Fall Family Pictures

Work

Joe has been working some insane hours for the last couple of weeks and the kids have missed him a lot! Here is a picture of the kids after one of our Thursday night dinners with daddy. (This weekly dinner is the only time the kids get to see him, except on the weekends because Joe gets home so late at night). Mason has taken up the role of 'man of the house' while Joe has been gone and he has been doing his best to protect his mom and sister by killing spiders, helping to take out the garbage and trying to do anything else that Joe usually does. He has been very cute and it has been fun to watch him try to be just like his dad. The project will be over at the end of the week and then we can settle back into a normal routine!

Pumpkin Patch

Mason's Family

Mason is a part of a preschool co-op of three girls and three boys in our ward and he absolutely loves it! This week, he learned about families and he made his own family out of marshmallows, chocolate chip eyes, toothpicks and umbrellas (because it rains a lot here). Above (left to right) is Mom, Mason and Dad (he forgot to make Leah). He was very proud of his creation.

Our Weekend in Astoria with Josh, Katie, Collin and Hadley

We took off last weekend to stay and Katie's parent's home in Astoria and we had a wonderful time! Here are a ton of pictures from our trip (also check out the pictures katie added to facbook. She got some really great shots!):

Saturday

Hadley was pretty excited about my camera

Leah could run and run in their backyard all weekend long

Mason was really excited to play with Collin again

Collin and his Grandpa

Leah's fort

Katie's dad somehow talked me into letting everyone try out the ATVs. It was a lot of fun, even if it did make me nervous.

Campfire and Marshmellows

Katie's dad made a fire in the backyard and we roasted marshmellows over it. It is so beautiful out there, without the city lights. All the stars were crystal clear and beautiful.

Sunday-Trip to the Beach

This was my favorite trip to the Oregon Coast. It was pretty warm, even though it was right before sunset and their was hardley any wind. The kids played in the water while they watched the sun set. It so beautiful that I had to include all the pictures that we took:

The last picture of the day, just as the sun set:)

Thanks Josh and Katie!

Happy Fall!

My Sunflowers

Here are my sunflowers! Looking at them out in the garden makes me feel so happy! I am also quite pleased that I intentionally got something to grow this year. If life depended on my gardening skills, I am quite sure that we'd go hungry! Anyways, I get excited when something actually grows like it is supposed to.

Kids

Here's Mason. Right before this picture was taken, Mason was patrolling the yard with his gun. Guns have been his new obsession ever since Joe bought his first gun a few months ago.

Here is Leah playing some imaginary game behind the sunflowers. She has a really great imagination and she loves playing out in the garden.

Pumpkins!

Here is the only other thing that grew this year and I can't even take credit for it. These are our HUGE pumpkin plants that took off on their own in the dog run (they were so happy there that I couldn't pull them up). The leaves are huge and there are probably 20 flowers on the vine. I hope we will get some pretty pumpkins from these plants:)