Enjoying God's Creation

Saint Edwards State Park

On the way home from dedicating Asher at church today, Jason said, let's do something today to enjoy God's creation. Well, for awhile I have been wanting to visit Saint Edward's State Park, so we packed a lunch, bundled up and headed to the eastside.

When we got there, the kids had a blast climbing trees, playing in the amazing playground, and jumping in leaf piles. Then after a picnic lunch, we decided to hike down to the beach, only accessible by trail. Jason decided we should take "the most difficult" trail, that might as well have a real adventure! The kids were excited about their dangerous journey. The hike was only .4 mile, but the cliffs were steep. The beach was beautiful and we were even treated with a small waterfall.

It was quite a wonderful day!

Tree Climbing

My favorite thing at the park!

Gotta love Fall leaf jumping

Expert hikers!

My boys at the beach. Beautiful!

Resting after a long hike back

Macy's Parade 2009

We had a great morning in Downtown watching the Macy's 2009 Holiday Parade. It was made even better by not having to deal with parking. We just hopped on the light rail! Isabel and I headed there to get a good seat and the boys met up with us right as the parade was starting. The kids had a great time. And Josiah LOVED the candy. This kid just inhales candy, I have never seen anything like it.

I think the best part of the parade is after. Macy's shoots out tons of paper confetti from their roof and the kids can take it over to the bus tunnel and it just swirls abover their head in a vortex into the sky. It is super fun!

After we decorated the house and I put the lights outside! Christmas is on it's way!

Isabel and mommy find the perfect front row seat

Homeless Isabel waiting for the parade

Daddy and Asher lovin' the parade

I want more candy!

Bus tunnel wind

Confetti Party Downtown

Happy Thanksgiving

We stared the morning with a Thanksgiving lesson. I thought it was important to know WHY we celebrate Thanksgiving other than eat a lot and gear up for Christmas shopping. It was actually a pretty nice way to start the day and I think we'll make it a tradition.

We had a great low-key Thanksgiving at Papa and Granny's house. He pretty much had everything cooked by the time I got there, but I did get to help with the potatoes. They were home grown even! The kids had a blast playing with Papa and Tonza. Granny had to head to bed early because she was quite sick. But it was really nice to spend some time with them.

The kids all dressed up for dinner

Isabel says, eat your turkey!

Asher LOVES his Papa

The after-cupcake face

Growing Up Too Fast

I am in serious disbelief that I have 3 kids.I am in serious disbelief that my oldest is almost 5. I am in serious disbelief that I get to live this wonderful life. Thank you God.

The Theater

The kids are finally old enough to really enjoy the theater, so last week we went to see If You Give a Mouse a Cookie at the Seattle Children's Theater. We had so much fun and it was a joy for me to see my children laughing at the comedy in the performance, the theater really did a good job. I am looking forward to seeing many more show with them.

Getting ready to go in, too bad you can't see Asher, he was super excited :)

With the program

Mouse Sized Children

Happy Halloween 2009

We had a really fun halloween this year. On Friday night Jason helped our friends move, so the kids and I headed to meet some friends at our old church building in Ballard for the 3rd annual Fall Festival. They really outdid themselves! They had many bouncy houses, including a bouncy obstacle course, a huge cardboard maze, a trike track with giant trikes to ride, games, and Josiah's favorite, the Wii on the huge overhead screens. All for free! We had a blast.

On Saturday we went to a party at a friend's house from co-op. The kids had a lot of fun, I especially enjoyed the marshmallow shooting guns (hey, I live in the City and don't see too much of that) Later we went trick or treating down at the shops in Columbia City which was great and SAFE! Then we hit up the neighbors on the way home. Our last stop was dropping some candy for our next door neighbor friend Sully, who was too sick to go out.

Here are some pics of the kiddos.

Fire Chief Asher

Fairy Prinecess Isabel

Super Man Josiah

(the above pics were taken for free by a professional photographer from our church leewhitephotos.com)

The giant trikes were awesome!

Happy Boy

Asher's name means happy and he certainly lives up to it. I thought I'd post a few pictures of our happy little guy.

Pumpkin Patch Trip Times 2...and 3!

Since I do some preschool coordinating at our homeschool co-op, I put together some field trips. In the spring we visited a patch to plant come pumpkins and we decided to go back and see how they turned out. We had such a good turn out we planned 2 field trips. It was so much fun. We got to play in the hay barn, the corn box, hay jump, slides, visit the animals and ride out to the patch on the wagon to get some pumpkins. It was so much fun to do this with the families we are becoming so close with on our homeschool journey. Here are some pics of the fun!

Isabel finding a pumpkin (it took 20 minutes!)

Asher's Aunite Lisa in the front

Asher having too much fun at the Farm

Covered in Corn!

Riding the Tire Dog