Christmas Decorations Are Up!

Most of you know that Christmas is my favorite time of year, and that we always decorate way too early. Well, we did it once again! The house is finished, inside and out, and I love it! It was so much fun for the girls to help too. Logann was the master tree decorator! She unwrapped almost all of the ornaments for me to hang on the tree. Peyton was the master tree un-decorator! She took the ornaments off as fast as we could put them on! Logann called the ornaments her "presents" as she was unwrapping them! Some of you might be wondering about the picture of the bags hanging up in our hallway. I got this idea out of "Wondertime" magazine. These bags are the same concept as the traditional paper chain link garland that is used to count down the days 'til Christmas. Well, these are the "25 bags of Christmas." Each bag is filled with a small gift for the kids. We are hoping that this will be a fun and exciting way for the girls to count the days until the big day! The last 5 bags will have pieces of a nativity scene that we bought for them, and Christmas Eve's gift is baby Jesus! We hope that this activity is both entertaining and educational! We'll let you know how it turns out!

Ashwin's Birthday!

As many of you know, the girls and I have been taking Ashwin with us to play park and library story time. He lives across the street from us. We watched him full time during the month of September. His grandparents are now here from India and they watch him while his parents work. Last Friday was his first birthday and they invited us over for a authentic Indian meal! It was amazing! They had a birthday cake for him and we sang to him as well. His parents and grandparents are so nice, we are lucky to have them as friends and neighbors!

A Very Busy Halloween!

The night started off by decorating the famous Safeway sugar cookies! (Brent's idea!)

Logann stacked on as many candies as possible!

Peyton did the same!

Cheese! The girls dressed up as Tom & Jerry!

Our first stop...Bob & Mary's...

The girls posing with "Aunt Mary & Aunt Cindy!"

Second stop..."Grandma Cindy & Papa Patten's"

Our Vancouver Grandparents (Nicola's parents)

Our third stop...Erin & Rob's...

While we were enjoying our "pit stop" at Erin & Rob's, the Hoffarth's showed up! This was totally unplanned...but it worked out great because we finished off trick-or-treating in our neighborhood with them!

Hallie & Logann were so excited to see each other, they couldn't even get a word in edge-wise! They were talking about all the scary stuff they had seen already that night!

Off we went trick-or-treating to Paul & Ginger's house...our neighbors.

Trick-or-Treating our other neighbors, the Pedigo's. Peyton decided she didn't like the caramel apple suckers!

"Home again, home again, jiggety jig" as Logann would say...we got home and heard a knock on the door! It was cousin Hannah and boyfriend Austin! Logann really enjoyed the other end of trick-or-treating...opening the door and handing out candy to the other kids!

Our last visitor, neighbor Riley, the scary wolf! We decided it was time to turn out the porch lights and head for the bath-tub! We hope you all had a great Halloween...we sure did!

Pumpkin Carving with the Millhollens!

It's almost Halloween! We invited Bob, Mary, Hannah and Natalie over last night for dinner and pumpkin carving. Out of the last 7 years of living here, we have managed to make this gathering an annual tradition! There has only been one year that we couldn't fit it in to our busy schedules, but 6/7 is not too bad! As you can see, there are no pictures of Bob. He has a special talent of hiding behind someone or getting out of the picture ASAP! After carving, the girls got in the hot tub with Hannah and Nat, and by the sounds we heard from inside the house, they had a great time! We are very grateful for Logann and Peyton to have such wonderful cousins and role models to play with and look up to. We hope you have a safe and Happy Halloween! I'll be sure to post pictures after we go trick-or-treating!

New Photos of the Girls

Logann 3 years 9 months

Peyton 1 year 6 months

Preschool Field Trip to BiZi Farms

Logann and I went with her preschool class to BiZi Farms on Thursday. The weather held out for us and didn't sprinkle one bit! Logann got to find her way through the hay maze, feed the goats, climb a hay pyramid, and go on a hay ride out to the patch to pick a pumpkin. She picked out a small pumpkin for herself. On our way out, we stopped at the Farmer's Market and she picked out gourds for daddy and Peyton. She had so much fun that we are going again this weekend with daddy, Peyton, G & G Gabel AND G & G Dukes! There will be another post in the next few days!

My Weekend with the Girls

The girls and I had a nice relaxing weekend together. Brent went down to Eugene for the Duck game. As you can see in the pictures, the girls and I stayed here at the house, and had some fun. I bought the new Sleeping Beauty movie for the girls and Logann decided she wanted "beautiful" hair like Princess Aurora. So, I got out my old hot rollers from high school and plugged them in. She wanted the end result, but didn't care much for having the rollers put in. When it was all said and done, she thought it was well worth it.

We had two highlights of the day today...Logann got to talk to her long lost friend Brady, who now lives in Florida. We used a web-cam at Brady's grandparent's house down the street. The Kempf's were surprised to see AND talk to us! The second goodie of the day was going to Hallie's 4th birthday party. Logann, Brady and Hallie were all born within 3 months of each other and continue to be good friends.