It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! - 11/27

Well, a little like Christmas anyways. This week I finally got our Christmas decorations set up around the house - lights in the window, lights outside. We still need to get the tree set up, and Zech's not going to let us forget! Every morning he asks if we can put it up that night. Usually I have everything up by now, but we wanted to wait until after Ruth's party - less to watch out for with the extra kids!
Speaking of her party, I must get some pictures up from it. It went well, I think. She was very happy with it, which is kinda what matters most. We had invited all of Kindergarten and Grade 1 (not as many kids as it sounds, there're 12 kids in total in the 2 grades, including Ruthie. So, we invited 11 kids and 8 showed up - pretty good turn out, I'd say! The kids all seemed very excited to come, too. The movie set up worked great, they had popcorn and pop and watched the movie - for the first 50 minutes they didn't make a peep! Then we had the cake and opened presents, then parents started arriving. It worked rather well. And, like I say, Ruth was very happy with it!
Oh, and it worked out pretty good for gifts, too. She got way more presents than she ever needed, of course, but there's no real big things and she will play with it all. So that's okay, too.

Ruth's birthday - some pics - 11/19

Ruth wanted to go to Montana's for lunch on her birthday - they sang to her, she wore the birthday hat, and she got a free dessert!

We had cupcakes after supper. Nana and Papa even joined us to sing "happy birthday" to Ruthie. (they're on speaker phone, the phone's sitting on the table!!)

Cupcakes and sparkler in the dark. I don't know why, but they always try to blow out the sparkler. Always.

Isaac after eating cupcakes. A big mess. As always for Isaac eating.

Ruthie opened a couple presents and her cards!

She's having some friends over (all Kindergarten and grade 1 are invited- yikes!) this Sunday for a movie party. I'm sure we'll have more pictures then! And they'll be much better ones, as Josh got his camera back on the weekend - yay!

Happy 6th Birthday Ruth! - 11/09

Happy Birthday, Baby GirlWe love you.

Huge update! - 11/07

Well, it's November. Can't believe it.
It's also been forEVER since I posted on here and got some pictures up. My apologies. Now hold on to your hats, cuz here's a huge update all at once!
These pictures (and many many more from the same days) are all on the dropshots site, so check them out too! But, I thought I'd put some on here, chronologically (I hope!) so you can see what we've been up to the past couple weeks. I will put the actual picture dates with them, so you can find them easier on the other site.

The boys and I hung up our ghost-es on Oct 14. Zech loves to get these silly things - love to stuff them with paper and hang them up with me. I'm not sure why, but for, like, a dollar, I'll take it and enjoy!
Zech likes to pick out the hanging spots for me.

Isaac was showing Josh the "ghost-es"!

After we got them up, ever time we went outside for the next week Isaac had to point out all the "scary ghost-es" and talk about hanging them up. Zech was very proud.

Zech's birthday (Oct 16)

Happy Birthday Zechariah!!!

We had cupcakes on Zech's actual birthday (the 16th). He was very happy and excited!
He was excited to open presents, too!
He loves his rocket ship - thanks grama and grampa.
He's just being a goof here...

this one's really cute, though...

He had a really good day for his birthday, happy all day.

When he first woke up, he said "Over the night, while I was sleeping, I turned from 3 years old to 4!" Cutie.

Zech's birthday party (oct 19)

We had Zech's birthday party at a Pumpkin Patch, about half an hour north west of Brandon. It was lots of fun! Jen and Paul and the kids joined us after a while, too!
The kids posed on some pumpkins for a picture...
then we went to see some animals. The piglet LOVED Ruthie!

Jen took this family picture of us!! We're sitting on top of the hay bale pyramid!

Then we asked some random guy (well, not completely random, as he had 2 big cameras of his own there) to some picture of all of us up there!

I'm holding Zech, Josh is standing with Isaac, Brett, Ruthie, Grace is sitting with Paul, Jeff, and Luke is sitting with Jen!

Then we went to the big john deere trikes - we'd played a bunch on them before Jen and Paul got there and we kept coming back - the kids loved them!
Jen (or Josh) took this great shot of Luke and Zech. Yup, they have the exact same coat - total coincidence. They're such good buddies! It's very cute to see them together.

We took a walk through their corn maze, too.

Isaac rode on Josh's shoulders nearly the whole time, he was getting tired. I LOVE this shot Jen got of them!!

Jen took this right as we were leaving - all the kids together.

Luke, Grace, Isaac, Ruth, Zech, Brett, and Jeff

And I like this one, too. Isaac's eating supper - we just had sandwiches!

Then we had Zech's birthday cake! I love his face in this one.

Then he opened some presents! Notice his tongue?!

All in all, a great time had by all, despite the chilly wind. Zech had a really great time, a happy day for him - and that's what really mattered most about it!

Happy Halloween!

(forgive me if I've messed up the order, I've tried my best putting these on backwards!)

The kids carved punkins (Isaac calls them) Wednesday before Halloween. They loved seeing them lit up! I lit them up in the house Thurs evening for them. For Halloween, since we weren't home, I put them outside but with glowsticks inside to light them - worked out okay, much safer at any rate!
Zech's is on the left, Ruth's in the middle, and Ruth's from school on the right.

For trick or treating on Halloween night, we went in to our friends' house in town, as we have since our second Halloween here! The kids love to go around together.
Here they are all dressed up - Ruthie was Tinkerbell, Zech was Batman (Isaac kept calling him batPan), and Isaac was Pablo the Penguin (from backyardigans).

Isaac was hilarious being this penguin - so cute! We commented on how cute his tail was. He told us "Yes, my BUM is Pablo!"

I walked with Isaac most of the time out, which was fine. At one point he said "I love you, Mama." I said "I love you too, Isaac." He was quiet for a second, then said "I love you too Pablo?" I laughed, said "I love you Pablo." "I love you too Mama." he said back, happy.
He really is too funny.