Catching up...CARTER!

{{Going to try to catch up Carter and a post about Joshua and I, so I can get onto the newest most exciting post...our BIG FAMILY TRIP we just got home from!}}

So onto Boog!!! He's definitely still ALL CHARACTER! This is him looking a little too much like a terrorist. This was garb from a dress up photo booth at Jenny and Bryan's wedding, and Carter thought it was totally cool!

Carter LOVES the water too, and here are a few late summer shots. Playing in the creek in Bricktown, Oklahoma.

And posing with Mommy on the bank of a creek at a park near our house in TX.

And we finally got a new towable tube, so now Carter gets to join in on the water fun when we go boating!

This is how this picture played out. We spotted this chaise in the hotel we stayed in for Jenny's wedding. Carter said, "Mom! Stop! You have to take a picture of me talking on this phone in this chair!!" And so he struck a pose, the photo was snapped, and then we were allowed to go on with our day lol!

Carter found this critter at the beach in Galveston. I've never actually seen a crab just out on the sand where the waves are crashing so this was a cool find! AND Carter was pretty brave to hold it on his hand!

Daddy and Carter play a game between iPads. It's pretty cool because it gives Carter another way to interact with him when he's gone. So this is them catching up on their "Clan" over the weekend while Joshua was home. I was extra motivated to catch this picture because shortly before they sat down to play, Carter had gotten all dressed up in his fancy clothes because "he had a meeting" soon. Adorable lol!!

Carter's kindergarten class had a Fall Concert so here he is all dressed up...

And a goofy one with Mommy right before we left...

And this is all 6 kindergarden classes together on the stage (Carter is above the white arrow...you might have to click to see the picture zoomed in).

Their performance was ADORABLE as you can imagine. They sung a bunch of songs and did hilarious arm movements. Some days Carter is purposefully shy, and some days he's very animated...all at his own discretion lol. I was tickled that he chose to be so darn cute that night! Here are a couple of video clips from their show...



Fall approached and pumpkin carving happened. And when I made my yummy pumpkin seeds, a cute little monkey kept sneaking into the kitchen and snatching them...which is hilarious because he's normally very picky about "new" or "different" foods. Totally floored me that he LOVED these!

And here's a very cute Indian, all dressed up for his class Thanksgiving Feast, complete in home made vest with requested beads along the edges!

Lastly, this is what happens when I give him my iPhone to play with. In just a few seconds time I will have fifty goofy face shots of him. CRACKS me up!!!!!

Happy Halloween!!

We started off the Halloween fun with carving pumpkins this past weekend. Daddy got Carter started...

and I helped perfect Carter's completely-thought-up-on-his-own design. It was pretty noteworthy that I actually did some carving this year because I don't think I have in 10+ years. I always man the camera while Joshua helps the kids carve.

Em and Trev hard at work on their designs...

Pumpkin seeds fresh out of the oven. You can find our recipe here CLICK HERE

And here are the finished pumpkins!

Emilee's

Daddy's

Carter's

Trevor's

And finally it was HALLOWEEN!!!

Adorable Pirate #1

And equally handsome Pirate #2!!

Some pirate brother poses...

(And because Jenny is going to tease me that I *made* Trevor match Carter... Nope, Trevor decided to be a pirate a week after Carter had picked his costume! But a mom can be tickled that her boys were super cute and match-y :-D !)

You also have to note in the above pic that Carter is carrying his treasure chest as his candy collection vessel.  I got this authentic treasure chest a couple of years ago for him when he suddenly became enamored with them, and it made the perfect accessory to his costume.  I can't count how many people that we trick or treated that commented on how cool they thought it was that this little pirate was collecting his candy in a real treasure chest!!

And a cute pose with sister who, *sniff*, is too old to dress up nowadays.

And before hitting the neighborhood trick or treating, we visited our local fire station...kinda made it seem like the good ole days back in CA.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween!!!!

Catching up...TREVOR!!

Trevor has joined the ranks of Mommy and Emilee and now wears glasses. Vote with me...does he not look dashing or what?!

And I love these next two poses...super cool sliding down the rail...

and me with my two amazing boys!!!

