Fall walk

We went on an amazing fall walk, right before it got way too cold and yucky. 

Fall walks are one of my favorite things, the smells just can't be beat, the crisp air, the colors, the crunch  and rustle of leaves. Plus I love sweaters, boots, scarves, hats and all that stuff. :)

 Of course Ira has to be higher up than the rest. 

 Her little hand on my face is just too much! :)

 This girl is really into dressing herself right now and she comes up with some awesome outfits. 

Why fit in when you can stand out!!!

 This boy will conquer the world. ;)

 I know I take too many pictures of her, but is there really any such thing?

She's my last little baby I can't help it…

 They tried to climb every stump and tree they came across. :)

I love the fall colors in this picture.

 Crunch, crunch, crunch!

 They ran down and up and down and up and… well you get the picture. :)

 My little explorers.

Rivers girls!

I love these little moments with my kids, a surprise walk in the sunshine, just enjoying nature and each other. :)

Wow… blogging about October, in November, it's a new low. ;)

So a couple weeks ago I tried to download a bunch of adorable pictures onto my blog and ended up freezing up my computer, so I gave up. I just don't have much time to blog now a days and I was so frustrated I decided let it go and moved on {after saying a few choice words in my head}. But… I really wanted to share our October fun, especially our pumpkin patch pictures and Halloween. Because this blog is my way of documenting the happenings in our lives. I want to be able to look back and at least get all the highlights! I've been doing a pretty shoddy job of it lately, but I swear being a homeschooling mommy of four I have no spare hours in the day! It's insane really. Anyways this time I decided instead of a massive photo over load I'd just pick a few {ha ha} and take a quick moment to blog about October… In November. ;)

All ready to pick some pumpkins! :)

We took some family pictures in this Christmas tree field, but I can't show you those yet...

I think my kids might like the apple picking even more than finding the perfect pumpkins. :)

I really can't believe how fast he's grown! Every year I think the same thing, and I wonder how long I can convince him to sit on a pumpkin so that I can take his picture...

Carrot top in a pumpkin patch, gotta love it!

Love

Simply adorable. :)

This year we made our costumes again. And I was super proud of how thrifty we got! I think I spend about ten bucks total, maybe even less. Can you guess what Atty is?

A baby raven! 

I don't even know why we need outfits, they are wacky enough as it is… ;)

Leiella wanted to be a ballerina princess, easy enough. Plenty of pink and pretty in her dress up and drawers.

Ira came up with his own idea and made the whole thing, he's super independent that way. :) He decided he wanted to be a walking stick bug. So we researched them and he put it all together. Not sure why he wanted to use paper bags, but hey it worked and it was really cool seeing how creative he got. He even remembered to add a set of extra arms to the side so that he would have the right amount. We used face paints to make his face brown, a must in his opinion. Banden wanted to be a grumpy ol' troll. It was hard making that beautiful boy into a grumpy troll, but I rolled up my sleeves and we got to work. :)

There's something about crooked wings on an little kid that I find absolutely adorable. I could not stop snapping pictures of her, ha ha!

She insisted that she had to wear her princess slippers, because she was a princess.  It was damp out, but not raining and we were just going in our little neighborhood so I finally agreed after some interesting back and forth between us. She insisted that she would be fine and her feet wouldn't get too cold. As we were walking home she told me, "Mom my feet are cold now, but I don't care, I love these slippers!" Ha ha! Oh what a girl will do for fashion. ;)

My little bug… He wanted to use a paper bag for his treats, to match his outfit. About half way through he discovered his bag had sprung a leak. We ended up following a trail of candy a good portion of the way home. It was pretty funny. :)

Second year trick or treating on his special diet. He is such a good sport about trading all the treats he gets for his special treats/toys at home. I do wish more people handed out little trinkets though, his whole face lights up when it {rarely} happens.

Haha, oh man those "scary" eyebrows crack me up!

Trick or Treat!

A busy bee with her honey… Ha! So corny, I know… :)

We started a new tradition. One that works well to include Atty and also exclude a bunch of {unwanted} candy. After the kids had a few of their treats we left the rest out for the Great Pumpkin. Atty got to dump in all of his, and was super proud to be the one to put in the most candy. We recently discovered that if you leave your candy out for  the Great Pumpkin on Halloween night he will thank you with a special surprise. ;) We had just watched "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" right before I told them about this, so it worked out really, really well. :) There was not a single grumble, and they went to bed excited and looking forward to the next day.

