Goodbye October

Even though you're usually my favorite month, I don't think I'm sad to see you go, but I'll rest up and look forward to seeing you in a year.

Halloween Night

(I look how I felt here...tired)

The leaves up and down our street have been SO beautiful this year I had to snap a picture, but this doesn't do it justice.

As a general rule, I like our Halloween costumes to have a theme. Travis and Carson both have gorilla costumes, we were going to borrow a banana costume for Holden and Stella was going to be a monkey. Good, right? I thought so, but when the Costume Express catalog arrived, Holden went through it and found the UPS man; he was instantly sold. Travis brought a UPS box home from work and Holden wears his costume and plays "UPS". He gets so excited every time he sees a UPS truck and says he wants to be a UPS man when he grows up. He was so cute about it I couldn't stifle his creativity.:) Goodbye themed halloween costumes, I'll miss you.

The funny thing is, Carson was SO embarrassed to be seen in public taking these pictures. I can't believe he's reaching the age where he's too cool for things he use to love.

Isn't she the most beautiful monarch butterfly?!

So cute and chubby in her Halloween pj's.

Holden's Preschool party

Unfortunately my camera is having issues and this is the only picture that turned out. :(

Happy Birthday to me!

I'm one of those people that takes my birthday seriously. I feel it's my special day and I get to do what I want and hopefully get some special treatment too. :) I had to work on my birthday and seriously considered taking the day off until I reasoned that most people do actually have to work on their birthday. I didn't have a bad day at work, but I wasn't able to soak it up for all it was worth, so I've decided I will no longer work on my birthday. The family took me out to dinner at Chevy's, Travis bought me some beautiful roses and surprised me with the 50mm, 1.8 lens I've been wanting! Thanks honey!


Family Pictures are....... hellacious!
Every time we take them, I wonder why?! However, I think this was the worst yet! Stella was in rare form, the boys were their typical busy selves, Travis was impatient and in a hurry to get to work, the kids didn't like the prickly field with cow patties and spiders in it... Needless to say, it was stressful, our smiles were forced and I wanted to go home and cry. I was relaying the experience to my parents later that day and my dad sends me this U tube video. As I'm watching it I can't believe what I'm hearing, it's almost perfectly describing our family pictures! If you haven't seen it you need to. And let me just clarify, I never once asked to hold hands in a field, and I didn't ask to be photo shopped in my tube top, in fact, I don't even own one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddAQbZuVCTM&feature=player_embedded

Miss Stella Jane's 1 Year Pictures

I've never been a huge Etsy shopper, but once I started looking for little girl things, I couldn't believe how many fun things were on there. Here's the link to the cool shop where I found this outfit.
Bubble Romper
http://www.etsy.com/listing/56589024/pettiskirt-bubble-romper-you-pick-color

This was how she acted for most of her pictures, my happy little girl!

Lace Pettipants
http://www.etsy.com/listing/56848981/lace-pettipants-for-her-pettiskirt-by

She'll give her mama smiles. Here she is on her actual birthday. I think she looks so grown-up.

I made my sister's from scratch cupcakes, delicious!
This was my first year experiencing two birthdays three days apart. The fact that I had a big birthday party for Carson this year made it tough. I'd originally planned to have a party for Stella, but instead we kept it simple. I'm going to have to come up with a way to spread out the celebrating a bit.

I told you I went a little Etsy crazy. Check out this cute bib I found there:
http://www.etsy.com/transaction/35949167
Unfortunately it arrived 1 day late so she's not wearing it for her 1st bday like I wanted her to.

Carson turns 7!

Carson lost his 7th tooth the night before his 7th birthday! As Travis said, the stars were aligned. This is Carson's note to the tooth fairy. He had written, "I love you, please write back." I made the mistake of saying "you love her?" So he crossed that part out.

Carson is really into science experiments, so we had a mad scientist birthday party.

We made snow, grew jelly marbles, made worms, lava tubes, played with magic sand and launched rockets.

Cousin Lilly making worms

We had the party out at the barn and it was a beautiful day.

The kids waiting for the train to come by.

I made brain cupcakes. They don't look very appetizing.

Portland Marathon 10/10/10
We did it!

As I've said before, nothing went according to plan with this marathon. After weeks of therapy, I didn't make the decision to run until the night before when I tried running for 30 min to see how my knee would feel. I knew this wasn't going to be an ideal race for me, but for some reaon I had to try and do it, knowing that most likely I wouldn't be able to finish. With lots of prayers and a blessing I decided to go for it. Of course it had to pour the entire race! Let me say that the majority of the month was absolutely gorgeous with very little rain. We missed the memo about running in a garbage bag, so we didn't have any of our own, but thankfully we parked next to someone that had a few extras.

(WARNING! BORING RACE REPORT-SKIP OVER)

I was very distracted the whole race, waiting for my knee to call it quits, but like everything else in this journey something unexpected happened. I was doing great at mile 13, on target for my normal 1/2 marathon time when my left quad started cramping. I thought it was weird, but hoped I could run it off, then my right quad started cramping, then both calves. I've seriously never experienced anything like it. By mile 16 I was having to stop and stretch each mile, which was a real drag! The thing was, any discomfort I felt in my knee became numb by the overpowering pain in my legs and feet. I don't think my shoes were broken in enough and my feet literally felt on fire, they hurt so bad. I knew a huge factor in finishing this race would be mental, but I had no idea how much. I don't think I've ever felt that kind of physical pain where your mind is the only thing keeping you going. I had to focus so much that my music was literally distracting. Honestly the race wasn't fun. It was frustrating because my body wasn't doing what I wanted it to do. It was completely tapped and could honestly give no more. Towards the end each mile felt like 3, and that .2 at the end seriously felt like a mile. My legs were so done, but I had to run (if that's what you could call it) across the finish line. I was so happy to see Travis and to be done!!!!! My legs could barely get me to the car and let's just say that getting out of bed the next day almost brought tears to my eyes. Thank goodness for some leftover vicodin!!

I try to remember to be grateful that I finished because I didn't think my knee would allow it, but it's still hard to get over the disappointment that it wasn't the run I'd wanted and imagined it would be. At this point I have to do another one, where I can hopefully finish the training injury free and have a strong race. As one of my friends recently said about her marathon, it's rewarding to prove to yourself that you can do hard things. I feel like I've completed other marathons of sorts in my life and it's a reminder that I can finish the other ones I'm in now or that will come.

Holden looking dapper after church. He loves wearing a tie and suspenders like his dad.

Travis is completely smitten by this girl.

The Fruit Loop Drive in Hood River

We love making this day trip every year, it's such a pretty drive.

The kids love bowling with a pumpkin
We usually go to 4 or 5 pumpkin patches, but this year was just so busy we couldn't pull it off. We'll do better next year!

Annual Giant Pumpkin Drop

The giant pumpkin drop is the first Saturday in October and is always a favorite with the kids. We even collected some of our own giant seeds from the drop thinking we might try and grow our own (not in our backyard, but out at the barn).

Roadrunners 2010

Carson's soccer team was really fun this year. We knew every single player on the team, and he had played soccer and basketball with many of them last year. Carson was a much stronger player this year, he was more aggressive and skilled with the ball. I think he scored an average of 2 goals each game, it was very fun to watch him.