Trick or Treat part One....

This year my church had it's very first TRUNK or TREAT...it's an idea I stole from Heather Rom's church ..thanks Heather! Anyway it turned out to be a great success! People were sooo creative with their cars..I loved it! My car is above...and I have to say it was the least decorated of almost all of them! Most people had theme music to match their decor and wore costumes to complete the idea...it was great! Jake decided to be a Mafia Gangster dude...I told him he had to leave the machine gun at home....Not so appropriate for church...call me crazy! :)

Here's my good little witch checking out the food table! Notice the Ohhh so casual stance like ... don't mind me .. I'm not doing anything! Yeah right! You may also notice her green face....well that's a great story... you see I forgot to get green face paint and Mackenzie was VERY disappointed...so in my haste of looking through my pantry I found GREEN FOOD COLORING....I thought...Hey this is green...I bet it will stay on Mackenzie! So away I went wiping it all over her face and neck! It's wasn't' until AFTER I tried to wash my hands did I remember that FOOD COLORING DOESN'T COME OFF YOUR SKIN!!! OOOHHHH my gosh...what had I done to my beautiful babies face?!? Was she going to be green for forever?? So I ran to the computer and googled "how to get food coloring off skin" and of course the great google gave me an answer....ohh thank you google...what would I do without you? It turns out shaving cream takes food coloring right off! So remember that girls ...the next time you want to dye your kids face a nice color of green, blue, yellow or whatever color you like..just keep the shaving cream handy!

One car had a fog machine...Jake had GREAT fun with it...No one could breath after he was done!

Tara - who goes to church with us- had a great Trunk....it was a beach theme complete with a surfboard and Beach Boys music! Very Cute!

The Carving......

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So we carved and carved and carved those little pumpkins! Todd's is the top,Mackenzie's is on the Left, I'm in the middle and Jake's is the far right! Pretty cute eh? ...I was trying to be a little "Martha Stewarty" and used a large drill bit to make my holes! It was super fun and every time I drilled the pumpkin - curly fry looking pumpkin guts came flying out! The kids thought that was pretty cool! ;)

The Gang.....I have to say that I love that spider! I think next year I'll get a few more!

I love taking the pictures without a flash on...the pumpkins look so good! Jake is especially proud that he remembered to give his pumpkin ears!

"Look mom... I'm punching this guys eye in" which was immediately followed by belly laughs...she cracks me up! After we finished carving we got all of the pumpkin seeds and baked them with olive oil, garlic and salt....they turned out pretty good if I do say so myself! ;)

Pumpkin Patch

Well we finally made it to the pumpkin patch this year....it just seemed so darn early! Where is all of the time going?? Like last year and the year before we went to "Bizi Farms" in Vancouver. The kids love it and they do a really nice job of getting you into the "season"! Anyway I thought I'd share a few photos since it's been a while since I have blogged!

Mackenzie was lovin' the gourds this year! Every time I look at this photo I think of "Veggie Tales"...if you know what that is....Mackenzie is holding "Gourdy"!

Ohhhhh my goodness....this was the corn maze of Hell! We tried desperately for at least an hour to find the "Exit" and we simply could NOT do it! It was CRAZY hard! I'm actually dieing to get back in there and try it again....I just know I can figure it out!

Todd and his wheelbarrow of pumpkins...I think we left with 8 pumpkins! Poor Todd and Jake had to pull them all the way back to the car...hee hee!

HIP HIP HOORAY !!!!!!!!!

HIP HIP HOORAY!
It's the FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!!

I thought I would list a few things about what the first day of school means for me:

1. The first year with BOTH of my kids in school FULL TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2. The ability to clean the house and not have it messed up within 10min.

3. The ability to go shopping without CONSTANT complaining

4. Having time just for me ..... I mean more than 1 day in a row .....it's been a long 10 year wait.... my mind can't even grasp what to do with that much time! But I'm happy for the challenge.... ;)


I keep joking with Todd ...." Ohh ... bon bons and People Magazine here I come!!!!" He only kinda laughs!

