School Carnival

On Saturday, November 13th Sam's school held a carnival / fundraiser. Chris was unable to come with us and so Mary, one of our friends from church, came with us to help me out. Chris has been very busy this year and so I often end up going places with the kids on my own. It was so nice to have Mary's company and help for the morning. Mary also helps me with the kids during Sacrament Meeting each Sunday because Chris has to sit up on the stand. She also watched them some of the time when I went home to Australia in May for Nan Triffitt's funeral. The kids love her and she has become like an adopted Grandma to them. Even Elliott went with her during church today for a while. He usually screams even if Chris tries to take him, but he didn't complain at all when Mary took him out during church today. I certainly appreciate her help! Anyway, here are some pictures from the carnival...


Listening to a story.

Sam made it all the way to the top of this climbing wall and was not scared one bit!

Ella showing her butterfly face paint..

Fall Fun

The weather has finally cooled off here in Georgia and it definitely feels like fall now. During September and October the weather was still warm to hot, but that didn't stop us having some fun going to a farm / pumpkin patch and starting to do more things outside. Here are few pictures from the past couple of months.

Our neighborhood held a fall festival in mid-October that included a petting zoo, face painting, cake walk (a game where kids win a cupcake or cake), jumping castle and other fun activities. The kids had a great time.

Ella with rainbow face paint.

Owen showing his sword face paint and the cupcake he won in the cake walk.

Ella and Sam filling bottles with colored sand.


In October I also went to Steed's Dairy. First with Sam and the 6 kindergarten classes at his school. And then a few days later with Ella and Owen and our playgroup from church. Unfortunately I forgot my camera the day I went with Sam.




A couple of random shots from around the house. With the weather cooling off the kids have been spending a lot of time in the backyard and for 2 or 3 weeks we started eating dinner outside. The kids loved it and less mess to clean up afterward!

Owen building the tallest Lego tower ever! It really doesn't reach to the ceiling, but Owen did put most of the blocks on himself by climbing onto the Lego box to add some height.

Halloween Festivities

We have made it through Halloween and have more candy than we know what to do with! Because Halloween was on Sunday this year, we decided to try and fit in as many opportunities as we could for the kids to get to dressed-up in their costumes and go trick-or-treating. By the time Halloween did come around we had fit in a special Halloween story time at the library, Halloween day at preschool for Ella and Owen, trick-or-treat at a local county fundraiser, a Ward trunk-or-treat and trick-or-treating at the local supermarket. We were officially over Halloween by Saturday night and the kids did not mind at all that we did not go trick-or-treating around the neighborhood on Sunday evening.

Below are some pictures of the kids in their costumes. Ella had to be Cinderella because in the version of Cinderella we have been reading this year Cinderella's real name is "Ella", but her friends call her Cinderella because of all the cinders she gets on her clothes from cleaning for her stepmother and stepsisters. Chris has been making up stories for the kids at bedtime over the past few months. In those stories Owen is either a Green or Silver Knight and so I made a costume for him that is the reversible so that he could choose to be either. So far the green Knight has been the more popular choice. Owen also decided to be Batman on a couple of occasions. Sam was an "army guy" and Elliott the cutest clown I've seen (not that I'm biased!) - costumes I picked up on sale after Halloween last year!