celebrating kate

so. kate turned 8 almost a month ago.
we had a fun little party for her mid october.
there are so many october birthdays in her class/grade that we combined her party with another sweet little october birthday girl.
it was a blast.
the weather was good.
the kids had fun.
it was an old fashioned birthday party.
just perfect.
i'm so glad we did it.

party favors

crafting

more crafts-super cute wooden owls

the big sissys held the limbo pole-they were so excited...can you tell?

love this

goofy little crew.

we had a carmel apple bar and hot chocolate-perfect.

best of buds

two thumbs up-even a broken one...

i looked and looked to see why they all had the same mouth position-vampire teeth.  does it everytime!

hats made from the two parts of the pinata. 

~chat soon!

carni-VAL

this year our carnival was in october.
we beat the heat-to say the least. it was freezing.
i didn't get a ton of pictures because-well-the kids are older and are able to venture off without us.  it's bittersweet-honestly.  the time is flying and in instances like this, it is so apparent.

obligatory picture.  only photo of anne the whole night.

so excited

k and her friend o are heading on the ferris wheel-we watched. from the ground.

the girl with her hands out of the ferris wheel car-is KATE.  

kates buds.  so fun.

so sweet. love them. great girls.

how did i forget to write about this?

so....kate's birthday weekend we went c.a.m.p.i.n.g.
camping.
for real.
i.went.camping.

i love nature. i love being outside. i love absorbing everything that God has made.
but-i really love a toilet. a shower. and a bed.

mid september adam came home and said LOOK WHAT WE BOUGHT-and showed me a picture on his phone-of a....wait for it...camper.

i.was.ticked.
really ticked.
there are lots of things on the list of things we need/need to do. and a camper was NOT one of them.

time passed. i saw it. (and smelled it,,,yuck)
as they say...time heals.
so we picked a date to take the camper for a weekend. (we share it with two other families) and went.

it was the most fun i have had in a long time.
i don't mean like a crazy wild time but just a great, relaxing time.
bon fires. smores. bike riding. sitting. lots of sitting. lots.of.sitting.

the girls are nature girls.  we opened the camper door and off they went.  it was just awesome.
too bad it was the last weekend before the parks close for the winter-it was just a big tease.  we have some spring weekends already on the calendar, and are counting the days.

this was about 8:10am-really too early for me.

busy little guy

the played all weekend in this little pre built leaf thing

sassy shasta as i call it.

10-25

kate turned EIGHT last sunday.
E-I-G-H-T. what in the world????
regardless she was so excited.  we had a big weekend of her birthday and came home just in time to hang out with family and her best birthday bud-papa bob!

kate finally got a new bike for her birthday.  you can catch the progression of excitement in the photos-poor baby has been bumping her knees on the handle bars for the past few months.  she trooped through it and got a brand new one, streamers and all on her big day!

she just uncovered her eyes.  

jumped right out of the camera frame. 

two peas in a pod.

8.

these two. i swear. 

31

well. halloween has come. and gone.
it was a weird one in our house.  adam is away on a trip and our neighbors who we hang with on halloween were invited to a party.  so it was just us three girls.  then mom and dad spoke up and showed up.  and it was GREAT!

the girls costumes were so cute.  self derived but not crazy weird. my mom helped with the make up (which I stink at).  the rain stopped for most of the treating.  it really turned out okay. for halloween.