Dirt and a Bumble Bee

Ok, so none of these pictures turned out great...oh well, but here are what the boys ended up being for this year's Halloween. Last night was our ward's Trunk or Treat, and Chase chose to be dirt this year (even after I gave him so many clever, fun, boy costume ideas), and Kai had to be a bee since he is too young to tell me what he wanted to be. I had a difficult time thinking of how we could make Chase look like dirt, and not a poop, and you see the result. We put a little plant on his head to look like it was growing from the dirt, put cocoa on his face to look dirty, and made a sign that says "Can you DIG it? I wanted to be DIRT" and had a garden shovel that can go in and out of the back of it.

Kai doesn't look that cute here, but he sure was cute as he walked around later that night and his little chubby face was hidden back in his big bee head.

So tonight, Halloween night, we will be joining Nathan's sister's family and having pizza and then going Trick or Treating around their neighborhood. Hopefully the weather (and our boys) will cooperate! :)

FHE: Pumpkin Carving

This last Monday, as a tradition of ours, we carved pumpkins since Halloween was later in the week. The boys loved getting to stay up late, and the privilege of getting to sit on the table, a rare occasion, and watch Dad carve out the "yucky stuff" and see Mom carve out the faces. They loved smacking the "yucky stuff" and helping separate the seeds from it.

Don't you love Kai's "smile" haha.

And here are the finished products. Happy Halloween!

Beach Trip!

Unfortunately our batteries died pretty soon after our fun weekend getaway began, but thankfully we were able to get a few pictures in before then. We were able to go down to Seaside, OR with a few of our friends to stay in a beach house and have fun hanging out, a surfing expedition, and playing games. It was a lot of fun, and it was nice that the weather was really pretty on Saturday so we could enjoy the beach. Nathan caught almost every wave that came by him, and even I gave it a shot, but a very quick shot. I figured stand up one and a half times for a second and then I had had enough :). I am not a major ocean person, and after being thrashed in the waves I realized I really am out of shape! Anyway, it was a fun attempt, and I was kept pretty warm in the wetsuit, and it was overall a really fun weekend hanging out together and seeing a really beautiful place.

The beach we went to.

We went to the shops "downtown" and stopped by one of the arcades. Don't you love that 3 year olds have no idea that they are not the ones playing the intro to the game? Sure saves us some quarters at least when they think they are already playing and doing awesomely since that is the example :)

We also stopped by another beach at Cannon Beach, OR before we left to go back home, and the rock in the distance is the same rock at the ending of the movie "The Goonies". Funny.

Nathan's Trip to Santa Barbara

Even though this isn't the best picture of Nathan or his grandma, Bobbie, it was a neat experience that Nathan went down to Santa Barbara for. Earlier this month Nathan flew down alone (it was too expensive to do as a family), and went and sealed his grandma to her deceased husband who died well over 30 years ago. He was also able to then seal his grandma to two of her daughters. It was a neat experience for their family and I am glad he was able to go down and be a part of it.

Also, both of his sisters were able to go too, and so they were able to have fun together in the nice 70-80 degree weather, while the rest of his family (me and the boys) were in the rainy, cooler WA weather :).

Some of the Latest Fun...

So it has definitely been tooooo long since I wrote on here. Our family has had several bouts of the flu and it has been so non-fun, and crazy. However, we have had some fun over the last month or so that I thought I would post on here. I am really bad at figuring out how to post these pictures in order, so we are starting from most recent :). Yesterday, for Labor Day, we were able to go boating with our good friend's the Mann's. We thought the weather was going to be pretty bad, but thankfully it was actually pretty nice, and a lot of people weren't out on the Sound with us because they were listening to the weather report unlike us.

The boys weren't a huge fan of boating, but thankfully Kai had his blanket and me, and he calmed down for the most part. Doesn't he look like he is having a blast in his life jacket? I look pretty scary, but what can you expect when you are the picture taker?

Here is Captain Ron (Evan Mann :D), who didn't know I was taking a picture of him, haha. He also made us all a delicious, hearty breakfast that morning, treated us to some fun boating, and then introduced us to Korean BBQ that night, which was really good. Thanks, Evan!

