Where the wind comes sweepin' down the plains

So we took a visit to Oklahoma over the past weekend. Ryan and I got to go to the temple in Oklahoma City Friday night then we spent the night down there and had a fun time. We took the kids swimming a couple of times so they loved spending the night in a hotel. Carson was very sad to leave Saturday afternoon...and he keeps asking when we can go to a hotel again.
Saturday we woke up and spent a few hours in the city checking it out. We went to "Outdoor World" in bricktown there and enjoyed looking around there for a few hours. It is kind of like a Cabellas...but not quite exciting. It was fun though and we all enjoyed it. Here are some photos from the store.
Afterwards we went outside and enjoyed a nice scenic walk by the river which was right outside the store. Don't you just love the colors of fall?

We walked on down to Toby Keith's I love this bar restaurant. If you ever have the chance to go there get the ribs. They were delicious! They make a special Toby Keith barbeque sauce just for the restaurant, and it is really good.

We headed back home after lunch. The kids both slept half of the way so it was nice to get some nice quiet time. It was a really fun relaxing weekend with the family. Can't wait for the next one!

E - I - E - I - O

Halli has been learning and absorbing so much lately. She is such a smart girl, and is picking up on lots of things. Here is an example of some of her latest learnings

My favorite is the cow...it sounds more like a lawn mower. LOVE it!

Feeling festive

We took a trip to a pumpkin patch last week with Carson's preschool class. We had such a fun time! They had a fun play area set up so it wasn't boring at all for the kids. We went to a lame pumpkin patch last year that didn't have much to do after you found your tiny little pumpkin. We actually found some decent sized pumpkins this year, and the kids had lots of fun afterwards playing on toys, petting animals, going on a zip line, flying down a huge slide, and climbing all over some hay. Too bad it wasn't a little warmer or we would have stayed a bit longer. Oh well, we enjoyed the time we had! Here are a few of the highlights.

Arrival at the pumpkin patch...not too cold yet.

Check how tall we are

Weighing the options...apparently the one of the left lost the weigh in

I think I've found the one I love

Showing of the pumpkins we chose

Wishing we could take home this MONSTER

You know when there are moments you capture, and they aren't really special, but you just love the photo...this is one of them. I just love her cute little smile and chubby cheeks.

Christmas is coming

I know it seems a bit early to be doing this, but I wanted to actually do it this year so I started early. My AC Challenge for the week was making my Christmas cards! It was tons of fun to do-time consuming, but fun. It took me a couple hours with some friends, and then 3 movies to finish them, but I enjoyed the movies, hot chocolate, and card making. AC#3

Attempting Creativity

So I have a friend who made a resolution at the beginning of the year to do a creative project once a week. I love this idea, and have decided to take up the challenge for myself. (Hope you don't mind me copying Carly!) It is kinda an early New Years Resolution, but I plan on doing it for the next year and 3 months or so...until the end of 2010. So I will now be posting on my blog at least once a week with my "AC" projects-Attemping Creativity. Carly calls hers BC projects for Be Creative, but I'm just attempting it right now so I'm changing the name for me. I'm sure some will turn out horrid, but I am trying to increase my abilities so hang in there with me. I already have one this week, and one for last week done. So here are my AC projects #1 and #2.

Sadly, I don't have a before photo of the dresser. It was really unattractive before the transformation. I got it at a garage sale for $20. It was painted blue, green, purple, and yellow. It was an interesting combination, but I saw the potential to fit right in in Halli's room (which, by the way, is still in progress...it will be one of my AC challenges this week or next week. It has taken a lot longer than I would like to complete!)

I whipped up this little sign for the upcoming holiday in no time. Way easy to do and a lot cheaper than buying the sign already made in stores!

Picture Update

I (Ryan) brought my work laptop home so i could load some pics and a video since our computer has been having problems uploading to the internet. I know these are some random pictures but i thought they were cute. Also, i included a video of Carson and Halli mowing the lawn. They are such good helpers. Pictures include the kids getting ready for church and an activity with flour (Mom is so cool!). Enjoy!!

Carson being Carson

Flour Baby

Sweet Girl

Brushing Teeth

My cute girls!




Mowing the Lawn

We bid you farewell

I have been trying to 2 weeks to make a post to our blog, but the photos refuse to upload. My computer is really making me mad. We are upgrading our operating system to the new Leopard-it is on its was in the mail. So we are hoping that doing so will allow us to upload photos easily again. It has been a pain for the past few months to upload anything online. It takes WAY to long. So for now I will skip it...

We have all been doing wonderful these past few weeks...well except for Halli who has been sick and teething (like always). We went to the annual Wichita Flight Festival a couple Saturdays ago and enjoyed seeing planes, playing games, and eating funnel cakes (YUM!!). On that same day we also picked up a piano! I finally have a piano in my home so I can practice anytime I want. This will make playing for the ward choir and accompanying musical number so much easier! I may actually stop sucking now :)

As previously mentioned, Halli has been sick for about a week now. Just a cold and cough, but it is annoying wiping snot from her face every 2 minutes. Thank goodness for puffs with lotion, or her poor face would be rubbed raw! Carson caught a cough from Halli, but now runny nose as of yet. Ryan and I seemed to have slid off the radar on catching it-YEAH!

And now for the farewell, as read in the title of this post. Our faithful Explorer has been great for us for 6 years now. Ryan bought it the summer we met, and it has been a fantastic car for him. As of Friday though we are no longer a two car family. Well I guess it is technically sitting in front our house, but it doesn't work. Ryan drove it to work, as usual, but called shortly after he left to tell me that it quit working. He made it to work, but it would start back up. By some miracle though it did start after work on Friday and Ryan drove it home. We went to take it to the shop, and it quit on the way there. We got the alternator replaced, and then the mechanic told us we needed a new transmission too. So we were able to drive it home, and it has sat in front of the house since. So we bid it farewell, and hope we can adjust to having just one car!

As a side note...we can't afford to buy a new car due to the money we are spending on new windows for the house, a new sliding glass door, and apparently a new roof. Thanks to the rainstorms these past few days there is a wet corner in Halli's room. Oh the joys of owning a home. I think I may go back to renting-ok not really, but all this money being spent on our "new" 1990 house is getting OLD.