Yea! It's October! We are so glad it is officially fall. Our neighbor gave us a caterpillar because her parsley plant was full of them. We put it in a jar and fed it parsley and other leaves for about two weeks then it made a chrysilis in the jar. It was in it's cocoon for two weeks then while we were camping it came out! We took it outside and let it go. It was really cool to watch God's creation.

Isn't my family precious - look at the hilarious faces. Mallory is like "who are these people?" James is totally bored. Kinley sees a pretty bird and Josh is stressed smiling because he just tried to get three drunk midgets to smile at the exact time the red light stopped flashing. I applaud his effort!

I had another cleaning job this month so Josh took these while I was gone. The same day he also took all three to Sam's to get our monthly bulk items. He is a pro!

Be still my beating heart!

This is Mallory looking in the mirror. She thinks she is pretty cute. She flirts like this every time she she's herself. We have two mirrors and they are by far her favorite toy right now. She is beginning to bat at hanging toys and she coos and gurgles all the time.

Last week we took our annual Beaver's Bend camping trip. This year my parents, Josh's parents and all our siblings, nieces and nephews went. It was a party. We had 15 people in one campsite spread through 3 tents.

James and Tristan idolize uncle Jason and his freakish fire and wood carving skills. Obviously Jason had told them how close they could get and they are eagerly awaiting a piece of bacon. Don't you love their spelunker lights. They couldn't bare to take them off even in the daytime. Jason made them a fort to play in. He carved them boats to race in the river, swords, knives and daggers and coached them in the ways of building, starting and maintaining a good campfire. They were in heaven.

The campground had a fun playground.

We are noticing a lot of similarities between Jada and Kinley. It is uncanny how similar their body shape, attitude, and language are. It makes us miss little Jada. We did hear that she is still with the same family she went to when she left us and that she looks happy and healthy. Kinley has been testing us on first time obedience which is delightful. She has also begun bargaining about spankings. If she has to get two or more she will ask for one. When we are talking to her about making good choices she will make random comments to distract us like "your eyes are crooked". While we were camping she did not want to take a nap and after two hours of spanking her and putting her back down we finally tied the tent shut and after she took off every shred of clothing including her diaper she fell asleep with her bottom in the air. She had to try every avenue until she would accept defeat.

On a side note, James had his 5 year well child visit. The doctor said he is a very smart, healthy boy and he is the size of a 7 year old! He had to get his immunization boosters and he didn't even cry. He took it like a champ and the nurse was so impressed. She said five year olds are the worst because they are dramatic wimps but not James he was cool as a cucumber. He is loving school and he has already gotten a girl to fall in love with him. This happened at the last school too...I'm thinking we are in trouble! Her name is Karson and she has already given him a love note. She drew an elephant on an envelope and put dried weed flowers in it and gave it to him. He was like"uh, cool, thanks" and forgot about it. Last week they had playground drama. When I picked James up and asked how his day was he said "well we had some trouble today". Then he proceeded to explain how he wouldn't play what Karson wanted him to, so she said she wasn't his friend anymore. Since she wasn't his friend then he said he wasn't going to be anyone's friend. Apparently they all cried and yelled and Karson was sitting under a tree and wouldn't talk to him. It was heavy. But the wonderful, patient teachers helped them work it out. Whew...and we're only getting started!

She makes the funniest faces.

Mallory enjoyed camping so much that she began sleeping through the night while we were there. All three nights she slept from 10:30 until at least 7. She is quiet grunty in her sleep though. I'm really glad I don't have to share a room with her.

And this, well let's just say there will never be another Morris camping trip without it! It makes coffee exactly like at home just a few minutes slower and without an auto start. It is much better than the old percolator we used to set on the fire and it took and hour to get two cups of nasty coffee. I want to give the genius at Coleman that came up with it at BIG kiss!

Bop cooking a huge breakfast over an open fire. Other than the coffee, pancakes, and heating water to do dishes we keep the use of the Coleman stove to a minimum. The Eagle Scouts we roll with prefer to do it survivor style.

We had every couple plan a breakfast and a dinner. We had chili, cornbread, and peach cobbler; foil dinners with Italian sausage, veggies, breadstick, and brownies; fish fry, hush puppies, cole slaw, baked beans, and dutch oven turtle cake. For breakfast pancakes, sausage and bacon; breakfast burritos; eggs, hash browns, bacon and toast. Josh and I worked it out pretty good - we brought sandwich stuff and got out of cooking for the group. We got there a day early and had hot dogs for dinner and packaged oatmeal for breakfast. We took the easy way out but we are going to blame it on the three month old!

We found a nice spot by the river and the big boys rerouted a part of it to race wood carved boats in. We went canoeing which was beautiful and relaxing. We did a very little hike and let the kids throw rocks in the water. The grandparents took the grand kids on a train ride. We love this tradition and are excited to continue it. We will have so many great memories.