Family Feasts

Another Thanksgiving season has come and gone with great meals, many laughs and memories shared with our family.  We are so lucky to have both our families live close to us so we can spend the holidays together.

We had our usual celebration with my side of the family at Aunt Kacey and Uncle Eric's house.  It was a packed house with all the family there.  We may have set a new record for how fast the meal was consumed, I think I'm going to time next years meal to see how fast we eat.  I would be amazed if all the dishes had made it around the table once before we were done.

Here's the view from the head of the table and you can see how involved everyone is in their food.

Ben got a special treat and didn't get put down for his nap but he may have closed his eyes for a bit while playing video games with Nathan.

We had second Thanksgiving a week later with Matt's family and it was another great meal.  Grandma Z always gets out all the nice dishes and does the table up so nice.  It's funny that of all the grandkids only Ben has ever commented to her about the table.  He really likes how shiny all of the silverware and dishes are.

The whole table, again lots of serving and eating going on.

Cousin Claire and McKenzie after being excused from the dinner table.  These two are going to be such trouble some day.

Thankful as ever for great family to build memories with year after year.

Double Trouble Is Coming Our Way

Before the year ends McKenzie and Ben will be welcoming two new cousins into their lives.  Aunt Jennifer is expecting twins due shortly after Christmas.  There has been a lot of excitement about their arrival especially at the baby shower we hosted for Aunt Jennifer.  It was a great afternoon filled with so much love, laughter and fun for all those who attended. We even learned the babies names - Ella and Conor.

All the ladies enjoying some refreshments and some great company.  Aunt Annie did an amazing job with the decorations and themed items for the party.

McKenzie and cousin Claire were enjoying the party and they decided to put balls in their dresses and pose for a picture with Aunt Jennifer.  Very excited to have some cute baby pictures to post before too long.

Finally Fall

We had a very late Spring this year which led to a late Summer and then to a late Fall so it took quite a while for our leaves to actually come down this year.  It was early November before we had enough to rake up and celebrate the season by jumping in a big pile in the front yard.  I was away on my annual scrapbooking weekend, otherwise known as heaven on earth, when the kids and Matt did the honors.  While I was peacefully enjoying the weekend cropping, cutting, gluing and creating scrapbook pages of our life while watching leaves gently float to the ground outside the window this scene was going on at home.  I'm not sad to say I missed it, especially since Matt was kind enough to capture it for me to enjoy when I got home.  There was also a few smudged faces that I got to wipe off just to make sure I didn't miss anything while I was away.

Goodnight Garden

This year I let the garden linger as long as possible, trying to ripen as many of my beautiful sun gold tomatoes as possible but finally at the end of October I had to wrap it up and instead of just letting all the green tomatoes go I harvested all the green ones and brought them inside to ripen.  I did let my larger varieties go into the compost since I didn't know what to do with them.  I've since learned there are ways to use them so maybe I will do one large variety next year again.

I picked a great day with a little sun shining down on me and just worked my way from one end to the other clearing away all the plants except for a few herbs which I will try to winter over.  Hard to believe these pictures were taken and hour apart.

Overall, it was another successful year in the garden, what I didn't gain in actual produce I gained in knowledge about how to improve for next year.

Costume Craziness!

We had so many opportunities to wear our Halloween costumes this year - it was very fun to feel like we really enjoyed them to the fullest.  Though it doesn't take that much since store bought costumes for kids can be found for pretty cheap.  When I was at McKenzie's school Halloween party I was talking with some of the parents about how few homemade costumes we saw and we all sadly agreed that making a costume ourselves would cost way more than just buying it.  I remember as a kid always having a homemade costume - it was such a fun activity to watch it being made.  Maybe next year we'll attempt the homemade costumes.

The kids had all sorts of ideas about what they were going to be but after much debate in the costume store they decided to be matching outfits - Bat Girl and Bat Boy, as Ben insisted on being called.  Here they are showing off their super powers at Ben's school party.  

McKenzie's class had a Halloween party that parents could come and help with.  It was a lot of fun, we set up stations in their class with treats and activities and they all got their costumes on and paraded around the school.  Here's Bat Girl and her friend Maddy.  

Here I am with some of the other Mom's manning the pumpkin toilet paper ghost bowling station.  The kids were across the room a ways and bowled small pumpkins in to knock over the ghosts.

 Ready to head out and trick or treat!  They both really got it this year but Ben did still like to stop and show me every piece of candy he acquired while Kenzie was already running for the next house.  Ben was also insistent on saying thank you at each house which was super cute and earned him some extra candy.

Seeing Seattle

As close as we live to Seattle we haven't spent a lot of time there as a family.  We have gone for different events but never really planned a day of just wandering around seeing the sites.  One of my summer bucket list items that we never found time for was to ride the Great Wheel down on the waterfront.  Summer came and went so quickly that we never found a perfect sunny summer day to make it down so instead took advantage of a fall Sunday afternoon that wasn't too rainy.  We toured around Pike Place, sampling foods and checking out the different shops and booths.  The kid found so many interesting things to look at in just the small part of the market that we explored.

We ran into this big guy in the lower levels of the market and he didn't seem to mind holding up the kids for a while.  

Our next adventure was riding this pig by the flying fish booth.  We didn't see any fish flying so it's gone on our bucket list for our next visit downtown.

Jailbirds escaping up a locked staircase after enjoying some delicious hum-bows.  The grown ups favorite part of every visit to Pike Place.  The kids liked the doughnut booth the best.

Trying to get a good picture with the sign, another thing to add to our list to try again!

