Happy Halloween!

Emily and Brett home from their date on the scooter!

We babysat Parker. We went to the ward party,

Parker loved it, and looked cute in his pea costume!

Travis was very proud of his pumpkin he carved!
He did a great job, all by himself, I might add- a first!

I'm looking forward to seeing all the costumes

my grandkids wore! Hope everyone got lots

of candy!

He's 12!

I can't believe I officially have a Young Man! For his 12th birthday, Devon invited 6 friends and they all came. They are a good group of kids, half are non-members. I was so happy to see him having fun with his buddies, sometimes he is not very social & struggles to makes friends. I think he feels more comfortable with one on one friendships, and sometimes feels overwhelmed with lots of kids. But he had a great birthday party. He had a Wii Olympics, projected on a big screen. I'm so glad Troy was able to be there to run the tournament. They all had fun. Devon requested Chicago style pizza, which is bascially lots of meat. Sausage, chicken, bacon, pepperoni...piled high and deep with lots of cheese. One slice is all I can handle. Anyway, I am slowly getting caught up in the world of blogging. Just a few more to go :)

Cinnamon Rolls have become Dev's bday replacement for cake

Everyday Life

Just some random pics of everyday life...

Audrey loves playing with the animals. She is always creating pet palaces and loves bringing her bedroom outside. I don't like that part too much. I'm always washing her blankets and telling her not to take them out. She's getting better...I think.

I love watching Alex and his buddy, Gunnar, play together. They are such boys. They put on their capes, grabbed some sticks and were getting the 'bad guys' by stabbing the bushes. Gunnar has 3 sisters, and he calls Alex his brother. It's cute.

This kids spent several hours one day doing a draft for all the the matchbox cars. They made about 40 of these, one for each car, then we all had play money to 'bid' on our cars. The cars we 'won' were then raced against each other to find the champion.

My new ride!

Say hello to my Madsen Cargo bike! We've been looking at cargo bikes for awhile, they have a gazillion different kinds. But they are a little expensive. So when we saw this one, used, for sale outside a bike shop in Boulder City we knew we had to pick it up. I love it! We've had it for 5 days and I've already used it to take Lizzie to school, pick up Abby from a playdate , get groceries, go yard saleing, and get Caitlin from the bus stop. Everywhere I go people ask me where I got it, or say how cool it is. And they are so right. It is so cool!

There's a bench on one side (newer models have a bench on both sides with belts) that can come out, and the seat belts are similiar to car seat belts and anchor into the bucket itself. This week's task is jimmy-rigging an infant car seat I got at a yard sale to fit into it so Haley can come along, too! I believe there's even a canopy we can buy to go over the bucket for when it's yucky outside. We're also rigging up the Specialized to be our "courier" bike, a cargo bike on a smaller scale. Just with a few pannier bags and things, so Rod can use it for scouts and things like that.

A title of one of the many biking blogs we've been checking out lately is called "Everyday Adventures". This has sort of become a little mantra for us! Taking this bike around really flips the switch from mundane errand to fun outing!

p.s. Fun cargo bikes links:

My dream cargo bike, called the Shuttlebug, handmade in Portland, OR by Joe Bike: http://www.joe-bike.com/cargo-bikes/the-shuttlebug-handmade-in-portland/ (but waaayyy expensive, so it will stay in my dreams)

Our other favorite is the Yuba Mundo, google it- it's sweet!

School

I just have to say that the end of school and the beginning of the school year must represents thousands of trees in paper. It is ridiculous! This is a picture of all the papers I had to fill out the first day of school. Emergency contact info., school policy, medical stuff, etc. and times it by 3 kids. AAAGGGHHH! I am scared when Alex starts in a couple years. It is crazy.

First day of school picture. They hate taking this every year. And every year they look a little less cute :) And there's ALWAYS one who won't look at the camera. Oh, and one who won't smile.

This is what they came home with on the last day of school. And this was just Cameron and Audrey's stuff. I spent hours just going through all their papers.

Cameron's backpack was sooo heavy!

Cameron got to go to a couple weeks worth of practices and their jamboree before he broke his pinky finger...it was so sad because he was so excited about playing quaterback. Just this last week the dr. told him he didn't have to have it taped up anymore, but to take it easy. So no sports for him until baseball in the spring.

Wow, two posts in two days! I kept thinking about all the things I needed to post, and how long it was going to take. It's definently easier to do a lot of smaller ones. Hope I'll get some this time in this weekend to post. Our primary program is on Sunday, gulp. Wish me luck. Tonight is the high school Homecoming football game and bonfire, so everyone is excited for that. Oh-also just to let you know we are a real Mormon family now. We have a piano! The district was selling some of their stuff in storage, and they had a couple pianos they were selling for $50. One looked nicer but was out of tune, the other needs refinishing but sounds good. We went with the one that sounds good. I hope we don't regret it. Devon said he is not looking forward to Cameron constatlly playing his compositions. Brace ourselves.

Dog days of summer...

I have a lot of catching up to do...I'm going to try to post a little every day (every week?) til I'm caught up. Here's some pics of an end of the summer outing. We found a new waterfall (Cameron, "Not another waterfall!") yes, we do have a lot around here. But I don't get tired of seeing them. We found a little secluded spot along the Columbia that is only accesible by going under the freeway through a small tunnel along a little stream. It was an adventure for sure.

Family Hike!

The weather has cooled off and it is nothing short of beautiful right now. So we went for a little hike this past weekend near Red Rock. It is so fun to see our girls learn to the love the outdoors as much as we do. Lizards, leaves, rocks and anything else are such treasures of wonderment to our girls!

A lone ranger- who was actually a lady.

I carried Haley in her sling, and Rod had Abby in our hiking backpack. Abby was like a little boss, telling Rod what to do every step of the way. Haley slept through most of the hike- she likes her sling!

I made Haley a little hair thingy. You can't see it exactly in this picture, but it looked so cute on her! I LOVE this baby!!!!