October was exciting! Halloween was of course fun. We went trick or treating with the Henslee's. The kids were so funny. They took an awkwardly long time to get their candy and leave. Ezra decided to ask each person where their dog was, what their name was and what their dogs name was. They would all say trick or treat, get their candy and just stand there and stare at the people until we took their hands and led them away.

Kinley and Levi are good friends, she said "come ere and give me a hug Wevi", then smiled as if to say "I can get my way with all the boys".

Mallory wore Kinley's baby ballerina costume. She enjoyed sucking on the tulle just like Kinley did.

What a stinger!

Arrrrggggg!

Josh and the kids carved these pumpkins while I was cleaning. I was very impressed with the speed and skill involved in this project.

Kinley was working double time on her Halloween candy.

Sweet little cheese ball! She weighs 15 lbs and slept 12 hours for the first time last night! She rolled from her back to her tummy one time a couple of weeks ago and she has been giggling a little bit which is just a little slice of heaven.

We were in the car and my mom looked at Mallory and found her like this. The bow that was in the band was in her lap. I guess it was bothering her. The funny thing is she never fussed or cried.

This is the beloved Karsen. James' best school friend. His teacher told me that one day James came up to her and said "I don't know what else to do, I did everything Karsen wanted me to and she's still mad". Guess he has to get used to that, it's women for ya!

Sisters watching football together. Kinley is still doing really well with Mallory. She likes to help me tuck her in for naps. Both kids get a huge kick out of Mallory smiling at them.

Josh's parents so lovingly gave us 20lbs each of apples and pears from their trees. We got to work one weekend and made four apple pies and four pear tarts plus two gallons of apple and pear puree for Mallory's baby food. It was a fun project but we don't want to have anything to do with peeling, slicing or big time baking for a while. We did however get lots of brownie points from all the friends we shared our sweets with.

The neighbor kids have found James. Oscar lives next door and is 10. Kristen lives two doors down on the opposite side and just turned 9. They both go to Hoover which is the school James will go to next year. They have been knocking on the door in the afternoons to see if James can come out and play. It has been really interesting because these kids are not exactly good influences but we want to be a good influence to them and James is dying to play with them because they are older and cooler. So we have let them play together in our yard under our supervision. It has been okay so far but Oscar has started to send James in for Dr. Pepper or Capri Sun, whatever I'll let them get away with (water is all this witch will let them have!). Oscar started saying shut up to Kristen and his dog and James told him we don't say that word because it isn't nice and Oscar got mad and left and hasn't been back since?? I think we might have a legalism issue to deal with?? Kristen started playing a little rough one day and made James cry. He said through tears "rough play is just not my thing". It has been really interesting balancing his strong desire to explore these new relationships and our feelings of protection taking into account all the things we said we would and wouldn't do when we got into situations like this. We also faced a difficult issue at school last week. They offer something called Amazing Athletes, which sounds like a great program, the last hour of the day he goes to school. You have to pay $40/month for 35 min of instruction once a week. We decided that wasn't the best value and that he wouldn't be able to do it but we know that Karsen and his two favorite boys get to go and that he really really wants to do it. So we talked to him about it and explained how we will be faced with these decisions for the rest of his life and because of the value issue with this we think we should save our money for cub scouts or karate or a different amazing athletes class. He was really understanding and got excited when we mentioned cub scouts and said he was fine with not doing this if he could do that. He handled it with such self control and maturity. We are so proud of the boy he is becoming.

This face says it all! She has been in the "pankin" stage. She is totally testing us on first time obedience. She has been bargaining with us saying "no I only want two spankings, not one" and one day when she had racked up four she said "how 'bout timeout?". She is loving preschool. One day after nap time she said to her teacher "when my mom gets here we're going to eat bugs!" She is such a sweet, sassy, silly little thing. She'll flirt with a stick and win over stranger in an instant. I have decided boys aren't going to be much of a worry to us because they'll all chase her, she might give a couple a chance but just when they think they've won her over she'll drop them like a rock and leave them wondering what just happened.

