November Happens

Jo Color

Never a dull looking meal when Jo helps cook.

Ever had tie-die biscuits with your soup?

Actually, she wanted them purple and plans on

coloring the liquid next time before it hits the

dry ingredients.  We love that she is always

willing to try and learn new ways of coloring

our food.

Lil Visit

We had the pleasure of having Lil stay with us for a for a couple day-time visits.

Doug and Lil had a few words of “This is my toy” and “Those are my people”.  But over all they did really well together and even started to play with each other.

No Walnuts!

I’m sure I have stated this before, but if not, we call our walnut tree our “Giving Tree” as it gives us things to do outside year round.

If it’s not dropping walnuts, it shares leaves or dead branches in the winter and in the spring it drops it’s flowers.

And when there are leaves there must be playing!

Even Doug enjoyed running through them.

Friends

Karly and Jo are at it again creating colorful cupcakes followed by colorful frosting.

Self-entertaining as these two are, the only direction we give them over a full weekend together is “Please pick up your last activity.” Otherwise they just move from one imaginative activity to the next.

For example, after they finished baking the cupcakes they created “walnut families” and drew houses and cars on paper.  The girls just crack us up!

And in the morning they created cinnamon pancakes.

I’d tell you how great they tasted but they only made enough filling for two so the rest of the family ate plain old pancakes.

Jason, Payton and Cole played a ton of football.

On the Wii followed by touch football in the street.

(Why the street? The yard was wet and cold but mostly Cole didn’t want poop patrol)

CAST IS OFF!

Though Cole enjoyed the thought of a cast and the attention it gave him, (for the first couple days), he was ready to have it off so he could resume normal activity. 

After an x-ray and a visit from the doctor he was given a thumbs up. No breaks!

Within an hour he was back to playing the video games he couldn’t play while in his cast.

Findtners Fun

While Betsy and John went to the Duck football game Sam and Cole jumped right onto the computers and played Minecraft…for hours and hours.

And they were quite happy about this!

I had other ideas for Chloe, Jo and I.

During the past month or so Oma and I have been planning on and planning for our wedding. We had reached out to Betsy for some much needed help with planning and organizing.  At one point we were searching for someone ordained to marry us and Oma said, “Betsy, you get ordained and perform our service.” About an hour later we received an email from Betsy with the subject line: “Free Online Ministry Ordination – Notice #” and we now had our Ordained Minister booked!

This long story brings us to my thought of a fun joke for Betsy.

She MUST need a robe to perform these wonderful ceremonies in life, right?

Jo and I found this perfect robe at a second hand store.  Fate!

And Chloe jumped right in with us to design and bedazzle the robe!

Presenting: Ordained by Universal Life Church Monastery, our MC, Betsy!

Chloe, Jo and I had a good time with this project and I will call upon Chloe the next time I have a creative joke to build, the three of us worked great together!

Hoping Betsy gets a few miles of fun with her robe.

Basketball Try-Outs

I guess we are moving into the next phase of sports with Cole as sixth grade actually had tryouts for teams.  Around 22 boys signed up which will make three teams for the North Eugene sixth graders.

Cole made the second team and he is very excited about his team.  He feels his team really came together as a team, not a bunch of individuals who think they are good. But guys who passed, screened and communicated well like a team should.

Looking forward to the season and a new bunch of boys to get to know.

Most of August

TUTORING
The kids again had tutoring with Ms. Swift this summer to prepare them for 6^th grade.  Cole and Jo both thought it was helpful last summer and looked forward to preparing for the middle school jump this summer. Yes, they were excited about summer school.

Swift was always great as she taught whoever was sitting at our kitchen table, our kids nor not.  This day happen to be Payton, one of Cole’s friends from baseball.

Derian and her Sheep

Spent another day at the fair watching cousin Derian show her sheep.

She and her sheep really showed well this year in my opinion.  And I do have an opinion after watching three years of sheep showing.

2000 Geocache!

After the sheep show we went with Gpa & Gma to grab a geocach which was their 2000^th find.

I think this is great as Gma, the kids and I were together for our very first geocach find as well.

Football Camp

Another football camp or two actually for Cole this year.

