Micah's handywork

Micah tried his hand at making us a tabletop. He did a custom 8 point star inlay. it was totally experimental, and it came out beautifully if I do say so myself. i love having something like this in our home that was made by Micah, and i know it will be somehthing we will have for years and years to come. he used a combination of tiger wood, ipai, and wenge woods.

Random Autumn 2

Reading with Daddy before bed...

Rory had a fun run at school yesterday, and ran 4 laps(1 mile). They finished just as it started raining, then celebrated with Popsicles. C-c-c-cold....

He raised $40 for the school, thanks to Mema, Grandpa, and Aunt Kathryn and Uncle Jarrod(and Mom and Dad). For every dollar he raised, he got an entry to win a new bike, which is of course all he was concerned about. He actually was one of the kids with the most entries in the school, but i explained his chances were slim, and we should hope a kid who needs a bike wins it. He didn't seem to like that idea. Another kid won, he stomped his foot, but got over it when he went home and rode his own bike. Silly kid.

Halloween Shinanigans

Random Autumn

So I totally love this, Rory, on his own accord, decided to build a Lego masterpiece...can you guess what it is? I was really amazed that he did this all on his own. What a sweet heart. :)

 Grandpa was doing some major digging on a job in Carlsbad recently, so we took a trip over to see him and take a tractor ride. My kids are pretty lucky that they ca ride on grandpa's smaller digger so often, but this larger one was a lot more fun! Sydney was so brave to get into this noisy thing:

 We took a trip out to Bate's Nut farm last weekend to get a pumpkin and spend some time with the family. We couldn't leave without doing a pony ride of course:

 Micah turned the big 3-3 on the 17th, and although we didn't do anything exciting, we did get him a carrot cake....

 And the kids gave is an impromptu puppet show, too!

Some more summer stuff....

A friend from church has graciously opened up her super fun pool for anyone from church to use, so we have been going the last few weeks or so. The best part? The water slide of course! Rory and Sydney both love it.

                                            Rory and one of our friends Emily.

                                         We of course have spent lots of time at Legoland:

                                                       The beach:

                                        We went a couple of weeks ago with my sister in law Holli and nephew Seth:

                                                  Mini golfing too. Rory got his second hole in one(he got one another time he went with Micah:

                                              Lunch at Islands, yumm.

Swim lessons

The kids both took swim lessons a couple of weeks ago, and even though Rory has taken them several times over the past couple of summers, this was Sydney's first time. She really liked it. Even though she was the youngest in the class(one day past 3 when she started), she really learned a lot. She has always loved the water and the pool, but I have noticed she has really gotten brave in the water. She had a difficult time staying on the steps of the pool when her teacher was with another child, and would start swimming out into the deeper water. Myself or her teacher would have to tell her to get back on the steps about every 2 minutes.
Rory has really gotten much better at swimming and getting around in the water this year. He swims all over the place, and I have a lot of confidence in his swimming capabilities. His favorite thing is just playing, so he loves jumping off the side of pools, off of rocks, diving boards, going down slides...you name it. His favorite place is Legoland water park and he LOVES going down the big water slides.