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We LOVE Trick-or-Treating!!!

It was a good night...

Geez, more and more people are giving out AWESOME candy!!!

We got lots of full size candy bars, and lots of good stuff!!!

The kids had a lot of fun and I am sure they are dreaming of clouds made of candy right now!!!

It was perfect trick-or-treating weather too!

It couldn't have been better!

Here is a better shot of my cute little gnome!

Elsie had so much fun...I mean SO MUCH FUN!!!

She flashed that perfect smile to everyone who gave her candy (which most times ended up getting her MORE candy!)

I love the excitement she finds in all things!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

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I LOVE getting presents in the mail!!!

Seriously...how beautiful is this!!!

So if you remember my Pay It Forward....

I get to give to a very cool lady named V over at Bumble Beans...

This lady makes some gorgeous stuff...I mentioned to her that I wished I could get one of the beautiful things she makes....

And look what she sent me!!!

Oh my goodness, it is absolutely perfect for my little house!!!

The colors, the patterns...just perfect!

I think it helps bridge the gap from my living room and my kitchen...

Thanks V!!!!!

You rock!

V is doing an incredible quilt-along...and if I didn't have SO MANY projects to do...I would do that with her....

Take a look over at her blog...you will love her stuff and all the beautiful colors!

Can't wait to get something that I've made out to you, V!!!

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And looky here...

We dressed up for our ward activity tonight...

Gnomes and toadstools...

Cute, right???

It was so much fun and pretty dang cheap to make!

And I think they look darling!

Many more picts tomorrow!!!

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I LOVE this years costumes!!!

Here is a little clue...but the best part is yet to come!!!
Another clue...one costume involves a furry little beard.....
They are gonna be so dang cute!!!

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I LOVE sweet little love notes....

Cassi wrote this for Madi.

I love how she worked so hard to spell out each word, and I think she did a good job.

But let me translate anyway....

I lov yo Madison

(I love you Madison)

yor ay fon sistr

(You're a fun sister)

I lov it

(I love it)

It is fon for me

(It is fun for me)

Lov Cassi

(Love Cassi)

Madi yo or fon

(Madi you are fun)

Lov Cassi

(Love Cassi)

Oh so sweet.....

you would think they got along....

THINK being the key word here!

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And I know I am a week behind.....

But Porter is 11 months old now!

I can't believe it!!!

That is so crazy to me!!!

And a little sad...

But this kid is so much fun.
He is about as rough and tumble as it gets!!!

You can't tell so much, but the kids has a black eye right now...and for the record, so do I....the back of Porters head got me!

He isn't taking any steps on his own, but he loves to use Elsie's walker, and he loves to push stools and chairs around.

He does stand alone for a few seconds...isn't he so cute when he does!!!

(Wish I had brown shoes for him...oh well, you do with what ya got, right!)

Porter favorite thing to do it head butt the dog. It is so funny. But Elsie doesn't think it is so funny when he tries to tackle her......this kid is ALL BOY!!!!

Oh, and he waves with his hand...he waves backwards, towards himself...and it is so cute! He also says "hi", which I guess can be classified as Porters first word...

Gosh he is cute!!! I think I will keep him!

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I LOVE running!!!

I am not where I used to be as far as running goes.

But I am excited to get there.

I love to run.

It is such a great stress relief.

It makes me happy.

And when I am happy, everyone is happy....right???

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We LOVE to carve pumpkins!!!

Always a good time!

We usually try to carve our pumpkins for our F.H.E. night the Monday before Halloween.

The kids loved it, of course!

Elsie, focusing hard on getting all those seeds out!

Good handful, Cassi!!!

OOOH...scary!

Mmmm...YUCK!!!

Man, look at Madi's RIPPED arm!!!

Do you like how they turned out!???!

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We LOVE a family sick day!!!

Okay, so I don;t love that we are sick...

but it was a pretty fun day...

Stayed in jammies all day.

Unlimited Sprite...to help with the sore throats, and coughs!

Movie watching...

a little bit of competitive Wii.....

Nice warms baths....

And just hanging out together.

Madi, Porter, Brent and {kinda} me...are the only ones not feeling too good.

Cassi hasn't had a fever yet, she coughed a little Friday, but nothing since.

Elsie had a bit of a fever Friday and Saturday...but she has been good all day today.

Hopefully we are kicking this in the BUTT!!!!

Wish us well!

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We LOVE this CD!!!!

One day we were watching CMT.

They were talking about some upcoming singers...DUE WEST.

So we looked them up on youtube.

Turns out they, well two, are LDS.

We started looking at some of their songs.

Then we started watching other related songs.

Amazing songs.

Beautiful songs.

Then we found this song, which is written by Jason Deere, who is DUE WEST producer and honorary 4th band mate.

Okay...is that not the best???

Is that not so beautiful!?!

Well, of course we HAD to have the CD.

