Fall is in Full Swing

Well, fall is officially in full swing. The weather has definitely changed with the much cooler days and nights. We've had some rain, but lately have been having some of those beautiful sunny fall days, although I think rain is back in the forecast. We took advantage of the nice weather earlier this week with our annual trip to the pumpkin patch on Monday. We had a gorgous weekend, but didn't even think about going to the pumpkin patch until it was too late Sunday night. Next weekend, we'll be too busy, and you never know what the weather will do, so we took an impromptu trip while we had the chance. The kids had a great time running around to find the perfect pumpkin, especially Owen who just thought it was the coolest thing. Hannah and Justin of course picked some really big ones. Now the constant nagging about when we're going to carve them begins.


Amazingly, school has been in session for about a month and a half. Justin has adjusted quite well to Kindergarten. He likes being one of the big kids walking up to school with his sister. I wish I could say they were walking on their own, but Hannah has actually had a little bit of a harder time adjusting to 2nd grade and is not comfortable walking up on her own. We're not really sure what is going on, but she puts a lot of pressure on herself and for some reason has a lot of anxiety. She has been doing better, but is never very excited to go to school in the morning. Her teacher says she always gets settled in quickly though and participates great in class and has a great day. She always comes home happy, so that's something. Overall she is doing very well. I just want her to be happy and excited to go to school each day. One thing she is excited about is that she gets to pet-sit the class guinea pig, Shadow, over Christmas break. She's been wanting a guinea pig, so this will be a good trial run to see what it entails. she already has spot cleared off on her window seat for the cage.


Other than school, Hannah and Justin have both been playing soccer, another annual fall activity for the third year now. Hannah is on an all-girl team again this year (in a coed league) with the same coach from last year and some of the same girls, including her good friend, Maya. They have moved up an age group and playing with 8 and 9 year olds, and pretty much get trounced every week, but they're having fun. I'm proud of her for even being out there. Justin is on a team coached by our good friend Denton and assistant coach, Daddy (Hannah is not happy that Dale is helping out with Justin's team and not hers). He scored his first goal this year during the 2nd game. He's come close other times, but no more goals so far. I know there will be more to come. He's a little go-getter out there. Owen keeps me occupied by running onto the field during games and all over the place. I think he'll be a great soccer player when he gets the chance in a couple years.


Hannah has also started Brownies and loves that. They've only had one real meeting so far, but they do crafts and other fun activities, and there will be all kinds of camps and things that I know she will love.


As for Owen, he is growing up so quickly. For a long time, he has been speaking really well, pretty much able to repeat anything you said, but he constantly surprises us with new phrases he comes up with. Just about 3 days ago, he started saying "No thank you" when he doesn't want something you've offered him--hopefully that will become a habit. He also has finally started saying "please." I guess he's going through a polite phase. My favorite though is that for months, I have been trying to get him to say, "I love you," be he just would not. I guess he just wasn't ready to commit. Finally 2 days ago, when I said I loved him, he responded, "I wuv you, Mom." (He's also taken to calling Dale and I mom and dad instead of mommy and daddy). Anyway, he just melted my heart. Sometimes I so wish I could just freeze time and hold onto this phase of childhood for many months. Ask me in a few months, though, and I might change my mind. Along with all his sweet attributes, he has also developed quite a little temper, but for the most part, he is just a sweet little boy. It's just sad when I think that we will never go through this phase again. He just loves to play with his trucks and race cars and whatever else "brudder" is playing with. Give them a year, and those two are going to be crazy together. Owen has also become obsessed with Dora the Explorer. He would watch it non-stop if I let him. His favorite thing to do after we take sister and brother to school is sit with his juice on the couch and watch Dora. He also still really loves books, especially any with animals in them. He's my little zoologist.


I will leave you with some photos that I took at the pumpkin patch.





And one photo of Owen with the popcorn bowl on his head.

Oct. Kit Reveal Day

It is Oct. 1st--can you believe it?! Only 3 months of 2008 left. Being the 1st means it is kit reveal day over at Scrapdango for the new fabulous Oct. kit. This kit was packed with great paper by Scrap Within Reach (Elliot line) and lots of cool bingo and journaling cards, chipboards, brads and more. I did 4 layouts with it and a couple cards and still have enough stuff left to make at least 2 more layouts and many cards. I loved working with this kit.

