Happy Autumn!

Fall is officially here! :0) When we went outside to play yesterday, I actually remembered to take the camera out and take some pictures of the kids in the leaves. Out back we have a little play area where there's a slide and swings. Parker loves to use the little rocks around the swing set as a little "sand box." So he has fun doing all that kind of sand box stuff with the rocks, and Maddie has fun sitting and watching (she hates the grass and refuses to move at all in it, so she just sits there). There are several trees around, and the leaves have started to change color. So I got pictures of the kids playing, and pictures of them in the leaves.

Parker & Maddie in the leaves (Parker saying "cheeeeeeesssseeee")

"Wow, Maddie, look at these cool leaves"

Can you believe Maddie will be 1 in less than a month?!

Parker playing in the rocks

The other day when we were having a pretty good storm, we let Maddie and Parker stand up in the window to watch the storm (don't worry, we were holding on to them-we just cropped it out). They loved it!

And this is from Maddie eating spaghetti the other day. We looked over, and she had is all over the place!

Our little Scavenger

Madisyn has become quite the "professional" scavenger. She loves to crawl over to Parker's table, get under it, and see what "treats" she can find. We have to be careful with what we leave on his table (or under it), and if we do leave anything accidentally, she'll find it. The other day after lunch, I took Parker with me shopping while Maddie was asleep. She woke up while we were gone and was playing while Daddy worked. Well, she found the biggest treat of all: Parker's left over ice cream. As you can see from the pictures, Dad didn't find her in it until she had gotten it all over the place. But she loved it! The second picture is of her with her face in the bowl, trying to get ever lick of ice cream she could.

Maddie clapping at what she had done. What a little rascal!

Idaho State Fair

I absolutely LOVE fairs, and I really wish they would have them more than once a year. They are so much fun and there's so much to do there! There's the rides, the booths, the animals, the showcases, the food (scone nuggets, funnel cakes, and cotton candy-YUM!!), the music, the horse races, the kids areas set up-I love it all! We took the kids and went to the fair on Tuesday. It was the perfect day to go weather-wise, which made it even more great. A sweet 68 degrees-not too hot, not too cold. Parker had a lot of fun. His favorite parts were of course all the animals, the petting zoo, and the John Deere tractors (I know, very hick-ish, but he loved them!). Here's some pictures that we took.

Parker feeding a goat

A cute little puppy that Parker loved (even though he's actually really afraid of dogs)

Ben with the kids at the petting zoo

Maddie munching on a cracker while Parker checks out the animals

This horse was hilarious. It really really wanted Madisyn's cracker, and she was just so shocked that it kept getting so close to her. It was quite funny.

Parker having a blast on "his" tractor

"Don't worry guys-I got it. I'll just back it on up over here."

Labor Day Weekend

This weekend, my cousin (Brooks and his wife Megan) had their baby blessed and we all got together for that at my Aunt Joann's house. We were all going to go to the Idaho State Fair on Monday, but we got a huge cold front in, and the high for that day was only 57 degrees. So we didn't go. But Ben and I and the kids ended up going yesterday, so I'll have pictures of that to come later. Here's some pictures of my cute little first cousin once removed in her blessing dress. :-)

Anya Meuzet Haroldsen

Maddie checking out Anya

Maddie with her second cousins: Sammy, Audrey, Aiden, Alyssa, & Kenya

On Labor Day, since we didn't get to go to the fair and since it was a little cold, we took the kids to an indoor play place.

Parker going down the slide head first

Maddie going down the slide

Maddie at the top

Parker climbing the rock wall-he was really good at it!

Parker climbing the wall

Here's a funny picture of Maddie. I was folding laundry and she was "helping." I looked over, and she was trying (somewhat successfully) to put one of my shirts on. It was really cute!

Last cake class

My cousin Esther, my Aunt Joann, and I had our last cake class on Tuesday. It's been a really fun class and we're going to take more, but have to break for now. Here's some pictures of some flowers we had made from royal icing the week before, and then pictures of our final cakes.

Some flowers we made just for practice

My cake, Esther's cake, and Aunt Jo's cake. You can't see much of the detail and other decos besides the flowers, but oh well.

My cake

I've included a random picture of the kids, since I don't actually get many of them together. We had gone to Burger King for some "fancy" dining (that's what you consider it when you're poor :-)), and Parker was totally attached to his hat. This was about a week ago, and he still wears it around the house. I even had to take him to the store in it the other day (not that I minded, it was just funny). Maddie didn't really like hers, but Parker really wanted her to wear it, so we snapped a quick picture of her in hers too.

Future Ballerina

Madisyn is ALWAYS on her tiptoes. Whenever she is standing, jumping, walking, or anything like that, she is always up on her toes. I don't know if she'll ever learn to walk flat! So I think she's going to be a ballerina for sure. I guess time will tell! Isn't she funny?!

Yeah! Medicine time!!

Madisyn got her first ear infection. She's on amoxicillin, but it's not the usual pink stuff, it's orange. And she loves it. Every time I give it to her she licks her lips and smacks them. Of course she didn't do it until the end of the video this time, but she always makes me laugh. I think it's so histarical! So enjoy!