Ruthie turns 8!

 On Ruth's birthday we went to sushi with Brad's parents and his brother's family. Then we came back to the house to eat those beautiful ice cream cakes she and I made. A week later she was baptised!

 Ruth with me and my older brother Joe

Ruth in the dress she was baptised in and with Brynne Lents, Joe's daughter

 Ruth with my parents

Rainy Day, Play Day, Race Day

It hailed really hard and Claire wanted to play in the mud. It made me happy to see her playing in her undies...kids grow up way too fast.

 We have taken advantage of the beautiful fall weather and visited several of the parks nearby our new home. We also found a group of homeschoolers that meet regularly at a park with praying mantises.

 Apple taste-test, our favorites were Snap Dragon and Empire

Tia and I ran another 5K together. This was a blacklight run and was soooo fun. I ran my best time yet, cutting another minute and twenty seconds off my previous fastest time. I'm down to 35:05. The first 5k we ran together on my birthday I nearly died trying to run the entire thing and it took me over 42 minutes. It was really awesome to compare those two races and see how much I have improved!

Halloween

I don't really know what my draw to Halloween is, but I feel so motivated every year to make sure that it is a super fun and memorable day for the kids...even though we've moved several times over Halloween season. This year we had all sorts of puzzles, word searches and mazes to do during school time, masks and pumpkins to decorate and ring the glow-stick on the pumpkin to play.

We also had a special lunch of Kiwi Monsters, Mummies and Skull Juice (kool-aid with dry-ice).

Because we were moving and I wasn't feeling up to sewing anything, we bought used costumes this year. Ruthie the witch with her spider face paint.

Claire the fairy with her face paint and home-made hair clippy-doo.

And Wolverine William with homemade claws. Halloween night we went to the Parker's house to have a lovely meal (with Brian's family as well) and send the kids off trick-or-treating in their neighborhood. The kids got the most candy I've ever seen while the men answered the door for trick-or-treaters and the ladies did gel nails.

Moving to Albuquerque

 We moved into Albuquerque this week. Before doing that Ruth had one last play date (and got to ride a horse!) and the kids had their final soccer games. There are a few things we'll miss about Edgewood, but we are so excited to not deal with dusty dirt roads and 30+ minute commutes. Our new home is in the middle of town only minutes from Brad's work and all our homeschooling activities as well as the library, pool and parks. Our house also has a huge backyard and all the neighbors are old (quiet) so this is the best of both worlds!

Fall Activities and Fruit on a Stick

 This is Claire on a day out to work with Daddy. And this is William loving his hand-me-down blazer.

Good looking children we found searching for frogs at the botanical gardens.

 Last week my sweet friend, Carla, took the kids all day long. She took them to Geography club in town and then took them to the library where they were carving pumpkins. It was such a wonderful and needed break.

 I ran the "Ditch Witch, La Llarona" 5k on the Bosque. It was a really rough trail that felt like running on a beach, so my time was not great, 42:15. I was disappointed with that, but glad I had the time to run this race and am looking forward to the Blacklight run in November.

In the last seven days we have made two treats on a stick. The first was "caramel apples" and tonight the girls and I made fruit kebabs drizzled in chocolate, vanilla chips and salted caramel chips YUM! 

Pumpkin Patch

 Somehow we managed to leave McCall's without pictures of the kids in the pumpkin patch or on the hay ride. But we have all been itching to come visit this place since we moved here. The couple times we've driven to Moriarty we'd pass by the big "Somethin' or Another" Fort and the kids have really wanted to check it out. We finally got to!