cookies

We had to bake up a batch of sugar cookies so I could put my pumpkin cookie cutter to use this season! ;) I baked the cookies while Elijah was at school and Luke/Erin were here for their weekly visit - Luke and Sammy had fun decorating a few cookies each and better yet eating one!I saved lots for Elijah to be able to ice a bunch too that eveningand Gabi's favourite thing to do these past weeks is climb onto the chairs at the table (and fall off once and awhile) - so she had to see what was going onI saved about a 1/4 of the dough for the girls to be able to do this activity too - so they got to roll out the dough, cut the pumpkin shapes, bake them and then decorate a bunch too - they brought a dozen to school the next day to share them with their Chinese Classmates... they told me that they didn't want to bring one each for the boys because the boys will say they taste terrible if they like them or say they taste wonderful if they don't like them... 'boys will be boys' in any language I guess! So I told them they will bring them all a cookie too and they can tell the boys their Mom (me) made them (which I did)...and that I wanted them to try a cookie and for them to tell me if they liked it (it's all perspective, right?) -- well, the report was that the cookies were SOOOOOOOO SOOOOOO SOOOOOOO good. I just laughed! ;)

Patch of Pumpkins

On Sunday we made our annual trip out to the Pumpkin Patch - it was a very busy day there with all sorts of folks making their way to the "country". We had a great time as usual -

this is a hay bale spray painted orange! Kinda fun:(it did it again, this pic is not supposed to be this way. it is saved rotated but it rotated itself again on here, sorry, tilt your head!)
Gabi kept tripping over the pumpkin vines and uneven ground - Hayride to the pumpkin patch and back - Elijah chose a green pumpkin which looks more like a watermelon, but that's okay. He also has another pumpkin too that he got on his fieldtrip to another pumpkin patch earlier this month:I am so happy the girls are here for this Season - there is just so much to do in the Fall and so I really enjoy sharing new experiences with Students - Fran and Amy are quite enjoying the tastes, smells, activities we are keeping them busy with this month!

Scrapathon

When Elijah was a baby, I went to my first and one & only scrapathon (scrapbooking/cardmaking/papercrafting ALL day event. Jason was at home with Elijah then and brought him twice during the event to nurse, LOL. I have always been tempted to go again, but it has never worked out until this year... and what a perfect year to go since I could accompany 5 Chinese Girls too! This was yesterday, at a local church. It was great! I got lots done and quite enjoyed myself.
Right off the bat, I saw Sarah was there too! She got lots done too and had a wonderful time at her first scrapathon! (these first four photos are compliments of Sarah, thanks!)My Mom was at there too - she goes every year! These girls caught the eyes of many women at the scrapathon - the youngest girls to attend such an event and the women were all impressed with their scrapbooks and interest in the new hobby!There were 2 classes offered yesterday at the scrapathon - that you could sign up and pay extra for if you were interested. The girls and I did this 30 minute class - I am very happy with this project! (it was just $4) It's a Christmas wall hanging that says "Be Merry":There were prizes to be won; and lucky Angel and I won a double-spread layout package and lucky Lily won this Crop-o-Dile:This Scrapathon is famous (seriously) for the huge, amazing, yummy turkey dinner that is included in the ticket price... yum! The girls were all ecstatic to be able to eat turkey dinner again!and for dessert... crepes n' ice cream (not sure if it has a specific name or not, but that's what it is) with raspberry sauce:Then the girls and I had to leave early so that Jason and I could head over to a Halloween Party at some friends of ours... but we got in 9 hours of scrapping!

Welcome Makenna Chase ~

On Thursday night Kurt and Dana welcomed their third daughter into the world - we received word from Kurt on Friday morning... and so we quickly gathered up the clan and headed to the hospital to meet Baby Makenna. She is so precious!
Congratulations Kurt, Dana, Danika and Alise!!

so adorable

Last week Tuesday when Luke and Erin were over, right off the bat Gabi was giving Erin hugs. I didn't have my camera handy to catch the first ones of Gabi hugging Erin, but by the time I first grabbed it Gabi went in for the hug and knocked Erin right over. It was adorable! Then after a bit of play, Erin was going in for the hugs or it actually looks like kisses...Two little bundle of joys!

I've got came across a new blog I had to check out, that I found on Cindy's blog... a blog about cooking because I love to read recipes and try new ones out! This one happens to have contributors that I know! :)
I've added it to my list in my sidebar... take a peek ------>
Mennonite Girls Can Cook

Fire Prevention Week

With every October comes Fire Prevention Week and with that comes an Open House at the Fire Halls in town... thanks to Alexa for mentioning it about 2 hours before the fact since I totally missed it in the newspapers! (odd!) Thankfully we were able to zip out there for some fire truck, fire hose fun!

