Polar Express!!

 This past summer Patrick and I decided that it would be fun to go on the polar express.  So back in June we bought the tickets.  We never told the kids until the day of.  The girls were very excited and Owen didn't understand except that we were going on a train.  The train itself was slow and really bumpy, but the kids had so much fun! They even talked to Santa!  

 I'm so mad! I only got a picture of Samantha with Santa :(  Oh well, I got video of the rest

 Waiting for the train to come

 Cookie and Cocoa station

Been a while

 Patrick and I just had our 9th anniversary!  Thanks to a wonderful mom and great friends, we got to go to the beach for almost 5 days!  It was freezing but so beautiful!  Here are some of the pix we got.

 All I wanted was one good picture of us and Patrick had to be crazy in all of them...oh well, what can you do ;)

 I guess this one is ok

We went to dinner in Astoria and this was out our window.  They people at the restaurant said that the birds do this every day!!  This wasn't even all of them either.  There were tons!!  They would do cool waves and dives all in sink with each other  It was very interesting to watch.

They're going to hate me for putting that one up :)

Sat we spent the day at the water park. It was fun not having the kids there, but we also got worn out faster.  We did all the slides a ton of times in only a couple of hours.  With kids it took all day just to go on a couple of slides.  It was still tons of fun!  If you look close you can see santa in his suit!  We got pix with him but it was with Corina's camera.

At Tillamock after the water park.  Don't we all look great...

Sunday morning before we went home we walked the beach and got shells for the kids.  There was hardly anyone there. It was so pretty too.

Right after we got the kids.  They didn't want to leave Grandmas house.  Guess we have to go away more often ;)

Halloween

This year was so fun!  Owen is at a great age.  Every single house we went to, he had to find the candy that he got and show everyone.  He was a train conductor, Samantha was the Hello Kitty witch and Nellie was a cheerleader.  

~A very special day~

On Oct 8th Nellie made the choice to get baptized.  It was such a wonderful, spiritual day for her and us.  Thanks to all who came and supported her!!

I can't tell...do you think she is happy?!?!?!

Us with Bishop Wilson 

 We had been looking for a dress for her and couldn't find anything we liked that was under $50.  My mom was at the Sears outlet one day and they brought out this dress with a fuzzy shawl. The whole thing was $5!!! It was meant to be :)

 The families from both sides, minus my sister and brother-in-law and Patrick's oldest brother.

Nellie with cousins

Nellie

It's hard to believe that 8 years have gone by!  So much has happened it feels like a life time but at the same time it feels like it was yesterday.  Nellie has grown so much over that last year.  She has become an excellent reader.  She can ride an adult bike with the breaks on the handle bars.  She can now play games with us and understand them! (she loves that)  Those are just some fun things.  She is such a great helper for me.  She loves going to school and is very good at it.  Next Saturday she is getting baptized and is so excited for that.  We got her her very own set of scriptures and case.  It's awesome that she can read them!  

We have some friends that have a daughter that has a birthday 2 days before Nellie.  They are good friends and decided to have a combined birthday party.  They wanted it to be a princess tea party.  We didn't want to leave out family so we had a family party on Friday night and then the kid party on Saturday.  Here are most of the pictures...enjoy! :)

Corina is a professional cake decorator and wanted to do the fancy kid cake, so I did the cupcakes for the family party. 

Does anyone remember that segment in sesame street, long ago, that had the girl rocking in a huge rocking chair?  This totally reminded me of that! LOL

The birthday girls

It was way to windy, so we had them pretend to blow out the candles. ;)

GG and Nellie

Papa and Grandma Susan

~ KID PARTY~

The "tea" and cake table

Make-up and jewelry table

To the left of the picture was the nail station and to the right was the hair station

Nellie after getting her hair done

Samantha begged me to take a picture of her eyes. She did them herself...pretty good too.

All the girls from the party.  The super tall on in the back was a sister of one of the girls there to help us.  She was great!

Birthday girls with their moms.  Corina said we had to dress up too.  Of course she found a great one to fit her...as for me, well I'm a bit bigger than her so it was harder to find something.  Luckily, I have a wonderful mom that can sew.  I found a plain dress at the thrift store and she fancied it up for me.  It will also be my Halloween costume. 

I had to put a picture of this shirt! Isn't it so cute!

Thanks to everyone who came or helped with the parties!  It was so much fun and the girls had a blast!