These are a couple of fun shots with brother and sister goofing off together...

Trevor looking like a terrorist with the fun dress up stuff at Jenny's wedding...

And Trevor deserves alot of credit for helping out with Jenny's wedding. His typical helpful nature came through like normal when last minute details needed alot of help. He spent hours helping Jenny's wedding coordinator set up the reception room. He ran errands and set up centerpieces and did anything that was asked of him. It even earned him a very nice tip from the wedding coordinator!!

Nice job, Buddy!! Ready for the party!!

Tubing with Emilee...

And Trevor's newest phase...trying to catch the perfect shot as he jumps out of a swing at the park...

Catching up EMILEE!!

Yup, so I'm behind AGAIN...and this time it struck me to group my posts by monkey...so let's see how this goes!

If I had one thing to say for the past couple of months about our firstborn is that Emilee has been BUSY!!! And that of course has kept the rest of us busy with her! She started high school, jumped into FFA, sings for choir and in her spare time still plays hard!

We went to Oklahoma for a wedding just before school started and we snapped a little goofing around

As them temps and humidity have started to come down some, we are getting out to the park to burn off some energy as often as we can. The boys still play on the swingsets etc, but Emilee tends to wander off and take nature photos (which she's pretty darn good at!). But I grabbed the camera from her and saw a nice photo opportunity...it came out great if I do say so myself. Nice background and beautiful girl!!

Getting to the lake has been difficult, with either bad weather that only strikes on Saturdays or Joshua being out of town. But we've managed to get there a couple of times and Emilee just LOVES wakeboarding!!

And even a bit of kneeboarding to prove she can keep up with her younger brother!

And then there was a pig...dun dun dun dunnnnn! So FFA. Emilee decided to give an Ag class a try this year, and with it comes the extra cirricular club of FFA. Mommy, being a city-ish girl, and a sports-type girl, really had no idea what FFA and "mom can I please have a pig?" meant. Boy oh boy, am I finding out quickly!

Getting a pig starts with "pig picking" day. There were about 100 pigs to choose from, and Emilee had to decide which was "the winner"...

Meet "Kitty," Emilee's hampshire pig project for FFA. She will care for, raise and train her 4+ months. (And yes, just to get the drama out of the way now, Kitty will become "dinner" at the end of that time.)

We pretty much live and breathe going to the barn and all things Kitty right now. Emilee has to go twice per day (and that means the first trip is before school at 5:45am) and spend 2-3 hours per day doing all the things that have to be done, including community barn chores. I am going a little nuts with all of the round and round to the barn, but as you can see, Emilee is LOVING every single minute of it!!

October update on Kitty... Early this month Kitty got very sick.  I didn't realize things could get so serious with pigs so quickly, but suffice it to say, we almost lost her.  But thanks to Emilee noticing her symptoms, her FFA teacher up and leaving his classroom during the middle of the day to get her some fever reducer and antibiotics, and Mommy spending a few hours spoon feeding her pedialyte...Kitty made a full recovery!  She's now almost twice the weight she was on the day Emilee picked her!  And I thought it would be cute to show her being back to herself with this video Joshua shot of her playing a little soccer.

Another huge event for Emilee is that she turned 15 in September. GEEZ she's getting so darn grown up!!

And this "cowgirl" thing is showing up in pretty much all she does nowadays :-)

One of Emilee's birthday gifts was a can of paint. She's been dying to paint a wall in her room flourescent green to offset a pink wall her room came with. So here's a before...

a during...

And AFTER (complete with new zebra print bedding)!

Last picture to share...our beautiful girl right before her first choir concert of the year!!

We are still alive!

I know I am doing a terrible job at my blog lately. Things are just so busy and I rarely sit at my laptop (which is what is required for nice, organized photo filled posts). I soooo owe posts on Emilee's birthday and pig, Trevor's new glasses, Joshua and I's trip to Vegas, and more! Stay tuned, I'm going to try to get them up soon!

Until then, I thought I'd share a couple of quick pics of the boys. We are playing at the park right now (and I'm trying another blog post from my iPhone) while Emilee is at the barn tending to Kitty. Hope everyone is having a great weekend!