Happy Belated Birthday Kale!

At the beginning of August,
we roadtripped it to Idaho
for a Patterson family reunion.
I saw this thing on Pinterest
where someone turned a baking sheet
into an activity tray for
kids in the car.
So I tried it.
It was great for the first few hours.

Then the kids just got bored

of it and wanted me to 

pull out something else new and exciting.

Sorry to disappoint kiddos.

It was so wonderful to see

all the cousins and aunts and uncles!

I always do a TERRIBLE job of taking pictures when

we get together.

I guess I'm just too busy having fun.

 But, I did get a picture

of Ellory and Allie playing together.

They were adorable the whole trip!

 

All of the cousins were pumped to see

Kale and Ellory.

They followed them around

and played with them

and adored them

and only confirmed their own self-important thoughts.

It was great :)

We all stayed in the same hotel

so we all played in the pool

both nights, which was a blast.

We love them all

and miss them all the time!

The reunion was really nice.

And HOT.

I actually recognized quite a few people

but didn't remember their names.

It made me miss my father-in-law, Doug,

a lot.

But it was nice to be with his family.

I'm grateful we were able to go.

Well, Kale started preschool.

Ya.

Where is time going??

He is going to a Co-Op preschool,

which means I'm involved a lot

and it costs a lot less.

So far we are liking it.

Here he is on his first day:

He's very social and loves going

so he can play with his friends.

Which is exactly what we thought would happen.

We have a tiny library here in this tiny

town we live in.

And I take the kids there often.

They do a lot of fun things for the kids.

At Halloween they did a 

Build a Scarecrow

workshop, where they provided everything

we needed to make one.

Here is what the kids came up with:

The following Saturday there was

going to be a Harvest Festival in town

and the Library was having a scarecrow contest.

So we entered the kids' scarecrows.

Kale's won "Most Unusual"

and Ellory's won "Most Traditional."

I think there were 6 or 7 awards that could be won

and probably 6 or 7 scarecrows entered.

But Kale was THRILLED that he won.

He even took the certificate he won

to show-and-tell.

It was so cute.

We had a good spell of rainy days

combined with Tyler traveling with the football team,

so the kids and I built a blanket fort.

And then the kids watched a show

inside of it.

We got those fun window stickers

and the kids decorated their

bedroom window:

And Kale had a birthday!!

He invited a few friends over

and they played Angry Birds games

and then watched the Angry Birds movie.

His birthday was on Sunday this year,

so his birthday party was Saturday.

Sunday morning, we celebrated,

with presents!

He got lots of presents from

lots of people who love him.

He decided he was going to be 

Captain America for Halloween again

this year, but his mask had broken.

So he got a new one for his birthday.

Look at that haul!

We got him walkie-talkies.

He thought they were pretty cool.

Nana and Grandpa sent him

these awesome magnets that you 

build with.

Perfect!

He asked for Oreo Ice Cream Cake.

And we had him help us make it.

Time to blow out candles!

He had a great birthday!

I can't believe he's 5.

This day of church 

the kids were looking particulary

adorable.

So I convinced them to let me take

their picture:

Kale has really gotten into doing crafts.

Every day he asks me what craft

we are going to make.

Many times he was disappointed to hear

that I had no craft planned for the day.

But one day I had planned one,

and this is what we made:

He thought it was so scary.

And he thought that we didn't know 

it was him when he put it on.

Sometimes we pretended to be scared.

But sometimes we wouldn't.

And he was so frustrated and couldn't understand

how we possibly knew it was him.

Oh, Kale.

One day I made him a grilled cheese 

sandwich and then cut it

with Halloween cookie cutters.

He thought that was pretty cool.

"Quick! Take a picture before I eat them, Mom!"

His preschool went on a fieldtrip

to a pumpkin patch and he

got to pick out a pumpkin.

So, that's the only one we got this year.

