October 2013

**Wow.  I am more than a year behind on my blog.  Mainly because we lost our camera about a year ago and so I was missing those pictures!  Luckily, we just found the camera, so I am going to attempt a turbo-catch up!  This is like my family journal, so I want to keep it going. :)**


With some of the last of the tomatoes from our garden, I made a tomato pie.  It was really yummy!

Josh decided to try his hand at elk hunting this year.  He went down to hunt with my parents, my sister, and my brother.  I stayed home with the kids.  Josh got his elk!  He, along with my mom, dad, and sister all were able to get one.  We went down the following weekend and my parents helped us cut it up.  We got two whole coolers full of meat for the freezer. :)

 We also went to the pumpkin patch with my parents, my sister Marcie and her family, and my aunts, cousins, and their families.  It was a fun trip!

Crazy Hair Day at school!  We curled Parker's hair, and Isaac decided to just

paint a white zig-zag on his hair with hair spray paint.

The boys with their pumpkins that we carved:

Isaac has been into Legend of Zelda.  This was his Link pumpkin. (a character from the game).

For part of Parker's book report this month, he was supposed to decorate a little pumpkin like

a character in his book.  He chose My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish for his book and made his pumpkin to match.   It turned out really cute (if zombie goldfish are cute).

  This year for Halloween, Quinn was

Mickey Mouse, Bryce was Mike the Knight, Isaac was Link from Legend of Zelda, and 

Parker was a bat. :)

All ready to go trick-or-treating!  It was such a nice night.

It was hilarious watching Mickey Mouse speed around on his scooter! :)

September 2013

Little Quinn has gotten really good on his scooter.  It's so cute to see him 

zooming up and down the driveway.

Parker turned 9 on September 6th!  He was super excited to get a new bike for

his birthday.

He also got some new Legos, a doodling book, a reading 

book, and a piggy bank he could decorate.

He was excited to ride his new bike to school.

For Parker's birthday dinner he chose homemade macaroni and cheese

and roasted cauliflower.  The picture makes it all look so weird, but it was good! :)

For his birthday cake he chose a layered brownie dessert that had chocolate chip

cookie on the bottom, Oreos in the middle, and brownies on the top.  It was yummy!

The day after Parker's birthday we had planned to have his friend

birthday party, but Josh's Autism Carnival for work ended up

falling on the same day.  We decided to just do both and make it work.

We did a booth at the Autism Carnival in the morning, then hurried 

home and got ready for Parker's party.

This year he decided to do a water party.  We debated on whether or not

it would be warm enough, and decided to take the risk.  We found a good

deal on a water slide rental that ended up being fun. 

Parker's friends came and they got to play for maybe an hour and....

It started pouring rain!!  It just wouldn't let up, so we came

inside and he opened his presents.  He wanted Krispy Kreme

doughnuts instead of cupcakes, so we had those too.  I felt

bad that the rain ruined his party, but I think they had a fun time

anyway.

Quinn had some kind of candy that made his tongue blue. :)

We had some corn on the cob, so decided to try a chili lime

version like you can buy at the festivals and fairs.

My birthday was on September 9th.  Josh and the boys picked out some

fun gifts for me. :)

Josh found these cool crab claws to try for my birthday dinner.

He made those along with some Swiss chard from the garden

and some rice.  

There was even a pretty sunset!

My birthday cake was a lemon creme pie that ended up being SO good! 

I usually pick something either cheesecake or chocolate, so this was different, but I loved it.

Just a funny little thing.  One of our tomatoes split open in the garden

It was sitting on the counter next to one of Isaac's Lego heads, so.......

Heheh

We got lots of tomatillos in our garden this year, so we got 

to make some salsa verde - my favorite!

Bryce and Quinn had fun peeling all the tomatillos for us.

Ending August

Soon after we were back from San Diego, the boys started school.  Isaac started 5th grade, Parker started 3rd, and Bryce started 2nd!  After school we went out for sushi to celebrate the new year.

This year we grew 8-ball zucchini just for fun.  We got lots of them!

Cute messy face! :) Can't remember what it was messy from.

The kids started riding bikes to and from school this year.  Dad did lots of bike fix ups. :)

A pretty double rainbow we saw.

Our pear tree produced a couple of pears this year! 

I can't wait until it's big enough to produce lots of pears.

Quinn found this yellow plastic toy bowling pin and said, "I've got my squash!"

Ha ha!  You can tell he'd been out picking yellow squash with Dad. 

I think these were beet greens  

We found a Katydid on our lawn!  You don't see those very often.  So neat.