Ellie's 5th Birthday

Ellie had a fun FROZEN birthday! With Frozen being all the rage this year, how could we not follow up our Frozen Halloween with Ellie's Birthday being Frozen themed too! She got to wear her Elsa dress once again, we played with non melting 'snow' and had a blast! Of course we made an Elsa cake too!

This hat was a hit from Uncle Nick

These Frozen looking boots were her favorite all winter. She also had 2 or 3 other little girlfriends who had matching boots!

Cake with our cotton ball snow

 

Halloween

For Halloween we were directed by Queen Elsa herself, that we all needed to be Frozen for Halloween. It really sounded like a lot of fun since Jared and I hadn't participated in Halloween costumes in years and of course wanted to make our lady happy. My mom created a beautiful Elsa for Ellie, we found a great Kristoff vest on ETSY for Ryan, I crafted my Anna costume from purchased items and things I had on hand and we found some great faux fur for Jared's and he crafted some great antlers for his Sven costume. Of course it wouldn't be Frozen without Olaf so he made an appearance too. We all had a great time!

Pumpkin Pickin at Green Bluff

Due to a busy schedule for October, we headed to the pumpkin patch at the end of September. The weather was still incredibly warm and there were still raspberries to be picked. 

 

Kindergarten Registration



Some of you may know how stressed I have been about registering Ellie for kindergarten - not because of the idea that my baby is not a baby, but because its not a simple process. Our nearest public school - just blocks down the road - is over capacity due to our continually developing neighborhood. As such, kindergarten registration happens the first Wednesday of October and you have to camp out - that's right - camp out. I parked my seat at the school at 11 am and marked my spot as #15. Which is pretty good - all the other kids who have siblings at the school presently are grandfathered in and then they take kids in order from registration, typically about 30 extra kids. Remember how I said in my last post that it was warm picking pumpkins that prior weekend, well it wasn't by the time this day came around. It was cold, rainy and sleeping outside was not comfortable by any means. Fortunately, my mom kept me company along with the other parents (mostly dads) and some special visitors. I was sure happy when 8 am the next day rolled around and I got to take a hot shower to warm up and crawl into bed. Jury is still out on whether or not she got in, should be about May when we get that news. If she doesn't they will bus her to another school in the district, but its pretty far away from the house and we'd have to figure out before and after care since our daycare won't trek the kids out that far.

 

Go Cougs

Soooo this may be my longest absence from the blog - whoops. Good news is that life kept going and we kept track along the way. Football season was a blast - there was lots of fun, good wins, late nights, new friends, and so much more!

Baby Shower and Moses Lake Fair

Over fair weekend in August, I hosted a triple baby shower - that's not a mommy expecting three babies, but three mommies expecting 1 baby each! Jared's sister and 2 cousins are all expecting within weeks of each other. We are getting our first niece and the other two cousins are having boys - a nice change for the one who already has a girl and the other cousin, Whitney, is having her first. We are incredibly excited to meet each of these little ones in just a few weeks!!

Sisters - Becky and Ashley

Sisters - Courtney, Caitlin, and Christine

Mamas - Whitney (boy), Ashley (girl) and Courtney (boy)

Whitney and her mama Laurie

Ashley and her mama Cindy

Courtney and her mama Angie

Kids roaming the yard in the powerwheel

Whit's girlfriends

Of course, if you're in Moses Lake over fair weekend, then you must go to the fair. The kids ate spaceburgers which is impressive since they had 'salad' (lettuce) in them. And of course we found Nana Cindy's niche in the floral building. We also got to catch up with friends and make the most of a busy weekend!

 

petting the bunny

Ryan was not too excited to take a picture with Sydney

The Helvy fam eating a lion ear

We even found the Baker fam! These boys are too busy to take pictures.

Baby Ethan even woke up for a pic!