On the great wheel finally, McKenzie grew very impatient about getting to ride the Ferris wheel after she caught a glimpse of it when we were parking our car.  She couldn't wait to take a ride.  Ben was very excited as well until it started moving and then he wanted to sit very close to me and put his hand in my pocket because he was scared.  He has always had a minor fear of heights if he can see holes in the ground or floor under him.  The cars on the great wheel were mainly glass with a few areas of solid surfaces to keep everything together and that was a bit much for Ben.  He calmed down after our first trip around but he was definitely ready to get out.  McKenzie loved it and would have ridden all night - the lights of the city were beautiful and the wheel itself was lit up so it was a very pretty ride.

The rain held off until we were just exiting the wheel and then it really started coming down as we ran to our car.  I captured one last shot of the wheel shining through the rain before we left.  

Looking forward to our next Seattle adventure soon.

Guts and Grins

Pumpkin carving night is always something we look forward to in the Fall, almost as much as getting the pumpkins.  This year Kenzie was able to draw a face on her pumpkin and then have me carve it out.  It was a very interesting looking cat.  Ben lost interest in his pumpkin shortly after he stuck his hand in for the first time to pull out some guts.  He soon after requested a washcloth to clean his hand and then was happy to watch.

Here's Ben on his first drip into the pumpkin, Kenzie is watching to see what he pulls out.

Now she's happily scooping out her pumpkin and he's cleaning his hands off.  Maybe next year he'll get into this guts thing.

McKenzie was also very insistent that we save seeds, lots of seeds, so that we could grow more pumpkins next year in our garden.  Our pumpkin plants this year didn't do much of anything but grow vines all over and never produce any pumpkins bigger than a plum.  We'll see if they make it into the garden again.

Our works of art!  Ben's is on the left, Matt did a great spooky tree, McKenzie's cat creature and my signature pumpkin the Z, for when I'm tired of pumpkin carving after I finish the kids pumpkins.  

Our cuties, grinning with their pumpkins.

Such a fun family night though next year we *may* have to try carving with the whole crowd after we do the pumpkin patch.

Still Swimming After All These Years

Recently we got to experience a great swimming event - seeing Aunt Renee perform her synchronized swimming routine.

When I was growing up we swam a lot with our family on vacations and Aunt Renee was always in the water actively swimming with us.  She would show us some of her fancy swim moves from when she did synchronized swimming in high school or college.  I always knew it was something she had done and was intrigued by the beauty of people swimming together in unison.  For the past few years she has been on a team and I finally got the opportunity go to and watch her swim.  Nathan and Kayla were over so I loaded all four kids in the car and off we went to learn what this was all about.   We had a great view from the observation deck on the second floor, it was nice that we were not directly next to the water so no one went swimming except Aunt Renee.  Very cool to watch all the ways the team worked together to perform their routine.  We will definitely need to come and watch again!

I'll have to see if I can get a picture of Aunt Renee in her early synchronized swimming days to post here.

Sleep Over Switch Off

For the past few months we've been having a cousin slumber party each month rotating between our house and Aunt Kacey's.  The kids love it since it's a huge deal to have someone over to spend the night in their rooms or to go sleep in someone else's room.  We as parents are loving it as well, it gives us time with the cousins and also time to go out on a date night when the kids are away.  So far the switch off is working great.

It's nice that we have two boys and two girls so everyone has a buddy to sleep over with.  The contrast between the pictures is so funny - all pink vs all blue.  Even though Nathan and Ben are six years apart they are the best of friends and Nathan is so patient with Ben who just adores him so much.  

McKenzie and Kayla getting ready for to read some books together before lights off time.

Ben and Nathan also reading, Ben is on his old crib mattress on the floor and loving his little bed.

Hopefully this crew will still want to hang out together even when they are older and luckily it wasn't like a real slumber party where everyone stays up all night and doesn't sleep.  We had four kids snoozing happily away.  

Frightfully Fun

No Fall season could be complete without a trip to the pumpkin patch with our friends.  This year we decided to take the fun up a notch and have everyone over after we selected our perfect pumpkins for a spooky potluck.  It's a good thing we did since our time at Bob's Corn was cut short due to heavy rain.  We were just wrapping up our pumpkin selection when the rain started so we checked out and headed for home.

Our very own children of the corn.... complete with some interesting faces.  The kids always love to check out all the new and exciting things around the farm.

Kenzie and Keaton waiting for the Cow Train.  Both Kenz and Ben just adore Keaton, poor guy gets way too much bossing around when he's with us.

Our favorite part of getting pumpkins!  The cow train, this year it was a wild ride through barns, pumpkin patches and over way too many bumps.  So much fun!

This picture makes me want to have seven kids so I can try to get a good picture of them all.  At least we can admit it's a losing battle.  Ben took his job of restraining Keaton very seriously.

Clearly, these kids are so excited to pick out their very own pumpkin.  You'd think I made them raise them from seeds and weeding the pumpkin patch all summer...

There's the smile I was hoping for in my pumpkin patch pictures.

Here's the only picture I took of our spooky potluck food, next year I need to get better organized.  Here some of the things from our spooky menu:

- Candy corn vegetable platter
- Peanut butter spider crackers
- Bat potato wings
- Mummy pizzas
- Graveyard cake

It was so much fun to spend a little extra time together instead of just rushing off after getting our pumpkins.  Maybe next year we'll get wild and try to carve our pumpkins together!  Kayla and Nathan came over to join the fun which made a full house of nine kids under nine!

We also had a costume parade after dinner and everyone got to dress up and show their costume off.  We had Rapunzel, Bat Girl, Strawberry Shortcake, Bat Girls Cheerleader, a Ghostbuster, Scooby Doo, Thor and Swamp Thing.  There was also a very cute Fedex man who just wouldn't get in the picture.