… And the Great Pumpkin did not disappoint. :) There was even a rumor that Tinker Bell showed up because of all the silver pixie dust on the ground. ;)

So there you go, just barely scratching the surface, but at least I got something done. I hope to eke out some time to post some great pictures from a fall walk we went on, and also tell you about the stray dog that had puppies on my couch experience… and blog a little about homeschooling this year. I hope to, I really really do. I often think during the day of the things I would love to blog about… but than life and all it's many little happenings block me from actually sitting down and typing it all out. Sigh. I have good intentions, I really really do. :)

Bright Orange Treasures

So today we made an awesome discovery. While we were outside looking at the flower gardens and playing ~ eye spy me some spring time ~ I decided to take a gander at my very neglected garden boxes. Last year I sort of gave up on my garden when I got too big with the pregnancy to bend over properly. Lets just say when I stopped being able to see my toes no matter how hard I tried my garden fell apart. I never harvested the last crop of anything and I just stopped looking at it so I wouldn't feel so guilty. I went to some ones house a little while back and notice that they had harvested some carrots out of their garden in the middle of winter and I started thinking 'hey I never harvested all of my carrots out of my garden' I sort of thought that they must have gone mushy and I had given them up to the worms. But...they're not! They were just chillin there in the dirt all happy looking and bright orange and oh did they smell good. I love the smell of fresh from the garden veggies. Atty must too because he tried to take a bite of one of them dirt and all! Bleck. Call me picky but I'd rather wash them first. ;) We gathered them all up and carried them into the house so that I could make them all some...Carrot Juice! Bubu just couldn't get over his excitement at having found such an unbelievable treasure during the winter. He kept saying "Yummy they smell so good, can I try one mom?"

I just love their earthy goodness, and I have to admit I am bitten bad by the gardening bug now, come on spring I am so ready. So very, very done with the yucky cold grey days.

All shined up and ready to be juiced. It was such a fun unexpected project of sorts to do with the kids. Wasn't a planned part of our day but I was able to make it a learning experience and a fun thing to do together. They though it was so neat to watch the juicer do it's thing.

They were even more excited to try it! I used up all the carrots and they gulped it down.

I mostly made it for this guy because a wise family friend and naturopathic doctor told us a few things we could do to try and keep his liver clean and working well (because of all the meds, some of which are super hard on the liver) and one of those things was a little carrot juice every day. He really liked it, so that's a good thing. They all did. In the summer I should have some apples from the tree and more carrots in the garden and that will make for a super yummy drink. In the mean time I will go get us some organic carrots (and maybe some apples) from the store and make up some more juice for the little trooper and his brothers. Won't taste as good though. ;)

Time for Giant Steps

HAPPY NEW YEAR!Our Auntie B got us these awesome matching pj's for Christmas and so we wore them on New years eve...aren't we so cute!

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Of course Spike was pulling an attitude because it wasn't his turn to hold sister any more, so he refused to smile, little stinker!

Watching a movie together in our jammie's. We had a tattoo party earlier that day and so the boys were covered in those washable tattoos. They had a blast! Notice J in this picture? He was with us all last week, it was so nice.

Spike was the first one to pass out. He's been refusing to nap (tears of pain streaming down my face) it's so frustrating. So he made it until about 11 and then crashed in a pile of tired baby on the floor. This is the one night of the year were they have no bed time, it's always interesting to see who makes it and who doesn't. Last year it was only Atty. Bubu had been looking forward to this bed time free night all week!

Kissing the baby.

I love this picture of my sweetie...I was laughing because he always closes his eyes in pictures and I tried over and over to get one were his eyes were open but it just wasn't happening. I rarely get a picture of his adorable smile, so this is a treasure...even if his eyes are closed.

Another treasure, I rarely (if ever) get a picture of this one smiling either. Must be genetic. I absolutely adore this picture of me and my Jbird.

Cheers! Happy New Year, ringing it in with some sparkling cider. Spike was the only one not awake a midnight (well and the baby, she was off and on all night). We toasted to another year together and then watched fire works out our window. Somebody put on quite a show.

Hubby was the next one out...he fell asleep during the second movie of the night. He's leaning on me, it was kinda funny...Atty made it longer then he did.

But not by much, he feel asleep in my arms.

This boy was determined to make the most of his bed time free night this year. He stayed up very, very late. Later then me, he partied with Uncle J this year. He looked so tired but he was absolutely not going to go to sleep even if his eyes were rolling. So sticking to my word I gave him a kiss and rolled into bed myself...because I knew that regardless of what time my littles went to sleep...they would still be up at the crack of dawn (or before) and I was right. ((Sigh))

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I'm not sad to see 2009 go. It was a mixed year for me. While we were blessed by the completion of Atty's adoption and the birth of my baby girl, we also lost my husband's mom to cancer, which was very hard on him emotionally and he was laid off more then he worked all year. This was one of the most financially trying years we have ever had. The debt we are in keeps us both up at night. It's like we live in one of those card houses and if we don't place each card in the perfect spot the whole thing will come crashing down.

