Bottom lip

This is Erik from a few weeks ago showing off his newest trick, mimicking a certain facial expression. It may take a few minutes to load the video, but it's worth it. When it pops up, double click on the picture to start the video.

fun with Grandma Cathy

 We popped popcorn, baked cookies, and went to the drive-in movie.  Since it gets dark so early in the evening, the movie started at 7.  We saw Hotel Transylvania, it was cute.

 making wands

 donuts on a string at Annelise's class party.

 Jake and Grandma surprised Nick and Carly at lunch time at school.  Nick and Carly have completely separate lunch times.  It was fun to watch them discover their surprise visitors.  Jake took the day off on Halloween to watch the kids school parade too.

Jake's mom came out to visit us.  It was so fun to be with her during all of the Halloween fun.  We were really sad to see her go.  During the family home evening before she came we made a long list of all the things we wanted to do while she was here.  We crossed off most of it, and even added a lot of fun to it.  From pick flowers to go to the pumpkin patch.  On Halloween we had Minty the candy cane that fell on the ground, a witch, a pegasus, spiderman, and a monkey.

Isaac turns 3

Isaac turned 3 this week!  He is such a great kid!  He expresses himself well.  He hops around a lot just happy to be part of the gang.  He likes to jump on the trampoline outside with his siblings.  He likes to be a superhero.  We had cake for him on Monday night with Grandma Lina, Grandpa Tim and Aunt Amanda since Grandma Lina had surgery the next day.  Grandma Lina made him 2 reversible superhero capes that he totally loves!  Batman and Super Why for one cape and Superman and Spiderman on the other.  They are absolutely beautiful.  Jake gave him a little lego Batman and spaceship too which he loves.  We had a great time celebrating. 

 

On Tuesday, we went out for pizza at Wenelli's near our house.  The kids had a great time.  They had a couple of arcade games that the kids really liked playing around with even though we didn't bring any quarters.

 

Erik is now 8 months.  He's a happy little dude.  He can't crawl yet, there's just too much to move.  He can sit though and play with toys or play with the kids.  His siblings really know how to make him laugh.  All of the kids have been happy babies, he is no exception, but for some reason I'm always in awe at how such a little person can be so happy.  He is such a gift and treasure and blessing in our family, as each of our kids are.  He has 6 teeth now, 4 on top and 2 on the bottom.

A couple things I want to remember

 
The 3 oldest kids have been doing portraits of each other recently.  They get out the easel that Jake made for Nick for Christmas several years ago.  They have fun being the artist and being the subject.  The first one says "portrot of littel sisster, Annelise" by Carly Voelckers.  The other one is by Annelise of Erik.  Annelise set the easel up in front of Erik who was in his exersaucer and she would draw and look and draw and look.  Both pictures really capture the moment, I think.  Great job!

This is "Uoonekns" by Annelise.  She has drawn a lot of unicorns recently.  We went to a thrift store to hunt down a few Halloween costumes.  Last year Annelise was a chicken.  At the thrift store they had a unicorn costume with wings, but she wasn't interested in that one.  This year she said that is what she wanted to be.  I explained to her that they probably wouldn't have that costume, but we could look.  If they didn't have that costume we could figure something else out later.  After searching through a lot of costumes we were able to come up with a great witch dress for Carly, a spiderman for Isaac, but no unicorns.  I was searching through some smaller costumes for Erik when, stuffed in the back, was some white and pink fur.  I pulled it out and just starting laughing out loud.  It was a white and pink unicorn with the arms as wings!  Perfect!  She was thrilled.

GOOOOOOOAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL!!!!!!!

Nick scored a goal today!!!!!!!!!!  Way to go, Nick!!

First day of school

We've got a 4th grader, 2nd grader and Kinder!

Camping in Oregon

 A lady at the campground was walking by with this beautiful parrot.  The kids were really excited about it!

This last week we went camping on the Oregon coast up near the Washington border at Cape Lookout, an Oregon state beach.  We met up with Adam, Dorothy, and Oliver for 2 nights.  All of us had a great time!  We left after Jake got home from work on Tuesday and arrived Wednesday morning around 8.  Since we weren't checking into our campsite and meeting up with Adam's family til 4 that afternoon we decided to tour the neighboring town of Tillamook.  First we went to the Tillamook cheese factory.  The kids really liked going.  We saw how cheese was made and got to sample some too.  Then we headed over to the Cape Meares lighthouse.  This was a really cold and windy morning and I was getting worried that it would be like this the whole time.  It was a nice break from the Sacramento heat, but I was glad when things got a little warmer.  It turned out to be gorgeous the next day, couldn't have asked for better.  After the light house we went to Munson Creek falls.  It was a short quarter mile hike, in a beautiful wooded area.  The falls were very impressive.  Then over to a little fish hatchery on the coast line.  Then back to the cheese factory.  Since we were first there at 8 am, we decided to come back after lunch time to try their ice cream.  Wow!  So good!  I stopped to take a picture of the kids, but no one even looked at the camera, too focused on the ice cream.  Then to a park that has a really fun merry go round.  I think the kids  had never been on one before.  The next day was great.  We made omelets in ziplock bags over the campfire.  Such a neat idea that Adam and Dorothy showed us.  We were at the beach almost all morning.  Carly and Nick liked jumping over the waves.  The water was icy cold but the kids didn't mind too much.  We caught sand fleas and the kids made a lot of stuff with the sand.  Oliver was so funny pushing around his dump truck almost the entire 2 days.  Isaac and Oliver were really cute little buddies.  After lunch and a quick clean up we went back to the cheese factory for more ice cream, then back to the camp for dinner.  The oldest 3 boys left to do some fishing, and the rest of us tried to stay out of trouble.  After breakfast the next day we said our goodbyes and then headed to Beaverton to see my roommate during all my college years, Gina, and her 4 kids and parents.  I really wish we lived closer.  It had been far too long.  I can't believe I didn't get a picture.  I hope we'll see them again soon.  We left them during the early afternoon and headed back home.  great great trip!