SPIKE

This is the 'do' that my Kimball has been sporting as of late.

Isn't he a stud?!  He must learn it all from me. ;)

I just love these crazy people!

Man-o-man, am I lucky!



Fall, schmall.

Pumpkins, sunshine, Indian corn, popcorn, sunshine, gourds, hayride, sunshine, flowers....

It was a glorious day for a field trip!

Noah's preschool class met at Carver Farms/Pumpkin Patch in Newman Lake, WA for some welcome-to-fall activities on a perfect summery-sunshiney day.

Corn maze

Noah, best bud Canyon & Sloan using good navigation skills

Hay ride to the pumpkin patches

Markynn, Noah & silly Canyon

(not only is this crew good preschool friends, but they are also cohorts in Sunbeams)

We had a great time today!  Our bags of loot will make a handsome display (6 ears of incredibly beautiful Indian corn in various colors, 3 baby pumpkins, 6 mini pumpkins, 6 gourds, and 9 stems of "status" dried flowers (not pictured).)  Just look at all those incredible colors - isn't nature amazing!??!

What a great day to welcome fall (and not quite bid farewell to summer). Thanks for sticking around, sunshine!

Mmm....brown stuff.

I am a few weeks behind in posting about our colorful weeks.  A few weeks ago we celebrated

BROWN WEEK!

The kids picked out the following things to try:

Carob chips, Nutella spread, a Beurre Bosc brown pear, and a kiwi.  Now, I know what you're thinking...a kiwi isn't really brown, but I have to say that it was much harder than I thought it would be to find brown foods the kids haven't tried. :)

Here are the reviews:

Carob Chips:

K :) :) :)  N :) :) :)  S :) :) :)

Nutella Spread:

K :) :) :)  N :) :) :)  S :) :) :)

Pear:

K :(  N :(  S :)

(I was very surprised by this variety of pear. I haven't met a pear I didn't like, until now. It was not yummy.)

Kiwi:

K :)  N :)  S :(

For next week:
RED!!

Twilight Zone

I had a really weird dream last night. It was so vivid, and even when I woke up, I remembered so many details.  That's very unusual for me.   Do you want to hear about it?  Great! Well, step into my subconscious for a few moments with me....

doodleydoo...doodleydoo...doodleydoo...

Here are the details of my dream that I remember:

1. In my dream, I am getting married. Again. To Brian, of course. And we had been together the whole time so I'm guessing it was some sort of vow renewal.

2.  My wedding dress is BAGGY on me.  It was apparently the same dress I wore 10 years ago (even though looking back on the dream it didn't look familiar...it had lots of beads & sequins and had long sleeves...my real dress had NONE of those things) and it was baggy.  I was very excited about this because I was quite a bit thinner when I got married than I am now. I'm hoping that this particular detail is some kind of omen. :)

3.  I remember doing my makeup and curling my hair.  I never curl my hair.  And my hair was much longer.  I was very unhappy with the hair-do.  It was very matty and crunchy from all the hairspray I used and most of it quickly lost the curl that it had.  Helen (yep - I remember that my SIL Helen was there...sorry everyone else, there were lots of other blurry faces. I'm sure you were all there to support my re-nuptuals) offered her straightening iron to me to use to flatten the mess.  I used it and it was much better.  Except that while I was straightening, a very large section of my hair all of a sudden came out.  Not from the top of my head, but from lower down by my neck.  And not like I had burned it out with the iron, but that it had mysteriously fallen out.  It was an oddly perfect straight section of hair.  Everyone there assured me it wasn't very noticeable and said they could fix it with some blush. (???)  This particular detail of my hair falling out I'm hoping is NOT an omen.

4.  After the hair was fixed I tried putting on my white veil, but it kept falling forward almost to my forehead.  For some reason, my hair was not supporting the comb that held the veil on.  I tried going on with it as-is, but I was told I looked ridiculous.

5. All of this is taking forever in my dream.  Kind of like when you dream you are running and can only go slo-mo.  It took what must have been hours to straighten my hair and put my veil on.  I remember that everyone was getting nervous that I got cold feet since I was taking so long (even though I'm already married to the guy). I hurried.

6.  I finally get my veil on and throw on my shoes.  I head down the hall to the ceremony (at which point I notice that my re-wedding is a civil ceremony, and not a temple wedding, which bothered me in my dream) and just as I come into view of the guests seated in rows up in front of me, I notice that the veil I put on was tan and that the shoes I was wearing were my dirty orange Keen flip flops and were on the wrong feet.  I was very embarrassed, but since everyone had seen me, it was too late to change.

7.  As I am reeling from this embarrassment, I look to see my mom there ready to walk me down the aisle.  Confusion.  I realize my dad isn't there to fulfill this customary role and it bothers me.  It takes me a few minutes to remember WHY he isn't there, and it bothers me more. Just then, I look down the aisle to see Brian waiting for me and I calm down instantly.

8. I wake up.

I went running this morning, and it's all I could think about.  What a silly dream. I hardly ever remember any details about dreams I have, let alone the entire thing.  Usually the only dreams I remember are recurring ones that I've had since I was a kid.  The typical can't find my locker, can't remember my class schedule, forgot to go to school for the whole year kind of dreams.  I hate those.  It was kind of nice to have something different for a change.  Even if it was freakadoo. :)

I hope you enjoyed your little trip into my subconscious.  Sweet dreams, everyone.

it's that time again!

SCHOOL!!!

Both my boys started a new year of school today! Hooray!!!!  To start our new school year off right, I made the boys' favorite smoothie for breakfast (banana, peanut butter & chocolate) that we had with the leftover banana oat pancakes with coconut syrup from last night's dinner.  Yum.