In addition to working with the Scrapdango kit, I also scrapped a layout with paper I've had for quite awhile that could be one of my favorite layouts ever. It is using one of the photos from the family pics we had taken 3 weeks ago. I'm going to be hanging this one up in my house because it just can't be hidden away in a scrapbook or, worse, my pile of layouts that never actually make it into books.

Thanks for looking. Hope you have a great Wednesday as we get over the hump of this week. Happy October! TTFN--Ta Ta For Now

So You Think You Can Dance

Or as we say it in our house--So You Think You Can Dance Dance Dance! Last night was a night of SYTYCD. Dale's brother, Duane and wife, Kari were so incredibly kind to surprise us with tickets to the tour in Portland last night. Now I think they meant for Dale and I to go, but sorry guys, there was no way Dale was going to be able to go over Hannah. He did find great joy in seeing her excitement before and after going though. And wow, the seats were AWESOME! I had no idea where they were and took binoculars as usual to be able to at least make out faces since we're usually a little ways back at such things, but we were only 3 rows back from the floor and to the side somewhat very close to the stage--we had an awesome view. Unfortunately, we were also right under giant speakers, so it was LOUD! VERY LOUD! Next year (oh yes, I will go next year), I will bring ear plugs. At first I thought Hannah was not going to like the show because it was too loud, but she got over it and loved it. It was also LONG, which is good because we saw a lot, but bad because it was a school night. Hannah is at school, although in the same clothes she had on last night since she went straight to bed in them. The show started at 7:30 and they danced until 9:00, which I thought was maybe it because they'd done quite a bit, but that was intermission, and then they danced until 10:30. We pretty much saw all our favorites, and all the dancers took turns coming out to talk and introduce the next dancers, which often included little comedy routines that were funny. It was a great show. Thanks so much Kari and Duane. Hannah said she is going to give you a BIG BIG hug next time she sees you. I have been on SYTYCD overload since then. I have been watching all the routines on YouTube and even found some from the tour in Tacoma (our seats were way better than most of theirs). I could watch the dances over and over. I couldn't even pick a favorite, but here are links to some of my favorite routines that we saw last night.

The one with Twitch and Katee with the door (Hannah's favorite)
No Air by Joshua and Katee
Mark and Chelsie with the briefcase
A nice slow contemporary by Joshua and Katee
Okay, one more. A crazy wild jazz routine by Mark and Courtney. I just love Mark's quirkiness. As Hannah mentioned, we could feel the music to this one in our hearts.

Photos, photos, photos

This post is all about photos--ones I've taken that I've entered in an online competition and ones that we had taken last week by a photographer friend.

Yes, I've entered some photos in a competition. My online friend, Deb, from Scrapdango turned me on to this site where you can enter photos in different categories and possibly win money. I really didn't need to know about it because I may get hooked. lol! I have entered this photo in the Eyes Have It All comp., and it is currently in 3rd!!!


If I stay in the top 3, I will win a share of the prize money. If you haven't already received an email from me asking for your vote, I would really appreciate you going to this link http://www.competico.com/photo/bright-eyes-and-long-lashes and voting for me. I have also entered 2 photos in the Sweetest Baby competition. I probably shouldn't compete against myself, but oh well. Those 2 aren't doing as well at 13th and 15th. You can vote for both of the photos, and again I would appreciate your support. The links for the photos are: http://www.competico.com/photo/10-days-old-3 and http://www.competico.com/photo/tubby-time-8.

We had family photos taken last Saturday for the first time in over 1-1/2 years when Owen was 6 months old. With Owen now being 2, he didn't want to cooperate, especially since he doesn't really like having his picture taken at all. We did get some good shots, though. Here is the link to some of the photos: http://web.mac.com/threeislanders/iWeb/Site/Lough%20Family.html. I do like how they turned out but am glad it is over. After numerous days of 80/90 deg. weather, that morning was actually fairly chilly and the grass was cold and wet, and I was trying to keep everyone's shoes off. Hannah complained the most about that--thus why you get a glimpse of her Pepto Bismol pink shoes in some of the pics--thank goodness for black and white.

TTFN - Ta Ta For Now

Signs that Fall is Near

Even though it has been pretty warm all week (80's with 90's forecasted for the weekend) there are definite signs that Fall is near. First and foremost are the kids back in school (will post first day pics at the end of this post). Other signs that Fall is near:

1. Cooler nights making sleeping upstairs, where it can get hot even with A/C running all day, much easier


2. Leaves already starting to change and even fall. One tree in our neighborhood has just a few branches of the brightest red leaves that are so pretty.


