Harvest

We harvested pumpkins…and made pumpkin butter …yum!Click HERE for the recipe

Taste testing…

The results of hard work and goopy hands…

 

Going to the Church Harvest Party Outreach….as a Cowboy(last minute change from Knight as he wanted to be the same as his cuz), Princess, Tiger, and kitty

Harvesting the BEAUTIFUL leaves…making them into wreaths!  A very easy and fun craft to do …and a wonderful gift to grandparents and neighbors ! 

Instructions: Go for a fun nature walk picking up sticks, moss, leaves, pinecones etc…Cut circle out of middle of paper plate.  Paint brown.  Hot glue the nature on!

 Close ups

Close up of the tiger

Gotta get some excercise in sometime…Selah’s princess dress found at Goodwill for $4, has become the only thing she wants to wear…I finally told her to put it in the wash and wear something else after 2 days…then as soon as it came out of the wash it was back on :-/.   I can only handle the light pink color for so long…we’ll see how long I go until it disapears…by accident of course :-)

The LONG awaited detail pictures of Joel!  Finally got it completed!!!  I wish I could have done this for all my kids…soooo cool!  I would like to do this proffesionally someday .  Here he is at about 3.5 months… in detail.

Bathtime and other pics

Ready for the BIG tub with BIG brother!

I love the look of nice clean bathtub water!Where is Essie?  Playing Hide-N-seek with K and S.  I went into the garage and this is the first thing I saw the other day.

“I found my feet and I am SO HAPPY about it!”

Essie wore this outfit when she was 2!

 

#33

I woke up this morning to the kids bumping and banging around.  I got up to feed Joel and went to the living room.  The kids jumped out from behind furniture and yelled, “Happy Birthday”!!  They then gave me their handmade cards and sang THIS song for me . I did ask them to sing it one more time for me to be able to record it :0)

Kaleb asked me what I wanted him to make for my birthday and so we decided to make leaf pictures (my fall favorite craft)…so here are my gifts…

Joelie on YouTube

I can’t seem to put an actual video screen on here, but you can see it by clicking HERE

Getting better…and Gabe’s weird schedule

Thank you mom for bring over food items/medicines we needed 2 days in a row and for the “get well” flower and balloon!  We also had a friend bring over soup 2 times so we were doing A- OK despite the miserableness of this Flu and EVERYBODY getting it at the SAME time!  Actually, the same friend who brought over  the soup also happened to be getting rid of her kids videos a couple weeks before and so we had PLENTY Disney movies to keep the kids (and at times us adults as well stuck on the couch for the day(s) as we coughed, sneezed, and fevered the day(s) away.  We are oh SO happy to be on our way “out of the woods” now though!!!

Notice the “art display” across our wall, complete with mini clothes pin and fishing line !  Thanks Mandy !

And here are some “new” cute pics.:-)Poor Gabe’s been up most of the nights with Joel as he is still coughing pretty badly at night.  Gabe began to go back to work/volunteering stuff now though…so my turn to be up at nights :-/.  Gabe has begun a sub relief job for a youth guidance center near here on Mondays and other days/nights he is needed.  He is also working a temp job recruiting migrants into an education program in Sandy and Estacada…not many hours per week, but some.  THe rest of his time is spent volunteering one afternoon for PREP 4 Kids, Bible study with Hispanics one evening, Spanish church another evening, another Bible study, we are going to begin a coaching class here soon with “Marriage Teams”, replacing windows in this house, building a storage shed to put our stuff when we are gone, and preparing presentations for churches on Bolivia… (He will be leaving for San Diego on Monday).  Life is definitely interesting, if not a bit stressful as so many things are “up in the air” right now.  So glad that we have God to lean on when everything else seems to be going crazy.

Kaleb loves reading his Bible.  We just found out he was reading it until about 10:00pm while the bathroom light (the “nightlight” we put on until they fall asleep) in on.  He wakes up in the morning and reads it and then we use it for some of  his reading lessons as well.  He’s pretty much got the little beginning reader Bible  memorized.

Joel likes to stuff this plastic chain piece into his mouth and just leave it there…looks rather funny.

First thing he grabs at every morning…loves sticking them in his mouth while making a growling sound and chewing on them.

Come on, who on “Pride and Prejudice” does this look like??