Now don't get me wrong...there is a very big part of me that feels soo weird that a part of my children's life is now over. I will no longer have kiddos at home with me (except for sick days and holidays).... and I just know that with them at school full time .... life will seem like it is FLYING by. I mean Jake is 10! I only get him at home another 8 years ..... WOW.... I can't even think about it.

Anyway Happy First Day of school to all of you!

Football......

This year Jacob decided after many years of soccer, to try something new....FOOTBALL!! After trying VERY hard to talk him out of it, he persisted in his need to play.....I have to say that the amount of training these little guys go through in the beginning is ROUGH...but after watching the first football game and seeing how much fun the kids have.... I think Jacob made a good decision for himself.....I hope we still feel that way at the end of the season! You will all need to come watch a game with us this season!

PS Jacob is number 21 - if you're trying to pick him out in the pictures!

Oneota Gorge....

Growing up as a child my family always went hiking around Oregon...on the beach, in the gorge ect.... So I was very excited this year when my kids had finally grown to a size suitable for hiking! I planned to ease them into it easy...my mom had heard of hike called Oneota gorge that was supposed to be about a mile and a half long and.... bonus... you get to walk in a "very cute little creek most of the way"Yeah!!! The perfect start to hiking for the kids and I! So we picked a hot day and met in the gorge with Jake and Mackenzie's cousins and set off on our hike. The first picture above was the start of our day.....beautiful... we were so excited to get started on our "Creek Hike at Oneota gorge".....

So we started our walk and it was straight up a hill with no creek in sight..we thought "Hmmmm.....it must be at the top of this hill" so we kept walking and walking... when we finally got to the top of the hill we didn't find a creek to walk in.... but we DID find a super cool cave and AWESOME water fall! This made up for the lack of creek walking up to this point..... so we decided that the creek walk must be just a little bit further up the trail......

Again up another VERY steep hill....this kids were doing OK....but not loving it..they were hungry, tired, hot and wondering where in the heck was the "cute little creek"....Mom and I just kept saying "I'm sure it just up ahead".....we actually had no idea!

Well...we finally found a nice place for the kids to play in the water and eat some lunch...it was only 3.5 miles up a steep mountain!!!!!! Needless to say we were on the WRONG trail! Poor kids had a really tough start to there hiking adventures.... but honestly they did sooo good! (about 7 miles total) The trip down the mountain was much easier than the trip up and hey...on our way down we saw the trail head to Oneota Gorge......maybe next time :)

PS - Jacob had a 3 hour football practice AFTER that hike.....he was dying....not the smartest move on my part ;)

Tag Your It....

My friend Kara - who now lives in Spokane, "tagged" Mackenzie.....
So here you go 7 random facts about my wee one.....

1. Mackenzie is a great sleeper - she started sleeping 10-12 hours a night by about 10 weeks of age.......I think this fact alone saved my sanity during her "colicky" phase. However, what was really strange is that the girl NEVER fell asleep in the car....it was sooo weird, I remember one night driving home from my mom's house in Wilsonville (about 45" from my house) at 10pm when Mackenzie was about 8 months old and she stayed awake the entire ride home!!! I was amazed when I looked in the review mirror and she was just looking around...she's so funny!
2. Her screams reach such a high pitch that I'm sure she is communicating with all the animals in the neighborhood!
3. She is very outgoing and makes friends everywhere we go...which can be a blessing and a curse. I love that she is friends with everyone....but I'm so worried she's going to walk off with some stranger thinking that this is just some "new friend".......She is soooo tired of my "stranger danger" speech!
4. She is reading very well for her age...it's fun to have her read me a story!
5. Mackenzie is in gymnastics and loving it....she can do flips on the trampoline already!
6. She will eat Green beans out of the can and she likes to lick cream cheese off of her bagels..eeewwwww!
7. She is my "craft" girl..always coming up with new crafts to do for the day...pictures to create, albums to make, cards to draw and send....busy,busy, busy!!!

And there you have it .... 7 random facts about Mackenzie...

Now Iwill Tag .......Lilly Roms, Noah Johnson and Katie Digby .....