3. Sweatshirts and pants are starting to replace t-shirts and shorts--at least before this little heat wave.


4. Soccer began with Hannah and Justin's first practices yesterday.


5. New Fall shows are beginning on tv.


6. Over abundance of ZUCHINI! I've really enjoyed cutting it into bitesize pieces and sauteing it with julienned carrots and chopped sweet onion and then wrapping in a tortilla with hummus. I got this idea from my friend, Melanie.


7. I no longer want to bbq for dinner and am ready for soups and stews.


8. Stores are filled with Halloween costumes and decor. I really want to dress Owen in this monkey costume they have at Old Navy, but we already have plenty of costumes to choose from.


9. Christmas stuff is already hitting stores--actually I haven't seen that yet, but I'm sure it's near. If I remember last year, we hadn't even made it through Halloween when Christmas stuff came out.


10. And my favorite sign that Fall is near: Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Lattes are back!!!! I am a happy girl.

I do love Fall. Especially when we have Indian Summer type weather with lots of sun. I hope this fall is filled with lots of clear, crisp days and not a lot of rain. That will come soon enough with winter and on into Spring.

So here are the back to school pics for Hannah and Justin. They both finish up their first full weeks of school tomorrow and are doing really well. We're still trying to get back into the new schedule, but we're getting there. They both have extremely nice teachers and seem to be making lots of friends. Hannah has a few kids from her class last year. Unfortunately, her best friend from last year moved to Ohio at the end of the summer, but she seems to have moved past that easily. They are both doing soccer again and Hannah is going to join a Brownies troop that meets in a couple weeks. She has been wanting to do that since the beginning of last year, but there weren't any open troops until now. She is taking her best friend's spot. I think she will have a lot of fun with that.

Justin would not wear the nice shirt I wanted him to.

Justin did not go until Hannah's 2nd day of school

I can't believe they walk to school together now!

Sept. Scrapdango Kit

So if you follow my blog, you know that I recently made the SCRaPDANGO design team, which among other things means that I get their kit each month prior to it being revealed on the website and get to do projects with it that are posted in the DT gallery when the kit is revealed. So September is my first month doing this, and they just revealed the kit yesterday. SCRaPDANGO actually has two kits each month, the Sugar kit and the Spice kit. I work with the Spice kit, and this is the kit I had to work with this month:

I loved these colors. Blues, reds, and greens are right up my alley. Here are the layouts and one mini book that I did with the kit.

I still have more paper to do 3 or 4 more projects and hope to work on them soon. You can go to www.scrapdango.net to order your own kit.

Sunriver Trip

Wow, where has the time gone? How is it that it is Sept. 2nd already? Hope you all had a wonderful Labor Day before getting back to work and school. We actually don't start school until tomorrow--well at least Hannah does. Justin will be in Kindergarten but actually won't be going until Thursday. It will be so great to have he and Hannah in the same school. They will be able to walk up together and then I will pick him up at 11:30 when he is done. At least that's the plan. Two doors down there is a boy that was in Hannah's class last year and is this year as well, and his sister will be in Justin's class, so we should be able to get the 4 of them to walk up together.

Before summer ended, we did finally do a summer vacation. We hadn't gone anywhere all summer, which is unusual since we usually take a trip or two to the Coast with the kids (Dale and I went but left the kids at home). Anyway, we went to Sunriver for a week with our friends the Davisons. We went there with them last year but for only a weekend and said then that we needed at least a week to be able to do all we wanted to do without feeling so rushed. We definitely packed a lot into our week and it was busy but it was also relaxing. Before going, I had been having lots of headaches and just feeling stressed, but those all went away while we were gone and really haven't come back so far.

Besides just hanging out at the house we rented, riding bikes, playing base tennis (baseball using tennis balls and rackets), playing in the hot tub (one of the kids' favorite activities), playing the Wii and going to the park, the other main things we did were go to the pool a couple days, visit nearby Lava Butte, go on a horse trail ride and do a float trip down the Deschutes from one end of Sunriver to the other.

