Another update

It seems as though we are just "doing life" lately. We've had a couple fun family things the last couple weeks so I thought I'd share some of those pictures as well as some around the house pictures.

"All aboard!" Every one's taking a ride on Conductor Ethan's train.

We have a little stripper on our hands. I had Morgan in a little turtleneck the other day, and when I went to get her up from her nap she had pulled it off. Later that evening she kept taking it off, I think she has her mother's dislike of a strangling turtleneck.

My Grandma Bulthuis turned 90 this year! We had an Open House for her where a lot of friends and family dropped by to wish her a happy birthday. There were a few of my cousin's that also came in from out of town. We spent sometime together at the Open House and then the next night we all went over to my Grandma's house for dinner. She came as well, it was nice to see her in her house again.

All my mom's siblings were able to be in town for Grandma's birthday. It was great to see all my uncles and aunts again too. It doesn't happen very often that they are all together since they are living all over the US.

Here is a fun picture of Miss Personality. Never a dull moment when she is awake!

Kevin's parents were here last weekend. It was great to see them again and way too short of a visit. Ethan and Morgan LOVED being spoiled by Opa and Oma and I enjoyed the extra time to run errands ALONE! This is one of the only pictures I have of the weekend, the boys playing poker. I think Ethan was the big winner that night! I'll have to take more pictures next time.

Here and There

Here is a little bit of what we've been up to.

Our town's police department has an ultralight that they fly around in to help scope out what is going on in the town. Ethan (like most 3 year old boys) is obsessed with airplanes, helicopters and the "parachute" that flies around town. Our neighbor is a part of the volunteer police so he called us one morning when the ultralight was taking off and Ethan got to sit in it and even wear the helmet. We packed a lunch and watched the police officer take off. It was pretty exciting!


There he goes!

For whatever reason we seem to get a lot of preying mantis' in our back yard. One morning when Ethan was playing in the back yard he got this guy to climb on top of his chalk. It was pretty "amazing" as Ethan would say.

"Helping" daddy rake the leaves!

Before Halloween we went and visited my Grandma in the nursing home. Ethan and Morgan are always the center of attention when we go there. All the nurses and the old people love to see them. They were especially entertaining in their Halloween costumes.

Happy Halloween

Here's our Bob the Builder and Cow. We headed out to a couple houses to trick-or-treat and then we went to our church for more treats. Ethan was quite overwelmed by everyone dressed up in bizzare outfits. After being at church for only 10 minutes he was ready to go home. Needless to say we didn't have much candy to hide. But they sure are cute:)

Our little Moo cow.

Ethan borrowed his Bob the Builder costume from one of his friends, and he sent along two more just in case Ethan wanted to be something else. So Ethan had a great time the few days before Halloween dressing up in his different costumes. He took Morgan on a train ride and put out lots of fires for us.

He has a DVD that is a collection of different movies. He wisely picked that movie to watch one night and he had to wear all 3 costumes to correspond with whatever movie was on. He watched Bob the Builder, in his B. the B. costume, Thomas in his train conductor costume and Fireman Sam in his fireman costume. It was pretty cute.

Daddy of the year

About two months ago I became a Pampered Chef Consultant. After some prayer I decided that it would be a great way to contribute financially to our family and I thought it could be fun to own my own business. It has been great so far. One thing that goes along with that is heading out in the evenings for the shows. Kevin has been nothing but encouraging all along the way, even though it means more work for him one or two nights a week.

October has been a particularly busy month. Not only am I busy with Pampered Chef I am also on our Nursery Committee at church and we are in the process of moving into new facilities, I'm also on the board for my MOMS club which means extra meetings, and I had 2 fun social things on weekends this month. So, Kevin has been 100% in charge almost every weekend this month. And, he did it all without complaining.

No matter what kind of day he's had Kevin always comes home ready to play with the kids. He gets tackled by Ethan for at least a half hour every day when he gets home. Ethan and Morgan's faces just light up as soon as daddy walks through the door. He patiently listens to Ethan's day and answers a bazillion questions between dinner and bedtime. Speaking of bedtime, Kevin always bathes and puts Ethan to bed. It's been their special bonding time for a long time now. I know he treasures that time with Ethan.

Even girls can play football! "Look I'm standing all by myself, I may even walk someday!" Note Ethan in the background and you can only guess what happened next.

Funny faces with Daddy!

Pumpkin Patch

We headed over to the pumpkin patch last Saturday. We decided to try a new one by us, it's more than just a pumpkin patch. It's kind of like pumpkin patch meets Disneyland. You can take train rides, hay rides and horse rides. You can jump in jump houses or ride down zip lines. You can go through a corn maze and feed some animals. You can ride go-carts or shoot pumpkins out of a pumpkin gun. Oh yeah, and pick out a pumpkin. Being the geniuses that we are we headed there at about 4:30 on a Saturday afternoon....along with the rest of Northern California. It was crazy busy, but we gave it a try and saw a few things. We got a picture by the pumpkins and Ethan got to ride on a horse. We decided that the other little pumpkin patch we've gone to the last few years is just perfect for our kids for now. We have a lot more time to do it the crazy way when they get older.

Morgan loved looking at the horses.

Ethan loved riding the horse! I had to walk along beside him most of the way, but he wore a pretty big smile the whole way.

Picture update

Sorry it's been awhile since our last post. We've just been busy doing life I suppose, nothing major to note, but we have taken a few pictures so here they are.

Miss Morgan is finally getting some teeth in. A couple weeks ago she was pretty miserable as she got 3 teeth in one week. Here she is showing them off. Two on the bottom and two on top. The third one on top is almost through.

The other morning while I was washing dishes Ethan got a couple bowls out and was "ice skating" California style. He even had to wear his mittens because it was so cold, nevermind that he is bare foot.

Eating some yummy cookies together.

Just some pictures of our happy little girl. She's modeling her birthday outfit from Uncle Ryan and Auntie Jessica. Last week it was actually cold enough to wear it...not so much this week.

Morgan LOVES to climb up onto our little chairs. I finally let her the other day since Ethan was up on one playing in the water. She thought she was pretty cool!

Children's Museum

A couple weeks ago we went to a Children's Museum with my MOMS club. There were a lot of different "grown up" things that were designed for kids to do. Ethan had a lot of fun and Morgan enjoyed herself too.

Making sandwiches in the grocery store.

Morgan was picking pears from the pear tree.

And here is Morgan doing what she does best these days...climbing.

Ethan driving the John Deer tractor.

And driving the CHP motorcycle.

Driving the fire truck too.

Ethan also drove the boat, complete with life jacket...safety first!

Ethan and Morgan are starting to play more together during the day. I can leave them alone together more and more and know that they will get along ok. On this particular day they were having a great time emptying the toy box.