So my hope for the new year is that we will continue to be a strong family tied together in love. That my husband will continue to be employed and that we will find a way to work ourselves out of this debt...and stay out. I hope and pray that my husband will feel less pressure and have less struggles. I thank God that my husband and I stayed strong together though the stress of last year and I pray for the same in the new year. I am dedicated to the same thing this year as I stated in this post for last year. I did okay (definitely baby steps) and I managed to read about half of the parenting books I listed, so this year I want to read the other half plus maybe some new ones. My goal is to make some giant steps in the right direction, enough baby steps already. I already read a new one called Being a Great Mom and Raising Great Kids by Sharon Jaynes, great book. Any other suggestions?

All in all I am excited for this new year. My life is full, but I can breath. Were as when Atty and Ira were littler I was barely keeping my head above water I was so tired and stressed out. Now that the boys are a bit older it feels easier in a lot of ways. I am enjoying this baby stage with Strawberry, because it seems like a breeze in comparison. I have such empathy for people with multiples now. Although the boys aren't actually twins they are only four months apart and it was like having twins only they Never ended up with the same schedule! The first two years left me completely drained and feeling very overwhelmed. Ryder and I were also not working well together in all the stress so that made me feel completely alone and frustrated. We came together a lot better in this last year and that is part of the reason I am looking forward to all we can accomplish in 2010!

Most of all I am going to stop with the excuses and take some time for myself...because I need it to be a better mom. I am finally realizing that they truly come hand in hand.

...and somewhere in there I want to spend some time all alone with my husband, because none of this works well if we can't remember why we are doing this in the first place and feel that love that sometimes gets lost in all the noise.

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I wish you all a beautiful 2010!

Week old Thanksgiving left overs...

So I am WAY behind on posting anything about our awesome Thanksgiving. This year, like the last few years, we spent Turkey day at my "little" brothers girlfriends parents house (did you get that?) they are the BeSt! They have all become family to us and we are so blessed to have them in our lives. The house was filled to the brim with love, cozy and inviting. You always feel at home with them, and in fact we spent the night like we always do and then didn't leave until the next night! I just couldn't peel myself away (their couches are really comfortable). They live right by the town I grew up in so there are always mixed feelings when we go, but worth it all the same. This year there was a twist. This year one of my other brothers came who I hadn't seen in about three years. He is my heart child's biological father. My mom has been so sad that we weren't spending holidays together and that he always had to be excluded before the adoption. So now that the adoption is complete my husband and I felt he was in a good enough place to come for a short visit and be with family. I was a bit apprehensive and really didn't want any drama, but the whole thing actually worked out really well and my mom seemed so happy that is was worth it. My brother hadn't seen Atty since he was only a few months old, so it was heart warming for me that he was able to be around him. It's never been because of a lack of love that they weren't able to raise him. I still have so many emotions swirling around about the whole thing, and questions in my head about how we will deal with future family gatherings as my son gets older and understands more, but for now I am glad we made the choice we did. I'm glad I can share this on here because normally I don't talk about it much. I'm having a hard time knowing how to deal with questions from people about which one of our children is adopted and such, because they are usually asking right in front of him. I don't mind talking about how he became my heart child, and we aren't going to raise him with out sharing bits of the story with him at age appropriate times, I just don't feel comfortable talking about it with others in front of him. I don't want him to feel singled out. But that's for a whole different post. There is always some underlining story behind everyone of our family gatherings, it's never simple. Back to Thanksgiving...it all worked out wonderfully and the food was fantastic...and that's the best part! (Or maybe it's all the love.) Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure. :) My baby brother and his adorable family. Isn't strawberry's cousin just the cutest?!

Neenee (my mom) and her grand baby strawberry. I like this picture because I caught my mom with a great smile on her face, she doesn't like her picture taken and it's hard to get a good one like this. She has a great smile.

Building towers together.

He tried so hard to climb to the top...

...just like his big brother.

Sliding with daddy. We took the boys to the local park because anyone with three little boys knows that trying to get them to sit around calmly while waiting for food, for hours, just isn't going to work.

Holding hands, safety first! :) We got lots of looks in this little town let me tell you. Most people were just smiling at us as they drove past, it was kind of funny. I guess we do make quite a sight, us and our many small children.

My "baby" sister and her baby niece. Look how strawberry is gazing at her, so adorable!

Love these girls! I waited ten years for a sister and I was a little "mom" to her (still am, ha, ha). I am reminded of her often when I am taking care of my own little girl now. They both mean the world to me.

Hanging out together watching a movie. Had to get a picture of my hubby holding his little daughter.

And we will end this with a beautiful baby girl. So there you go, week old Thanksgiving left overs, and you ate it. Whether you liked it or not is a whole different thing.