Falling into fall

The past week has been filled with some fun school activities with the kids. Last Monday Natalie's AVID class invited all the AVID students and their families to go to one of our local high schools and watch her math teacher coach the girls volleyball team. Natalie didn't think she wanted to go, but I felt it was important that Natalie participate in as many of these AVID things as we can. So we went and I think everyone had a good time. CJ was enjoying playing on the bleachers and taking some pictures with my camera...

A picture of the girls playing volleyball

A picture of his little sister

Me with the 2 little ones

Kaitlyn

Natalie watching the game

CJ insisted I take a picture of his triangle

Then on Friday morning CJ had his very first field trip to a local farm. I asked the teachers if we could meet them there and they said sure. So we got there after they had already been there, but we didn't miss much. They were just playing on the bikes and trains and stuff.

Playing on the firetruck

Going to climb on the train

The conductor.

Climbing on the train

Then we went on a hayride.

Holding on tight

Alyssa on the hayride

After the hayride the kids got to go on the bounce houses for a little while.

Then it was time to pick pumpkins...

Found the right one

Class picture in the pumpkin field...

And now with the teachers...

And to end their trip to the farm it was one final ride on the cow train.

When we got home CJ was cranky. I said something he didn't like and he tried to climb into his backpack. He doesn't quite fit...

Natalie had also take a trip to a pumpkin patch with school on Friday and brought home a pumpkin that they were told to decorate and bring back on Monday. Here's what she came up with...

And yet again another winner. The pumpkins were judged and today Natalie came home as one of three other children who received a prize and certificate for their pumpkin. A deserving pumpkin I think.

Everything is going well. I had Natalie's Parent/Teacher conference last night. Her teachers all like her. They all as usual would like to hear more from her. She has all A's and one B so far. She is doing well this year for the most part though so far.

Looking forward, we have CJ's birthday party on Saturday, pumpkin picking on Sunday, CJ's birthday next Tuesday, my birthday the following day along with a Pampered Chef/Avon party for my birthday. So everyone is very excited about the things coming up. I have been working on party stuff this week. I am expecting a relatively good turn out too.

Pumpkin Festival

Today was our towns annual pumpkin festival. We entered a pumpkin. Joe and the kids worked on it today. Here is what they came up with...

Cannibal pumpkin

Joe and the girls brought it to enter it. They put it in under our family name, but they told them they had to put a grade so since Natalie was filling it out she put her grade and school.
Sitting on the judging bleachers

They came home so we could have dinner and what not. Judging wasn't going to be until after dark when they would be lit. We went back after dinner and couldn't find the pumpkin. It was on the winner bleachers...
A 3rd place ribbon for the 6-8 grade age group

Here was the 1st place winner in that category...


And the 2nd place winner...


Natalie loved this one because it was a penguin...


Now Elmo, that's a different pumpkin...



Natalie with the pumpkin

All four kids and the 3rd place pumpkin...



We were so excited to see a ribbon on our pumpkin. Last year we didn't get anything. So it was great to see something this year. There are always some really creative pumpkins there.

Celebrating a friend's 8th birthday

Well, yesterday was a beautiful day. Our good family friend's son finally got to have his 8th birthday party. It was supposed to be last weekend, but the weather did not hold up for an outdoor bounce house party. So it was pushed back to yesterday and it was an unseasonably warm day in October filled with sun and fun. The kids all had a blast. There were only a few bumps and bruises too. So it was a fun day. Here's a little video slide show of the kids jumping in the bounce house and the rest of the birthday festivities.



Happy 8th birthday to Spencer! Thanks for including us in your day.

Happy 8 months Alyssa

Alyssa is 8 months old now. How can that be? She is growing so fast. This past week I had written something on Facebook about how she's not such a baby anymore. After CJ had gotten home from school one day last week and ate his lunch he wanted to watch TV. I was feeding Alyssa and as soon as CJ turned the TV on and I put on Playhouse Disney for him Alyssa had zero interest in eating and had to sit with her brother to watch TV. She adores CJ so much. It is great seeing her try to chase after him.

She has been spinning herself in a circle on her bottom now. She's trying to get around. She reaches for everything. Nothing is safe from her reach these days. She hates baby food, but loves table food. She still has no teeth so we have to make sure whatever we give her is very small and very soft. She likes turkey, chicken, mashed potatoes (ate almost all of mine from dinner last night), rice, bread, and enjoys those Gerber puffs too.

She obtained a new skill today. While sitting on the couch with me she started pulling herself to a stand and then she would laugh. It was so cute seeing how proud she was at her new skill. Lets hope she doesn't skip over crawling though. Speaking of crawling she gets up on her knees, but can't get her whole stomach up off the floor yet. So she has been doing the leg kick to propel herself forward. She's getting the inch worm move down really well.

She has added some new sounds to her babbling. Now she says Dada. Of course she does not refer to Joe yet as Dada, but she babbles it a lot.

I thought she was starting to sleep through the night, but that was short lived. She still gets up to eat at night. I try to not feed her and just get her to go back to sleep, but usually she'll have nothing of it. As soon as she nurses though she is out.

Here are a few other pictures from today. She's getting so big...









And that is our beautiful, goofy, funny, tiny 8 month old!