Trinity Fall Festival

Petting Zoo

Bounce House

Pony Rides

Science Experiments

Craft Activities


Thanks to Mae Mae for being the photographer today :)

Overnight at Mae Mae and Pae Paes

Max has always wanted to spend the night at Mae Mae and Pae Paes. A few weeks ago the two of us stayed overnight. He thought it was absolutely fabulous. He was able to play his dsi for however long he wanted, Mae Mae made him any food he wanted, he got to stay up late, and he didn't have to share the mom attention. I slept on the couch and he slept on the cot next to the couch. When we woke up I asked him how he slept and he said good but there were different sounds in the city. Karl was playing the guitar around midnight, a couple of car alarms went off, and people were out talking on the street in the middle of the night. But by the way Max described it you would think we live out in the country. In the morning Pae Pae went to McDonalds and brought home breakfast. Max said it was a perfect night and morning. Now Ben is on me about his turn. I'm sure Max will want to be in on that overnight too.

Hawk

There is a hawk that visits our yard on a pretty regular basis. Charlie swears it is because we don't use chemicals on our yard. So instead of a lush green lawn we have a greenish lawn with mole/vole tunnels and prime dinner for the hawk. Max called us the other day to say it was sitting on the tree right next to the deck. I tried to get a better picture but as soon as I opened the deck door it swooped away.

Fall Walk

Trunk or Treat

The best part of Trunk or Treat for the kids is climbing into the trunk after trick or treating and eating loads of candy with friends.



Nothing like a good sugar high to make everything hilarious!


Maura had no interest in trick or treating. She was all about passing out the candy. She felt like she had a very important power. She could have passed out candy for hours and was pretty disappointed when people stopped coming by for candy. When she would see someone pass by our car and not stop she would call them out "Hey, skeleton guy, you didn't get your candy!".

Hike at Castlewood

This hike at Castlewood starts with a long hill. The boys were motivated to make the climb. Maura was not.

We found a tree stump to stop and rest. Maura sulked a bit. Molly couldn't be happier.



Maura got a piggyback ride and all was ok with the world again.


When we made it to the top of the main hill we stopped at a few of the lookouts to enjoy the view. Charlie and I decided the hike was probably more than Maura and Molly could handle. We had given Molly her arthritis medicine but she was panting quite a bit already. He took Maura and Molly back down the hill to the park.
I continued on with the boys but had forgotten how long this hike would take. We hiked until the area with the stairs and headed back. It was a beautiful day. Max was really eager to finish the hike so we will find another nice day to bring the boys and leave Maura and Molly at home with a sitter. It is nice knowing that in a few years hikes can be back on the agenda with the whole family. Hopefully Charlie and I can fit a hike in on the bluffs when we close the cottage on Saturday.

Ben discovered these pieces on the hike so he and Max spent some time digging and collecting as many pieces as they could find. Charlie thinks they are from light bulbs. Kind of a strange thing to be buried in the earth at Castlewood.

Lunch with Laura

This is what you get when you have three year olds taking your picture :)

Laura has been a constant source of sanity through all of these years of babies, toddlers, and school-age kids. I can count on her for a rational point of view and an ear anytime. Our lunches have evolved over the years. Years back our lunches consisted of nursing or feeding babies while getting chicken nuggets heated up for the other kids and finally getting something put together for ourselves. Now one of us is usually working, at lunch duty, or meeting some other obligation while the other feeds the littler ones and preps a lunch (or picks up Jimmy Johns) for the two of us. While we don't necessarily get the length of time to catch up we still fit a ton of conversation into the time we have. I am a better mom having had another mom to help keep me sane over these years. Maybe one of these days we will get an in focus picture of the two of us!

Skyping with the Jacobs

We went to Kates for a mini-birthday celebration. While there we were able to skype with Mimi, Christopher, and Sean. The kids thought it was huge fun and now they think everyone needs one.

Yoga

I didn't have any visits scheduled for this morning and even though I had plenty of work to do I decided to take the time to take a yoga class. I'm glad I did because I think I've finally found a yoga studio that I like and is close enough. I had been going to Barb at Yoga West and she was great but closed her place and started teaching at a place in Eureka. I really like her as an instructor and the Eureka studio has great natural light that pours in but it is a far drive. So a couple of weeks ago I tried a newer place in the valley called Valley Vinyasa. The instructor that morning was so so. I went back this morning to try a different instructor and she was great. They offer multiple classes every day of the week so most weeks I should be able to find a time that will work. And I actually have a post that I can put under the label "balance"! :)

Dinner with Sharon

Sharon and I went to dinner at Miller's Crossing. They had a cute outside seating area and the food was pretty good. I got a gyro and Sharon got a burger. We had first planned on dinner at Paul Manno's but after looking at the menu decided it was pretty pricey for a Tuesday night dinner. I love our dinners out because we get a couple of hours of uninterrupted conversation to catch up. We are pretty good about meeting once a month or so. Now we just need to find a way to plan a girl's weekend getaway with Aimee, Jenny, and Melissa- easier said than done!

Powder Valley

Amy had the foresight to take advantage of this beautiful day off and go to Powder Valley for a hike with the kids. We met there and the gate was closed which meant a hike up the hill before getting to the trail. The kids loved the hike and could have spent much more time in the creek if we would have let them.
After the hike we went to Dewey's Pizza for lunch. It was kind of a repeat of Max's field trip last week which meant another yummy lunch. After lunch we went to the farmer's market for the kids to run around. We left before getting pumpkins but I anticipated Maura melting down if we stayed much longer.

Aunt Mimi's Magnetic Tiles

Ben's face is worried because he knew his elephant was just about to fall apart and he hadn't added the trunk yet.

Max's structure


Mimi has a way of finding the perfect kid birthday gifts. This year's gift to Maura was actually a gift to all three kids. All three have spent tons of time creating new structures. Sadly, there is no picture of Maura's structure. I will post one soon. But honestly, her favorite thing to do is take apart the boy's structures, collect the pieces, put them in a bag and hoard them in her room.

MaeMae's Garden

It is the beginning of Fall which means the end of harvesting tomatoes and carrots in Mae Mae's garden. We went out to pick the carrots and found caterpillars all over the carrot leaves. So we left most of them alone. Maura was able to pick a couple of carrots but everyone was more concerned about the life cycle of the caterpillar than eating the carrots. I'm sure we will have a chance to harvest them later this month.

Maura's bday with MaMa

The conclusion of Maura's birthday month! We went to Kate's to celebrate Maura's bday since she was out of town on her bday. Nothing better than another birthday party complete with tiara and train cake (made with a whole stick of real butter, yum!).

First Knitted Scarf

Lexi taught me how to knit! Her work is amazing and she is so generous with what she makes for people. I had admired her knitting for a long time and finally asked her to teach me. She bought some chunky yarn and two nice thick needles for me to learn with. It was pretty cognitive at first but once I caught on it was therapeutic. I am going to stick with making scarves for awhile but possibly move onto the purl stitch after my next scarf. My goal is stocking caps but that won't be for awhile.




First knitted scarf (bumpy mistakes on the bottom)