Pumpkin Carving Has Started

My husband is a crazy good pumpkin carver. There are really only a couple days a year he gets to use those skills!!  Last night was one of them. The kids LOVE cleaning them out. He is a great carver and I love making the seeds. So, it all works out. Pumpkin carving nights (we usually do 6 or so, so it takes us a couple of nights) are two of my favorite days of the year.  Here are some photos from night one....

 

Here are the first two....  (I had issues with this post - we now have six incredible pumpkins that I will show you later).

 

WOW - my mac is working again...

Hi. I have no clue if anyone reads this anymore, but here are a few photos from today and the past few days....  we went to OHIO to a bears game this weekend and hit Kings Island Amusement Park as well.

The girls LOVE having their faces painted.

We took Kim with us - she is an awesome exchange student from Germany. I wish she lived with us. The girls LOVE her and she fit right in with us.

Kaya and Kalli loved the special Hallow Fest they had at Kings Island.

We are all stunned at how good Kal looks in underwater photos....  I lost my little camera at the movies :( and got another one so we can shoot like crazy again. I love this underwater little camera. So much fun.

There is my little family at the bears game (before it started so we were all VERY happy). The Bears played HORRIBLY and we left to start the long drive home in the middle of the 3rd quarter. I do love our long standing family tradition of one away Bears game every year. I hope it continues.

Here is all of us at the game.

Kal made friends with a wild Bengals fan.

Kaya and her new best friend Kim.

Kalli had her Halloween party at school today, and I was lucky to be picked to go. I love Halloween. In fact, they are about to carve pumpkins so I better go take more pictures. :)

first day of school

I have not posted in forever, but these photos had to go up tonight before I went to sleep. Kalli started her first day of school today...  and, MAN, she looks fantastic. Way too grown up to be only 7. She has more style and confidence and inner and outer beauty that most people have in a lifetime. Her first day was fantastic, and it is going to be an incredible year. Kaya starts on Monday....  so more photos will follow I am sure.

 

This is how I left her....  looking happy as could be in her new desk in her new class with her new teacher. I cried on my way to school. Cried because I am so lucky to be her mom. Because I hope I am not missing the little things and that time would slow down a little. And I cried because I will miss her all day every day. She is such a great kid. 

Then, after school, we did our traditional FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL trip to Cold Stone, and she showed me she is very much still my little girl who simply cannot eat ice cream without it getting all over her face. I think she looks like a scary pumpkin with those missing teeth. Man, I am lucky to be her mom.

New Friends and Happy Memories

We were lucky this weekend to host 4 students from China in our home on Saturday. It was a lot of fun, and the girls LOVED meeting new people. I love our girls being raised to understand that the world is much bigger than just the United States and to see that we are much more similar to people than we are different.  I sent all of our guests home with a photo box full of pictures I had taken throughout the day. I love the power of photos to make a memory last forever. And I love my Mini Printer. :)

Here is a great photo of our little family on the boat.  It was VERY windy and we forgot our ponytail holders....

And I love both of these pictures of the girls. I feel like they both look TOO OLD in these photos. Kaya has been ALL OVER the sideways hat lately and it just cracks me up. I feel like the luckiest girl on earth because I get to be their mom.

Next Saturday we are going to the airport to greet KIM - our Rotary exchange student from Germany. We hope she is able to stay with us in our home for a few months...  I know it would be amazing for all of us.

Happy 61st Birthday Mom!

Today my mom would have turned 61. We sent her balloons to heaven with Busia and the grandchildren. I was glad the children surrounded Busia today to keep her from being absorbed by her sadness.

We tie-dyed and finished up lots of other projects. We had my niece and nephew for the past 7 days. I have a whole new respect for people with four kids. Whew - I am tired.

Here are the albums we sent them home with....  over 400 pictures in just one week. Not bad.

And, I know this last image is sideways, but I am having computer issues and cannot get the program open to flip it. I just wanted you to see how I simply stuck in the photos. I had the grand idea of writing note on the side lines...  but I was lucky to get this done to this point and was still printing and sticking in all the photos from today as my sister was packing up her kids in the car. I loved sending her home with all of these memories organized and in one place for her kids to have forever.

I love Books (another two page spread)

The class asked me to talk about books...  Man, I love books. Doing this layout made me want to run to borders just to look around. Too Bad Neil is out of town. :( I think my girls will grow up loving books, too. I love that this class has helped me put all this on paper.

Make Something Monday

This is the two page spread I made today. Again, it is SIMPLE, but it is DONE and ready to go into the page protectors and that makes me happy.

If you took the time to make something (even just took 5 minutes to write notes about a family member, yourself or a memory....) you would have 250 little somethings in 5 years. That is a very big deal.

Do not clean your space (just push stuff out of the way if you have to). Do not spend any money (we know we all have enough stuff). Do not surf on line for ideas (how much time do we all waste surfing for ideas or scrapbooking supplies and then we never even use them). Just pair a photo with a memory this week.

YOU CAN DO IT! I know you can. Happy Scrapping!

Three more pages on people I LOVE!

How cool is it to make a page telling someone you love just how much you love them. Ahhhhh, it makes my heart feel happy. Do you realize the importance of that page one day?I mean, in the day to day business of life, that one page might not seem to matter.... but one day, it will become a cherished memory. I am 100% certain that you making the time to make a simple page about how much you love someone will mean the world to them either tomorrow or 10 years down the road. Here are the three I made today... one for each girl, and one for Busia. All of them super simple, all of them DONE! That is the best part. Putting them into the book and shutting it. Then, opening it back up and reading it again. And sometimes again, and again and again. :) I know they are all really simple, but that never makes them any less meaningful. Tomorrow is Make Something Monday.... can you make something meaningful for someone?

Playing in the rain...

My class assignment was to outline my parenting style...  It was interesting to think about and I loved putting my thoughts about how I parent on paper. I really really wish I could go back in time and do a book like this about my mom. It would be so neat to ask her questions and document her answers. I love how I scrap now...  it is simple and easy and I get stuff DONE. I am happy that way. I love that if anything ever happens to me, Kalli and Kaya will have my words in print to read and hug and keep forever.

Another Two Pages

I have made 13 pages in the past 18 hours. HOLY MOLY! That is the most I have made ever unless I have been at Sherrie's Cropping or she and Shannon have been here for the weekend scrapbooking. I LOVE SCRAPBOOKING.

This page is about my views on HEALTH for my This Is Me class I am blessed to have talked myself into late. :)