It's Been Awhile!!

So I have been a little busy lately! Between teaching, coaching, and the usual activities I have had no time to blog. Quite a bit has happened in the last 3 months. First of all, Wylie Jade turned 6 on September 14th. To celebrate she decided that she wanted to have her closest friends over for a sleepover, which I have provided a few pictures below of the event. I think she had a good time celebrating her birthday.

I finished coaching volleyball for the season, which we ended with a record of 5-2. Not too bad, although it should have been better. Josh is busy with concession stands, video taping football games, and has had quite a few conferences. Gunnar is plugging along with school. All of his progress reports have came back to us with straight A's. Josh and I are really proud of him for that, especially considering his lack of excitement for school. Gunnar refers to school as prison.

The kids had a good time trick or treating this year and at the local Neewollah Festival. Randi and Jillian came over for the festivities.

The kids and I drove over to my dad's to visit. We had a great time and I got some good pictures of the kids playing on the swings in the backyard. I got to play cards with my brother, Dad, and Cindy. And the next day we went to see Christmas Carol, which my sister Chris came to watch with us and eat lunch.

Wylie was so excited for her birthday, she couldn't wait to turn six.

She asked for a white cake with pink frosting and those sugar decorations that I have to say do not taste very good.

The sleepover group! I am pretty sure Josh and I lost some hearing due to all the screaming. Ha! Ha!

Wylie's BFF... Halle.

Wylie, Halle, and Reese have known each other since they were 2 years old because of daycare. They are now in kindergarten together, but they all have different teachers, which is probably a good thing.

Halloween night!

G.I. Joe, Black Cat, and Sorcerer. Gunnar obviously not wanting to get his picture taken.

The kids came back with lots of candy, although we had so many Trick-or-Treater's that we had to give some of their candy away! I know we had over 100 trick-or-treater's, but I am not sure the exact number. The lady who lives a block behind us had 180 kids show up at her door.

Miss Black Cat

Randi, Jillian, Wylie, and I waited in line for an hour again this year to get the girls' face painted.

I still think the wait was worth it.

Wylie picked the cat face to go with her costume for Trick-or-Treating.

I took this picture of Wylie at a pumpkin patch over by Pittsburgh. I wish I had more pictures from there, but my camera ran out of batteries like five minutes after I arrived.

My dad has a big backyard with a couple of swings that he made and a big tree that used to have a tree house in it. It was a perfect opportunity for some pictures...even good pictures of Gunnar.

I have to say Wylie is pretty easy to photograph...she is more than willing to pose for a picture.

Gunnar loves that swing!

Wylie prefers the swing with the good seat.

My favorite picture of the day. It's hard to get a good picture of the kids together.

First day of school!

Wylie finally started kindergarten last Monday. She has been so excited to start school. She told me the Sunday before the first day that her life was going to change forever. I have to say that was pretty dramatic of her, but she's right.

Last Swim.

So the summer has almost come to an end and that means covering the pool. Before school started we got in quite a bit of swimming and Wylie as usual improves her swimming skills and becomes a little more daring. Gunnar and Wylie had a great time playing together. They thought they were so funny by have Wylie get on Gunnar's shoulders.

I thought Wylie looked pretty cute in her goggles. She talks cute in them too!

I mentioned that she got more daring towards the end of the summer. Here she is doing a cannonball off the end of the slide.

Wylie also has become quite the diver!

Time to Blog.

We all made it through the first week of school, work, and volleyball practice unscathed. Both Gunnar and Wylie seem to be enjoying school and Josh hasn't mentioned much about his classes so I assume they are going well and my classes so far have been good.

So I have read online that you can make your blog into like a scrapbook, so I feel that these pictures that I took of our outing at the Independence Zoo were important to post. If you are a facebook reader you have probably already seen these, but I think they are worth posting again.

Visitors!

Josh's Uncle John and his wife and 3 kids decided to spend the last couple days of there vacation at our house. We were really happy to hear that they were coming not only for the visit, but the for the fact that they have never been to our house in Cherryvale. The children and adults had a great time.

Of coarse the kids had to do some swimming.

Jack liked to go down the slide backwards on his belly.

Molly Kate was a good little swimmer. She would jump right off the edge then swim to the ladder and do it all over again.

Molly Kate just hanging out looking cute.

It's not a party without a campfire!

A little bit of bike riding on the side street.

Wylie and Joey having fun.

Uncle John and Molly having a beverage.

Josh took everyone on a tour of the fire barn so the kids could see the ambulance and fire trucks.

Gunnar helped demonstrate.