Happy Halloween!

Kenton never did get around to carving a face into his pumpkin. So it spent the evening on its side. :) We didn't actually stay home long enough for any trick-or-treaters. We have a lot of candy now...

We dressed up as a family for Finn's first Halloween. We were so excited about his dragon costume from Old Navy that we picked our costumes to go along. Kenton was originally going to be a knight, but we had better luck finding pieces for a "prince" costume. Of course, I was his princess. And he still has his sword, in case he needs to protect me from a grumpy, little dragon. :) It certainly wasn't a problem tonight. We'll have a second chance to wear our costumes on Saturday for our church's Barn Party!

Kenton wearing a wig from my mom. He looks so different, especially when he shaves & isn't wearing his glasses.

He was a happy dragon. He didn't mind his costume at all & didn't even seem to notice that he was wearing a hood. He enjoyed seeing his reflection in the mirror though.

pumpkin patch

On Thursday, my class took a field trip to the pumpkin patch at Lone Pine Farms. I love this event. It's one of my favorite highlights of the school year. It was very sunny & dry, but freezing! The wind was so cold. I had my sunglasses on & my hood on. One of the parents said I looked like the uni-bomber. :\ Hopefully, not quite so hairy. Altogether, we had a great field trip & the kids did great, despite the chilly wind.


The next 2 pictures are blurry because I forgot to take my camera off of manual focus before asking a parent to take some photos. I do not like it when I make silly mistakes like that. So they are sharpened & edited...don't look to close! :)

Our cute boots! We all talked about getting colorful boots for the trip to the pumpkin patch. We kept each other updated on sightings & sales. Then, we all ended up getting boots at different stores for different prices. I was super excited to have them and didn't want to get them dirty. I even walked around mud puddles. Kind of silly, but they're new!

Here's our incredible teaching team!
Tamy, Matthew, me, Jacque, Becca, & Angie

pumpkins

We carved pumpkins with our Bible study group tonight. We've done it every year for the past few years. Always a highlight! Some of us use fancy kits, others just wing it. But we always get a photo of the glowing jack-o-lanterns when we're done...or almost done. Kenton didn't quite finish so we laid his pumpkin on it's side. :)



Here are all of the girls in our group (plus Finn). Most of the guys carved pumpkins too, but I didn't get a shot of everyone together. We really enjoy our Tuesday nights; great fun & fellowship. Now, hopefully our pumpkins won't rot too much before Halloween rolls around. :)

Autumn on W Irwin Way

It's fall on West Irwin Way. There are some really pretty trees on our street. I've been wanting to take pictures of the leaves for awhile. Since we had such a beautiful day today, we went for a walk after dinner. It was still pretty warm out. And there was just enough light to get some good autumn photos. Earlier in the day, I planted some tulip & daffodil bulbs around our new tree (while Finn napped for 2 hours & 15 minutes - such a good napper!) courtesy of my mom. I am loving the fall colors, but am looking forward to next spring, to see all of our new plants in bloom...or at least with new leaves.

Daddy & Finn.

Everyone says that Finn looks like Kenton. There's certainly some resemblance...but there's some Mama mixed in there too, if I do say so myself. :)

Finn & Mama.

He really is getting so big. He wears 12-18 month clothes already because he's so long. I'm really curious to see how much he's grown since the last time we went to his doctor. His 12 month appointment is on November 7th - cousin Cohen's 2nd birthday!

The highlight of our walk for Finn was the kitty that followed us around. It even sounded like Finn tried to Meow! :) He definitely was disappointed when the kitty went away.

Papa's 55!

All eyes were on Papa opening presents at his 55th Birthday celebration. Erik, Celeste, Becca & I went in on a Zune accessory pack for him. There were 55 guests who attended...lots of friends from church and students from LCC...family too. Everyone wanted a taste of Papa's home brewed beers. Last week at work, he announced that he'll be retiring from LCC in June 2008! They're going to miss him. But we're excited for him, he's earned it!


Finn got an early birthday present from his Great Aunt Robin & Great Uncle Truls (& 1st cousins, once removed Hannah & Elle): a car with a dog named "Riding Henry" (in Finn's mouth). :)


Here's Ronan checking out Sadie's owie. He was being very sympathetic and sweet.


Cute cousins! They are such good friends. They play really well together and have so much fun!

Big Trucks!

Finn and I got to see big trucks at Aunt Gretchen's house! Check out the latest post (click here) on her blog to see some fun pictures and a video that I shot! Uncle Erik would be proud...

not one yet

My boy is getting bigger. But he's not one yet. I still have 3 more weeks of Finn being "11 months old." I'm getting used to the idea, but I'm not quite ready to have a one-year old. For now, I'm appreciating his 6 teeth and his speedy crawling; his sweet expressions and vocalizations ("Uh?", "Oh!", "Mama", "Dada", "Papa", "baba" - bubble, "nana" - banana); his attempts to blow kisses and to blow out candles; his reaching, leaning and pointing to get me to go where he wants...

