Welcome, Fall!

I always pout during the time of year when fall takes summer away. I don't like the gray skies and rain replacing the blue skies and sun or the socks and shoes replacing my flip flops. But when the trees start changing colors and Halloween is on its way, I can't help but give in and love it. Not to mention all the great things that come with fall. Like football! This is the time of year when we cheer hard for the Oregon Ducks and the Tigard Tigers. Darren's bro, Marc is a high school football coach and we love to make a weekend visit out of rooting for his team in Portland. Darren's parents came up for the game and we came down. The bad part was, we got stuck in nasty traffic and nasty weather and didn't even make it to the game on Friday night. But we made up for it with a Saturday full of fun at the pumpkin patch. Here's our hay ride on the tractor,the perfect pumpkins,the adorable farm animalsand the corn maze.Joseph and Justin loved raking and jumping in leaf piles in the yard last weekend. It was very cute to watch Joseph teach Justin how to really mess up the pile. Justin was an attentive student.And finally, the jack-o-lantern debut on the front porch! Joseph was really into it this year, designing and cleaning out his own pumpkin. (His is in the middle.)I am so thankful for family, football, pumpkin patches, leaf jumping and jack-o-lanterns to help me embrace the fall.

What the kiddos have been up to...

Update time. We're finally feeling settled into our new school schedule and Joseph is still really enjoying Kindergarten. He always wants to go and he loves his teacher. I'm so happy about that. His favorite thing to do at school is P.E. He's learned to skip and jump rope and he loves to exercise. If you ask him what he wants to be when he grows up, he'll tell you he wants to be a guy that makes exercise videos. He wants to do an exercise video everyday, either one of mine or one for kids from the library.

This is also a common sight at our house. Joseph's favorite books to read are the kids non-fiction books. His favorite subjects are the body and how it works and the solar system. A new book makes him really excited, but then he reads his favorites over and over again until he can practically quote them. Smarty pants.His reading inspired this body of artwork on our wall. If you ask Joseph about Pluto, he'll tell you he's sad it's not a planet anymore. He's hip to the whole debate. My favorite piece is his interpretation of earth. It's the multi-colored planet towards the bottom.He's also been loving soccer again this year. I'll post some pictures soon.

Check out Justin's new skills! I just love his tongue in this picture.
See him in action and listen for his cute "twysicoh" for "tricycle."
Justin cracks me up everyday. He picks up hilarious things from his brother like, "What the heck?" and "Sweet!" He often tells me something and follows it with, "That be awesome, Mom?" But my favorite is his fascination with the word "cool." He thinks everything he does is "cool." Our conversations often go like this:

Justin: Look, Mom!
Me: That's so silly, Justin.
Justin: It's not silly, it's cool.

After catching on, I think I'm doing him a favor by telling him he's cool, only to hear him respond like this:

Justin: Look, Mom!
Me: That's cool, Justin.
Justin: It's not cool, it's way cool.

Apparently Mom is just always wrong.

Our After-Busy-Season Retreat

It's so good to get away after busy season is over! We made a camping trip work on the last good weather weekend of the year. It was perfect. Just a couple of days and nights, but it was so fun to just get away and hang out in the mountains together. The boys are in heaven out there (my husband included). Here they are setting up the tent.
The boys enjoying the fire.
Family canoe ride on the lake.
And this is what our evenings looked like: Darren fly fishing, Joseph practicing casting with his pole, Justin throwing rocks and me reading a book.Can't wait for next year!