Birthday Party!

Today was Cannon's birthday party.  His actual birthday is tomorrow.  He invited many friends from school and enjoyed a full two hours playing at the Super Jump Party Zone.  It was a great spot for a party because everyone was entertained and happy.  (and tired!)

Cannon's group of friends were great.  Everyone was well behaved and had a great time.  Cannon has such nice classmates!  He is blessed.

Cannon and Colson...

Abby and Analise...

Josh and Cannon...

Josh, Brayden, Analise, Cannon and Abby...

Cannon and Brayden...

Dillon...

Cannon wanted a cake for his birthday this year.  (not cupcakes)  We picked out the cake together and he decided on the frosting and decorations.  He thought a Seahawks cake would be pretty cool.

Cannon was spoiled with gifts.  He opened each gift carefully, reading the card first so he knew who it was from.  This was a great gift from Josh!  Those are dollar coins!  How cool!!

There is everyone together.
(I didn't get any separate pictures with Avery or Evan, who are on the bottom row.)

This afternoon was a great party, celebrating one AMAZING kid!  We love you, Cannon!

Enjoying every moment!

What's Going On

A little bit on some of the things happening in our life:

Puzzles, puzzles, puzzles.  Colson is continuing his love of puzzles and is becoming more independent.  He often doesn't want me to help him put the puzzle together.  Currently, we have a large 48 piece puzzle spread out on the floor in the entry way. Colson decided that is the area that has a big enough flat surface for putting together a puzzle of that size.

Chris is out of town this week in Milwaukee at a Trade Show.  He is attending some seminars, making contacts, and working deals.  They will also be touring another truss plant and meeting with the saw distributor.  Touring the Harley Davidson museum is also on their to do  list.

I am taking part in a 21 day Fitness Group where we are working to eat better and work out on a daily basis.  It's a great way to be held accountable.  So far, I'm doing a good job with drinking a ton of water, working out (which is easy for me) and eating better.  Still a long way to go!

We have conferences next week and I have been grading narrative writing papers and a reading assessment.  Lots of paperwork to get ready and organize before the student led conferences begin!

Colson is becoming more fluent with his letters and sounds.  He is enjoying writing more, (not that he didn't enjoy it before) and he is recognizing more letters out and about in our daily life.  I came in to put him to bed one night this week and he was practicing writing letters on the letter cards we've been using sporadically.  

Enjoying every moment.

Stories From the Week

Every day moments are what our life is made up of.  Here are a few from the past week:

Cannon watched Caleb for a few minutes while Jessica had to drop something off.  Cannon was so sweet with him!  It was great to watch Cannon interact with Caleb.  We all know that Cannon is so sweet and kind.  It showed again here!

On October 15th, at 10:15, there was a statewide Earthquake Drill.  We all got under the tables and then evacuated the building.  It was cloudy out, but not raining.  However my feet got soaked from the wet grass!

Colson had a difficult night Thursday.  It was tough for him and tough for me.  We are both teaching each other to be patient, to walk away when needed, and there are consequences for our choices.

Cannon's soccer team played on Saturday morning and won 5-3.  Cannon played well, hustled and stole the ball a number of times.  He is getting better every week.  He played goalie for the second half and had an assist.  He stopped a lot of balls and also had some get by him.

Saturday night was the White River Education Foundation auction at High Cedars.  It was great to get out without kids and enjoyed a great dinner.  It's always fun to look at all of the auction items.  We won two items on the silent auction table:  A pallet of pellets and tickets to Emerald Downs.  The boys got to hang out with Granny Joy!

Cannon's stash of Kids Cash from church.  He used $150 to buy some crazy modeling compound.  It looks like a million little Styrofoam balls, but they all stay together and can be molded into anything. It's pretty cool!

Both Saturday and Sunday the boys spent over 4 hours outside with the neighbor's grand kids.  Two different neighbors had their grandchildren over so there were quite a few kids playing and riding bikes.  Today, it sprinkled off and on the entire time and the kids were soaking wet, but they didn't care!  Fun times!  A perfect to wear all of them out.

