Happy Halloween!

Halloween's best:

• Running into and catching up with a good friend I haven't seen in a few years. . .
• Trick or Treating with my little Dragon and Pretty Kitty (see pics). . .
• Halloween potluck and trick or treat bash with great friends. . .
• Watching Matthew's excitement while handing out candy at the door once we got home - he gave multiple  handfuls to each kid :)
• Oh and best group costume award goes to the Asian family dressed as a Sushi Chef, packet of Kikkoman soy sauce and a baby california roll - LOVE it! 
• All and all a pretty great Halloween :)

 Our pretty kitty Kaylie and her pal Spiderman (aka Logan)

 Fanciful the Dragon (aka Matthew)

 A few of the kids from the block party: (L-R) Logan/Spiderman, Aliya, 

Cailin/Hello Kitty, Drew/Buzz, Jake/Woody, Kaylie/Kitty

The 3 musketeers - Miles, Logan & Kaylie - enjoying a sweet treat :)

Today's Best. . .Pumpkins!

Halloween on Elm!

Today's best. . .

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Trick-or-Treating on "Elm St" in Downtown Carlsbad :)

Changing things up.....

So I was inspired recently by an idea to record the best moments of everyday. The idea was actually someones craft idea on a blog, creating a cute notepad to quickly jot down the good moments. The idea really sparked an interest in me - I don't know about you, but I tend to let the negative aspects of the day overwhelm me sometimes - all the fussing and whining and tantrums and craziness that staying at home with a 1.5 and 4 year old can bring :) Instead of passing over the good and tender moments of my day, I've decided to remember them. There is something good in EVERY day - even if it's only the pumpkin spice latte that was just perfect that morning, or the sweet little kiss from a little one at bedtime, there is something good to be remembered from each day. So instead of just jotting it down on a piece if paper, which I still think is a cute idea for others out there, i thought I'd forever record it on our blog. I will try my best to post something every day - sometimes it might just be a picture, or a sentence, maybe a Bible passage that spoke to me, or a song lyric, or even a combination of all these - or it might be a full on regular post :) That's my plan, let's see how it goes - in the end, whenever that is, hopefully a positive history will be recorded forever to share with our family and friends - we have so much to be thankful for! :)

So here are today's moments. . .

• Taking Kaylie to the park and exploring in the "woods" - she loves getting into nature :)
• Watching Matthew, one of his best buddies AJ and other neighborhood kids riding bicycles around the cul-de-sac. 
• Spending time with good friends.
• Carne Asada Nachos - enough said :)

Future Firefighters!

This past Saturday our local fire station had an open house for fire awareness/prevention month. We had so much fun! We were able to sit in a few different firetrucks, one of them behind the wheel :) Matthew even got to pray the fire hose, which of course he loved. We even knew several of the firefighters there, who knew?! I recommend visiting a fire house to anyone with little kids, makes for a fun afternoon :)

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Pumpkin Patch!

A few weeks ago we got to go to our favorite pumpkin patch, Bate's Nut Farm, with some good friends. This year it wasn't too hot, which was great, and besides Matthew stepping into a rotted pumpkin and freaking out a little, we had a great time. M & K both picked out a nice pumpkin, can't wait to carve them :) Here are a few pic highlights from that afternoon:

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Well HELLO there!!!!

It's 12:20am, I'm wide awake and I think to myself, what better time to update our blog!? It's only been 7 months since our last post - and even that one was just a video, so if you don't count that its been about a YEAR!!! That's right. Craziness. So here's what I'm going to do - I'll try to sum things up, maybe post a few of my favorite photos from the past year just to bring you up to speed - then in the next few days I hope to post a few of our more recent adventures, and I hope to start keeping things up to date! So here it goes. . .

It's been a wild and crazy year, SO much goes on with a 3 and 1 year old! During the summer, Matthew participated in a sports camp with his best buddy AJ - they did a 45 min class on mondays for 8 weeks, 2 weeks each of soccer, football, basketball and tball - they had a great time. Besides that the summer consisted of a lot of time at the pool, a few times to the beach, many park visits and we renewed our passes to Legoland, so we really enjoyed the waterpark and water features there! Since her birthday in march, Kaylie is now a mover and a shaker - she loves to play with her brother, she finds him hilarious. She loves to dance (hoping to start a mommy & me dance class with her soon!) and sing and be silly. She has really become a little girl over the past year, no more babies in our house, just our little boy and our little girl, and it's so much fun :) Now that the "school year" has started, Matthew is back at preschool one day a week and we have a little bit more structure in our lives. Can't wait for the holidays coming up. Hope you enjoy the pictures!