He decided he wanted to carve

it to look like a vampire:

I think it turned out pretty good!

On Halloween we went to do the
trick-or-treat downtown thing
that both Independence and Monmouth do.
We went to Independence first,
trick-or-treating at participating
businesses on main street.
Then the same thing in Monmouth.
Ellory liked it for the first 15 minutes,
but then she was done....

We went home for dinner and
then Kale and I went to a neighborhood
to trick-or-treat while
Ellory and Tyler stayed home.
Kale and I had a lot of fun!
I think he would have gone until people turned
their lights off if I'd let him.
At home we put them into their
Halloween pajamas Nana sent them.
Ellory was still not amused:

And then we sent them off to bed.
It was a good Halloween.

Here is Kale building with his magnets:

Those things are so cool!

Tyler found an Oregon State hat

for Kale when he was in Eugene,

so naturally it was super cheap (haha!).

Kale looks way to cool to be hanging

out with us when he wears it:

Phew! Well, that was October.

It usually is a pretty good month :)

Let's Camp!

We went camping!
I'm sure no one is surprised.
Tyler and I were excited
to take our new car camping.
We figured it was going to make
a lot of things easier.
We were right!

Here was our campsite:

Kale was Mr. Helper

and did a great job

listening to Tyler's instructions

on what they needed to do to 

set up the tent.

We brought our air mattress

for Tyler, Kale, and me.

We made a little blanket bed

for Ellory, because she would

DEFINITELY fall off the mattress.

We got the kids their own little camp chairs.

 

And Kale helped Tyler start the fire.

 

The kids were so cute and had a blast.

For dinner we roasted Kale a hot dog.

Ellory only eats 3 things so we brought 

her a sandwich.

Tyler and I had tinfoil dinners.

They were DELICIOUS.

And we made s'mores for dessert!

It started getting chilly,

but we were prepared.

The kids were getting bored,
so I folded them some paper airplanes.
That entertained them for a bit..

I also brought some paper and crayons
for them to stencil leaves with.
I didn't snap a picture of that though.

We made it through the night
just fine.
It was pretty chilly, but we stayed warm.
In the morning,
Tyler made us some hot chocolate!

I don't really remember what else we did

for breakfast other than that I brought

yogurt for the kids.

Remember that. 

It's important.

As the morning went on it started

to drizzle on us a bit.

Thank goodness for these umbrellas

Nana gave the kids at the coast!

So we decided to pack up 

and go before it started to really rain.

We put the kids in the car

and turned a movie on the ipad

so we could pack up faster.

On the car ride home we left the movie

going for them.

The camping area was VERY twisty,

and not friendly to those of us

who get car sick.

Well, we didn't even think about the kids

getting extra car sick watching a movie

while we went through this part.

But Ellory reminded us,

but puking up her strawberry yogurt.

Boy was that fun to clean up.

And it got into every little crevice

of her carseat.

And on our new car!!!

Poor Tyler was so grossed out by 

the smell when he was cleaning up

that he had to take a minute to 

puke on the side of the road.

And when we got back on the road,

we turned the movie off,

for obvious reasons.

So Ellory proceeded to scream

for the next 20 minutes

until she finally screamed herself to sleep.

And, the smell in the car was so

bad we had to have the windows cracked,

which made for a chilly ride.

Yay camping!

Kale did a kids football camp

put on by Western Oregon University's football team.

He loved it.

They had different stations where

they learned how to do different football things

like tackling and catching and passing.

The athletes did a really good job 

with the kids and made it 

fun for them.

I was impressed.

Tyler had the opportunity to work 

the Olympic Trials!

Eugene hosted it,

because it's Eugene.

Tyler went down there for 4 to 6 to 8

hour shifts,

and got to rub shoulders with some

OLYMPIANS.

Pretty cool, if you ask me.

I'm really proud of Tyler
for putting himself out there
and wanting to do everything he can
to improve in his profession.
He's pretty awesome!