"....This is Halloween....."

The fun events of the Halloween month for our family:

Went to a pumpkin patch with friends and picked our own,

Welcomed Daddy home from his deployment,
Enjoyed a Renaissance Festival in Maryland,

Stopped by to visit beautiful Mount Vernon,

Carved our pumpkins,

And went trick or treating as sho kosugi the ninja, Renaissance Maiden and Princess, and the Karate Kid ["cause you're the best....around"]

Backpedaling....

So I've been somewhat of a slacker when it comes to my blog...and I need to make up for that before I post the most recent happenings. Just after Lester returned to his deployment in July, my family [all 8 of them] came to visit us for 2 weeks. We had an amazing time and made so many fun memories!! Here's the proof:

As much fun as we had, we still have more things to see and do so they'll just have to come back again! [Dropping a big HINT here ;] We love them all so much and are so thankful that we had those two weeks together....it's never long enough though! Love you all!!! xoxoxoxoxo

What A Month!

Wow...we've had a power packed month or so, and I'll try to keep it brief :D

Celebrated the Fourth of July at Festival Park and at Fort Bragg with family visiting from Massachusettes,Went indoor skydiving [should have gone 23049238 times...I LOVED it!!],Had our whole house packed and loaded up,
Left Fayetteville :( for our new home :D [and had fun with the animals in the truck while driving -- that's Lexi, our anti-cat/phantom cat Sophie, and Patton (out of view)]
Picked up Daddy from the airport for his two week break from his "job,"
Received and started to unpack our entire house [which came a day late due to the semi-truck breaking down on the side of the road....BUT our mattress got ruined and we got a new one out of it...YAY!]

Found and purchased a new set of wheels for Lester [hard earned and well deserved for spending a year in the sandbox ;]
Took Daddy back to the airport - he'll be home in no time,
And so ends part one of the the month we've had, there are more adventures I need to document so there will be another post in a couple days! :)

Oh My......Where Do I Start????

Well, I guess with a HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to all the wonderful men in my life!!! Lester, Poppy and Richard -- hope you have a very happy day and we love you all!

Now, on to other business. Ahem, so it's been a little bit since I last posted - but that isn't to say that I haven't been busy. Let's do this with pictures, and as few words as possible, shall we? ;)

I transformed this....

into this:

And two of these....

into these:


Spent some time with friends at the Outer Banks,

Drove to our next duty station and
found an amazing home to live in:


Spent two and sometimes three nights a week
at baseball, and ended the season 10-0, yip yip!
[thanks to AMAZING coaches!]

Attended a preschool commencement,


Felt like doing this after being
released from Primary [at church]:



Celebrated the end of school/beginning
of summer:

And welcomed a family of
Eastern Bluebirds that are
new tenants in our birdhouse:

Boy, am I wiped out! I have just over three weeks to finish everything on my to-do list before our house is packed up and moved to our new station and until Lester is home for his R&R.....and I'm making great progress!

Off to the races

Happy Easter to all Family and Friends! :)

Corben participated in his very first Pinewood Derby [Cub Scouts] yesterday after spending a pair of days getting his car ready. I should have left more time to get it ready, but we did what we could and had fun doing it. After some fantastic tips from Poppy we were ready to roll. Corben's "Spitfire" was the fastest in his Wolf Den, and the second fastest of all the cars. For our first time building a car, it fared better than we could have imagined. Just wait until next year...... :D

"The Spitfire"

The first race of the day.....
The race for 1st - the gold car was the fastest
The scoreboard - each tic mark is a win...woohooo!
Second overall :)

Racer boy and his winning car!

Don't You Love It When...

You start what you think will be a minor task and take less than an hour but then morphs into a labor intensive/time gobbling monster? Yeah, that's how I spent most of my day today and all because I got a new frying pan.

I bought a new 12 inch family skillet [adore it] and the only place it would fit was in the drawer under my oven. After settling it there, there was no room left for the other skillets/frying pans I have. So they sat on my counter for the last week or so gathering dust. I thought "oh, I'll just switch the pans to my lazy susan cupboard, and move the baking things to the pan cupboard -- easy!" Not so, not so - the more I thought about the baking notions, the more I wanted them above the counter for easy access, but that would mean I'd have to empty a third cupboard. So I put it off this whole week, and left the pans on the counter.