Swine Flu..and MORE

Yep, we all got the pig flu…and not just some of the symptoms, but ALL of them.  And then I got Pnemonia as well most likely because I have had athsma problems in the past.  I have to say I was making fun of the Swine Flu before it hit us…it seemed exaggerated…but it does not seem that way now!  It is miserable (more so to those of us who are not in perfect health I think).  I am still not feeling well, but the first 7 days were horrible, 5 of which I hardly slept because I could hardly breath and had fevers and chills, a bad cough, and  Pains from toes to head to finger tips. .  I’ve had a sort of Malaria (Dengue Fever) before and this passed that pain up by quite a bit!  Selah and Joel are the next worst ones.  Joel has been on a nebulizer for help breathing.  We are still worried a bit about him as he sleeps.  He has wheezes and coughs a lot.  His fever goes on and off still and he has lots of goop in eyes, nose and mouth…yuck!  Poor baby!  Selah (most likely because she has not had the best immune system in awhile) has had a real high fever for about 4-5 days now and a bad cough.   She is now with a fever of 103 and not eating or doing anything.   Kaleb and Essie have had fevers and cough too, but seem more up to moving around and acting somewhat normal.  We have everyone off Tylenol for now as the Dr. said that it tends to prolong the illness,(unfortunatly it also makes them very miserable)  Gabe has had to not work at a job he was just getting started with for the past 3 days and had to say “no” to everything for the past week and even speaking this Sunday at church as no one really wants this stuff spreading   Gabe has had a milder version of it…(if he has had it at all)which has been great as he has been able to take care of the kids fevers/diapers/coughs while I got a bit better and could get up (makes one feel SOOO tired!).  He makes a pretty good nurse   Right now it feels like we will never be over this stuff!  Seems to go for a few days then almost seem to be getting better only to get worse and then keep on going…please pray

poor Joelie has been so miderable…it might seem weird to take pics of him with the nebulizer on him, but he was so cute and calm while it was on…after he found out that he could not eat it while it was over his mouth.  So sad hearing him coughing and wheezing so much

On this gorgeous Saturday we are still sick and stuck inside, yet outside our front door God has given us a beautiful fall sight!  I have got to say I have been pretty bummed today as it was the day we had planned for months to go to my Aunt’s house in Washington with just my sisters and my mom and little Megan and Joel…we were to have a great time crafting christmas crafts.  I was sooo looking forward to it….but alas I will try and enjoy my Aunt’s blog of it HERE  instead .

A very cute story!

You are in for some laughs and smiles if you read THIS “Worm Funeral” STORY on a friend of mine’s website.  Make sure to click on the picture of the “gravestone” to enlarge and read it!!  Wow, kids can be SOOOOO cute!

Summer Past Part 2…the BEACH!

Fasinated with crabs…and sand (Essie would hurridly grab a handful of sand as soon as we got on it and would hold onto it in both hands as if she had in her grasp the last sand on the beach.  It was pretty funny!  Here is Essie Flying her dollar store kite…fun while it lasted

Looking for  jelly fish (We found one part of one and I told Kaleb to grab it…smart mom, I know… why did I not grab it??  Well Kaleb got stung and since I had heard that peeing helps the sting he tried that…seemed to help

Tunneling

stretching Taffy

watching the taffy making process

Yummy!

camping at the beach…hobo stew

One of the few really relaxing moments that I remember this summer…

Kaleb got pretty good at flying the kite

naptime at a VERYwindy beach!  You can Just see Joel’s fro sticking out from the blankets

 

 

 

Silly Selah

Kaleb and Selah getting wet…and COLD!

Joel, who was at 3 months still sleeping most of the day, finally woke up and got a glimpse of the beach..didn’t look like he thought too much of it

It was a fun, yet cold and windy couple days at the beach!

Pics of Summer Past…part 1

Many happenings this summer that I was not able to post pics of …until now..Gabe is gone a lot in the evenings now and so when the kids are in bed and I am done nursing I might take some time here to post some pictures of the summer past

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Painting finger nails…and for the picture above of mima with Essie and Selah : Oh the sights, SMELLS, and SOUNDS of the 4th of July fireworks…   Selah could not stand the smell nor Essie the sounds …kind of a funny picture…I just could not seem to write this next to it

Kaleb got a lot of reading in this summer…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blowing homade bubble/foam makers

5 months…and sittin’ up

spittin’ up too, but I’ll show that one on another blog…or not

Aunt Bethany Lynn making sure he does not fall too far if he starts to go…

Here we are on our way through the woods to Aunt Shirley and Uncle Darrells house in Washington.  We went to Washington to go to a missions conference where Gabe was speaking and then speaking at a church the next day as well.

We also wanted to visit with the relatives too though and  enjoyed talking, relaxing,  campfire smores and other delicious foods while staying there.