"Senior" Pictures

Back when Jacob was born a friend of mine gave me a gift for a photo setting and a choice of a portrait from a friend of hers that is a stay at home mom/ photographer. So I had her come out and I fell in love with every picture she took of Jacob (it wasn't hard since I'm his mother). Recently, I got together with her again and had her take pictures of both Jacob and Lydia separately. I am so glad to have found such a great photographer!!! When I showed my mom some of the pictures, she thought they looked like "senior" pictures for kids. What do you think???

For those of you that like to see the whole collection here is the link to the slide show (warning over 100 pictures) http://www.slide.com/r/EHqyCQB33j_v7QDLQZvxzc_TgSWkaZzj?previous_view=TICKER&previous_action=TICKER_ITEM_CLICK&ciid=360287970443080249

Here are just a few:

Halloween Dress Up!

I have always loved Halloween, I love the candy, pumpkins, cider, parties, sugar cookies, and costumes. But this year my favorite thing was dressing up this little Tiger!!! (my other kids can dress themselves)

Lydia could not make up her mind on what to be this Halloween. Originally she was going to be a Denver Bronco cheerleader (thanks to a friend that recently moved to Denver). But she just couldn't give up the Princesses this year. So at three different Halloween festivities she was a different princess. Here she is as Ariel the night of Halloween. Notice the fork in the hair, her personal touch. The boys were Denver Bronco Football players. (Hence, why Lydia was going to be a Denver Cheerleader)
Before Trick or Treating our Ward (church) had a Halloween Carnival down at the Stake Center.
The boys loved the Donut eating contest. Landon our donut lover, cobbled the donut up before Mason even got a good bite.
Then we headed back to our neighborhood where the kids went Trick or Treating.

Half the fun for the kids was passing out candy back at our house. We had over 200 trick or treaters!





Two days before Halloween I threw a little Halloween Party for Lydia and 7 of her Friends. Don't they look cute? Lydia was Belle for this festivity.

We finished up the party with a balloon stomp, where they would find candy inside the balloons.

Landon and Mason even got to dress up for their sharing piano lesson this week.

On Saturday I took the kids Trick or Treating downtown Auburn.

Here Lydia with her friend Alyssa as two sleeping beauties.

Zeke and I also got into costumes this year, when we attended an annual couples Halloween Party.

With another Sumo wrestler at the party, we couldn't resist a sumo wrestling contest.

Now he was trying too hard to live up to his character. (And incase you are wondering, I am still not crazy about the beard).

The men and one women had fun craving pumpkins using power tools.

Power tool master piece.

It's a man thing!

What Zeke has been up to this last month:

His new set of wheels!

His beard after one week. Zeke will be in a play the end of November that our Stake (Church) is putting on. He is an ancient Temple Priest, thus the reason for the beard. Now I am not a fan, and I tried my best to convince him to just buy one, but he was SO excited to have an excuse to see how he would look in one and how much it will actually grow. Oh, how I look forward to Dec. 2ND when he will shave it, or at least I hope he will. And it doesn't help that everyone has been complementing him on it!

He's all grins this month as he drives his new truck with is growing beard!

Bon Voyage!

Seattle has been know for it's rain and traffic problems, all of which we have been dealing with a lot this last month. However, take that all away and there are some really great things about living here. One of which is the chance to catch a cruise ship for a weekend getaway only 40 minutes from my front door. Last weekend, Zeke and I went away for the weekend with three other couples on the Mercury Cruise Ship (part of the Celebrity Cruise line)

The weather was in our favor. The morning we left I woke up at 6am and did my daily run, in the rain and cold, by noon the weather was perfect. Here is the Seattle skyline from the boat, right after we got on. It was such an added treat to have great weather.

And we are off!

Zeke in his life jacket getting ready for the emergency drill!

The day before we left someone asked me: "If a cruise ship was much different than a ferry?" My response was OH YEAH!

Mainly because of the all the endless yummy food!

It's a good thing this cruise was only 3 days compared to 15, or I would come home quite a bit heavier.

This was the dining room were we ate dinner every night.

Our stateroom was nice, except it was in the cheapest part of the ship right next to the engine. Where we experienced a small earthquake each morning at 6am that lasted 1 hour while the cruise ship came into port.

Formal Night.

Ping Pong was a hit!

1st Stop: Vancouver BC (Canada)
A day in the city.

We had a fun time hoping on and off this bus touring all the sites of Vancouver BC.

At night we attended the dancing parties on the boat. At the sock hop our group won a certain dancing cheering contest. The prize was a free drink for us to share. Boy did we earn it, because Zeke was horse for several days after.
2nd stop Nanaimo BC

A small town on Vancouver Island. It's about a 90 minute drive to Victoria. It was so pretty from the boat. The mountains, and fall colors were gorgeous.

There wasn't much to do in Nanaimo, except to shop. So the men didn't last too long and headed back to the boat to play shuffleboard. The girls finished shopping and stopped for high tea and a Nanaimo bar.

Depression set in early Monday, morning when we arrived back into Seattle. The weather had changed back to rain, and our husbands were heading back to work. Oh how the weekend went too fast.

This picture is such a contrast from when we left on Friday.

Zeke and I returned home to find our kids very well taken care of by Zeke's parents. I don't think they missed us at all (well maybe Jacob did a little).

I finished the DAM 5K!

It has been 6 plus months since I have ran a 5K. On Saturday morning I joined my good friend Holly, in the Mud Mountain Dam 5K run! I left my kids with Zeke who coached the boys soccer game in the rain while watching Lydia and carrying a baby. (What a guy! Probably took the same amount of energy as the 5K).

Mud Mountain Dam is a beautiful park east of Enumclaw, WA up towards the pass.

I had asked Holly a few days prior to the run what the route would entail. She hadn't ran it before, but believed it consisted of pavement, and some gravel roads, all of which would be fairly flat. I told her that sounded great, since I am use to running on pavement. There were no route maps given prior to the race. Once the horn was sounded we were off on flat pavement. Soon we turned onto a gravel road, only to be on that road a few yards where we turned onto a hiking trail. The hiking trail was bumpy, and hilly, but it was really fun running among the thick trees and brush, it was also a lot harder for people to pass you on the narrow way. A few times there were big stumps to run around, and occasional tree lay in the path. What a work out this was. Not knowing where you were and how far you had gone was a challenge. When I came out of the brush to see my time I was a little disappointed that it wasn't faster. Then I heard a much more professional runner than myself say: "This is not a race to make a personal record, it's a race to see if you can finish". A few minutes later I watched a lady who was at least 70 years old cross the finish line. Wow, what a lady!

Holly and I both placed in our division! I earned 1st and Holly got 5th.

We are so proud of our medals!

Holly's brother Micheal, also joined us for the race. For those of you that know him, look at how big "Mikey" is now. I chuckled a little when Holly was asked if he was her son. (He was born while we were in High School)

Many Faces of Jacob!

I haven't been a very good blogger lately. I know that the last time I posted it was about Jacob, but it's been said that the first child has the most baby pictures, however in our case that was back in the day of having to develop film. We took many pictures of Landon and Mason (some of which I still need to scrapbook) but with my youngest two there is no end to picture taking. I love digital cameras!!

Jacob loves giving kisses and being kissed!

Our thinker!

Keeping his balance!

Easy Going!!

Serious little guy!

Sweet Sleeper!

My lightest sleeper: "What was that flash of light"