He had fun at the N. Eug. camp and also attended and enjoyed the S. Eug. camp.

How Does My Garden Grow?

Very well if you ask me.

Everything grew wonderful this year and we learned much about how the plants grow.

Looking forward to next year now.

Terry-Taylor Garage Sale!

We loaded our truck with our ‘willing to part with treasures’ and headed to Longview for the HUGE garage sale hoping to come home with an empty truck.

It always cracks me up what people roll around the streets with to carry their garage sale finds.  In this one photo you can see three red wagons and a sort of modified golf dolly with a large bag attached.  We sold quite a bit and bought nothing this year which was unusual but good.

We stayed at Nanny & Grandpas house while there so we could visit a little bit more and the kids could swim whenever they wanted.

And did they want to swim.

Played with my new camera and got this awesome shot!

And the kids even posed for a “hey, we love each other” photo.

And Gpa fired up the pit both nights for roasting marshmallows.

Good times, good weekend and awesome family visiting.

Challengers

This summer seemed less busy but at the same time incredibly busy if that makes sense.  The Challengers baseball team plays right at our North Eugene High school field and it’s always a good time to watch local baseball (and cheap family fun). They are part of the American Legion Baseball organization.

We only made one game this summer but we picked a good day for it!

I’d say we will make more games next summer but I won’t hold my breath as the kids sure keep us busy and if it’s not them we are making plans as a family.

Chocolate

Jo and her cooking interests took us to the store as she wanted to make something “chocolate”.

She found a mustache mold and she created these beauties. Two of them were even peanut butter filled.

Calvin – 80 Years

I spy Doug.

Can you?

As we were loading the car to head
to Myrtle Creek for a weekend Doug
didn’t want to be left behind and
this is where I found him.
I told him he got to come on this trip
and could also ride up front with us,
not in the trunk.

Always fun walking to/from the cows.

But during this time of year we eat along the way, apples, plums and blackberries.

And then we feed the cows apples before walking back to the house.

Doug was wanting in with the cows, and then not, but looked fun, but then not really.

The trip was to celebrate Calvin’s 80^th Birthday!

I love this man and appreciate him in not only my life but my family’s.

The family placed softballs for all the years Calvin asking anyone who played for Calvin or against him to sign the softballs. Every ball was signed.
(I believe four women could sign the 1950’s ball)

Football

Towards the end of the month football started up and, because Cole’s school didn’t have enough players in his age group, he played with the South Eugene/Churchill team.

Heading out for his first practice.

It’s a team had 16 players from the combined schools, North & South Eugene & Churchill. 

He was laughing a bit about having to wear purple this season but was also really looking forward to the amount of playing time he was going to have with such a small team.

8^th Cup Yellow Belt

Jo is still enjoying Taekwondo and this month she was invited to test for her 8th Cup Yellow belt.

And She Passed!!!
Jo has made some good friends at this class and always has a very good time.  She was excited and quite proud of her new belt as we were.

Celebration Parade.

We ended the month (basically) watching the Eugene Celebration parade.

Rachelle, Connie, Jen, Julie, Tracy, Martha and so many others hung out watching together.

Jo and I thought this was one of the best parts of the parade this year.

When the guy peddled the little arms moved back and forth along with the head moving when he turned the bike. 

I will be posting an Aug. McKenzie trip and our Mt Hood trip to round out August.

All of October

Will try to stay more current on our family blog I am posting October and will get back to playing catch up with Aug/Sep later.

Lunches!

Packing lunch for school is always a challenge.  One might think “How hard could it possibly be, toss in some food and you’re good to go.” Well it’s not that easy as the kids get tired of the same old thing every day and many times I work hard at being creative and different only to find they bring it home and it ends up in the garbage.

So this is Jo’s idea of a good sandwich for lunch!

When Jo got home from school she added marshmallow cream to the shopping list, however I find it much more fun with the mini marshmallows on the bread.

River Walk

I joined the kids on the whole school on the river walk field trip where they walk the bike/walking path around a six mile loop.

Payton, Jo, Ian and Cole

They stayed goofy and fun the whole way and when they got back to school all tuckered out the school held a picnic followed by a school dance. I went home and put my feet up and even took a nap.