Enjoying every moment.

Saturday

What a busy Saturday!  But it was a good busy.

We got to sleep in!  Hooray!
Pancakes for breakfast...and ham and eggs for Colson and I.  (Colson's request!)
Cannon had a soccer game in Puyallup.
I made salsa from the tomatoes Ms. Penny gave me.
Chris and the boys went recycle steel.
I went grocery shopping for the week.
Watched football all day long.  The Cougars beat Oregon!
Did chores.
Put out a tiny bit of Fall decor.
We listened to it pour rain.  Storming!
Chris worked on Cannon's motorcycle.
The boys played with trucks and watched a bit of TV.
Cannon did half of his homework.
I cut and baked a squash.  So good!
Chris brought home pizza for dinner.  Quick and easy!
Cannon and I made a small fleece blanket.
Ironing.  Laundry.
A bit of school work for me.
Cannon read his library book.
Colson took a long bath.
Chris and I watched The Blacklist that we had recorded.
Relaxed and read a bit.

Cannon drove the forklift, loading up some of the steel.

The boys all relaxing after getting home.  DC is snuggled up with them too!

The squash wasn't as hard to cut and peel as I thought it would be.  It was still time consuming, but so good.  I ate my share and more!

Cannon cutting the corners out of the "tie" blanket we made.  It didn't turn out too bad for our first one.  Cannon asked to make a blanket a couple of days ago and so with Brenda's left over fleece and her supplies, we made that happen!

A good Saturday.
Enjoying every moment!

An Award for Cannon

The Honoring Kids Assembly is a monthly tradition at Mountain Meadow and we had our first one on Friday.

Cannon was honored from his class for Taking Responsibility for his School Work.  His teacher, Mrs. Smith, said that Cannon was a hard worker, helped out in the class and did very well on all of his assignments, including getting 100% on the Unit 1 Math Assessment!  It was wonderful to hear the wonderful things said about Cannon.  He deserves the award and the honor.  We are very proud parents.  Cannon is off to a great start this year and is really stepping up to be a model in the classroom for others.  He has a caring heart.

Love this kid!

Enjoying every moment.

Pumpkins!

Sunday we took an impromptu trip down to our neighborhood pumpkin patch.  It was a beautiful, sunny day and it felt so great to be outside enjoying the fall weather.

Cannon and I rode our bikes. Chris and Colson rode in the golf cart. They were going to ride their bikes, too, but we needed a place to bring all of the pumpkins back and we couldn't do that on our bikes!

We so love this little pumpkin patch by our house.  The kids love to wander.  The dog greets us like we are family. We threw the apple he had over and over and over for him.  It was fun to search the pumpkins for the 'best' ones.  I love looking at all of the specialty pumpkins and gourds.

I even got a few pictures of the boys!

And now we have some more fall decorations for our front porch.

Fun times.
Enjoying every moment.

Annual Oyster Run

This is our third (I think!) year going to the Oyster Run in Anacortes.  This is a huge motorcycle gathering, bringing thousands of bikes to the area.  Last year's run had around 27,000 motorcycles. This year it was just as big or bigger!  Wall to wall to wall and then some.

Sebastian, Mindy and Dillon are there, too.  Sebastian works on Sunday as his Harley Davidson store has a tent selling products.

Saturday we always spend time going to the Farmer's Market.  It's just a small one, but it's fun to look through everything. We get lunch there, buy some fresh veggies and fruit and sometimes flowers.  A stop at the ice cream store across the street is a must, as well.

The best part about the weekend is our camp spot, which is right on the water. The views are amazing.  It's quiet and peaceful.  You can walk just steps to be on the beach searching for shells and rocks.  There are great trails to ride bikes on and walk.  The playground is right by our site.

The boys had so much fun and didn't want to leave.

Sunday is the actual Oyster Run and the streets are packed with motorcycles, vendors and people.
We watched the Seattle Cossacks perform again and they always put on a great show.

It was a great, relaxing weekend that was much needed.
Enjoying every moment.