Friday, October 31, 2008

Happy Halloween!

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The Big Reveal coming soon!  Tonight we're going to a party and trick-or-treating...hope to get photos of our costumes up afterwards or Saturday at the latest! 

Hope everyone has a frightfully great day!!

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

VOTE

So often I want to get political on here but I refrain for a multitude of reasons. Instead I'll just post this....

Every celeb on the planet seems to be in this video!

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Family Harvest Fest

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Every year we like to have a family harvest fest where we go to a pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins then go back home to carve them and have a fall themed dinner.  This year we invited the Nostrands to join us.  We spent hours at the pumpkin patch while the kids played in the hay maze, petting zoo, bounce house and all the other little activities they had for kids (digging in a barrel of dirt-TONS of fun!  Who needs videogames?) Afterwards we went home and made caramel apples dipped in mini chocolate chips and peanuts.  We also had a make your own nacho bar (is that fall themed?) and salad.  It was a fun (and very late) night for the kids and us!

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IMG_9084IMG_9104The finished products...IMG_9121

Jacob's is the first one, mine the middle (used a hand drill-sweet and simple) and Ella's the fancy one on the right.  Ella got help from dad doing hers, but Jacob's was all his own!


 

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Guns 'N Hoses

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Saturday was the 1st Annual Guns 'N Hoses Flag Football event and it was so much fun!  It was the police officers vs the firefighters....it's an event to raise money for the fallen firefighter and peace officers funds.  I gotta say though, I was quite worried Aaron would be one of those fallen firefighters...some of those guys could have killed him...he doesn't quite have the body for football!  Fortunately he came away from the gameIMG_8962
walking and not in pain, unlike a lot of the others who played.  Unfortunately the Hose Boys lost...quite bad...what was the score Aaron?  12 to 26 or something like that?  They started out good, but then with an absurd amount of substitutions and erratic coaching they got took down....the gift of donuts to the cops beforehand didn't even help.  Maybe that hindered?  

The whole event was a lot of fun with a bag piper, helicopter fly over during the Star Spangled Banner (we think that was intentional...if not the timing was awfully perfect), raffles, and halftime entertainment (Ella's dance company had some dancers perform, Enterprise High dance team, and some bizarre Crossfit boot camp demo).  It was a great way to spend the afternoon and we look forward to next year's event.  I'd suggest you bulk up Aaron!  Click here for more photos

Busy Autumn Days

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Whew...it's Sunday and I can finally relax (a little)....in the past 3 days we have had 2 soccer games, dance class, cub scouts, school field trip to the pumpkin patch, my first jewelry open house at Steph's house, school fall carnival, 1st Annual Guns n' Hoses flag football game, and a fall fest night at a different pumpkin patch and dinner and fun with the Nostrands.  Whew....pictures from some of the above to come....

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Halloween Preshow

Jacob as a....
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Jawa!  The 3rd Halloween he's been a Star Wars character!  According to Wookieepedia (and yes, there is such a thing), Jawas were typically short humanoid natives of Tatooine. They were often scavengers, seeking out technology for sale or trade in the deep deserts in their huge sandcrawler transports. A band of Jawas was responsible for locating C-3PO and R2-D2 and selling them to Luke Skywalker's uncle Owen Lars. Another tribe of Jawas, led by Tteel Kkak, found Jabba the Hutt's rancor. They had a reputation for swindling, as they had a penchant for selling old equipment such as outdated droids to moisture farmers, but they were passive beings, and hardly put up any resistance to colonists of their planet unlike the other natives the Sand People, instead seeing them as an excellent business opportunity.  Fascinating, huh?

I think we did pretty good with the costume.  With E-bay, Joann's, random things around the house, and Grandma's help sewing the robe, it all came together and he is so excited to wear it.  Here's the original dudes...437px-Jawa1

Ella as....

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A Vampire!  All her own choice, though of course I couldn't resist resurrecting part of my costume from last year and playing along as her mother vampire for the pictures.  And for those wondering--this is NOT my costume for this year--that will be revealed the night of Halloween!  I'm all up for playing a little guessing game though if anyone wants to guess...Vampires

Final

Sunday, October 19, 2008

How we spent a Sunday afternoon in OCTOBER

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Cub Scouts at Fire Station 8

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Soccer Saturdays

(and Soccer Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday too)...
Only a few more weeks of soccer to go and it's been a great season.  Especially for Jacob.  We were really starting to wonder if maybe sports wasn't his thing the first couple of weeks but then something clicked in him and he's been really into it, getting aggressive and very energetic out on the field.  He's been scoring goals or coming very close to it (those darn goalies!) like crazy.  [Jacob's number 10]IMG_8575

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Ella is having fun at her games and practices but has yet to find that competitive edge.  She chases the rest of the kids around and follows the ball around the field but is a little timid to really get in there.  It seems her coach has made her designated kicker though whenever the ball goes out!
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Monday, October 13, 2008

Firefighter or Rainbow Maker?

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Photo by Greg Barnette / Record Searchlight
Redding firefighter Aaron Lee fights a blaze near Market and Benton on Monday.

Monday, October 06, 2008

Too fun!

When the song is over, her eyes will follow your mouse cursor around...creepy!

Saturday, October 04, 2008

Do you believe she's only 4?

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And just when I think she's got to be the prettiest girl in the whole world she goes and makes faces like this!

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Wednesday, October 01, 2008

It's a bird, it's a plane

It's a pool above our house!
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After many years of thinking about it, the time is right for us to put in an underground pool.  Just in time for fall to start...LOL!  It's been an exciting couple weeks and the kids (and us too) are so enjoying the process.  It has gone unbelievably fast and we'll be eager for summer to start again. Click here for some more photos of the process so far.