The pool was the main priority of the kids right when we got there. We went the day after we got there and the kids all jumped right in--well except for Owen. He is my little water baby, so I was surprised when Dale tried to put him in the kiddie pool and after initially diving right in but realizing it was deeper than he was used to, he freaked out. It took awhile but eventually he did warm up to the water and was splashing and kicking all over the place. We went another day to the pool that was closer to our house but we all decided we didn't like it as well. It was smaller and not as fun and the water was much colder, so we ended up going to the other pool again. The weather started to cool off a little then, so that was the extent of our pool going. Thankfully, the hot tub seemed to keep them occupied enough in the water, so they didn't bug us constantly to go again because it was pretty expensive for us all to go.

Lava Butte is a cinder cone between Bend and Sunriver. Dale and I had driven by it numerous times but never stopped. We're definitely glad we did this time. There's a little visitor center showing the history of the area, but the main part is the vast lava field with all the jagged black lava rock and the cinder cone, which looks like a gigantic version of the many mole hills we have in our backyard right now. We did a hike through the lava field. The highlight for the kids was seeing chipmunks (or chipmunkeys as Owen called them) that would eat right out of their hands. We also drove to the top of the cinder cone where they have a fire lookout. The view was amazing. It was cloudy that day, but we could still make out Mt. Hood to the north and of course all the nearby Central Cascade Mts. On a clear day, you would be able to see north to Mt. Hood and Mt. Adams and south to all the mts. around Crater Lake. Dale and I want to go back on a clear day.

South Sister, Broken Top, Middle Sister and North Sister from left to right

Chipmunkey

Hannah and Maya

Owen having fun
Owen having not so much fun while we tried to get a family photo--these quick mood changes, which we attribute to being 2, happened quite often this trip.

Heather and I took Hannah and Maya on a 1/2 hour horseback trail ride at the Sunriver stables. Hannah is becoming much more interested in horses and was excited about this. Other than the pony ride at the fair and one she did at her old school, she has never really ridden a horse. It ended up being just the 4 of us with our guide on the ride. It was a pretty slow, uneventful ride, but the girls had fun. Hannah's horse, Mel, actually liked to to stop and eat all along the way, so Hannah had to struggle with getting his head up to keep going.

Cowgirl Hannah on Mel

Cowgirl Maya on Julio

As far as the float trip, that was an interesting afternoon. It was the last full day we spent there and we rented a raft for each family. It was a 6 mi. trip and we had 4-1/2 hours to be off the water. We had no idea it would take so long--we actually did it much quicker probably due to the fact that Owen flipped out after not being on the water very long and we just wanted to make it to the end as soon as possible. It started out fine enough with Dale, Hannah, Maya, Owen and myself in one raft and Denton, Heather and the boys in the other raft. Owen seemed to enjoy it at first, although I could tell right away that he was tired (he pretty much missed his nap most days) and I was hoping he'd go to sleep right away, but he hung on. He enjoyed seeing a deer along the shore and feeding a duck that kept following our boat (I wonder if it was because of the numerous Ritz crackers we kept throwing to him), but eventually he got beyond tired and no longer wanted to be contained in the lifevest or in the raft. If we didn't have a good hold on him a couple times, he would've hurled himself into the water. Eventually, Denton and Heather were nice enough to take all the kids into their raft (despite the 5 person limit), so Dale and I could try to get Owen calmed down. Dale held Owen while I futilely rowed--not really futilely but I kept getting caught in side currents and spinning us in circles. Ahh, good times. Finally, Owen did go to sleep and we were able to just lay him down in the middle of the raft, and then we had a nice peaceful float for the last 1/2 hour or so. He even stayed asleep while we maneuvered to the shore and got out and picked him up to get on the van to take us back to the marina. If the road hadn't been so bumpy and the van so loud, he would've stayed asleep. He was out. Thankfully, he woke up happy. The other kids had fun, though, and I think would have more fun if we were able to stop at some of the beaches along the way and play in the water--some even had rope swings. If we do it again, we be able to plan a little better.

The Davison raft

Dale and Owen chillin' before his breakdown (Owen's that is)

Dale can finally paddle in peace. Owen is asleep underneath his vest and all the towels

All in all, it was a very fun trip and a good way to wind down the summer. We look forward to doing it again.

Some other parting shots:

The deer were numerous. Owen's favorite thing about the trip was the animals. He was especially obsessed with the baby deer. This was a mama that had two fawns that came right up to the front porch. At one point, the kids actually fed the deer from their hands.

Owen in a happy moment playing with brother's Power Rangers

One of the kids' favorite activities, although Hannah is putting on her li'l miss attitude face. The boys especially like to take their action figures in there and scuba dive for them.