October

 Here's a summary of the month of October in pictures.

Playing games on a rainy afternoon.

School pictures!

I found this in our mailbox at church...Haleigh wrote it one night while we were at Bible Study!

Annaliese practicing her saxophone.

Giant cardboard cut-out of Kyle's book!

The neighbors are having lots of construction done...so we asked them to pull out the giant stump leftover from a maple tree!

Building our new shed. It looks so much nicer than the old one!

Ice cream date!

Annaliese and I went to a 'True Girl' event at a local church- it was a fun night out together.

We wrapped up the month with trick-or-treating with Kim and Thane. Our church had a trunk-or-treat set up, so we we used church as our starting point and then went around the neighborhood by church. 

A couple of superheroes, a Minecraft character, and Rinaldo (a famous soccer player)

It's no surprise that this month passed quickly. I love looking back at pictures and reminding myself of all the fun things we pack into each week. 

Pumpkins

 We went over to Kim and Thane's house last weekend for a little 'Harvest Party.' It consisted of carving pumpkins, roasting pumpkin seeds, eating pumpkin bars, and eating some warm soup. Grandpa and Grandma joined in on the fun.

The kids all had their own ideas of what they wanted their pumpkins to look like and each year they are able to do just a little bit more of it on their own! I'd say they all did a great job!

Recently

Things have been pretty uneventful recently, with just the normal day-to-day activities. Our weekends have been filled with soccer games and volleyball practices, with some yardwork in between. But in an attempt to not get too far behind on posting pictures, here are a few recent ones.

We babysat this little sweetheart for a few hours the other day and Lydia was thrilled to be able to hold her!

Haleigh and Ramsey (apparently Annaliese also held her but I missed it!)

Lydia's face cracks me up every time I see this picture!

Ramsey was helping Haleigh finish her homework!

Chapel- it's always so fun to see all of the elementary school kids together. This chapel was led by the Spanish Immersion kids so everything was done in Spanish!

Haleigh had the opportunity to participate in a 4-week volleyball skills camp. She's not sure how much she likes volleyball, but she was all smiles at the camp each week!

Just a cute picture of Annaliese while we were waiting for the bus.

 

Padilla Bay Field Trip

 Annaliese's fifth-grade class has been studying estuaries and today they took a field trip to the Padilla Bay Estuary. She didn't really care if I went along or not, but I reminded myself that one of the reasons why I didn't like my last job was because I could never do things like this. So, I volunteered to help and it was so fun!

Making Estuary Soup

Looking for anything interesting!

 It was great to see how excited the kids were, and also how much they remembered from what they've learned in class. Annaliese's class is full of kids I've never met, so this was also a good opportunity to see some faces of the people she spends all day with!

September

 September has been pretty smooth, with everyone settling into the new routines of school and fall soccer. We've fit in a few other fun activities as well. 

Back-to-school ice cream social for all the Spanish Immersion families.

Savannah, Esme, Mallory, Annaliese, and Haleigh- all excited to have an opportunity to play together!

After Lydia got her new bike for her birthday, we decided to test it out. We biked over 10 miles on a nice trail in Sedro-Wooley. Everyone did mostly great. There was a rocky part of the trail that Lydia didn't like and she did scream about how she hates biking and will never do it again. But then Kyle's pedal fell off his bike and she seemed to forget all of that and once again became happy to be outside biking!

And a few fun activities at home:

There was a festival in Ferndale to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month that we thought would be fun to go to. The kids loved the little tractor train ride and the bouncy house. (Lydia had a soccer game at the same time as Annaliese, so Kyle took her to her game, and then they went to Bellingham to the SeaFeast while Annaliese, Haleigh, and I did our own fun activities!)

Yes, it has been a nice month! Like always, it's hard to believe how fast the time is going by. It's fun to look back through the pictures and remind myself of what we've been up to!