mall pics

I am realizing just how spoiled i have gotten when it comes to professional style pics of my kids. These are some we took at the mall, and i think they are cute, but just don't capture the kids the way my friend pk has over the years. What I really did like was the experience of getting them dressed in cooridating outfits, heading to the mall with my mom and pat's mom and spending a day together eating lunch, etc. it brought back memories of brady and me with my mom and grandma. we would go every 6 months or so. so for the sake of tradition, it was really fun and i am glad i did it. on the other hand, it may be time to schedule a playdate with pk!

a little late.

Just thought i would throw rory's school pic up for fun. It is now several months old, and a scanned version- but this way i can look at it long after i have lost the original.

Visit with Santa

The girls' school hosted a holiday party on sat. with lots of art projects, cookie decorating, ornament making, and a visit from santa. both of them did great with santa and while lucy didn't smile, she did communicate her desire for him to bring her a new baby doll. she really grasped the whole thing much better then i would have expected. i had to scan the pictures so they are a bit grainy, but you get the idea. no tears- so that was good.

halloween craziness.

This is one of those posts that i envisioned spending lots of time recalling the details of the whirlwind of a weekend and retelling the story of all the events that took place. the reality is that if i do that, this will never get posted and i have exactly one friend left who is not on fb, that i promised i would update the blog with halloween pics, so for her sake i am going to just post the pics and get it done. the gist is that we attended a party at rory's school, hosted a party at our house for 11 kids and 30ish adults, participated in the crazy neighborhood parade, and trick or treated. the girls loved it all and did well w/ no major melt downs. we even seemed to manage the sugar intake. (well, except for this- it was lucy's first attempt at helping bake cupcakes- i had to let her)

We once again found ourselves surrounded by so many wonderful family and friends, it was a really fun day.

littlest crabs

My parents bought a boat, so this week we went on our first crabbing trip with the girls. I grew up crabbing out of Waldport, on my grandparent's boat, so it was cool for me to see my girls getting that same opportunity. It was an absolutely beautiful day to be on the water. sunny, no wind, not a lot of people. We only spent about an hour and a half on the boat, then we took the dog for a run on the beach, had some lunch and headed home. The girls loved the boat, but i think i was the one having the most fun. I love crabbing! we only caught one keeper- lots of almosts. While on the beach, the girls decided to collect shells. rory chose some really pretty ones and lucy just picked up anything in her vicinity.

grandpa faithfully collected them all and rory spent lots of that time with soap and water cleaning each one. they also loved running from the waves (who doesn't?) After such a long day of outside adventure we got to eat the crab we caught and had to deal with the 2 littlest crabs that live with me. over all super fun and worth a little evening meltdown. thanks grandma and grandpa- can't wait for more boating adventures!

Pumpkin fun with friends

We again hit the pumpkin patch with Jaime, Tate and Lexi and my mom. It was warm day with lots of sun, fun, and silly kiddos. Lucy and Rory both loved the slides, the bounce house, feeding the goats, picking out little pumpkins, and getting to try candy corn. there were 4 wk old puppies for sale that almost came home with us, and both girls loved this giant bull mastiff puppy named bulldozer. such a fun day, one of my favorite fall activities.

1st day of school- round 2.

So rory started back at school today and lucy had her first day ever. I'll start with rory. She did fantastic- she has the same teacher, but moved up to an older classroom. she is one again the youngest in the room. she didn't remember her friends from last spring, but quickly jumped in and all reports were that she did great and had a lot of fun. one distict difference between this year and last year's first day was the dressing. last year she wore (at my choosing) tights, orange boots, matching brown jumper, pig tails. all in all- total cuteness. this year she came out of her room (where she goes each morning for "privacy', shuts the door and comes out with a "ta-da!") in orange bike shorts, a white tank top w/ butterflies, a headband, 4 hair clips, and some beads. she then requested i add a bandana. needless to day, cute in an entirely different way. i insisted she add something over the bike shorts, so in the end she added a skirt and sweater and looked fairly put together. she was very proud of her "grown-up passenger bag". i think she meant messenger bag, but she loves it either way. you will also notice in the pics her new haircut. this happened while i was in vegas, but grandma swears that the lady told her that the long hair was very damaged due to chlorine and just needed to be cut off. it is pretty cute.
so lucy was very excited to get to go to school just like rory, until she realized that meant that we were all leaving her there by herself. she did great for 4 days w/o pat and i, but appearanly 3 hours of school was too much. when it was time to go home, she left happy, and blew her teacher kisses, so there is hope, but the first report was "she had a rough day' and i returned to very red and swollen eyes. we'll just have to wait and see how next week goes. My favorite part was how excited she was to wear her little backpack.

she kept turning around and showing it off. we are very lucky that they have such a wonderful place to go learn, play and grow.