Fall is here!

We went to the park last week and there were so many leaves to play and jump in. The wonderful thing about the leaves here is that they are dry and you can actually toss them in the air and jump in them without getting gooey yuck all over your hands and clothes. Reggie and Ainsley have been having a blast. Most days hover around 70 degrees, so it is still nice and warm.

Aunt Pam came for a visit! She was here, staying with some friends in Dublin (about 15 minutes away), and came over to hang out with the kids and have some lunch. It was great to see her and Reggie and Ainsley were very excited to see Grandma Pam. They were sad to see her go and wanted more hugs and kisses :o(. But, 2 days later we had another visitor from the lake, Jim and Ruth (long time family friends)! I think we're seeing people more often now that we're gone :o). We had a wonderful visit with them and it is so nice to see people from home....makes us feel not so far away.

Last weekend, we had Sarah, Eric, Michael and Sam over for dinner and made homeade wheat pasta. It was sooo good, but kinda messy. The kids seemed to enjoy it, but I think they liked sitting at their own table even more. Reggie was battling some stomach issues for over a week (cramping and night time wake ups to go to the bathroom), so I decided to cut gluten out of his diet after our nice pasta meal and within 12 hours, he was a different kid. Not sure what this means for him. We gave him a little today and he has been fine, so it might have been a combo of some bug and maybe he has a mild gluten intolerance. Ainsley seems to have it now. She has been learning to go on the potty! She is doing great and loves her candy. Unfortunately, we've had to put diapers on her the last couple days because she thought she "farted" and it was a bit more than that. She will take her diaper off to go, so I think we're still on track. Today was the first day she griped about having a diaper. I'm not sure she's ready to leave the house in underwear yet, but I guess there's only one way to find out!

We went and saw Madagascar 2 last night and poor Reggie just has such a hard time with dark scenes and scary characters. If you see the movie, you probably wouldn't even understand why he would be scared...it was one of the mildest movies we've seen. Ainsley liked it and stayed until the end. Ryan went out into the lobby with Reggie (headphones and all). It was one of the worst sleep nights in, well, I wish I could say a long time, but probably only a few weeks. They both were up several times. So, we won't be going to the movie theatre for a really long time!

We had a busy day today, so we recorded Apple Cup (yes, we actually got the game on local t.v.!!!!!!) and are watching it now. GO HUSKIES!!! It is the 4th quarter and looking like we're going to win our first game of the season. No, we're going into overtime....is this game ever going to end? Yes, it just did and we stink! Still not sure why the coug fans are rushing the field-do they know that they've only won 2 games???

Enough of that, our church is doing a Serve The City project for the next couple weeks, so Ryan and I volunteered today to help out at a BBQ fun day for families in need. It was such a great event. Each family left with bags of clothes, food in their tummies, and a whole lot of fun-they had bounce houses, pony rides, games and face painting. My job was face painting....I felt a little bad for the kids who ended up in my chair. Let's just say all the coloring with the kids came in real handy. I even turned one little boy into Spiderman and I never would have been able to do that if Reggie wasn't so into all his costumes! Anyway, while I was gone, Ryan decided it was time to get the Christmas tree out! We usually get a real tree, but we've heard the prices here are astronomical (upwards of $100), so we bought one on Craigslist for $20.
I have to say, it was so much fun to sit back and watch the kids get into the Christmas stuff. As you'll see from the pictures, we let them put all the ornaments on the tree and they are all clustered at the bottom. Ainsley kept saying, "I love this tree." Reggie just wanted his Santa hat, so he could put some of his toys under the tree. It was a precious evening and I love our kids so much!!!

Wow....has it really been a month???

Gosh, we need to get better about updating this! Now, it is a little overwhelming. We were very busy with Halloween activities and having my parents here for a visit. I'll try to give a quick recap:

We went to the pumpkin patch and Reggie and Ainsley picked out their pumpkins, ran through the hay bail maze and played in a huge box of corn. They had pony rides and Ainsley watched for several minutes, but couldn't get up enough nerve to try it. Later that day, Ryan and Reggie (well, really Ryan) carved the pumpkins. Reggie wanted a pirate ship, so Ainsley got the typical pumpkin face-there's only so much time for carving. I was very excited because we got a bunch of seeds to bake. We all enjoyed them, but I'm not sure they sat well with Ainsley as she chucked all over in her crib that night. Thankfully, she quickly recovered and no one else had any issues. Ainsley had her school party on Wed. and my parents arrived that night!!! Of course, the kids were too excited to go to bed, so they stayed up a little late and were up bright and early to visit grandma and grandpa in their room :o). Ah, how nice it is to get a little break in the morning! My mom and dad don't do very well with sitting around, so they went exploring around Livermore and fixed up the yard! The yard waste (which is huge) was overflowing on day 2. We finally put the last of the bagged yard waste out today for pick-up. We have lots more to do, but it looks really great. Dad even got up on the roof and blew the leaves off....thankfully he didn't pull his usual and have a fall (I'm not sure how many more lives that cat has!). Thanks for all your hard work!

Reggie and my mom share the same birthday, so we thought it would be fun to do a birthday activity....they built a gingerbread house. It was quite the production and took almost 2 hours. We had a few messes, but lots of fun. Here's some pictures. Ainsley is under the table because she found some candy that fell and was "cleaning" it up for us! Halloween week was chuck full of activities. The Oakland zoo was having a Halloween treasure hunt, so we went there with his friend Michael and his family. It was fun looking at all the Halloween costumes. Reggie was Optimus Prime and Michael was Batman. His school had a field trip at the pumpkin patch and a class party, which I got to volunteer for. It was great timing that my parents were here because I had a little more flexibility. It was a lot of fun and neat to see Reggie at school with his friends. He is such a sweet little boy :o). We also trick-or-treated in downtown Livermore 2 days before Halloween. Ainsley was supposed to be a lady bug, but her costume was too hot (it was almost 80 degrees), so she was a princess instead and is still asking for lipstick. She learned all about make-up when Grandma was here and even got some eye shadow to match her princess costume on Halloween. She was very curious and I'm a little worried about when she gets older. Finally, on Halloween, we went to the church. They had some great crafts and bounce houses, but it was a lot for 2 kids that weren't sleeping so much. It didn't help that our doorbell was ringing non-stop, we had over 100 trick-or-treaters! Maybe next year we'll try to pick just a couple activities.
Other than that, we didn't do a whole lot while my parents were here. Ainsley and Reggie had a lot of play time with Grandma and Grandpa and that is just the way they like it :o). Ryan and I played golf one day and went to the Stanford/WAZZU game, which was a joke. What is up with Washington sports teams??? It was also the worst rain I've ever been in at a sporting event. There wasn't a dry spot on us!!! Ah, the memories :o). They were here for 10 days and it went so fast. We miss them and can't wait to see everyone at Christmas!