Isaiah

Well now I have discovered that picasa will only upload 4 pic's at a time and Isaiah was left out.......well Isaiah here's your picture and a post just for you! Love, Auntie

Pumpkin Painting

This year I thought it might be fun for the kids to paint their pumpkins instead of carving them. Neither one of our kids is very excited to "pull out the guts" and are bored when "we" are carving their pumpkins. So I thought why not paint? Well it was a hit! The kids had a great time. We did it at Great Grandma's house in the back yard.....yea for very little clean up! So until they are big enough to do it themselves this might just be our new tradition!

Joseph's new toy

Well Joeseph finally got a motorcycle, as you can see he's as happy as a little boy on Christmas Day. He's talked about his desire to have one for a few years now. He finally found the style he wanted at a great price so now he is the proud owner of his very own Yamaha Classic. I'm not very crazy about the idea, but how can you not be happy for him when he can't stop smiling. I'm glad he has something that makes him so happy, what will make me happy is if he can keep himself from getting killed :)

Here are the rest of the pictures

Pumpkin Patch

Last Sunday we went on our annual pumpkin patch trip. We really like going to Hillcrest because the kids love their train and big swing. We had a great time, now for halloween! Enjoy the pictures.

Thomas the train....oh I mean Amtrack

Today Joseph's parents treated the kids to a ride on a "real" train. Tyler and his cousin Isaiah LOVE trains. Mostly they know about Thomas the train, but any train will do. So today they got to ride "Thomas" to Hanford and then we walked to Superior Dairy for lunch and fabulous ice cream. If you've never been you have to go at least once. So after filling our bellies we boarded the train back to Fresno. It was the perfect trip! Thank you Gramma and Papa for a great day!




I love Tyler's expression...priceless











Who doesn't smile when having yummy ice cream?











Tyler and Uncle Ozzie horsing around


Loving the train!

Things that make me smile

My husband reading to our children

My sons love of all things simple

My daughters delight of learning
(she came home from school wearing this....a prize for good behavior all week)

And my husbands humor....he will kill me for posting this but if i'm ever in a bad mood all I have to do is look at this picture and laugh my ass off!

Name Change

As you can see, i've changed my blog name. When all my friends started blogs I wanted to jump on the bandwagon, of course I wanted a catchy blog name. But i've come to realize that I want to be more "real". That if i'm going to blog about "my" life then it's going to be the "fun" and "crappy". That is who I am for better or worse~love me or hate me :) So now to explain how my new name came to be....a long time ago I read this book called "Mothering without a map". The title drew me to it, like the smell of coffee brewing on a very tired morning. Here is a little exerpt to help you undersand why I like it so much.....
"Every woman longs to be a good mother. But what about women who grew up feeling "under-mothered"-whose mothers were absent, distracted, distant, depressed, well meaning but inept, or otherwise fell short in some vital way? How are they to become the good mothers they aspire to be?"
How can I become the good mother that I aspire to be.....that is a question I ask myself often and hope to find the answer too. I invite you, my friends, family, and people I hold dear to join me on this journey of Mothering without a map.