Fall

Poor Nathan has been fending for himself all week as I have been in bed sick, so Sunday Albert took the boys out back to play in the yard. This is what I saw when I went out to check on them. (sorry for the blurry pics, it seems like everytime I go to use the camera the batteries are dead or still charging!)
There was a serious amount of leaves covering the yard and patio, I couldn't even walk out the back door without having to wade through them. Once they got the pile built up Nathan had to get used to being covered in the leaves, but then they kept tunneling through the pile and jumping in.

Eli's 7!!

Can you believe my little boy is 7!! He opened our presents on his birthday and had a party on the weekend. I had been teasing him all week about gifts. I would ask him if I really had to buy him something and he would keep telling me yes. Are you sure? Yes YES! Why? Because it's my birthday!! And I would in the end always tell him we would buy him gifts.
Then Albert says I should get a gift for carrying him in my tummy for so long and helping him be born on his birthday. Finally one morning he says "Mom, Stop giving me a hard time! I want presents on my birthday!!" It was so hilarious!
So on his birthday he got the 2 gifts he had been wanting, Bakugan and a fishing pole that lets you shoot the hook into the water.

Here he is trying to guess what the big present is.

and super excited when he sees a peek of the pole

We told him he could have a big party at the house with all his classmates or he could take his best buddies to the bounce house. He opted for the bounce house. So we start out at our house to open present and have cake & ice cream, then Albert takes the boys to the bounce house. He calls me less than 30 minutes later and says they are done and want to come home to play at the house. I told him to tell Eli he should play for 30 more minutes and then the y could come back. Well 10 minutes later they were home.
Eli had got Bakugan from each boy and apparently knowing all those Bakugan toys were waiting at our house was too much for them to handle! :) So they spent the rest of the time in Eli's room playing. They had a great time though and Eli was more than pleased to add so many Bakugan to his collection.

Halloween part 2

I'm playing catch up today. So much has been going on lately that I haven't had time to post any pictures. This is from the Halloween trunk-or-treat at church. I can't believe I forgot to take good pictures of the boys in their costumes. Oh well. Nathan's costume turned out so cute! I made one for his friend Loic that's the same age and he HATED it! Loic screamed when we would try the costume on him. Nathan just looked at him like, "what's your problem? It's no big deal, didn't you see me try mine on? I'm still good." so funny!
Enjoy the pictures.

Halloween

Painting pumpkins

The boys had such fun painting their pumpkins! Nathan screamed

when I told him we were done..not a happy boy that night.notice all the paint on his shirt, I thought it would wash out. Oh well, he had a great time! Eli was proud of his finished pumpkin, he planned it all out on his own!

And now on to the food!

Nathan asks..."Do I really have to eat this centipede!?"

dear siblings,

Fond memories of growing up made such a good start to my day today. Yesterday I took the boys grocery shopping. While we were there I picked up a pomegranite and told Eli how yummy it was going to be. I cracked it open this morning and neither of the boys cared for the taste. So I got to sit down and eat it, well half of it anyway, for breakfast. As I was picking all the pieces out it took me back to Gilbert, the Hellmanns and Reeds, Espinozas and plenty other families there. Katie Hellmann and I would live off pomegranites when they were in season. I'm sure we had more than our share of them! I remember riding my bike down to her house and getting my dress caught in my chain. Most of the time though, I would walk and have to "book it" past Sid. Remember that nasty dog? He would freak me out.

side note: this just reminded me of Kaitin and our last house. She would come running home totally out of breath and on the verge of tears because she was so scared of our neighbor dog. Sometimes she would start walking to school and come running home because of the dog. So one day I decided to go talk to the owner of the dog to see if they could keep it in the back yard before and after school so Kaitlin wouldn't have a heart attack at such a young age. Well, we walk over to the house and all of a sudden Kaitlin grabs my arm in an attempt to hide behind me. I look over and what do I see? Not a big, mean looking dog or a dog with a big loud bark. coming towards us is a cute little (annoyingly yippy) chihuahua. I laughed. She got upset. I tried to explain that if she just stopped, stomped her foot and yelled for the dog to git, then she wouldn't have problems. Eventually the problem got better though.

Now back to 155th St. Do you remember the huge snake in the bush by the railroad? One of you was with me. We kept throwing rock at it...smart I know! It was huge though! and going past the bush was our way home. What about the time we swam with some of the neighbor in the big canal or when some guy tired to water ski down the canal. I have such great memories of those days. I think that is why I always bug my kids to get off the computer or tv and (heaven forbid!) use their imagination. I know they don't have the space we had to roam, but I love when they are creative and have fun just playing. I would never dream of letting the kids do some of the stuff we did. Katie and I would walk a couple of miles to the CircleK to get snacks. We all would wander and explore, being gone all day. We would talk about the hobos that probably lived in the trees just past the railroad tracks. We would run down the ditch, hopping from side to side, doing our best when it had water in it not to fall in.
I remember sitting on our roof and watching fireworks, there weren't many houses out there to block our view. Oh, and the hot air balloons. I think it must have been a yearly thing. There were tons floating through the sky. And the fair grounds close by I'm not sure we ever went, but I walked over there with someone just to check it all out.

I could go on and on!! I love all the memories and think that is why I would love to live in Snowflake someday. It's a smaller town and we could have lots of land for the kids to explore and be gone all day. If it never happens, at least we have mom and dad there and the kids can explore on their vacations!