Pumpkin Carving

Pumpkin Patch

We decided to go get some pumpkins, but there was so much more than just pumpkins. I think everyone's favorite part were the pumpkin cannons they launched the pumpkins really far!


James looking for what to do next.

On our wagon ride.
It's hard to get enough cooperation for a good family snap shot.
This was the best we could do.

Ben and Kass

Kass had more patience than me in helping the boys find just the right pumpkin =)

Nice pumpkin Ben

Got our pumpkins, in the wagon headed back.

Chase stood in line for a long time to get a balloon sword!

We had a good day!

Anniversary Day

For Allen and mine's 9th anniversary I asked for us all to go to the zoo to spend a day together as a family. It was a great day even if I was pretty tired and nauseous for most of it. The boys did really well, and we saw a lot of animals even in the rain.

Self portrait. Love you Allen!!

BEN and KASSANDRA

Allen was honored to be a groomsmen in one of his good friends weddings in October.
We have been waiting for Ben to find Mrs. Right for a while and are so happy he finally has.
Kass you are awesome and we love you.

Mr. and Mrs. Ben VanDyke

Allen and Melissa rockin' it on their way out!
It was a great celebration.

That's right people...

Another Sitton is on their way.

Chase's First Day of Kindergarten

All ready to go! First Day at St. John Lutheran School!

Still smiling when I picked him up!
He had a great day.

James turns 3

We celebrated James turning three with a little get together at our house. Since he is SO into making a mess and getting his hands on all different textures of things we decided to build him a sandbox for his present. He played in it all day till his party. We enjoyed the company of friends and family and he had fun blowing out the candles on his cupcake.


The next morning he woke up early and climbed onto the kitchen counter and helped himself to the remaining cupcakes, enjoying the frosting from all of them! Then it was outside to the sand box for more play time. Happy Birthday Happy Boy! We Love YOU!

Chase's First Day of PreSchool

Chase went two days a week for a few weeks to Discovery Zone for pre school over the summer in order to get ready for starting school five days a week in the fall.
He had a lot of fun and liked his teacher and friends.

The Zoo and Papa's Pizza

On Tuesday the boys and I went with some other moms and their kids up to the zoo and then to eat at Papa's Pizza. James had a blast in the ball pit, although he was a little on the devilish side and had cleared the thing out cause he was throwing balls at the other kids...hum...yep, that's my boy. He had to come out after I took some pictures ; )


At the zoo Chase had a great time putting together a puzzle of the otter and then he pretended to be one on the statue of one. The eagle was out and beautiful as usual! It was "$2 Tuesday" at the zoo & it got a little overwhelming because there were so many people, but overall we had fun.

Catch up time!!

WOW! It has actually been over a month since I posted anything on here!! So much has happened! James has kept us on our toes you could say... we had two emergency room visits within a three week period!! Yikes! He is doing great and back to his normal shenanigans. The first incident he hit the back of his head on a bench - got two staples put in to hold it shut. The second incident he got his poor hand shut in a big tractor door and got to have x-rays taken of it, but thankfully it was not broken anywhere, and they just closed up the cut with a steri-strip(kinda like a butterfly bandage) that he stubbornly removed himself the following morning = ) But it has healed fine.

Chase is definitely coming into his own. He and I are in regular battles of will. He really thinks that he can do whatever he wants as long as he tells you what that is, or asks first, pretty much ignoring when he is told "NO" He is funny and likes being a clown at home, but is shy when others address him. He is SO ready for school! Asks me all the time..."When is Fall??" "Do I go to school today?" He will start kindergarten in the fall at a Christian school in McMinnville and just so he is not so shocked at the life change of going to school five days per week after being home all the time, I enrolled him for about 8 weeks of the summer to go to pre-school for two days a week. He starts on Tuesday and let me tell you - Tuesday can't come fast enough. I am looking forward to spending some one on one time with James while Chase is releasing his non stop chatter with someone else. Chase recently gave himself a "haircut" and I had to try so hard not to out right laugh at him, he is just too funny. Thankfully it's not that bad, and will get fixed soon.

Rowan and I have started on our second round of Obedience classes. We are both having a lot of fun at them and he is doing really well. He is so different from any other dog I have had before, and his very laid back attitude is a challenge for me - as far as training goes. He is great with the kids and although he was kinda supposed to be Chase's dog, James is actually the one who spends more time with him, even if it is laying on top of him. That James! Good thing Rowan has held true to the Newfoundland claims of being better than great with kids.

Allen has been riding his dirt bike every chance he gets with his buddies Kent, Will, Mike and some others too. He has gone to some great events and the kids and I even went to the last one with him which was all the way out in Heppner, but it was a wonderful place(minus the plague proportions of mosquitoes). It was at the Morrow County OHV park and Allen placed pretty well in his class, but above all had a really fun ride. I got to hang out with a lot of the kids from the RUTS (Racers Under the Son) crowd and meet more of the wives while we were there. Now I really want to sell my four-wheeler and get a dirt bike, cause the women and kids ride too! Allen has two more events in June, then no more until September. He would really like to get a new KTM bike, so we are trying to figure out how to get that in the budget = ) I would love to get him a new bike now, but they are expensive, so he will have to be patient.

Work for Allen is in full swing now, so we are not getting to see a whole lot of him, but it is only for a few months( I have to remind myself of that a lot). Allen and I are playing softball with some of our friends on Sundays. Our team is "Carlton Trenching" we play at Joe Dancer park in McMinnville and it is a lot of fun. I never thought that I would look forward to playing softball!! LOL I am so not a softball person, but it is a blast!

I am sure that there is more to share, but this seems like an awful lot for now. Here are some different pictures from the last month or so. Enjoy!


