coming summer 2012

Halloween

This year halloween was pretty fun. We had dinner with a group of friends then walked around their neighborhood to knock on the doors of strangers and threaten to trick them if we didn't get a treat. Well, fortunately the neighbors were all prepared and had loads of sugar waiting for kids dressed in cute costumes.

Here's what our hooligans looked like..

I mean really...if they hadn't gotten a treat, what would their trick have been?

Well, thankfully, there was no need to find out.

After returning to the house we snacked and began the next phase of the night..passing out candy to the big kids..

Tyson the Football Player and Jalen the Pirate set up post at the door while Emery supervised the handing out of candy. They all had a good time and we hope that this will become our annual family tradition! Thanks Clarks for hosting us!!

It's so good to have good friends...

And the boys went camping...

I went fishing with my daddy and I caught some fish and then I went to the camping spot. We ate the fish and after that we ate s'mores and put out the fire. I got hot water and poured it on the fire to put it out. And..then it got dark and we went to sleep. And that's my story.

-Tyson age 4

Whoa..

Wow! I didn't realize it had been so long since I've posted.. here's a look back over the summer..

a football game

fun with friends

a trip to the beach

running in the ocean

and a train ride on Thomas the Tank Engine

winter harvest

While I'm not usually in the mood to go all the way back to February and talk about what we were doing then, you might find that I do in the next few posts. You see, we took a trip out to the coast for a few days, it was amazingly sunny and somewhat warm, so we took a lot of video with our camcorder and pictures with our camera. Unfortunately, after that trip, both the camera and camcorder quit working, both with lens errors. It seems they don't enjoy the sand and beach as much as we did. So, for awhile we weren't able to download or even take any photos. Now that the camera has been repaired it's been fun getting back to those photos we took a few months ago.

Here is a photo of our winter harvest...Last fall we built garden beds and planted onions, garlic, lettuce and carrots to grow over winter. In February the lettuce was ready for harvest and the onions were needing to be thinned, so we had a few small salads made from our very own lettuce and 'scallions'. I will for sure do a winter garden again. It was pretty foolproof and I really liked that I never had to water it..just a few sprays to keep it moist at the beginning and then it did all the rest by itself. I probably could have covered it when it snowed, but with the hardy crop I had it didn't seem to bother it that it wasn't covered...my kind of gardening!

Brotherly Love

Tyson has enjoyed playing board games for awhile, and now Kaiya is starting to join in the fun. She really enjoys flipping the cards and will move her piece around the board for a bit, but usually loses interest half way through the game. With some games we just have her flip the cards for each of us, and that way she stays engaged but not destructive. On one of these occasions we were playing Candyland and Kaiya was trying to take over the card stack. I told her that she could be my helper and flip my cards for me. Tyson was on the verge of being frustrated with her, but then suddenly his demeanor changed and he said, "Kaiya, will you flip my cards for me?" (this isn't the first time he's done that)

Me: "Kaiya, you have the best brother. He wants to have you help him!"

Tyson quickly responded with, "But Mama, I have the best sister!"

It's true..he does..and sometimes I forget to emphasize that. But thankfully, he's quick to remember and hopefully these two will continue to grow as good friends!