Today, I decided to just swap the cupboards. After fighting with the shelves and getting my arm stuck, nothing fit right. Then I opened my spice cupboard and got frustrated with it.....so I ended up emptying FOUR different cupboards onto all my counters. It looked like my kitchen threw up:
It took about 4 hours of sorting, rearranging, editing and cleaning but the end result is AMAZING! I love it and wish I had done this soooo long ago. I'm so glad I changed everything and got it exactly the way I want it, since we'll be moving in a few months! Isn't that how life goes?? ;]


oh -- and a quick shout out to my Brother and Sister-in-law for the birth of nephew #4......may he have a name soon! love ya ;]

Party of the DECADE!!!

Corben was invited to a friend's birthday part which seriously [in my book] is now the party of the decade. Near our home there is an indoor parachuting facility - basically a big wind tunnel and this is where we attended the party. Each child that was invited had two one-minute "flights" in the tunnel. SO AWESOME!!! Corben was beside himself with excitement before the party, and after all he could say was, "when can we do this again??" We WILL go back!! I can hardly wait :D

A Sweet and Fruity Valentine Treat

Well this post is definitely better late than never....Lester sent us this amazing treat for Valentines day. We loved it and munched on it for about a week before it was gone. [it was almost too pretty to eat-anyone who knows me well knows I have problems with eating pretty things b/c I like to keep them forever] The first thing to disappear was the chocolate covered strawberries. Thank you Daddy and we love you! :)

Corben's Rollin' Birthday Party

First the details....way back in December Corben and I decided it would be fun to plan a pool party for his birthday. I made reservations for the first available date [in January] and set it all up. After returning from California, we hand delivered invitations to the guests and were anxious for a beach party in the winter. When we got home from our special deliveries a friend called and said "I think the pool is closed for renovations" and I replied that surely I would have been called and informed of such an event, since I paid a chunk of money to have the party there a LONG time ago.... Well unfortunately it was [and they got a piece of my mind - and told them they could tell my 8 year old he wasn't having a pool party] and the options were to either call and cancel or find another venue. Thankfully someone had the brilliant idea to go roller skating, so that's what we did. Everyone had a blast, even the parents :D I have a feeling we'll be back to skate there soon....

A Little Bit of Random

First - a little ditty:

(Do you know the song? Thank you Guitar Hero :)

Then, our little Cub Scout participated in his first flag ceremony--too bad I didn't get the whole flag in the picture...
So the meteorologists got it wrong -- it snowed again and caused a two-hour delay for school. We didn't mind, we went to breakfast ;]
And lastly, this mess was supposed to be oatmeal raisin cookies. Hmmm, for whatever reason I've lost my cookie baking ability (only for choc. chip/oatmeal raisin - I can make peanut butter kisses just fine!) so I've imposed a cookie baking ban on myself. I don't need them anyway!
(but I really think it's my oven or the humidity....LOL)

Corben's Baptism

In our church when a child turns 8 years old they can be baptized and become an official member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Corben chose to be baptized, and since Lester is away, he asked his Poppy (my Father) to baptize him and Uncle Andrew (brother) to confirm him. We had planned this for the Saturday after we arrived in California, but with all the sickness being passed around it was postponed until January 3rd. It was a very special day, and the whole family participated in the program. Meme and Aunt Caroline gave wonderful talks about baptism and the Holy Ghost, and cousins gave the prayers. We are so thankful that we could be with family for this very special and sacred occasion are are so proud of Corben for making the choice to be baptized. We love you Corben!

This picture was on the cover of his Baptism program.

The Missionaries had this sign up in the lobby.
Poppy and Corben.

Uncle Andrew, Corben and Poppy.

The whole group.

We Had SNOW Much Fun

SIX inches of snow later and two days out of school [that will be made up....we're losing President's day ---> L-A-M-E!!] we had a ball. I dug out our snow boots/clothes and Corben insisted on shoving his feet into boots that were 3 sizes too small, but whatever, we loved every minute of it. I forgot how much I enjoy snow, I guess since it's been so long since I've "lived" in it.... Now I'm not saying I want to move to Alaska, but I really loved the sn0w and was very sad to see it go. We did all we hoped, except the sledding - just didn't happen, so we'll save that for the next time it snows! ;]

We made this guy the day after the snow -- he stuck together better! :)

Our front yard snowman....two days after the storm

[above and below] What 60 degree weather does to snowmen.....