The girls listen to it every night...

Usually just "Somewhere there's a mountain", but they love them all.

Today while we were cleaning the girls rooms Elsie was singing along with the song.

Now, I know that Elsie has a bit of a language of her own, but I think even the everyday person can tell she is singing along.

This girl knows all the words.

And it is just adorable!

I think you need this CD.

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I LOVE chore charts made by Madi......

It says:

Chores for family

Madison-Drink for dog, make bed, clean room.

Cassidy- Food for dog, make bed, clean room.

Elsie- Pick up toys - don't cry.

Porter- Stay out of our way - stay asleep - don't have poopy diapers til we're done.

Mom- dishwasher, load and rinse. Laundry.

Dad- clean kitchen and table. Laundry.

Not too bad!

My favorites are Porters jobs!!!

So funny!

If only this was all it took to clean this place up!!!

The kids weren't too bad today.

It is hard when they are sick, cause they are ornery!!!

We've got coughs, sore throats and fever.

You might want to stay away.

By the way, our board is an old window given to me by Elsie's PT.

It is huge!

One section is magnet, one is cork (covered in fabric) and two places to write on.

It works out great!

Obviously Porter is doing NONE of his jobs!

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I LOVE being a Mom!!!

I was worried I wouldn't.

Love being a Mom, that is.

I did a lot of babysitting as a kid, and didn't really like it.

So I was worried.
But you know what????

I love it.

The toys everywhere.

The dirty dishes everywhere.

Endless dirty laundry.

Sick kids...I had to go get Madi from school today cause she has a fever.

Brownie covered fingerprints on the cracked hard-boiled eggs in the fridge...my Cassi loves to snack!

Sleepless nights...Elsie had a rough one last night.

Little boys who seem to pull EVERYTHING out of your cupboards in 1.2 seconds...I will give you one guess who that little boy is!

Diaper change after diaper change.

Scratches, and pen marks, on your leather furniture.

Homework fights.

And you know what?

All that stuff is pretty darn great.

I am definitely not the best Mom in the world.

I have a long ways to go.

I still need to grow up a bit, I think.

But if I can remind myself everyday that I get to be the one to do their hair every day.

I get to be the one to read to them at night.

I get to have the hugs and kisses, then more hugs and kisses, then more hugs and kisses before the bus comes!

I get to paint with them.

I get to rock them and cuddle them to sleep.

I get to cherish these moments.

And that's what I need to do, cherish the moments, cherish my kids.

So if you don't mind...I am gonna go love my kids tonight.....

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I LOVE Brent's innovative mind!

So Porter LOVES the stairs!

I don't love for Porter to be on the stairs.

Wooden stairs and baby's head, no matter how hard, don't go well together!

But we had one big problem!

We couldn't put a baby gate anywhere until the 7th step up...that's no good!

Until Brent came up with this great idea using one of my old suitcases, and our old baby gate!

Isn't it great!?!

Brent is good at that.

Coming up with ways to get around any problem you might have!

(Doesn't Port look cute in his skeleton sweatsuit!!!)

More pumpkin patch pictures!

Here are a few more shots from our family night out together.

Fun times!

Doesn't he look so excited????

(I actually think he was yelling!)

Elsie, a little nervous to stand all on her own on the uneven ground.

She's a trooper.

Cassi...found the one she loves.

Funny thing, this isn't the one she brought home.

While walking back she dropped it and busted it!

Woops!

Madi with her perfect pick.
My favorite boys in the whole wide world!!!

My ever-so-serious, mamas boy!

This is the best I got with the kids all together.

Not so great, but kinda funny.

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We LOVE the Pumpkin patch!!!

Tonight we took the fam to the Berry Ranch.

It was pretty darn fun.

We took a hay ride to find our pumpkins.

The kids had a hard time picking their pumpkins!

I have a lot more pictures....but I am thinking I should focus on my house right now....

But gosh, don't I have a cute family?????

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I LOVE family prayer!

Tonight as Madi said the prayer and said,

"Thank you for this beautiful, kinda windy, day."

All I could do was smile.

I love the simple things kids say in prayers, but that is the stuff we need to remember to be thankful for.

Our family prayers have become better and better lately.

Still hard with two little ones, who want nothing to do with holding still, but so worth it.

We hold hands during our family prayers.

I grew up folding arms.

This comes from Brent's side of the family, and I love it.

First of all, you have to get CLOSE enough to hold hands.

What's better than that when you are saying family prayer?

But I just love the feeling of holding those sweet little hands.

We are pretty lucky to have these sweet spirits in our lives.

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We LOVE dressing up!

This week is red ribbon week.

The school sent home a sheet of paper telling the kids the dress up for each day of the week.

Monday they get to dress up like pirates.

With the theme, "Don't get hooked on drugs."

So tonight we spent some time scrounging up some outfits for them to wear.

