REX the DOG

Remember this?

 Well... Now Rex the Dog is Reality!

Winston's dream came true, he's REX the Dog, and he enjoyed showing off at school for his class party.  They paraded through the school with their costumes, played musical chairs, Thumbs Up -Seven Up and made 'ghosties' out of Tootsie Pops!

Ahhh, Halloween... A Kid's Holiday!

Some Saucy Apples

One of my favorite Fall things is homemade crockpot applesauce.  I like making it, and my family likes eating it.  And while it's cooking, my house smells sooooo good.

Here's Tom looking happy to help out.  He likes to run the peeler-corer-slicer gadget thingy.

Some of our lovely apples from our very own orchard.  There's some Granny Smiths, Yellow Delish's, Braeburns and Fuji's.  We had quite a crop this year.

In the CrockPot with the Red Hot candies on top - all ready to go

After about five hours we have applesauce!

A Super-Yummy Treat!

An egg is an egg...

One of the fun things about having chickens and getting our own eggs is that they come in lots of different sizes - and sometimes different colors.  Ours vary from dark brown to very light brown in color.

Here's Winston holding one of our larger eggs and the smallest egg we've gotten yet.  We have had a couple of eggs that were larger than the big egg.  I've even cracked open a couple and found three yolks inside!

The white egg is your standard large egg from a carton bought at a grocery store.  Just to give you an idea of the size difference.

And here's a cute picture of Winston holding his Henny.

He sure loves that bird.

Pumpkins on Parade...

Saturday Tom and the boys decided to carve pumpkins.  Most of them were picked out of our garden (some the deer had nibbled on).  We bought the two biggest ones at the store.

Let the Carving Begin...

Ewwww... Pumpkin Guts!

Keaton finds an Ice Cream Scoop works great!

Carving Pumpkins is serious business.

They're such happy-smiley pumpkins!

A Pumpkin Totem Pole.

Here they are: Pumpkins on Parade...

Dad's "Mr. Buff" (as always)

Preston's "Cougar" (Awesome Job, Preston)

Keaton's "Mr. Smiley" (So cute!)

Mom's "Critter" (Not sure what it is)

Winston's "Mr. Pumpkin" (Very traditional - he designed it himself!)

Family Pictures - What a Pain.

Why does taking family pictures have to be such a pain - especially with three boys.  It seems we take a boat-load of frames, just to get one good family picture.  Uggghh! Here is proof of the painful process...

Getting Set Up

Taking care of an annoying, pesky critter

Okay, how are we going to make this work?

Watch out for falling walnuts!

Okay, Winston - no cheesy grins.

Keaton - keep your tongue in your mouth

This is an awesome picture!

If only Preston and Keaton's heads weren't cut off.

Hmmm... we all seem to be leaning to the right.

Our right - your left.

I think we've just about had enough of this.

Finally!  One decent Family picture.

Feliz Cumplianos, Senior Tomas!

That's quite a bright cake you got going there Mr. Moore!

Winston is mesmerized!

He almost got them all blown out

Preston in contemplation

Keaton tries to steal Tom's Candy

A new Cougar shirt from Preston and

a nice call from Mom make this birthday A-OK!

It's a Date!

I got home from work on Friday and Tom said "Honey, we're going on a date tomorrow night."  That was cause for a happy dance!  Date nights don't come around too often in our neck of the woods!  Anyway, I asked him what I should wear for our date (testing him out to make sure he wasn't taking me fishing).  He said "Wear your Cougar Pride".  Well, I knew just where we were going after that.  But what I didn't know was we were not only going to a WSU game, but we were also going to dinner at the VIP tents.  Tom got tickets because someone at the college was pleased with a wiring job he did for them.  Woo-Hoo!  So Saturday afternoon, off we went...

The WSU Marching Band... they're so cool!

The Cheerleaders schmoozing around the VIP Tents

Having dinner in the VIP tent... Brachts and BBQ Brisket with potato and pasta salad.

This is Tom's cheerleader shot.  When I took it, my camera wouldn't show it - it was just a blank image.  When I told Tom, he said "Noooooo!"  With the help of Preston's photoshop expertise we were able to still pull up a little bit of the image... thus proving Tom was really there surrounded by WSU Cheerleaders!

Here we are, freezing our tushies at the game.

Don't look at the scoreboard!

Here's 'Popcicle Tom'

And our not-so-fabulous Cougs.  They only scored once the entire game.  Arizona stomped us.

But we had a good time, nevertheless!

(So cool to think our son was getting the field ready and keeping it safe the night before).

The Van House!

Here are some pictures that were taken last weekend when Uncle Paul came for a visit.  They took a walk to an old abandoned house near where we live.  Winston calls it the Van House and it is where he is going to live someday - when he marries Matie, his cute little friend that is a girl.  He has it all planned out.

Here they are approaching the Van House -

Winston seems very excited.

Here he is, the proud future owner with his Pop and Uncle Paul.

Here is the kitchen.  Winston certainly has a lot

 of work ahead of him.

And here is Keaton... just to show he was there, too.

FALL-ing...

It's really beginning to look and feel like fall here.  The leaves are turning yellow and red and the nights are getting cooler.  We've started up the wood stove at nights.  I'm not sure I'm ready for winter, but Fall is quite nice.  Here is a lovely fall picture that Preston took of our local covered bridge:

Isn't it lovely?

Today Keaton and Winston have off  from school.  Uncle Paul is visiting.  You know, WSU-Oregon game on Saturday.  It's a tradition!  Anyway, I've heard ramblings about them going fishing today.  Don't know if it will be reality or not.  Preston is on 24-hour duty again.  He has a full day of classes, and then gets to babysit the stadium all night.  Poor kid, it's a tough load but I think he kind of enjoys it.  I will be at the school all day today for a Teacher's Workshop.  They put me in a JR High Math workshop (Hmmm, I teach K-3 reading groups = Math for JR High?  Go figure).  Oh well, maybe I'll learn something.  Really wishing I could have the day off, too.  Hope you all are having a great Fall!