Here is the lovely Heather, somewhat bundled up trying to keep her boys feeling secure. Too bad Orion and Merrick weren't paying attention to me taking their picture so I could have captured their cute faces. They were great sports about the whole boating thing...too bad my boys weren't as good.

Here is their oldest, Connor, who was majorly brave and figured he could sit by himself and still hold on. He did a great job, but on the way home, when I took this picture, it was really windy and their was some water spray on him that he would hold his hood down to shield his face. He is a funny one :)

I love Nathan. He is such a good dad that he held Chase, who was seriously FREAKING OUT most of our boating time, and he did his best to keep him calm, or really, from passing out. I am glad he has more patience then me!

My grandma also came over to visit us from Colorado for a week, and that was a ton of fun. It was nice that she was able to meet Chase and Kai, and get to know Nathan better, and it was really fun for me being able to have another helper who was always happy to play and read the boys a story. We all really enjoyed having her here...thanks Granee!

Then before my grandma came, Kelli and her family came down from Bonners Ferry, ID to visit us for a few days. Here is Chase and Payton, her youngest, sitting in their PJs watching some morning cartoons. Payton really liked hanging out with Chase since he thought he was cool :), but Chase wasn't as big a fan of that. Payton is only two weeks older than Kai, and 18 month olds aren't so fun to play cars with I guess.

While the Bateman's were visiting we also went to the beach in Tacoma and that was a lot of fun. We had never been to Ruston Way (I think that is what it is called), and the kids had a lot of fun playing in the sand and water.

Our boys liked it a lot too, until we showed Chase the jumping little sand "crabs" and that was the end of Chase's fun. Thankfully Chase is recently getting over his fear of bugs, but at the time the little jumping critters sent him into pure terror. This posting seems to be addressing all of Chase's fears :), unfortunately he has a lot to work through.

We have had a good time with family and friends these past few weeks, and look forward to hopefully some more soon!

Having Fun with Cuppie and Nammy

Last week my parents came to visit from El Dorado Hills, CA and we had a lot of fun with them! I wish we lived closer to them like we used to, but it was nice having them "captive" with us for four days so we could spend all of the time together doing fun things like reading as a family (see above), and...
going to Dairy Queen (DQ) and getting messy with ice cream...

Chase loved his ice cream cone, can you tell?

We also enjoyed visiting Redondo Beach 2 out of the 4 days. Of course the boys loved throwing rocks in the water, and...

playing with big sticks. Thanks "Cuppy" (Grandpa/Dad) and "Nammy" (Grandma/Mom) for making the effort to come up and see us, we already miss you!

"I'm So Excited, and I Just Can't Hide It!" :)

So some of you already know that I have been working, and working, on a drawing of President Monson, but I am FINALLY DONE! I got the idea to do this a little while ago because I was thinking that I would like to have a picture of our Prophet in our home for our boys to see, and then found the perfect picture that I wanted to draw. I contacted the photographer who said to do whatever I want with it (thank you so much to him!), and so I think the drawing has finally met my expectations. I had so many fun and inspirational thoughts along the way that inspired so many of the ideas behind it. It probably looks simple to all of you, but there were so many decisions along the way, and sometimes I have a really hard time making decisions, especially when it comes to a project I am working on.

So today I am mailing a matted, hand-signed print, with a letter to President Monson and his wife to have, (I hope they like it :S), and I am offering the same to any of you that are interested (minus the letter, but I will put a special note in it instead, haha). If you are interested in seeing the three different quotes you can choose to have on yours, or would like to have one, I created a separate blog where you can buy it online with cheap shipping. I priced it cheap so anyone and everyone can have one (and I am crossing my fingers that someone else might want one of these, but no pressure, only if you want a picture of the Prophet like I did :) ). Click here to go to the website.

Also, I would love to have any feedback, advice, thoughts, suggestions, etc. as well...thanks! So, please let your family and friends know about this if you think they would be interested. Thanks everyone, and hope you like it!