Some good ole' fun

I left the house for just a short time and came home to find the boys had created a new game.  Their creativity impressed me! 

 

The library is doing a fall reading program and the prize is Mister Softee's and In-N-Out!  It was in the 90's this October day and we thought ice cream was the perfect way to cool off.  The boys got floats...

 

Pumpkin carving

This was the first year that the boys carved their pumpkins all by themselves!  They did a fantastic job!

 

Eli felt that Maya needed to be out with us to join the fun.  Colin even made a pumpkin for her :)

Point Proven

Colin,

Thank you for proving my point in the last post.  Some things are still the same...You will still appear in the most random get ups that always make me laugh.

 

 

Like, why do you have a bat in the back of your shirt while you are putting away your dishes???

 But you are now my very best helper and will jump in to help me cook dinner, especially if it's taco night.  You make the best guacamole!

To my kiddos

To my Alison, Eli and Colin,

Throwback to the very beginning of our family, when Alison was still in my tummy.

 And 14 years of memories since then.

I just finished re-reading and editing the entire blog and combined the school blog to this one.  It was a big project...I know you've watched me at my computer the last few weeks and we've talked about whatever post I was working on that day.  It was so interesting to go back through all the years of our family.  Some things are still the same.  Just looking at the above picture for example, we still have that wreath and ceramic bowl.  Colin, you still loves wearing something on your head as much as possible and you still make silly faces.  Eli, you still love to snuggle and can engineer anything creative that pops in your head.  Alison, you still sleep with your hand under your head and still have an eye for the perfect outfit.  Then there are a lot of things that have changed over the years.  Colin, you stopped being a tornado and turned into my very best helper.  Eli, you have forgotten the Thomas the Train song entirely and turned into a coding master.  Alison, you now love being alone in your room, instead of crying and thinking it was the worst punishment in the world when we asked you to play by yourself.

As I looked back over the years, there a few things I wanted you to know.  First of all, please remember that all these posts are just snap shots of our life.  There is no way that I could fully capture every single wonderful thing that happened.  Keeping that in mind, please don't ever look back on our memories and let yourself be labeled.  I may have commented on how messy you made something as a toddler, but that doesn't mean you are a mess.  Second, please keep GRACE in mind when reading over our memories.  I started this blog when I was 26 years old!  I had seasons of sleep deprivation and not easy pregnancies and adjusting to new worlds each place that we moved.  Third, there were a lot of times that I said, "This is our new tradition!" or "We are definitely doing this all the time!" and we never did again.  On the flip side, there were lots of things that I said I would never do again, and in fact did many more times.  Sorry about that...just know that my intentions were good.  Finally, I need you to know how much I love you.  You are the greatest gifts and I am so thankful that I get to be you mom.

Love,

Mom

P.S. if any YouTube video doesn't work on the blog, just go to our YouTube channel directly.

San Diego-Midway tour

We continued our wonderful trip the next day.  Ben took the boys to the hotel breakfast, Alison slept in and I got to sip coffee in a giant bed and watch HGTV.  Then Ben and I went for a run along the water.

We packed up our hotel rooms and grabbed an early lunch/Alison's breakfast.

Then we toured the Midway.  Ben gave us our own private tour and it was fun to hear the in's and out's of being on a ship.  I cannot believe he was on a ship for 4 months!

Alison looking in charge...she said this was Grandpa's chair on the ship.

Colin could have stayed all day, looking at all the different airplanes.

 

Trip to San Diego-Sea World!

Our third trip to Sea World is in the books!

We always start at the Explorer's Reef:

These little fish eat the dead skin off your hand.  It's like a fun exfoliant!

 Then around the park we went!

 

Watching the sharks:

 

In the arctic

In front of the penguins.

The dolphin show was closed, but we were able to see the orca show!  This is the first time we've seen the orca's and it did not disappoint.

 

 

After the show, Eli, Alison and I rode the rapids ride.  Poor Eli got soaked!

 

Ben and Eli rode this spinning ride

And we got cotton candy by the sting rays.

 

 

Again, we always end in Sesame Street land.  Colin did some jumping and climbing and then we got Dip N' Dots.

 

 

That night, we picked up Chick-fil-A for the kids and got settled in the hotel. Then, Ben and I went to a sunset dinner on the water. It was perfection!

Pumpkin farm!

 My friend, Brittany and I took our boys to the pumpkin farm.  There was so much to do, we could have spent the whole day there!

First they played on the combine/slide

and then played on the hay bales.

 

Then they all took a bee ride around the farm.

More slides...

And lots of pumpkining.

 

We took a tractor ride out to the corn maze.

Thomas and Colin

The boys did a great job navigating us through the corn maze!

Then they rode "go carts"...that's what they were called but you had to peddle them, which was very hard on the sand.

 

After a snack, it was time to load up our wheelbarrow with pumpkins!

 

We had such a fun day with friends!