Harvest Party at Church

Bad Brad

Brad going down the slide of the bounce house.

Brad's costume is a pit crew member for Lightning McQueen. Here he is playing the part well.

Brad during prayer time.

Lila is a pea pod this year.

Today Brad, Lila and I went to a Harvest party at church complete with a really cool bounce house. I had to give the "Life is not fair" speech to Sky a few hundred times when she found out what we were doing today. Anyway, we had a great time singing, bouncing, making a craft, having a costume parade, etc.

Trip to Indio

Camels!

There was one area at The Living Desert where everything was modeled after a Kenyan village.

The hotel also had a playground which Brad enjoyed.

Both families in the hotel living room.

Fun in the lazy river

Michael and Brad playing in the kiddie pool which was only 1 foot deep all the way around.

The view from the back of our room.

The view from our balcony. The lazy river was awesome and Sky and Timi were the perfect height to be able to walk around in it without a parent.

Some good friends of ours, the Monafu family, have a time share in Indio, CA (close to Palm Springs). They recently invited us to go with them for a 4 day get away and we eagerly took them up on the offer. We had a fabulous time!!! We visited The Living Desert, a zoo and botanical garden nearby. We ate out at PF Chang's one night (that's one of my favorite restaurants) and we grilled steak on our hotel balcony one night.

Our accomodations consisted of 3 bedrooms (Sky and Brad in 1, Ken and I in another and the Monafu family in another), 2 bathrooms, living room, dining room, kitchen and outdoor patio. We were on the 4th floor so we had to really keep an eye on Brad so that he didn't try to climb a chair and go parachuting without a parachute. We had a wonderful time. The kids had a blast together and Sky even said that she wished we could live there.

I'm 3 Months Old!

Lila turned 3 months old a few days ago. She is such a sweet, happy little girl. She truly is a gift from God to our family.

Free Pumpkins!

A realtor in our neighborhood gave out these free pumpkins to anyone who wanted them so, of course, we signed up. The kids each claimed one. Of course the stuffed animals had to be in the pictures too.

I have a cute Brad story to tell:

Brad has been very confused about the Christmas story, thinking that the stable is Jesus and the angel is Jesus' mom, etc. So, the other day I took out the Little People nativity set and was introducing each character to Brad. I showed him the 3 wisemen, explaining that they the shiny gold gifts they were holding were for Baby Jesus. To which he replied, "Can I eat them?" Apparently they looked like Hershey kisses or something like that to him... So Brad!

Apple Picking

On Saturday we went to Oak Glen apple orchards with a group from church. It was a 1 1/2 hour drive which seemed silly to Ken and I since we lived around apple orchards all through our childhoods. But we were glad that we went. The kids had a really fun day. They were able to pet some farm animals and play outside all day long. Sky and I had a great time together in the little country store. We sampled many kinds of apples and decided our favorite were the Braeburns. We bought a bag of apples along with a jar of amazing pumpkin butter and some honey sticks. When we got home we made some homemade apple sauce. It was delicious!

Computer Games

Lately Brad and Sky (Brad especially though) have had a renewed interest in their computer games. This is a rare moment when they're not fighting over whose turn it is and are actually working together. When Sky is at school, Brad LOVES playing with these games. They are on our old laptop that we don't use anymore so it's perfect for him to play on his computer while I check email, etc. on mine (and sometimes Ken is on his work laptop too!). It amazes me that he sees and undertsands the correspondence between the touch pad and the arrow on the screen. But he totally gets it and can navigate around these games. Too cute!

Big Party

Brad loves his hot dogs!

Sky and her friend Kelli jumping in the bounce house.

Last Saturday we hosted a joint birthday party for 2 kids (turning 3) of Talbot students. There were 60 people on the guest list and it was definitely a hopping party, or should I say "jumping" since they got a bounce house for the party? We had lots of fun and it was cool to see what our house/yard could hold for a party. We all slept well that night! It was nice to have a repaired wall and fence for this party! Brad keeps asking for the bounce house and we keep trying to explain that we only borrowed it for 1 day.