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.

Not much has been going on around here. We are just busy bodies sustaining life. James was playing today and put Mr. Potato Head on Tex and said "Tex is trying to scare Gecko so he put on his potato mask". I thought is was hilarious looking. James is starting to read. Teaching him to read is my goal before he starts kindergarten next fall. He is doing really well so far and we are having fun with it. He sounded out the word sand and he made the "a" sound a little long and ended up saying sand as if he were British and he laughed at himself so hard he teared up. He was amazed that things can be said different ways.

I got another cleaning job this month and was gone all weekend. This was a pick up game of roll the bouncy ball. So sweet.

We finally caught her smile on camera! She is just beautiful and her smile lights up her whole face. She is very social at this point and loved to "make eyes" at us.

James and Kinley are starting to interact with Mallory a little more. They really like that she acknowledges them with a smile.

James and Kinley's first day of school. Of course we couldn't get them both to be serious and smile normal at the same time. They really like their new school.

We are settling into a school year routine that I think we are all going to like. We go to the Y on Monday and Thursday mornings then BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) on Tuesday mornings, school on Wednesdays and a playdate or errands on Fridays. During our time at home we do learning time where I work with them on reading, science, colors, math readiness, etc. We also do a Bible time where we pray, read and memorize scripture. Then of course we include lots of playing and a nice amount of cartoon's and movies! We are excited because this year all 5 of us are attending BSF. Josh goes on Monday nights and the kids get to go with me on Tuesdays. They have an amazing kids program where 5 and under go in the mornings with mom and 6 and up go in the evenings with dad so hopefully we will stick with it for a long time and really reap the benefits.

We are getting excited to go to Beaver's Bend for our annual camping trip in two weeks. I am still having trouble with terrible flashbacks from last year. I am ready to make some new memories to replace all the bad ones!

I'm sorry I haven't posted! We had 6 events outside of Tulsa in the last three weeks! It has been a marathon but we are all in one piece and got to have a lot of fun.

At the beginning of August we had a "wipeout" party because it is one of James and Kinley's favorite things to play in the back yard. We invited 10 friends over and bought 10 cans of bath foam and covered anything that would stand still with it. They had a great time and we mom's enjoyed watching them wipeout.

One day when I was packing for one of our trips I came in the living room after being in the kids room for about thirty minutes and found this "fort". James had gotten every pillow and gun we have and made a completely non functional pile. When it was time to take it down he cried for an hour. Oh how difficult it is to be five!

Miss Mallory is growing like a weed. She is seven weeks now and below are some of the outfits she is finally fitting in. She's only been able to wear onesis because she's been so thin. We think she weighs about 11lbs right now! She is getting close to sleeping through the night and is a pretty good napper so far. She has been a great baby.

I finally captured her new trick! She does smile bigger but it is so hard to catch on camera.

One weekend we went to my 10 year high school reunion which was really fun and the Rush Springs watermelon festival. The kids love the rides at the festival and we all love the carnival junk food!

James and Kinley got to spend a week at Gigi and Bop's with me then a week at Grandad and Nana's and had a great time on their "vacation". However we are all having some adjusting to home pains. It's hard to live with the fact that time with grandparents is like suckers - really good but only to be enjoyed sometimes - we can't have them everyday. We are excited for September to get back into a "normal" routine. Josh and I are both going to attend Bible Study Fellowship and study Isaiah. The kids will be going to a new preschool on Wednesdays. I am sad because the school James has gone to the last three years said that he had to come three days a week this year or not at all and we are not willing to send him three days because we really want him to be home building a strong foundation to get ready for kindergarten next year. It was a tough decision to change schools but when I asked James if he wanted to go to his old school three days a week or a new school one day he said the new school because he wants to spend more time with me, Kinley, and Mallory! AWWWW isn't that sweet?!