of cat food (can crawl thru the cat door,) pulled all the stuffing out of one of my stool covers, thrown half a box of apples down the stairs (one apple at a time,) and others that I just can't think of right now. He is the busiest little boy I have ever known. Thank the heavens that he still takes naps!

How I know when I've been too slack with the housework

Ammon says to me "Mom, why are you cleaning? Is someone coming over?"

Ahhhh... isn't she cute?

This is a picture of Talia about a year and a half ago. I put her to bed in a t-shirt and diaper, and this is what I found when I peeked into her room. It cracked me up! (There's no diaper on under that shirt, by the way.) Anyway, I am entering this photo for a contest at http://www.5minutesformom.com/4380/win-a-new-bedroom-set/ I like the Lily Rose set, and Sissy really needs a new bed (she won't even sleep in her current one.) I really tried to get a recent picture of her sleeping, but she would wake up just before the flash!

Oktoberfest

Okay, so it looks a little like a pumpkin, and looks quite large, but actually it's a tomato! I was playing with my new camera. Yea! Finally a new camera! Now I just need to get used to using it more often.

After a nice cold rainy day at Oktoberfest in downtown Longview, we decided to get ice cream. Needless to say, the kids were a little excited, which is when I remembered to get the camera out. Here are my goofy ice cream eaters:

Extreme Bathroom Makeover-- Moore edition

BEFORE: (Husband not included)

(Okay, so the toilet wasn't really in the tub-- we had just moved it there to do demo on the floor.)

AFTER:

The missing tooth

Ammon's tooth was hanging by a thread for about a week. He really wanted it to fall out at school so he could get put on some special list and get a little container for his tooth, but wouldn't pull it out. We finally threatened that if he didn't do it the next day, we would pin him down and pull out the tooth. So the next day when I picked him up, he says, "Mom, there's good news and bad news. The good news is, I lost my tooth at school. The bad news is, I LOST my tooth at school!" Oh dear. The special container didn't stay closed at recess. So I told him that maybe if he wrote the tooth fairt a letter and explained what happened, she might be able to find his tooth and would still give him the money. So he wrote this letter:
It says, "Dear Tooth Fairy, My tooth fell out, but I lost it on the playground at Columbia Heights school. You can keep this tooth case." I guess the tooth fairy was feeling generous because he got his 50 cents.

It's a miracle

It's weeks before Halloween, and I have already had the kids costumes all ready for this year for a couple of weeks (in September!) It will probably never happen again. The costumes in the picture are from last year, by the way. I haven't gotten pictures of this year's yet.

A little catching up

I feel like I've fallen off the blogging bandwagon lately.  Maybe it's that nothing exciting is going on, or just that I'm  not keeping up with it all right now.  I'm tired of feeling behind.  And then there are distractions such as the book I'm reading-- "The Host" by Stephanie Meyer.  That's kept me up a few late nights so I'm tired, too.

Anyway, not a lot of interest has happened around here.  I guess that's a good thing.   Sissy had a renal ultrasound and it was all normal.  We have taken her off the antibiotics to see how she does. So far so good.  We've been drinking a lot of cranberry juice.  

Ammon had his first sleepover!  His friends that live a few houses down wanted him to come over to sleep in their tree fort.  We said no because we don't even know the kids parents.  But we allowed them to sleep here in the tent in the back yard.   It was a bit crazy, but they had a lot of fun.  He is doing great in school-- the only hitch we've had is the PE teacher calling us because he wouldn't do curl-ups.  He doesn't like to lay on his back and look up at the high ceiling (he's got a bit of agorophobia.)  Sissy is loving every minute of preschool.  It's working out great for Julie and I to trade off babies as well so we can have a couple hours kid-free to get some things done, or take a nap.  I will be able to post some pictures of my bathroom soon-- I've been working on the baseboards.  

It's been a good weekend so far.  While we listened to conference today, Russell transformed this IKEA table:                                           

 into this (so we can use it with the benches he also finished:)