sleepover!

We had a youth group party at our place last Friday night and since our new friends, Marcus and Jackie were coming from Custer, an hour away, we invited them with their four kids to stay the night. Our kids were so excited about having their friends stay the night that we even let them stay up late. I think they're still recovering from it. 

Noah and Eli are about a year apart in age. Evie and Aly are bff's and are only like a month apart. Samuel and JT are only a month apart as well. And Rowdy, their baby, has to play with Snap I suppose ;)

Enjoying Terry's pancakes the following morning.

fort

This morning Noah decided he wanted to make a fort - the first time for our new house. It's been a while since I had a photo up of this and so I grabbed the camera when all three kids were in there at the same time.

I love how Samuel's leaning down to smile for me. And Evie's toes. And Noah's sweet smile as he looks over at his brother.

I like my kids. They are good kids.

fall colors at roughlock falls

The last weekend of September after we visited Grampa's pumpkin patch, I convinced my somewhat reluctant husband to drive us up the northern hills to Spearfish Canyon so we could enjoy the changing fall colors - no small feat with three small children, one of which who was missing his long afternoon nap. But we managed it and had a nice time. It was so pretty and the weather was gorgeous.

This is a lookout just off the parking lot at Roughlock Falls. I remember looking into that stream when I was little. 

Almost ready to hike down to the waterfall. The afternoon light was so pretty in the leaves.

Look familiar? If you got a Christmas card last year, it should. This is the same place that photo came from, originally taken at my sister's wedding!

The Falls 

On our hike back up the hill, the kids had to stop and climb this boulder right off the path. They did the exact same thing at the wedding. 

It was a beautiful day for enjoying the view. 

Samuel was on lock down in his stroller since he was a tad, very cranky. I was entertaining him with the camera and loved the expression I caught here. Makes me smile. It also makes me miss his long hair.

Me and the kids took a little trail off the main path and beat daddy, Samuel and Snap up the hill. 

homemade pumpkin patch

Grandpa likes to grow pumpkins and give them to the kids. So another nice thing about being close to family is that our pumpkin patch is only 30 minutes away verses 6 hours. It's a much closer trip than previous years.

So here's the ranch pumpkin patch that we visited the weekend before last. I thought the turkeys and the drought took the whole crop, so I was quite surprised any pumpkins survived.

Noah and Evie pick the biggest they can find.

Doesn't Evie look enthused? Not as much as Samuel coming up... 

Yeah, Samuel was not happy for some reason. And for other darker reasons, I like having pictures of him crying. It makes me laugh :)

Hehehe 

And one more crying photo? What kind of sinister mommy am I? Well, off they go to unload the pumpkins from the golf cart to our van. And now they're sitting at my front door and Noah is asking to carve them already...

apples II

Since my folks and I are both overrun with apples, for the last couple weeks my mom has been helping me learn to make applesauce and apple butter. 

We've only used her apples so far because they're better - we have even been eating several a day because they're so good. The first week she brought over a full five gallon bucket and we made seven quarts of applesauce! Last week we made 12 smaller jars of apple butter. But I made the mistake of adding too much sugar. Terry likes it so that's good (but then again, he does eat moldy bread...). I also made a pie which was amazing. Perhaps I'll make another on this first cold autumn day of the year...

Apples ready to boil.

She has this neat Kitchen Aid gadget that's just so nifty. My kids favorite part? When the apple waste was separated from the good stuff like poo.

wrestling

This was wrestle time with daddy a couple weeks ago. You can hardly see the poor guy when all three kids gang up on him. We love it when daddy comes home.

long haired boy

No interesting stories today. Just some cute photos of Samuel from my birthday. I just cut his hair so I'm missing how cute his long hair made him look. He looks a lot older now.

He's showing the apples he brought inside and the ball that he always seems to have in his sweaty little hand.

He didn't seem to like the new bootie slippers I got him.

He's a ball boy. Noah was a train and car boy. Samuel likes those too, but really, he prefers balls. I found one in his bed yesterday.

lost and found

Nearly three years ago Terry gave me a birthstone ring for Christmas. I had always wanted a sapphire. And I love this ring. I like to stack it with my wedding rings. 

Unfortunately, I lost it on Saturday.

It fell out of my pocket.

I took my engagement and sapphire rings off while at my sister-in-law's Norwex party to slather on some Shea butter cream. I foolishly placed my rings in my shallow pockets. The Shea butter was thick and creamy just like butter so it was taking forever to absorb and I forgot to put my rings back on. After Shari's party, I went to Sally Beauty to buy some new clippers for Samuel's much needed haircut. Then I went to Safeway to gas up. Then I went to Mr. Movies for a surprise family movie. While waiting for the cashier to enter my info into the computer, I absentmindedly stuck my hands in my pockets and realized my rings were not there. 

Panic. 

Text Shari. Go look in car. Thankfully my engagement ring was sitting on the car seat! But the sapphire? No such luck. Shari has no luck even after removing cushions.

Search car. Search Mr. Movies. Explain situation to cashier and leave info. Call mom and dad and ask them to search Sally. Call Sally and have them search and call me. Mom and dad search inside and even wait until the car in my previous spot move and find nothing. Pray. Go home and make pizza so we can still have family movie night. Go out to look more with Terry and the kids (i was cringing at the thought of telling Terry about my idiocy but he was so nice. i was so upset.). Ask Noah to pray - God answers Noah. Search Safeway gas station. Explain situation to gas attendant and leave info. Get in the way of the person gassing up in my previous spot to look for ring. No luck. Text Jesse and Shari and ask them to search outside their apartment. No luck. Go to Sally and search inside and out. No luck. Decide to go and look once more at Mr. Movies since that's where I first missed my rings. Step out of the van...

...into the rain and see my ring right away in the spot next to where I had been parked.

Blam jam. There it was and there it had been all along. I like to think that God sent the rain (not just for me because we do desperately need it) since the wet ground showed up the ring very clearly on the concrete. You gotta know I thanked God for this! Because even though I keep saying "luck," that had nothing to do with it.