Family Pictures

We got all our family pictures back. We ended up with 100+!!! Kayla (Kay Photography) did such an amazing job! We are having a hard time deciding which pictures to print out.

Here are a few of our favourites. We think the pumpkins make an amazing backdrop. Maybe something we will do every year.

I think that is all for tonight.

Pumpkins, costumes, bathtime, oh my!

We sure have been busy!

Carter has his new bunk beds all set up now. We put the ladder against the wall, so hopefully he doesn't figure out how to climb up to the top! He loves his new bed. He was a little unsure at first, but when we put his mater sheets back on he was okay with it :)

We finally got some pictures of Kinley enjoying her bath! She loves it just as much as Carter does. She is so close to giggling! I can't wait. I will definitely get a video of that one when she starts.

We carved our pumpkin on Friday night. Carter wasn't as interested in it as we thought he might be. Once it was all cleared out he was pretty much done. He helped Jaice pick a face, but didn't want to stick around while Jaice carved it out. We stuck Kinley in the pumpkin!! It was really cute, but she wasn't too happy about it. I guess I wouldn't be too happy if someone got me naked and stuffed me into a pumpkin....but it sure made a cute picture.

Saturday night we went out to a Halloween party. It was so much fun!! I didn't get any pictures of Jaice and I dressed up...but I am sure someone did. When I track them down I will put them up!

Sunday we had some friends over so Carter could have a little Halloween party of his own. Only one of his little buddies could make it, but they sure had fun. They made lots of crafts and got to watch a Thomas Halloween movie! In the morning we took the kids down and got their pictures taken in their costumes. One of the local photographers in town was doing a fundraiser for Cystic Fibrosis. We thought we were only going to get one picture of each of the kids, but we ended up with 6. They turned out great! I was very happy with the kids costumes. I decided to make them myself this year instead of buying them. Carter is a pirate and Kinley is a witch. I might be a little biased, but they sure are cute! Jaice and Carter are out trick or treating right now! They have already been back once to empty out Carter's bag! Carter is very excited that mommy made him a 'coffee' just like Daddy. (it is warm milk...but it is in a travel mug like daddy's)

We also got our family pictures back. We LOVE them all and are having a hard time deciding which ones to put up. I will post them in another post because this one is already full with pictures!

Happy Halloween to everyone!

Video's

I keep getting asked for video's of Kinley, so I am going to figure this out and get some of her on here! She smiles at us all the time. It is really cute when she flirts with the fan....well I think it is cute now, as long as she sticks with the fan :)

Enjoy

Beautiful day for a hike

It sure is getting chilly here in the mornings. The nice thing about it being clear out is that it warms up quite nicely in the afternoon. We decided to go for a bit of a hike yesterday afternoon. We have a trail in town called the Canyon View Trail. It is 6 km and fairly easy. It has lots of up and down and the odd really steep spots. It follows the river and up over the dam. Turns out I am still scared of heights and Carter has no fear. I put Kinley in the wrap and Jaice was in charge of Carter and Toby. Carter walked the whole 6 km! He didn't once ask to go up. We saw some big fish in the river and lots of big leaves. Carter is amazed that the leaves are bigger than his head. Kinley slept for most of the hike. It was a great way to spend a fall afternoon.

Kinley also had her 2 month shots yesterday. She is up to 12 lbs 4 oz (exactly 2 lbs less than Carter was at the same age) and 24 inches long. She is going to be tall. She is smiling lots now. She also follows us all around the room with her eyes. I think she gets dizzy when she is trying to follow Carter :)

Carter is counting everything now. He can consistently count objects up to 10. It is adorable. He has lots to say about everything. The other day we were driving home and he exclaimed from the back seat ' OH NO BLUE SKY!' It made us laugh uncontrollably. I hadn't really noticed but it must have been grey for a little while :)

I don't have any pictures right now. We are waiting for our family pictures to come back. We love all the ones we have seen so far! We can't wait to see them all. I will post some when we get them. We will get some pictures of the kids in their Halloween costumes as well. Jaice is going to take Carter out and Kinley and I are going to stay home and hand out candy.

We are hoping to take Kinley to the pool sometime this week. I don't know if I will be able to get pictures as Carter will be in the water as well....and he can't be out of arms reach for a second :) I will try and figure something out!