Soon he'll be walking and running and talking about everything. He has such a strong will and determination; he's going to be into everything! I look forward to every new stage. But for now, I'm appreciating this stage...even though it's slipping through my fingers. He's still a baby...not quite a big boy. Not for long, I know. But for now.

working hard

I finished my first IFSP (Individualized Family Service Plan) for work today. Woohoo! That feels good. It was so nice to just sit with Angie (my supervisor/former head teacher/friend) and get to work. So much of my time is spent not knowing what I'm supposed to be doing. It was such a relief to have a big chunk of time devoted to learning such a major part of my job. Plus, I don't feel completely overwhelmed...just a little. Which is to be expected. It is really all starting to make a little more sense. Of course, I have a long way to go before I'll feel like I really know how to do everything. It's one step at a time. Ask me again in November/December, when I'll have 3 IFSP's due...Eek! One step at a time...

There wasn't a lot that I needed to get done in September. So it actually feels kind of good to have things that I'm supposed to be doing. But I don't have so much to do yet. I'm easing into things and that is so helpful. Soon, Angie will start supervising other classrooms too. Then, I think it will really hit me that I am the head teacher! Easing in...it's good to ease in.

Finn's first word...

Last night, I was holding Finn in the kitchen and he was reaching for the counter. I saw a banana and asked "Do you want a banana?" He responded with "Nana!" I didn't really catch it right away because he babbles a lot. But he repeated it and when I grabbed the banana he got really excited and laughed. I'm pretty sure he was talking about the banana! So cool. I can't wait for him to start learning more words. I don't really know if that counts for his first word. Especially since he kind of says Mama, Dada, and Papa. He's figuring things out though. He makes the same sound every time we talk about apples. It's kind of a "p" sound, mixed with a kiss sound. It really looks like he's blowing a kiss. :) It makes my day!

Planting New Shrubs & Trees

We finished planting all of our newly adopted trees and shrubs today. Now I get to watch them grow! I can't wait. :)


















BEFORE:
#1. Our front yard before planting the tree in the middle and the shrubs in the corner bed.
#2 Backyard bed with only 2 Hydrangeas.
#3 Our corner bed in the front yard with a Dahlia, 2 Mums & 2 Asters.

AFTER:
#1. Our new tree, looking from the corner bed.
#2. Our corner bed with the new Japanese snowball (the red one), Heather & 2 Azaleas.

#3. The backyard bed with 2 new Rhododendrons & 3 new Azaleas.

Happy Birthday Josh!

We celebrated Josh's 30th birthday at Papa's Pizza tonight! Lots of yummy pizza; lots of family and friends! I made a plate of food for Finn from the salad bar. He had a hard time eating the cucumbers. They wouldn't stay in his mouth. He kept trying to eat the little chunks and they would just pop out of his mouth. :) So he ate cottage cheese and fruit instead (plus a couple of garbanzo beans, but they kept popping out of his mouth too - go figure).

Everyone clapped for Josh after he blew out all 30 candles and Finn noticed. He's getting the hang of the whole clapping thing. He doesn't really make the noise, but he does the motion. And he expects everyone around him to join in. If you're not clapping, he looks at you and then your hands and waits. :)

Thanks for the great party Gretchen! It was fun to celebrate Josh's big 3-0!

Something to try:

I saw this idea and had to try it out. I ordered the 8"x12" photo from Costco for $1.49! I love the way it looks in my 12x12 scrapbook! Also, I tried the "old style" white stamp pad from Close to My Heart and thought it worked pretty well. I heard that they made it better and am excited to try out the "new style." I used it to stamp the swirls right on the black & white photo and it looks good. The 2nd page isn't super exciting, but I had to show the complete layout. :)

I was able to scrapbook at Amy's with Nicole tonight while our husbands played Halo 3 with guys from church. I put Finn down for bed in their pack n play and he was not very happy with me. He cried pretty hard at first but did calm down fairly quickly, considering he'd never slept there before. So, I stayed until 11:30 pm and did 6 pages (plus put photos on 4 pages that I'd made during our scrapbooking group). Yay for getting pages done! It feels good to be a little bit productive, every once in awhile. :)

Note: I should have had Erik Photoshop out my gray hair sticking out the top of my hair! Those things show up a little better with such a huge photo. :]

A project!

I dug a hole yesterday! I'm kind of proud of that. :) While Finn was napping (he's such a good napper), I cut into our front lawn and dug a hole for our new tree: an Ornamental Plum tree, courtesy of Josh and Gretchen. I feel a little silly for getting so excited about planting a tree...especially when the Ruddicks are getting ready to build a house, but I've been wanting a tree to shade our front window for awhile now. It fit perfectly in the space; the hole needed to be a little bigger, but I love the way it looks in the yard.


There's a Japanese Snowball tree (I think) in the background that will be planted in the bed behind it (top left of the photo).

Plus, the Ruddicks gave us 5 Azaleas, 1 Rhododendron and 1 Heather. So fun for me. I've really enjoyed gardening and am starting to enjoy landscaping. It's just so expensive, so I haven't had a real chance to try it out. Now I have a project! Good news for me; not so good news for Kenton...he's not too into "projects". :)

The boys had fun playing while the men did the dirty work. (I helped a bit with the dirty work, too)
They look so cute in their PJ's! Finn and Griffin are getting close to walking. They both stand pretty well and have good balance. Griffin will just stand and stand... No steps yet.