Julie

Emma has saved her money for a long time and finally decided she was ready to spend it on an American Girl doll named Julie-- the only problem was that the one store that had her at a price Emma could afford was way in Wisconsin!  It just so happens that it wasn't far from Grandma B so Julie had a personal escort from WIsconsin all the way to Emma's arms!  We have one happy girl!

Videos

When Grandma and Grandpa B were here we went to the nearby school for some outside playtime.  As you can see, Samuel is doing quite well on his bike now... 

and Emma has discovered she is good at basketball!  

Nathan also does pretty well!

As we were all standing there talking, I looked over and saw all four of our kiddos playing happily together.  This makes a Mommy's heart SO happy!

Halloween visitors

We were so happy to have Grandma & Grandpa B. here for Halloween weekend this year! We went to a special downtown trick-or-treat that we hadn't been to before and it was really neat!

Nathan (his creation: the "cardboard ninja" or "the unknown comic" as some people assumed) and Emma, the basketball star

Boba Fett and Olaf

There were many different characters handing out candy!

Nathan's favorite place that night was Grandma's house...

She always has something special for her favorite trick-or-treaters!

Our last stop was a trunk-or-treat at our own church.  This was the favorite of the other three... this bouncy dragon in particular!

We got a surprise when we visited our favorite neighbor's house-- Dennis suddenly didn't look like himself!

We get two nights of trick-or-treat in our community so we usually go out on one night and stay home to hand out candy on the other night.  The kids sometimes wear their Halloween costume, and other times they come up with something else.  Samuel and Emma knew just what they wanted to be, but Lucas couldn't seem to decide!

Pikachu and Lucas the ghost

Emma Bo Peep with Grandma

It was a crazy, fun whirwind of a weekend and we all LOVED it!

Bliss

in this case, work gloves.

Pumpkins!

We had two hours to get all four pumpkins done gutted and carved, but we beat the clock!  It helps that Nathan can do his totally on his own!

Emma decided to carve a gourd this year.  It was a little harder to work with, and the seeds were rather strange, but it turned out cute!

 

A doctor comes to class

In the Community Helpers class I teach at Class Action, we had a doctor come and talk to us about his work.  He is a friend from church and he was awesome with the kids!

They each got to listen to their own heartbeat:

Emma isn't in my class but she joined us for this particular one so she could hear the doctor.

He brought a pig foot, and made a cut with a scalpal.  Then he stitched it up and let the kids take turns taking a stitch out!

He put a real cast on one of the kids and then after it dried he cut it off with a special saw.  It was a really neat class!

A walk in the creek

The most fun thing we did while Dad and Nathan were gone was to go back to McCormick's Creek for a hike.  We were heading that way for Heritage Girl's anyway and decided to make an afternoon of it.  The kids each picked little bags of colored rocks from the gift shop- they had been closed the day we ended our camping trip.  Then we explored an area they hadn't been to yet with a stone bridge.  We pretty much spent the whole time IN the creek, except for Samuel who preferred to stay dry.  He is quite the master at walking across the water on rocks though!

I was glad I brought a full change of clothes for everyone!

Keeping Busy

While Dad and Nathan were away the other kids and I stayed busy.  We took a bike ride, went to Books-a-million, and attended a Pumpkin Patch party at Grandma's church.

Emma and I saw some friends in a musical of the Pied Piper:

 

We decorated pumpkins for a contest in our local newspaper:

Lucas's (see the "L" nose?)

 Samuel's

 Emma's

Father/Son Camp

Samuel isn't quite old enough to join Dad and Nathan at the Father/Son Camp but he did get to go help Dad set up while Nathan was in school.  He loved every minute of it!

He was cold so he wore Dad's jacket!

Nathan had a band commitment the first night so he and Dad didn't get there until very late.  They enjoyed all day Saturday and about 1/2 the day on Sunday though.  There were really good speakers, fun father/son activities, and yummy food.

The whole group (Brian and Nathan are sitting in front- Brian in a grey shirt and Nathan in red/black):

Pumpkinworks- Take 2

The next day after Lucas got out of school we headed back to the Pumpkin place.  This time Dad didn't go with us, but Grandma did!

My, how everyone has grown!

We had disappointment this trip as well.  Some of the things we wanted to do were closed due to a situation beyond the owner's control.  We made up for it with fudge and apple cider though!

On a funny note:  Lucas kept holding his pants up when he was running.  I asked a couple of times if he needed them tightened but he said no.  Later that night we discovered the problem:  His pockets were full of rocks!

(the quarter is for size comparison)