Elsie wouldn't just stand by while we got Madi and Cassi all dressed up.

No way...

As I was cutting some eye patches for the older two...Elsie was saying "me too!"

So Elsie got her own eye patch.

While I was wrapping scraps of fabric around their waist...Elsie was saying "me too!", while holding up some fabric scraps.

So she got herself a scrappy necklace.

Then Cassi taught her to say "ARGGG Matey..."

And let me tell you, you have never heard anything as cute as that!!!

While she said it she kept swinging her arm around, I don't know if she was waving a fake hook around...whatever it was...she was cute!

I can tell is is gonna be a fun week!!!

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We LOVE the leaves!!!

Who doesn't love playing in the fallen leaves???

The kids had fun playing in the leaves this afternoon...

Elsie thought it was the best thing in the world!!!

Too bad we don't have anything but peach tree leaves...which aren't that big, and there isn't very many!

Oh well, the kids didn't seem to notice!

Porter was a little unsure...but thought it was pretty funny once they put some on his head.
Cute boy.

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I LOVE my babysitting helper...

and I LOVE learning new things that I have wanted to learn for a long time!

Tonight we have the little Terry girls over.

Madi is usually a great helper when it comes to babysitting.

If she feels like she is given a grown-up responsibility, then she does very well!

Tonight Madi did the girls hair all up cute...and a little crazy!

They had a lot of fun.

and...

I have wanted to learn how to put textures on pictures for a long time.

But I was very intimidated.

Come to find out, it isn't that difficult...

Of course, I am not great at it yet...but with practice I think it will be very fun.

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I LOVE creative imaginations....

Have I said how much we love this playhouse????

And how fun does it look all graffiti-ed with chalk!?!?!

Cute huh!!!

Anyway, I just think my kids have good imaginations.

Elsie loves to play house with anything she can find.

In the picture she is using half a paper towel roll.

Cassi's new thing with pictures, she likes to pretend like she is in the middle of telling me something.

She won't really be saying anything, just likes to pretend that I caught her mid-sentence...

Cracks me up!

She's gonna hate it when she is a little older and there are NO normal picts of her!

Anyway, I love the way my kids play together, when they aren't fighting...

it is always something fun and creative!

Porter has the funniest faces.

He pulls them all the time too.
He just makes me laugh!

Don't ya just want to squeeze him?

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I LOVE nice people!

I had to go get Elsie from school a little early today for a doctors appointment.

We went to go see a foot doctor.

We were getting more and more concerned about the way her foot is fanning out...

And today the Doc said if we don't do something about it now, she is gonna end up with early arthritis and then she WON'T WANT to walk.

So we are making her more foot braces, but this time they won't be as bulky, so it won't interfere with how well she is doing with her walking.

So she was casted today...they just used the cast stuff like when you break your arm.

They held her foot in the correct position while the cast hardened.

She was a trooper.

She was a little nervous when it came to cutting the cast off!

But she did so good.

Well, as we left the receptionist had this little bear sitting on the counter, just for Elsie.

How sweet is that???

Elsie loves her bear.

She hasn't put it down since we got home.

She has decided to name it Danny (possibly after cousin Dani???)

I am glad that these places realize that this kind of stuff is kind of scary for little kids.

How sweet of them to give her such a great reward!!!

The girls were so sweet tonight, playing with their bears...

Have I said how much I LOVE when they don't fight!!!

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I LOVE that Madi loves to read!!!

And boy, does she love it!!!

One thing I don't understand...how in the world can she read 9 books at the same time?????

See all the books with book marks in them above...it is so funny to me!

She has this book shelf and constantly has a stack by her bed...guess it depends on the kind of mood she is in...

Silly girl!

Also...how in the WORLD can you listen to music and read at the same time!

She definitely DID NOT inherit that from me!

(Please excuse the graininess...it was dark in her room!!!)

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I LOVE his bed head!!!

This means he is finally getting enough hair to get messed up!!!

YAY!

He wakes up with some pretty funny hair lately!

And, of course, I think it is adorable!!!

What about this little guy isn't adorable?

So I added some other fun pictures to make you smile!

I know...totally out of focus...but so darn cute!

This is the face he does when he wants to get something that he can't have!!!
Little stinker....

And just more proof that Cassi likes to maul, I mean LOVE, the little ones.

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I LOVE that I am finished with the Calendar!!!

No muscle picts to go with this post...can't spoil the surprise!!! But here is my page in the back....

Today I finally finished the cover and back for the 2010 Boise Firefighter calendar.

We did beefcake, but it is a very cool beefcake!

I am very excited about it!

It should be done and printed by Thanksgiving...so save your $10 bucks!!!

BUT...we are also going to do another calendar...

I don't want to spoil anything with that either...but it has to do with some of those old picts I was telling you about a couple days ago...

So I guess I am not finished yet!!!