Science Class

The teacher for science is quite a character and LOVES science.  In the classroom she has snakes, lizards, hamsters and the live groceries to feed these animals.  She also has every area from the floor to the ceiling (not a joke) covered in “science” of some sort. It could be overwhelming to walk into this classroom, but the kids love science because of her!

Forgotten Binder?

Cole forgot his binder at home and called home asking if I could bring it to school for him.

Being the supportive mom that I am, I slid this note in the front of his binder and dropped it off at school for him. He hasn't forgotten it since.

Baseball – Still?

Yes, Oma has been working with Willamette Valley Select baseball this fall.  Cole is only able to make scrimmage games here and there while he plays football but Oma is at most practices and games.

It’s nice to see this group play as they try to give all the kids a chance to develop not only their hitting but a chance to play other defensive positions they don’t get a chance to play during the regular season.

Jo’s Foot

During the River Walk it was easy to see that Jo’s feet were really hurting again.  Thinking she only needed some adjustments on her orthotics I took her back to the podiatrist.

(pink circles is the tarsal coalition)

We were sent to get a CT scan and Jo has what’s called “tarsal coalition” in both feet which means that two of her bones did not separate as she has grown.  Jo will be scheduled for surgery soon on the first foot and in time have both done to correct this.  We are trying to keep the mood light by telling Jo that we will purchase crutches for her to “bling” out before surgery.

Pumpkin Patch

We stopped at a smaller farm this year, less crowded and of course less activities, but none the less fun for us.

They still had a small corn maze and we had fun walking / running through it.

And here are our prize pumpkins

We never did carve these as life was busy and well, I guess we were a lame family this year.

Haunted Corn Maze

Both kids walked through the haunted corn maze at night for the first time.  Cole had a blast with his friend and said he laughed all the way through.  I took Jo with a friend of hers to meet up with Cousin Derian and her friends, hoping this might be helpful.  Jo’s friend got so scared that they didn’t last long at all, choosing to exit as soon as they could.  Thankful Derian was there to make sure the girls were ok.  Jo is looking forward to next year and laughing her way through too.

Football

Cole’s team rocked this season!  With a roster of 16 they regularly played with 13 or 14 players each game due to illness or injuries.  Cole worked his way from being rotated on/off the field to playing full games.

On offence he played tackle and on defense he was a cornerback.  He really enjoyed cornerback as he got better each week and knocking the balls away from his opponents wide receivers and he even made a couple of interceptions.

His team went 4 – 2 for the season.

He is looking forward to next season and hopes to play with the same coaches next year.

HALLOWEEN

And here we are, Pirate Girl and Steve from Multiplicity (movie)

The kids had a very good time this year at school in full costume all day.  Jo stated that many teachers and classmates thought her sword cut was real.  Cole informed me that girls were coming up to him that he didn't even know and saying how “cute” he looked.  He also stated that he is planning on the same costume next year. (nothing hidden on why, sheesh)

A.M Bus Stop

Jo, (Ian) Scout from Team Fortress 2 (video game); (Shane) Doctor Who (tv series) & Cole

What goofballs.

Jo planned on a red wig but it came out of the package curly and she wanted it straight.  So I did research and found pouring boiling water poured over the wig will take the curl out.

So this is how the wig turned out. As soon as I finished straighten the wig I apparently forgot about this set up in the shower because it caught me off guard as I headed into the bathroom to use the facility.  I actually yelled “Aahh” as I thought someone was in the tub and then started laughing at myself as I almost didn't make it to the toilet then!  Short term memory sure has kicked in!

Football Over – Darn

Cole potentially fractured a growth plate in his thumb during one of his last football practices.  It’s unclear at this time but he was/is in so much pain that they put a cast on.

He missed out on his last football game and it was an emotional one as the team only had 11 players without him.  He did a great job being the ball boy and yelling encouraging words to his teammates.  Not the way he wanted to end football this year but he still says “great season, Mom”.

Trick or Treat!

The kids walked the neighborhood with quite a few of their friends this year which made it a lot of fun.

And this is what our living room looked like after. 

The kids exchanged candy with each other before everyone headed home and to bed for the night as school would start before they know it.

Happy October FB Peeps!