Our Halloween

We stuck around the neighborhood and trick-or-treated with friends and had a great night!

Uff-da

Life had been so busy around our house lately...some days I feel like I can't breathe. The photography business had been CRAZY with the holiday rush, hockey season has begun, there is homework for four almost everynight...etc etc. Last weekend we had a big housewarming party with 60+ guests(what was I thinking?) We are busy getting our halloween costumes in order for Wednesday. There will be a "pajama person", a baseball player, Davy Crockett, and Minnie Mouse. Stay tuned for photos! Tim is leaving for the week for a business trip so
I will be on trick-or-treat duty alone this year.

Well Deserved

We got back tonight (I guess it really was last night as its now 2:12 am and I am sitting at my computer working) from our weekend of R&R...well 6 people in a standard hotel room with ONE tv doesn't techincally count as R&R...but we made the most out of it. The kids had a blast at the waterpark and I got to read and take naps and try to forget about work for awhile. It was great to get away.Here are Carter and Cooper after their first trip down the "HURRICANE"...kind of what it might be like to get flushed down a toilet.
Kennedy tried the waterslides for the first time this year, but I think her favorite part was waiting for the big water bucket to tip over and dump water on everyone.Big "E" is learning how to golf....he's ten months old already...I guess it's time.

Perhaps I should try...

...cooking a meal at home for once. I input our expenses for the week into the computer today and the entries went like this: Pizza Hut, Qdoba, Pizza Ranch, McDonalds, Village Inn, Dominos, HiHo, Duane's, Happy Joes. And that was just for one week.

Oh goodie...snacks.

Our kids have always gone to Sunday School on Sunday mornings while Tim and I go to church. This year, Katelyn has to take sermon notes for confirmation so we have been having the kids go to church with us. This morning was apparently the first time they have every witnessed communion being passed. We were late for church (as usual) so we ended up in one of the first few rows. The usher passed the plate down our pew and Kennedy...thinking it must be snacktime for all the church goers...immediately shoved her hand into the wafers and tried to grab a few. During the rest of the communion, I had to field questions from my boys...why can't we have some? When we will get to taste that? What is that? It's not real blood is it? Why are you eating that? Do you like it? Will I like it? Does anyone like it? Do you think the drummer likes it...it doesn't look like he likes it.

I never thought that my kids wouldn't know what communion was or why we do it...but I guess that is just one more reason we should have been having our kids come to church with us all along.

he wears his sunglasses at night

Our dad survived his lasik surgery. No more glasses...yay!

First Grader

Fred Claus

The kids and I saw the trailer for this movie on tv tonight.

We've been waiting for it to come out because about a year ago, Carter and Cooper auditioned for the role of Vince Vaugn as a young boy. The movie was shooting in London. Cooper still blames Carter for not getting the role. They wanted the boys to hold a teddy bear and say something like "You'll always be my little brother." Carter wouldn't do it because he thought it was stupid. HaHa!

The end is in sight...

With the exception of a few details, most of the remodeling of our house is complete. My plan is to do a before/after slide show, but things are a bit crazy right now with the new business...so here is just a sneak peek!

Hmmm...

"So Cooper, how is school?"

"Good"

"Have you met any new friends?"

"Yep, I have three new friends. They are Mohammed, Abdul, and Ahmed."

Congratulations Mark

Grandpa Mark threw a killer party on Friday to celebrate 25 years of Dakota Bumper.

Great Conversation

Just added to my list of favorite things is this new product called TableTopics. I just got them last weekend and think they are such a fabulous idea! In general, I don't think we (as a society) engage in great, stimulating conversation often enough. It really is a skill, and I am hoping to teach my kids (and maybe even my husband) to value a great conversation. We are planning to use them around the dinner table to provide some topics besides what did you do at school today? Some of the questions are "what do you complain about more than anything else?", "if you only had 5 more years to live would you change anything about your life?", "would you choose to be the worst player on a winning team or the best player on a losing team?", "has anything bad ever happened to you that turned out to be for the best?" I got the original edition, but some other editions are family, couples, teen, and girls night out.

Big Day

Get your copy today!

Here we go!

My photography website is officially live, so take a peek!

rialeephotography.com

You might think of this as the beginning of my journey, but to me this also represents the culmination of a lot of hard work. A lot. So, just for a minute, I'm going to sit back and be a little bit proud of myself. Feel free to share the link with anyone you think might find it of interest. I am off to the Junk Bonanza in the cities for the weekend to see if I can find any good treasures for our new house!

A day late...

Here are the kids on the first day of school...even though it was yesterday. All reports indicated that the first day was "awesome!"

School Starts Tommorow

We had a great "last weekend of summer". We spent time at the pool and the lake, went to a parade and a football game (which felt more like fall), cleaned the house and garage, and went out for our annual "first day of school eve" family dinner. Tomorrow starts the days of waking up early, bus rides, homework, fall sports, getting to bed early, and best of all eating lunch at school! (That's best of all to me since I am tired of making it!)The boys played alittle water football with their cousins at the lake this weekend.

I went shopping today to stock up on snacks for the kids to take to school....perhaps I went alittle overboard?

Something New...

my photography blog is up and running. Still working on the "official" website...should be ready by next week. My loyal readers will be the first to know when it's live; I'm super excited for everyone to see it.

Webkinz Summer

Summer is coming to an end...it went way too fast at this house. The kids were busy with lots of things this summer, but the thing that kept them the busiest were their Webkinz. If you have a child anywhere from preschool through middle school, you most likely know what they are. But for those of you who don't, they are little stuffed animals with a special code that you enter on the Webkinz site. Then you can name your Webkin, buy and decorate rooms for them, play games to earn points (which means you can buy more stuff) and connect with other kids online who have Webkinz and send them notes and gifts and "play" with them. It actually is a pretty cool site with lots of ways for the kids to be creative, but it has become a mild obsession with our kids so we've had to set some limits as to the amount of time they can use the computer. We have several different species of Webkin dogs, a hippo, a bear, a pig and a platypus.

Bummed

This little white shack that I used quite a few times this summer for photo shoots was torn down yesterday. It was the perfect spot with cool doorways and windows and interesting textures for backgrounds. I think they should have asked my permission before they destroyed my "studio."

The Sweetest Boy

The kids were laying in bed with me this morning and we were talking about the dreams we had the night before. When I asked Cooper if he had any dreams last night he said, "No, cause I prayed for black last night."