october in pictures

i can't remember what triggered an intense desire to dig, but jonathan had it one afternoon and was sobbing because i wouldn't take him to the park (in my defense, the weather was pretty awful, although it doesn't look like it in this picture). after an impressive display of stamina and dramatics, i finally relented and took him to a nearby park to dig for a little bit. he was in heaven. simple pleasures.

this was a project madeleine did at school. my favorite is that she says she is a lover of jimmy fallon. she's probably watched two clips of his show on youtube.

playing dress-up together.

 

 this is a picture of my brother, ray, and i at an audition for wheel of fortune. i did an online application a couple years ago and in early october, randomly got an email from them inviting me to an audition in seattle. i actually thought it was a joke at first. they also mentioned that they were auditioning for family week and i was welcome to bring a sibling if we wanted to audition together. as a long shot, i called my brother ray (who lives in utah) to see if he wanted to come up and audition with me. the lure of wheel of fortune was too much for him and he ended up driving up with my mom for less than a day to audition with me. it was so fun to do it together and a couple weeks later, we got a letter in the mail:

 

the whole process of becoming a contestant on wheel of fortune is extremely prolonged (especially for family week, which is only taped once a year), so we actually don't know if we'll be taping this year or next year. it's just a waiting game at this point. but fun, regardless.

pasta buddies.

walking buddies.

carving pumpkins.

these two randomly fell asleep at the same time one day (they never do this).

the result of (finally) tearing up my tomato plants:

face paint from the ward halloween party:

the girls in front of our neighbor's door:

and our door:

september in pictures

september means the first day of school (in washington, at least) and this year, diane joined the ranks of school-going children in our house. she is doing half-day kindergarten and has mrs. wilson, the same teacher that madeleine had (and who we love). she was very excited for school, as you can tell in these pictures. i think it helps that she's seen madeleine go through the process and was already very familiar with her teacher and classroom.

jonathan wanted his picture taken, too.

madeleine started second grade with mrs. howe. she's an old pro at this by now.

these are some pictures from my phone. the first one is from the morning of the first day of school. diane woke up before our other kids and came and climbed into bed with randy and me. normally, we don't really let our kids do this, but this was a special day and it was a fun way to spend a little one-on-one time with her before sending her out into the world. it was a sweet moment for us.

our kids with our neighbor, parker, all ready to walk to school.

waiting for class to start.

off they go!

these were from a couple days later. jonathan was really missing having the girls around in the morning and they were sweet with him.

alright, picture overload alert. these are from our annual "school picture" photoshoot. i think i actually did it on the same day as school pictures this year. i'm cheap, i have a decent camera, and my kids do better for me behind a camera than some stranger. what can i say? so, here are lots of pictures of them.

diane was having an awkward smile phase, here.

i asked madeleine if she wanted to change her shirt and she said no, so, fluorescent yellow it is.

these are moll eyebrows, i'm pretty sure.

madeleine wanted to take some pictures, too.

jonathan has become my morning buddy now that his sisters are in school. there are some hiking trails right by the school that jonathan calls "the spooky forest" and we spent a lot of time there in the fall.

he also did a lot of digging in the backyard.

trying on some of dad's pants.

this is from our annual neighborhood back-to-school movie night. we potluck and watch an outdoor movie. it's a great tradition.

"helping" to aerate the lawn: 

at playgroup at the park:

honestly, i'm not sure what was going on in this picture.

our fall front porch:

every fall, we get a big delivery of apples from "the apple man," as the kids call him. it's one of our favorite days of the year. along with some friends, we order a bunch of apples and he brings them over from his orchard in yakima. i think we got about 150 lbs this year and made a ton of applesauce, as well as eating a bunch for a couple months.

jonathan is eating some of the applesauce we made:

another adventure in the spooky forest:

this was from the school's "moms and muffins" event. the kids thought it was pretty great.