Pumpkin Patch - lots and lots of pics

With ashes comes perspective

I'm sure by now you have all heard of the California fires. Luckily we are in a safe zone, there is no way fire is reaching us. There are ashes blowing around, landing on the kids toys, our cars and blowing into our house. As annoying as it all is, those ashes use to be someones home...or their books, or their childhood photographs. How can I let it get to me when we still have a roof over our heads?

I will admit that the kids not playing outside is quite a challenge for us. I guess we never realized how much the outdoors is a part of life here in SoCal. Each day after homework, the boys go outside and play baseball or football until dinner. That is our norm. This change has been an adjustment and a test of my creative ability!!

We normally don't watch the news in front of the kids. The day to day violence that we hear about is, in our minds, nothing children need to hear. We have however made an exception and let them see some of the fire coverage. I think it put it all in some sort of perspective for them. Sean has offered to give some of his toys to kids that have lost theirs. Iain is now walking around talking about how it's all just "stuff", that people keeping safe is what is important! If that is what we've taken away from this, at least something good has come out of it!

This was the first day of wind. Thought the trees would give you an idea of how hard it was blowing.

The beautiful air we were/are breathing. You can see some of the blue sky that is there, but very hard to see. The brown is the smoke/yuck in the air.

The white bits are the ash that was falling everywhere. By the end of each day, the bench would be covered.

Curious little girl + opportunity =

A little pirate wearing lipstick!

I noticed as I was posting on here that she was a little quiet! Anyone who knows Sara knows she is anything but quiet! Sweet, yes! Wonderful, yes! Quiet, NO!!! When I went to check on her, this is what I found!

Busy living life

Gosh, time has flown by once again. Not sure where it has gone but we've been having fun. Soccer season is winding down. Sean has one more game and Iain has 1 more in regular season and then 4 'bonus' games. It's kind of strange how the league is run. Each team has to earn 9 points in order to get the 4 bonus games. Each point is earned by refereeing (is that a word?) another game. It looks like Iain's team will have all 9 points by next weekend. My sweet, wonderful hubby is earning half of the points and another parent is getting the other half. They actually had to attend referee training, which is an 8 hour course, before they were allowed to start the process. Then they were given these fantastic outfits to wear...Now isn't that the most handsome ref you've ever seen? If the color scheme weren't enough to make you jealous, it is all made of polyester!! Now you're green with envy, huh?

Good bye music

For anyone who checked in on our blog this weekend, you probably heard the new music I put on. Well, it is now gone! The few times that I was messing around on here to type new posts etc, I found the music to be quite annoying. I first learned of the option of songs on a friend's blog and loved it. For some reason I found it rather annoying on here! Maybe I was just checking in and listening too often! Who knows...
Since posts need pictures, here's one from Halloween 4 years ago! The cute little pirate is 3 years old and the chubby Indian is 1!! How time flies!

Rountines interrupted

Routines, they are what keep me sane. I will admit I have a tendency to go a little overboard with them at times but I do my best. Each morning the boys have a routine, know what it is and do very well at getting ready with it. Of course after school we have a different routine. Each day when Iain gets home from school he does his homework. Once his work is done he can go outside and play. Usually it is an easy process. Then there are other days when Sara gets involved! Here's one of those days! I was upstairs putting laundry away and Sara climbed up and sabotaged Iain's homework! He is such a good big brother that he was running all around the table with his arms out to make sure she didn't fall (all the while yelling "Mom, come get Sara! Hurry!") I wasn't too worried about her falling. For a little girl that knows to pull out the chair, climb up and then aim herself right at the boys and right in the middle of the homework, I'm fairly certain she knows what she's doing!!After I took a few pictures I did get her down!

The way she looks tonight!

Just a picture to go along with the new music! (Thanks Heather!) It takes a minute to load sometimes, so please be patient!