James at Memorial Day eating a deviled egg and playing in the ice pile...
Soooo you say you didn't get very good sleep?!? huh? I can't imagine why? LOL This is usually how I get woke up in the morning, but this day they decided Daddy was better.


The head incident...the bandage was just to keep the numbing gel on his head...he was so tired he slept through a lot of the waiting around we did that night. A couple of nurses saw us taking pictures...I felt a little guilty, but thought I should document this for when he is older.

The drive over to Allen's race in Heppner was beautiful!!


Here are some pics from the race.

Allen Riding

Number 36

Sandos Caracol

So here are some pictures for everyone. I can't type out too much...it cost's me $5 per hour of internet usage, not too outragous...but so much for ALL inclusive. LOL. Enjoy. We have been!!

Here is my internet buddy! Siesta Time = )

Okay................maybe this won't work??!?!?? Does not seem to want to upload my pics for you all to see!!

Okay, I will try to update this later with the pictures.

Going To MEXICO!!!!

Allen and I are about to board our flight to DFW then onward to CANCUN!!! I am so excited!
Please pray for our children and the grandparents who will be caring for them, as well as Allen and I's health and safety.... Thanks
More later, I hope, as long as the Resort has access.

Vacation

So, anyone heard of swine influenza lately?? ha!! ha!! Allen and I have plans to leave the country together, with no kids, go on a relaxing vacation, for the first time in our lives/marriage, and what happens!?! yep that's right **swine flu** outbreak in Mexico and other locations.

Just so you all know, we are still weighing our options on whether to go now or postpone. No, I don't want to get sick, and NO I definitely do not want to bring some illness back to my children or family or friends! I do however have faith that my Father in Heaven will protect us and if we are not supposed to go, we won't. This has been very frustrating and tiring! I have spent hours on the net looking at every agencies' findings and recommendations (if they have any) and different people say different things. The Media in general always likes to blow things out of proportion. Yes this is serious. But yet, world wide, numbers really have been low so far.... aaahhhh.... This sucks!!

Today I am on a "wait and see".... my biggest fear is we get down there and they close the border and I can't get back to my kids and home. So if you would, I ask for you prayers about the entire situation, that The Lord's will be done in our life.

We are scheduled to fly out of PDX at 6 am tomorrow. We are staying at a hotel by PDX tonight, so no one has to be driving around near 4 am = ) Hopefully my next post will be a happy update about how our awesome trip went. If I don't post again in the next day or two, that means I am most likely enjoying the warm sun and a cold drink with my wonderful man, whom I don't get to spend as much time with as I would like to ; )

Saying Good Bye is no fun...

Last night our small group said good bye to the Baynes family. They are moving back to North Carolina and we are all very sad to see them go, but know it is best for them. The pictures below are from a BBQ dinner we had a few weeks ago. Brittany and I have spent quite a bit of time together and I will miss her a lot. Chase is really gonna miss Nyc too. Love you guys.

Allen 36 A

Allen's ride/race in Washington March 28th and 29th.

I went to this track with him before, when I was pregnant with Chase, it's beautiful area, but not very pregnant wife friendly -no real bathrooms ;)

I am glad he had a good time with his riding friends and the RUTS group with out me. Of course, I was in Vegas = )

Vegas BABY!!

Well, it took me long enough...but I finally got over pneumonia and got my film back (yes I said film) from my trip to Vegas with my girlfriends Tina and Jolina! (Allen had a motorcycle event, so he took the new digital) We flew down Sat the 28th of March and came back on the 1st of April. After expecting the worst, flying with Jolina wasn't so bad. LOL She is not a very good flyer, but did pretty good. =) The ladies and I had SO MUCH fun! It was a break from being mommy for all of us, although Jolina had to bring along the baby boy belly, of course. We had quite the adventures...we spent a lot of time at the Mirage (best cocktails!) and playing "Gold Fish", watched the fountain and looked at the flower ceiling and gardens at the Belagio, walked up and down the strip, took a bus and walked around Fremont Street, rode the monorail, got our free slot play and players club cards at a lot of casinos, saw "Defending the Caveman" (very funny and true!), looked at the Lion at the MGM, had some great margaritas and cheeseburgers in Paradise, and spent some time lounging around the lazy river pool at the condo, ect, ect. I am sure there is more, but not sure I need to type it all out ; ) Can't wait to go to Sin City again in the future! I think there is one more roll of film somewhere....will add it when I find it!

A Day at Nona's

We had a great sunny day down at my mom's house. First we went out to pet the horses and give them some treats and my mom tried to get her girl Rosie to show us one of her "tricks" but Rosie wasn't really cooperating = 0 Chase loves the horses and has no fear of them at all. James is actually pretty intimidated by them and would not let go of me or let me put him down, surprising because usually he is the one who is not scared of anything.

Then we took a nice walk down the road... Chase played his "air guitar" for us and James carried his trusty sword with him the whole way. They had a good time and can't wait to go to Nona's house again.

Chuck E Cheese's

During spring break, some girlfriends and I all took our kids up to Chuck E Cheese's for some rainy day fun! I have never taken the boys there before and dispite my usual anxiety of crowded places, I did well letting the boys run around and enjoy themselves. We had pizza there for lunch and the boys loved playing all the games. It did not take James long to figure out what the tokens were for and what you did with them!! I turned around and he had some cup full of them that he had apparently taken from some poor unsuspecting child. I didn't know where they came from!?! He is too quick! So we had to have a little chat about not taking things that don't belong to us!! He is only 2, so how mad could I really get, but definitally something to keep an eye on! LOL We all had a great time and the kids did great packing around together. We will have to go again soon, as I keep hearing "LETS GO TO CHUCK E CHEESE, MOM!" "When can we go to that place with the game again, Mom?!?!"