Goodbye Grandpa, We'll Miss You

I got some unexpected news today: my one living Grandpa has passed away. He lived a great 87 (almost 88) years. Thankfully my parents happened to be up at their house from California when Grandpa suddenly fell ill. I am so glad that my mom had one last chance to be with him, and that she is able to be there to lend support to my Grandma, who surely needs it right now.

I am also so grateful that I had a chance to see Grandpa a few months ago at Landon's blessing. He looked great and still had his witty sense of humor, despite his physical limitations. We got a couple of pictures of the kids with Grandma and Grandpa, which I will always cherish.

I have five memories that stand out with Grandpa:
1. Going out into the backyard to see his "pheasant house"
2. Going down into the basement with Grandpa, where there always seemed to be an extensive collection of ice cream to choose from. He always let me have whatever flavor I wanted.
3. Grandpa would teach me to go around the yard and pick all of the snails off of the plants in the garden. Sounds gross but I remember having so much fun doing it!
4. Grandpa always seemed to be reading the Wall Street Journal and was always up to speed on how the market was doing. He loved to give a tutorial to anyone who had a listening ear!
5. Grandpa's collection of "Dickies" that he wore to work out in the yard. He seemed to have one in every color!

Grandpa, we love you and will miss you!

Family Pictures

We recently got some family pictures taken (our first ones ever!). There were especially some cute ones of the kids. Here are some of my favorites:

Our Halloween Weekend

We had such a fun Halloween this year! We were able to kind of stretch things out a bit and even got a few wears out of each of their costumes! This year Jacey decided to be a queen, Brooklyn was a black cat, and Landon went as a little tiger.

The weekend before Halloween I took the kids to a little Halloween party they were holding at a local craft store and the girls won lots of cool prizes and did some fun crafts. The day before Halloween, both Brooklyn and Jacey had their Halloween parties at school. Unfortunately, Jacey's school doesn't allow them to dress up, but Brookie was able to wear her costume to school and she had a blast trick-or-treating around her teacher's neighborhood with all of her preschool buddies! Here is a picture of Brookie with her favorite buddy Ethan (or "Ephan", as she calls him)


That night we went to a Halloween carnival at Jacey's school, where they were allowed to dress up. The kids had a lot of fun there and both Jacey and Brooklyn won cakes in the cake walk (which basically went to waste--who wants more sugar on Halloween?) The pictures I took at the carnival didn't turn out very well, but here are some before shots:

After the carnival, we dropped in at Jon's work for their Halloween party, where Landon won the prize for best costume!

The next day was Halloween. We hurried to get our pumpkins carved at the last minute (okay, actually Jon and the girls cleaned out the pumpkins, and then left me solo to do the carving.) I always dread carving the pumpkins, but it was actually kind of fun this year and I was quite pleased with the results:

Kind of a blurry picture, but from left to right is Landon's "Clown" pumpkin, Brooklyn's "Cat" pumpkin, and Jacey's "Cackling Witch" pumpkin

We rushed off to the trunk-or-treat in the afternoon, where Brooklyn was kind of onery and groggy from a nap at the beginning but finally came around in the end. Jacey had a great time being a big girl and running off on her own with her friends. Landon just hung out and looked cute for everyone:

Yes, even I dressed up!

After the trunk-or-treat we crammed dinner down the kids throats, and then the girls and I were off with some friends to trick-or-treat around the neighborhood. We were beat by the time we finally got home, but the kids had so much fun. They made a haul with their candy too, and now we have enough to last us until next Halloween! Anyone who needs a sugar fix, please stop by our house and take some away!

Oh, and did I mention that Landon looked super cute in his costume?!?

Happy Fall Y'All!

We had such a fun and busy October. We went up to visit Jon's family during the kid's fall break from school and the kids had a great time with their cousins. The first item on the agenda was a trip to Hee Haw's, a family farm where they have lots of fun kids activities, including a corn maze.

Both girls loved going down the "slide" over and over and over again!

The "train" ride was less than thrilling. . .

then they recovered a little thrill on the swings!

They had a ball playing in the corn. . .


and then fell apart in the corn maze! (actually, mainly Brooklyn did, although all of us except Shay ended up just throwing the towel in and walked out of the entrance!)

The day after Hee Haw's we had a family barbecue over at Jon's brother Loran's house. While there, I got a couple of cute pictures of Landon with his Grandpa:

After spending those few days with Jon's family, we headed home and then had company of our own--my dad and brother Michael came up for a visit from California! They stayed with us for 5 days and helped me out a lot while Jon went out of town on business. They played with the kids, helped me out with the baby, and my dad even helped me to tackle a couple of projects around the house that I never seemed to have time to do. Thanks Dad! Here are some pictures from their visit here:

We spent some time playing at our favorite park. . .

visited a pumpkin patch. . .

and ate at Pirate Pizza! (kind of like a Chuck-E-Cheese's)

The night before Grandpa and Michael had to leave, Michael made up and sent the kids on a treasure hunt, which they loved. The "treasure" at the end was a trip to Maggie Moo's to get ice cream cones! What a cool uncle! The kids had a lot of fun with Grandpa and Uncle Michael and were sad to see them go! Hopefully we can see them again soon.

Soccer Girls!

This fall my girls decided to forgo taking dance classes in favor of trying their hand on the soccer field. Although both did great with dance, I thought that it would be fun to try something new. I figured that something athletic like soccer would be right up Brooklyn's alley, but I wasn't so sure that Jacey would take to it. I was extremely surprised when Jacey not only liked playing, but was actually one of the stand-out players on her team! She played goalie and forward and scored quite a few times. Brooklyn was also a very good player and kicked a lot of goals too. The girls both said they don't care if they dance anymore, but want to know when they can play soccer again! I am looking at signing them up for the spring city league so they can continue to hone in on their new-found talents. I love that I have finally brought out the tomboy in them both!

Mommy Wow! I'm a Big Kid Now!

Landon turned 5 months old a week ago today. I can't believe that he is already almost 1/2 a year old! The past 5 months have flown by faster than I remember them going by with the girls, partly because the days and nights sometime blend together with the lack of sleep, and partly because life has taken on more of a frantic pace with three kids schedules to tend to. He is getting to be such a big boy and has already cut his first tooth and started to roll over (although I have discovered that he often lacks the motivation to roll because he hates being on his stomach!) It has been fun to see Landon's personality emerge and to see him become more engaging and interactive. He always wants to be right in the middle of all the action and gets upset if he is left alone for too long. Or maybe he gets upset because he is afraid to be left alone with Brooklyn, who loves Landon a little too much sometimes. We love this little guy a lot, and since I have not been very good at posting pictures of Landon as he has grown, here is a smorgasbord sure to incite baby hunger!

Hard to believe he started out this small!

1 month old

2 months old

3 months old

3 1/2 months--Getting to be a big boy!

3 1/2 months old--Playing in the walker

4 months old--Getting to be so happy!

4 months

4 1/2 months--Feeling big in the Bumbo seat

Almost 5 months--Getting "decorated" with flowers by those darn sisters!
(and producing enough drool to make them grow!)

Working on cutting that pesky tooth! (almost 5 months)

Jumping to the point of exhaustion! (almost 5 months)

5 months old, and already reading!

5 months--Such a big, handsome boy!