a package of googly eyes

 I'm working on a little project for an upcoming Halloween party. Monster cups.

Little hands got hold of the rest of the googly eyes.  
When I turned around, this is what I found.

(It was a pancakes-for-dinner kind of day today.)

Plus some on the wall, a kitchen chair, and the toy closet....and probably some that I haven't found yet.  

The question now is, do I take them down?  

milk mustache

A few mornings ago, this happened:

Nicholas had actually prayed for snow the night before.  We woke up to him racing back and forth across the house shrieking with joy. 

"Jesus made it snow for me!!"  

He was delighted.  He even asked me to help him learn how to say a prayer to thank Heavenly Father for the snow.

Now, I'm not super thrilled about the premature ending of fall, but it's hard to be sad about it when he is just. so. happy.

They were not dressed appropriately for the snow play, though, so after just a couple of minutes, they were back inside and crying that they were cold.

So I made them hot (warm-ish, more just not cold) chocolate.

And Ellie got a mustache.  

And a chocolate milk streak across her forehead.

 Oh gosh I love these two.

It was incredibly cold for a few days, but it's warming back up this week, so I think we'll still get a bit of fall before winter bombards us.

But when it does, I'm looking forward to more mornings of hot/lukewarm chocolate mustaches.

fall colors

We've gone up the past two Sundays to see the fall colors in the canyon.  
It isn't as stunning up there yet as it was last year.  I think we need to try going back one more week.

The first week I was able to get some fun close-ups of pretty leaves, though, while the family waited in the car.  
Thank you, Kent, for humoring me and letting me play with my camera.

We went up again today, and the colors were a bit brighter, but we will be going up again next weekend.  

Because, why not? It's literally in our backyard.

 This time we took up a little snack.  Chips and salsa, and pudding.  Oreo cookies and cream pudding, to be exact. 
Nicholas's "I-love-eating-pudding-on-the-side-of-the-road" face:

Ellie was so busy eating pudding that she wouldn't even look at me.

I never know the best way to end off posts like this.  Kent's suggestion is: 
"And so we took the road less traveled by."
The end.

to the lake

A few weeks ago, Kent and I woke up s.i.c.k. on Sunday morning.  We had a cold that was hitting us hard and we knew we weren't going to make it to Church.  

We spent the entire morning just laying around while the kids wreaked havoc on the house and ate cereal for breakfast, lunch, and all mini-meals in between.

As the afternoon came, we were feeling a bit better and we were feeling incredibly tired of being in our house,

so we jumped in the car and drove into the mountains.

We found a lake. (More like a pond, really)

We had a glorious time.

(Until Nicholas tripped and skinned his knee.....but everything up to that point was wonderful. Like I said, this is just our life right now.)

And it's a pretty sweet life at that.

I proved myself the "cool mom" when I waded out into the freezing water to pick up a stick Nicholas had thrown in.  I have to do things like that every so often so my kids don't forget that I'm fun.

We were only there for about 45 minutes before the rain clouds rolled in, but those 45 minutes walking around a lake in the mountains were exactly what we needed to shake off the sick-day blues. 

Nicholas speaks

My little white boy dancing his heart out.

1. "What would you say if you were in a pretzel?"

2. He measured Ellie and me with a rope: "Mom you are twice as big as tall and Ellie is half a minute."

3.  "Pull hard as a dragon.  And another dragon."

4.  "When do I get to go to kung fu class?"  (I have no idea where he even heard of this....)

5.  "Anybody hungry for peas??"  (When we were camping.  And then he pulled several handfuls of peas out of his pockets.)

6.  "Did you know cows don't take baths?"

7.  "Okay guys, it's time to say jokes."

8.  Grammer, trying to tell a joke: "Knock knock."
Nicholas: "I can't answer the door right now!"

9.  "Pants don't like sunglasses because pants don't talk.  Only people wear sunglasses, not pants."

10.  Papa: "Do you have a piggy bank to save your money in?"
Nicholas: "Nope. Sorry.  But I have pockets!"

11.   We went to Red Robin to eat one afternoon.
On the wall above our table was this picture:

Nicholas looked at it for a minute, then declared: "Those people are having a crazy time."

12. On a chilly morning he came downstairs and curled into a ball on the couch. "It's like 16 in here!  I think we need to turn off the AC, Mom." I told him it was already off.  "Wow. How many ingredients is it outside??"

13.  We were at my parents house and Nicholas came into the living room:  "Who wants some MONEY?!"  His pockets were full of pennies, which he then handed out to everyone in the room.

14. Kent's parents asked Nicholas about his timeout chair. He said he didn't like sitting in it. So they asked him why he spends so much time there.  
"Because my mom is really good at being the boss."

15. I pointed out a dragonfly that was hovering near us. 
Nicholas: "I don't like dragonflies. They're allergic to me."

16.  And yesterday, he was playing with a friend outside and did NOT want to come inside to use the bathroom (and it was more than obvious he needed to.) After much pleading and asking, he still refused to come inside to go.  Finally he looked up at me and said, 
"I know!  You can bring something out here and I can pee in it outside!"  
Not a chance, kiddo.  Not a chance.

this is what my life looks like, september 2013

Last September: here

We've gotten so much rain this summer. It's never been this green in September before.

she dives right in

Because who has time to wait for Mom to cut it up?