Our little pumpkins

Happy Halloween! I love this time of year; cooler weather, carving pumpkins, trick-or-treating... lots of fun things to do! We carved our pumpkins last weekend. Kelcie and Marina (with a little help from Brian) carved their own pumpkins:

River wanted nothing to do with them once she saw the "guts" inside.

It was her naptime anyway, so it kinda worked out that she didn't want to help. I put her down for her nap and I was able to carve my own pumpkin. :)

And here's a little pumpkin Brian and I "made" together! LOL

Happy Halloween everyone!

It's been a long week...

The last few days have been really draining on me. After discovering a problem with the Jr. High, I find myself wondering if I should homeschool my 12 year old. I have been mentally exhausted these last couple days asking myself what I should do. I'm hoping a resolution can be found so I won't have to make this decision.


On to better things...

Last week River had her first real bubble bath. She loved it!

She also said two new words this week: cookie (which sounds like "doo-dee" most of the time) and hide.



We went to the pumpkin patch on Tuesday. Unfortunately this is the only picture I got of everyone (well, except me since I'm taking the pic). River did NOT want to sit still for even a second! The pic is also blurry because I was in a hurry to take it so I apparently didn't wait for it to auto focus. :(





Marina, on the other hand, loves to pose:




I managed to get a few of River when we visited the little petting zoo there. She wanted to feed the goats, but when they got too close she didn't want to anymore :) She did pet a few of them though.

This afternoon, Kelcie and River played in the front yard for a little bit while Kelcie was waiting for a friend to pick her up so they could study. I got a few good pics :)

And today I am 25 weeks pregnant and as big as could be:

Hopefully we'll go in tomorrow and get another ultrasound. Just can't get enough of seeing my baby boy!

And last but not least, a few of the layouts I did over the summer:

Kelcie and Marina in a rare cuddling moment back in January 2006.

Marina getting ready for preschool in October 2004.

Kelcie's band concert in June 2009.

TFL!

Where have I been??

I've been a bad blogger... my last post was in June! That's a big gap considering I was posting weekly when I was on the Cuttlebug Challenge Design Team. So, where have I been and what have I been doing?

We found out in late May/early June that we are expecting our 4th child! And with pregnancy comes fatigue, which means lots of naps! Luckily my first few months were during the older kid's summer vacation, so I was able to sleep in every morning and nap almost every afternoon! Now things are much busier, so no 12 hour nights and no afternoon nap most days :(

The older girls have been back in school for 2 months now, and we are all pretty set in the new schedule. Kelcie (12 yrs) started 7th grade this year and is in Junior High! She is in the Magnet program, which is an accelerated program that includes Algebra and Spanish; classes that usually aren't offered until High School! She also has an extra class in this program, so she has a zero period that starts at 6:45 am! She and I have been getting up at 5:45 am!

After I take Kelcie to school, I wake Marina up (around 7 am) so she can get ready for school, which for her starts at 8 am. Marina (8 yrs) started 3rd grade and is in the advanced groups for both Language Arts and Math. Over the summer we got back their State test scores, and she scored 100% in Language Arts and 97% in Math! We are so proud of her!

River (2 yrs) celebrated her 2nd birthday over the summer... time really flies!
She is getting so big and independent! She's talking more and more too. Her latest thing has been repeating colors and numbers. It's the cutest thing hearing her "counting" her toes!





We had the big ultrasound appointment in September when I was 19 weeks. Everything measured perfectly, and all blood tests came back negative for birth defects. We also found out the biggest news: IT'S A BOY!


There's no denying it in these pictures! We are excited to welcome our first son in late January/early February!


As I did with River, I started showing early, and was huge by just 3 months! This pic is from September 17th, when I was just 20 weeks. I am now 23 weeks 4 days and even bigger, though I think I'm starting to look more "normal" for this stage :)


The girls are excited about him too! Marina and River especially :) River likes to pull up my shirt and give him kisses... it's too cute!

As if things weren't busy enough with 3 kids, another on the way and a new school schedule, I have been busy scrapping too! In July and August I managed to crank out 95 pages and 13 cards! Here's a few of the layouts I completed:

Marina singing with the school choir at the OMSD Education Expo in May 2009

River eating licorice and wearing a "bucket" on her head in December 2008

Kelcie about a week before her 6th birthday from January 2003.

Well, that's about it.... our summer was busy, and it's going to be a busy school year too! I'm going to change the format of the blog a little bit. Instead of just scrapbook related stuff, I'm going to include short family updates as well. I'm planning to include an update and scrapbook layout in every post, so there's something for my family and scrapbook friends to see. LOL I figure it will be easier than trying to update 2 separate blogs! I'm hoping to update the blog more often, though I don't think it will be every week like it used to be. Maybe someday, when I have more time and energy, I will make a separate blog for the family updates, but for now this will have to do :)