Happy Halloween!

My little cuties last year with our sweet new pumpkin!

**********************

Caramel Corn

(a recipe for Carissa, that must be made for Halloween!)

6 qt. popped corn

2 1/2 c brown sugar

1/2 c white Karo syup

1 tsp salt

1 c butter

Melt butter, add syrup, brown sugar, salt in saucepan. Boil 5 minutes, stirring. Add 1/2 tsp vanilla.

Pour over popped corn, stir well.

Bake 30 min on cookie sheet in 250 oven, stir often. (line pan with foil!)

Eat while warm and gooey!

We make a half batch when it's just us eating it. Also, I like to take about half the popcorn out of the bowl before adding the caramel and mixing it, then add more popcorn, then more caramel--I'm always afraid of too much popcorn, not enought carmel. :)

Enjoy!

Family Pictures

We had Mark take some family pictures earlier this summer (I think Jemma's about 7 months).

Here's a few goodies:

And some bloopers!

I love this one!

It's total chaos and Jack's just smiling and waving.

We are over a quarter of the way through the school year and I am amazed by my Ava. She has been loving first grade and has been getting perfect scores on her spelling tests and her timed math tests, she is reading like crazy, and she is loving art (here's one of her latest pictures).

We are so proud of you Ava!

One more...

Jemma Jane, October 28, 2008

Jemma Jane, October 28, 2009

Growing up!

King of the World!

Yes, he owns pants.

No, he never wears them.

Happy Birthday to Jemma Jane (with many, many pictures)

Sweet birthday girl!

The traditional 1st birthday happy meal. Jemma's first fry...trying it out.

Liked it!

Back home for the party.

We like to keep the kids' parties early and short but Ed was flying home across the country so we started later than usual (like around Jem's bedtime!). His plane landed while we were at McD and he hopped in the car to drive an hour and a half home. He called three times from the road to check up on the birthday girl and see if she liked her fries, her hamburger, her party decorations, etc. and he drove so fast that he beat Gaby (his friendly GPS) by 10 minutes and he pulled into the driveway just as we started singing Happy Birthday!

The cousins all lined up with their presents for her. The kids rarely notice little Jem when we're all together and we're usually yelling, "watch out for the baby!" But tonight she was the center of attention!

Jemma was a very grateful birthday girl. She was surprisingly excited about every gift!

The first bite.

Laughin' with Jack

Paula stole a bite!

What to do with 10 kids sugar-loaded and up past bedtime?

Line them up in front of a movie!

Jemma is sweet and funny and curious. She has a fantastic giggle, she loves peek-a-boo, and she is so happy to crawl and explore every nook and cranny she can find. She is immensely social but she also loves to spend hours playing alone in her crib. She'll eat anything we feed her except broccoli. She is very attached to me and loves to play with Ed and Ava but she absolutely adores her brother! She is such a joy to have around!

Happy Birthday beautiful girl!

Birthdays

Jemma's birthday is coming up and I have been uncharacteristically sentimental now for weeks about this! The kids have been poring over the picture books lately and they especially love pictures of their birthdays. They are both so excited for Jemma to have her own birthday and they have their presents wrapped and hidden away and they talk nonstop to her about her cake, her streamers, and her first happy meal! Yes, we take our kids to McD's on their first birthdays for their first all-american hamburger and fries. Here's some oldies but goodies:

Jack's first fry. He likes it.

First cake!

He wasb't too sure about the sticky white stuff,

so his big sister jumped in to help.

Ava, on the other hand, bit right in.

nummy.

(Okay, Jemma is starting to look a whole lot like her!)

Mmm, she was sweet!

I remember all of this like it was yesterday and I cannot believe my baby is turning one.

It is (almost) the most wonderful time of the year.

The Christmas catalogs are coming hot and heavy and Jack can't wait to tear into them.

He spent the other day poring over the Cabelas catalog--I found him like this at least three different times during the day!

You can see how he checked out the Pottery Barn catalog and then chucked it aside.

He has picked out many things for his own list but he also found all kinds of goodies he wants to buy for the rest of us.

We do love presents at this house!

Ready and waiting for a date with grandpa.

The bookstore and an ice cream cone...two of her favorite things.

Pumpkins!

Pumpkin carving requires a big bowl of carmelcorn and as usual Jack was my baking buddy. He was super excited about the old school air popper (is it possible he has grown up with micro popcorn only??). Since this is my blog, I'm going to go ahead and say that I make the best carmelcorn ever. It's true.

The first cut.

Jemma was more interested in eating the paper.

Ava is awesome at cleaning--she digs right in and hauls out all the goo.

Jack, on the other hand, likes to psych himself up first. He sized up the pumpkin for a good five minutes and then hollered, "okay, I'm goin' in!"

Ta da!

I wish you could see the faces here--Jack requested a scary monster with sharp teeth and Ava wanted one like her...complete with missing front teeth. I thought it looked pretty good but she didn't think it was quite girly enough!

Where's Jack?

Today has been an awesome sunny fall day and while Jack was busy playing outside, Jemma was crawling all around looking very blue. I finally figured out the problem and I set her up on the couch so she could see out the window.

Found him!!

When Jack heard her giggle, he ran right over.

So happy!!

On our own.

Ed and I decided at sort of the last minute to stay another night after everyone else went home. When the other cars drove off, Jack and Ava looked lonely and blue for a minute and then they ran in the house and got busy enjoying the quiet! Ava took a long bubble bath and Jack headed down to the bedroom and made a big tent to play in.

We went back to town for some treats--here's Ava with a bag of fresh bread and a leaf bouquet she'd been working on.

Ed with a cute kid in one hand and a glass of Jack in the other. Ahh, vacation!

The weather was awesome all weekend--almost too hot for a hot cocoa in town!

Jemma was there too! She spent the whole weekend either in bed or in the backpack and she was happy in both!

I spent many hours sitting right here on the deck, reading and looking at this view!

A rare family shot!