Fall fun

Well I would like to say we have been really busy, but we have just been lacking sleep. Who knew Carter would be my bad sleeper?!!? Hopefully we are over the hump of it. Last night he slept from 8 all the way to 5:20!!! It seems early to most, but it wasn't between 2 - 4 and he didn't get up once in between. I can handle 5:20 because that is usually when Kinley wakes up. The difference is she goes back to sleep......Carter does not. I am sure glad I know where to get some good coffee :)

We have been sticking pretty close to home as there isn't much going on at 5 in the morning :) We packed a lot into our weekend though. We had our dinner club on Sunday. There are about 9 couples and we pick a country and we all cook something from it. We switch houses each month as well. We still haven't had everyone show up at once....we are a little scared that might happen soon! With 18 adults and 8 kids it could get a little crazy! We had lots of fun and I made a pineapple upside down cake with a dark rum sauce (it was a caribbean theme). All our kids are around the same age and we all seem to be having our second together as well.

Monday was our Gymnastics day. Carter did great. It was his best week yet. He listened to Jaice and the teacher. I missed half the class because I had some running around to do. He was telling me all the things he did at gymnastics, it was really cute! For the afternoon we went out to the pumpkin patch. We got the same photographer we had do our family photos in June come out with us. The pumpkins made for a beautiful background. Carter had so much fun running around in the pumpkin patch. He would have picked all the pumpkins he could lift if we would have let him. We settled on 2 bigger ones (daddy had to help get them in our wagon) and Carter snuck in a smaller one! They also have goats and chickens out there. Carter had lots of fun feeding them. He went to give the goat some kisses.....I didn't think that was a good idea! We just stuck to feeding them. I can't wait to get the pictures back from Kayla. She put up a few sneak peaks, so I put them on here for you!

I finally got some shots of Kinley smiling! What a cutie. She is smiling at the fan mostly but she will also smile for Jaice and I as well.

I have really been working on counting and letters with Carter. He can now count to 10 when he is counting things! It is so cute listening to him 'park' his cars and then count them. He can say the whole alphabet and recognizes most letters. He has pretzels in the shape of letters so he keeps asking me to 'read it' when he pulls out a letter he doesn't know or it is broken.

I will share more pictures as we get them!

We miss everyone lots and hope everyone is having a good fall.

pictures

Building a tower as high as the couch



Kisses, so sweet!

Tummy time
See the chocolates he was trying to get to?
Halloween matching....apparently it was easy!

'Painting' with coloured salt
Salt + Chalk + lots of shaking = fun colours to 'paint' with

Where did he learn that??

Some of the things that Carter is saying and doing got me thinking, where did he learn that? For example, when he is in another room I will ask "Carter, what are you doing?" and he will reply very sweetly 'Nothing, Mommy'. I learned very quickly this isn't an accurate status update! Another example, the other day we were playing down stairs and he dissappeared to the main floor so I asked 'Carter, what are you doing?' (you would think I would have learned by now) and this time I got nothing but silence......now when this happens it is a cue to run as fast as you can to see what he is distroying! Jaice rushes up the 4 stairs (well that makes it sound a little less dramatic) to find Carter trying to build a tower to climb up to get the Halloween chocolates off the mantel. Ok, his love of sweets migh have been inherited, but figuring out he needed to build something to get to them, I want to know who taught him that???
There aren't a lot of pictures this time because Carter has decided he doesn't want to sleep....even though he needs it. He was grumpy all day Monday and then Monday night he woke up at 1:30 am....yes you read that right!!! I layed with him and sang him every song I know. I think he slept for a total of an hour more by the time 6 rolled around. Needless to say yesterday was a long grumpy day and you don't want to see pictures of that!
This morning we built a tower out of blocks, and I told him towers are just for building and knocking down, not climbing on! Later today we are making turkeys out of the pinecones we used to paint with the other day. When I told Carter we were making turkeys today, he laughed and said 'oops silly turkey'. To understand what he is talking about you need to read 'Red Hat, Blue Hat'. For those of you that don't have the book it has a turkey in it that keeps putting clothing on the wrong body parts. So when Carter reads it (yes he is that smart and can 'read' the whole book) and gets to the turkey he laughs and says 'oops silly turkey'.
In Kinley news, she is starting to 'talk' so much more! She mostly talks to the ceiling fan (much like her brother did). It is so adorable seeing her smile at us now. I was so impressed and proud that she is really starting to follow me everywhere with her eyes until today. I was taking her upstairs and she was looking at the fan, she tried to keep track of that fan longer then she has ever paid attention to me! I guess it's her way of keeping me humble. She is getting bigger everyday. I think her eyelashes migh be longer then Carter's, they are just lighter. I will replace the batteries in the camera and get pictures of her as well today!
I will post pictures whe the kids are sleeping tonight.
We miss everyone lots!