The boys got dressed this morning faster than I have ever seen them dress before.  Excited, much?  And both of them chose one of their new school shirts for this special occasion...both yellow.  In fact, ALL of my boys wore a yellow shirt today (I think Brian put on his yellow polo shirt today secretly LOVING the fact that all the boys were matchy-matchy...but he'd never admit it).

What a handsome guy!! Kimball is now in....gulp....1st grade.  FIRST grade, people.  I can hardly believe it myself.  And look how freaking tall this kid is.  Holy cow.  I'm not sure I am completely ready to have my child away from me for the majority of the day.  It makes me sad to think I only get to have him a couple hours in the morning, and a few hours at night.  I missed him today.  I'd better get used to it though...only 11+ years to go.

And look at this guy! Isn't he cute?  My big/little Noah started preschool today at Little Friends/North Idaho Christian School.  He was SOOOOO excited! After we dropped off Kimball and walked home (@ 9:00), he asked every 10 minutes or so if it was time for his school to start (which starts @ 12:00....you do the math). 

He wasn't nervous at all to start school. He was ready. What a good boy.

And Sloan made absolutely sure she wasn't to be left out of the action today.

She insisted on wearing her backpack all day.

And getting in on every photo opp that the boys had.

And all but refused to leave Noah's preschool.  She wanted to stay so badly.  She even wanted to kiss the stars on the poster goodbye.  Yeesh.  I'm not sure she's ready to be the only one at home.  She is really going to miss her big brothers.  Lucky for her, Noah only has preschool twice a week.  Baby steps.

I am one proud mama.  My children are seriously incredible.  I will miss my boys while they are at school, but I'm sure it will just make me appreciate them more. :)

a REEEALLY long post...fair warning.

I LOVE SUMMER!!
We've had an incredible summer in CDA!  Here's an end-of-summer (sniff, sniff...tear) wrap-up of our adventures (brace yourself, it's another LONG one...shocker, I know.)

SWIM LESSONS!!
Our sweet boys got to do swimming lessons at the Kroc Center.  They each went for 2 sessions of 2 weeks each.  They did SO WELL! I am so proud of them.

JETSKIING!!!

I can't say enough about how much I love doing this...but it was even better because we were able to take the kids out too.

Kimball LOVED it!!! He went really fast and loved chasing boats to play in their wakes.

We took them out once on CDA lake and once on Hayden lake where there is a much nicer beach for them to play on.

CDA lake

Hayden Lake

Noah really liked it too, but not as much as his brother. He wanted to keep the speed down and didn't want to go very far out. Funny boy.

Hayden

Sloan got on and let me take her to the "no wake" buoy line, but then said "All done".  Sweet girl.

Hayden

The kids were really good about playing on the beach while we took turns taking them out on the skiis. They LOVE the beach.  We even got to play at the beach a few times each week for most of the summer.  So fun!

CDA

Hayden

Hayden

A DAY ON THE BOAT!

Not only did Brian's boss Justin let us use his jet skiis for the whole summer, but he even let us use his boat for a weekend.

We took them over to Shawn's dock and played in the water for hours.  Kimball is QUITE the water lover.  He wanted to spend every minute of our time that day IN the water. Noah & Sloan were more content playing in the sand.  That's my fishy boy.

SILVERWOOD!

Kimball won a free ticket to Silverwood through a reading program at school last year, so we had to take advantage.  Silverwood is about 30 minutes north of where we live, so it makes for a really quick & easy day trip.  We got there when they opened at 11 and didn't head out until after 9!!!

Such sweet kids. Love them.

Kimball especially enjoyed going this year because he was big enough to go on the adult rides. He LOVED the bumper cars...

(look at that vindictive face)...

...and the PANIC PLUNGE!  I can't believe he did this one. He was so brave, and really had fun knowing it was not only his first time on it, but his dad's too.  They were brave together.

Here they are before lift-off.

Going up...

And DOWN!!!  Good job, guys!

Sloan's favorite part of the day was her ice cream cone.

NORTH IDAHO FAIR!

This event is never very exciting. It's quite small and lack luster, but a good opportunity for cute kid shots.

PARASAILING!!!!

I have always wanted to do this!  And it didn't dissappoint! For my friend Kim's birthday, we surprised her with going parasailing.  Holy cow - it was SO FUN!! Here's how it went down:

Blindfolding the birthday girl.

Surprising her at the Parasailing booth.

She was very surprised! And excited!

Here's the funny part. We didn't actually go that day.  Our 10:00 appointment was cancelled earlier that morning due to wind, but we didn't have anything exciting to replace it with, so we blindfolded her and took her down there for the surprise anyways. Aren't we jerks?  She was so excited until we told her we couldn't go.  We rescheduled and then played card games at the park until 11:00 when we had planned to have a potluck picnic with the rest of our friends.

SO.....

We went TODAY instead!

Lizzy, Shawnte, Marissa...

...Karina, Kim & ME!

Kim & I went first because everyone else was being wimpy.  We were also the only ones who wanted to get dipped in the lake at the end, so we paired up together.  Here is us just before take-off!

There we go!!

Our top height was about 600 feet up.  It was SOOOO amazing.  It wasn't scary or loud, it was so peaceful and calm and beautiful.  From the top, we really got to appreciate how beautiful it is where we live.  AMAZING views.

And the lake dip was not that cold, until we went back up and the wind blew against us.  BURRRRR!! :)

We have had an amazing time here this summer!  I am so blessed to live in such an amazing and beautiful  place and to have been able to spend so much time with my little family creating memories.  I'm not excited for summer to come to a close, but I am looking forward to getting into a routine.  Next up for the Waddell family:  school, preschool and POTTY TRAINING! Wish us luck!! :)