Mr. Bucket n' Leaves

On October 7th, on my way back to the van from dropping off Elijah at Kindergarten I was inspired to pick up the nice colourful maple leaves outside the front of the school - so that we could do an art experience with Luke when he came over that morning.
On the weekend, at the retreat, Bryon and Wendy so kindly set up a craft for all the children. It was making leaf-printed t-shirts. Sammy is wearing his in these photos below. For the t-shirts, we simply used fabric paint to paint the back-side (vein side) of leaves, ferns... and pressed them onto the shirt. The t-shirts worked out really well!
So I thought I could easily do this with Luke and Sammy too, on paper. They had fun being creative!
Before we did art, we pulled out Mr. Bucket game - this bucket Elijah received from Wyatt for his 4th Birthday. Such a fun game! This bucket shoots out the balls, and you are supposed to get them into the bucket, while he scoots around on the floor... Gabi loved it and Erin got into the game a bit too (no photos of her though, woops)

Retreat

October 3-5th we went on a Church Family Retreat at a nearby Conference Center. It is a beautiful facility - but not such beautiful weather! Oh well. I packed a tonne of clothes for the kids, all of which were wet and dirty by Sunday...
here are the boys right outside our 'cabin' (more like a lodge) getting all wet and all dirty. Sammy is standing beneath a constant drip from the roof - my friend, Marlene, couldn't believe I would stand there talking with her and another Mom while my boys were drenching themselves! Oh well, I didn't mind in the least!and this cut tree was surrounded by cut pieces of tree on the ground for future firewood - the boys had a hayday playing with the pieces and getting their wet clothes covered in tree sawdust... again, "go for it!" This is Elijah and WilliamWhen we signed up to go to this retreat in May, we had asked one important question 'will we have our own place to bunk in?' and the answer was yes. This question is extremly important to me who has children who do not sleep all night and is not about to have a stressful-retreat (oxymoron) b/c we have company in our dwellings! Well, we arrived and what did our package say, but that we had the main level of one of the "suites" (I don't know exactly what to call it; cabin doesn't seem to do it justice). We quickly asked what "main floor" meant before unpacking all of our stuff... well, beyond the expectations of the Planning Committee over 300 people signed up to go on this retreat... so when we had asked if we would get our own place and the answer was yes, she meant that we'd have our own place since who would have ever anticipated this HUGE of a turnout for our first Family Retreat?!! So, so be it, we unpacked and dealt with it! Funny - our kids all slept all night! But the Family upstairs (2 boys ages 4 and 16mo.) had much less luck with their toddler... let me say, I sure didn't mind that he was waking me up - I was just thankful it wasn't us waking them up! ;) This Family - who it was so great to bunk "with" and get to know - didn't stay to sleep the second night but rather went home to their own beds for their own comfort. They did join us for breakfast again in the morning. (my kids did not sleep all night the second night, so that worked out well that it didn't matter so much anyway!)
Anyway - it was a GREAT weekend and the sun broke through those clouds on Sunday, of course, as we are all ready to head home.
We can't wait for the next one...

Happy Birthday Elijah

Last week Elijah turned five! Wow. What a big boy! Here's the Happy Birthday Boy - with the silly glasses that were punched out of his birthday card from Auntie Suzan - thanks! Happy Birthday! We were away this past weekend so we couldn't have his birthday party, but it is set for this coming weekend...

apple pie

Almost as soon as we got home from picking apples, we filled my small kitchen with Fran, Amy and Elijah and we made two apple pies! This was the girls' first time to make and taste an apple pie!Amy had quite the time rolling out her pie crust; and then Elijah did it after her and the girls were just giggling like crazy because Elijah came in there like a pro and rolled it out like it was nothing or like he'd done it before! Too funny!
Uncle John, if you come up for our early Thanksgiving Dinner this weekend- you'll be able to get a taste of the second pie we made and plan to bring! ;) Hope to see you then!

Fall Apples

On Sunday, Sept 28th it was going to be in the high-20's, so I packed up a picnic lunch so we could head straight to the Apple Farm from church -- what a beautiful afternoon, as always the last weekend in September is just gorgeous and hot!
we couldn't resist taking photos on the huge pumpkins - but that's all that we do/did with pumpkins since we go back in October to the same place for the pumpkin patch stuff!we picked spartan apples for eating and another variety for making pies - here we are out in the orchardSammy eating an apple on the way home - mmm, yum!