Halloween 2011

Lexi, Luke, Ava and Harper with their Great-Grandma
Kelly said Ava and Harper had fun going out with the kids, except Ava was nervous and kind of scared and didn't want to walk. She said Harper walked right up to every door for the candy and then asked for more.

We took Ava and Harper out for a little daytime trick-or-treating in the afternoon, first they went to see Parker, then Auna, Alan & Vera, and Cathy and Bob. Ava had a little issue with her foot again and wouldn't walk. (The last week she has had a reoccurring flashback of an owie on her foot, "no walk" she says and won't walk for an hour or so, then when she does, she walks on her heel) . After packing her in and out of just the 4 houses, I was glad that was as far as we were going.

They were anxious to check out their loot and couldn't wait to eat some of the Hershey's chocolate they got from Alan and Vera.

Auna went trick-or-treating with her friend Haylee this year. They were headed for Lexington to hit the big neighborhoods there.

Parker and Rielee stayed in Castle Rock for their trick-or-treating.

Auna soccer

Auna scoring one of 2 goals she had today as her team beat Kalama 3-0.

Friday

They love each other so much!

Little Singers & V'ball league champs

Macee and Rielee after the Rockets beat Toledo tonight-they are League Champions and start district play at CR on Wed. night.

Auna came over after school to see the girls and was impressed when they started singing to their babies...

3 Gourde girls

These Gourde girls love fresh cinnamon rolls. Rielee made the mistake of getting up for a second, while she was gone Ava and Harper cleaned her plate, too.

Cool kids

Ava and Harper are keeping busy this week by playing "night-night", everything goes night-night and gets tucked into our bed, babies, stuffed animals, cars, trucks, play food, each other, everything. Clean-up in there can take as long as the play-room, but it keeps them busy and happy so that is a good thing. I caught them on the phones, too, Ava had one and she said Harper gave it to her, Harper was hiding in the bedroom with another, and she said it was Papa's and she was calling Papa Mike. Looking cool with the sunglasses Auna gave them to wear during a cereal snack.

Spooky skulls

Ava and Harper were playing today, both sitting backwards on their little chairs and sticking their tongues out at Auna and I, kind of like snakes. So I asked them if they were snakes. Ava shook her head, made a silly face and said "no, sisters!"
Des has two of these skulls on the lights in their driveway and the girls call them the "scary guys" and won't even walk by them, they ask to be carried. Today Auna tried to get Ava to look at one of them up close by telling her the skull was her friend. Ava wasn't buying it. Auna and Parker have early release the next 2 weeks, it will be nice to have them around in the afternoons to play with the girls.

Parker PPK

Parker competed in the Punt Pass Kick sectional today in Tacoma and got 2nd place in his age group. It is judged on accuracy and length.His punt went 11 feet to the left so with the penalty he had 58'11". His pass was 75'6" and his kick was 90"7" and right on the line, the farthest of any of the kids. His total was 225'. For a kid that didn't want to go, it was a good effort.

Saturday

Papa took Rielee to her soccer game this morning and since it was raining, I stayed home with the twins. Papa said Rielee had quite a game, scoring 7 goals, after that the coach told her to start passing the ball more since the other team only had 4 players and they were getting tired. After we got her dried out and changed we went to meet Charb and Kelly at Parker's football game in Kelso. It was a close game but they lost. When we got home Parker spent the afternoon shredding paper, something he finds fun. Then he had his football banquet at Papa Pete's in the evening. The coaches gave out t-shirts to the players who made great plays during the season, he got one for spectacularly laying out a guy in one of their first games. On the way home we stopped by Robin's 50's birthday party, thinking it was probably over by then, but got there in time for the games (Rielee won a prize for hula-hooping) and cake, good timing!

Shucking corn

Papa managed to find a few more ears of kid-sized corn in the garden today, so he gave the girls a shucking lesson. They were doing great, until Harper found a bug in one of her ears, then she was done and hid behind Papa.

The girls made a huge mess in the playroom this afternoon, and this was in about 10 minutes! I had showed them the drawers where the Barbies and their clothes and accessories are stored, and they had a heyday. Papa also let them play with the dominoes. They really like to play with dolls, little animals, babies, and especially each other.

They spent the night with us and were alseep by 8:30.

Happy kids

We had the happiest girls this morning. They brought bear and dog from home and Ava got busy right away putting them to bed with one of their babies, using dish towels for blankets. They were playing so well until it was time for breakfast and they noticed that their highchairs were gone. They were near tears and kept saying "where highchairs?" and looking around, we had to distract them before they melted down. Then they were happy again until lunch and the same thing happened. We took them back to Kelly at the high school in the afternoon. When they walked in they saw Becky, Kelly's friend and co-worker, oh my gosh their reaction when they saw her was priceless, they screamed and squealed and ran to her, arms open wide, it was so cute-and loud, bringing several other people out of their offices to see what was happening! She is one of their favorite people.

Parker, Rielee and Auna at the Rockets volleyball game vs. Ridgefield tonight. They won in 3, are still undefeated and still ranked 4th in the state.

Dressing themselves

Our potty training isn't going anywhere yet but the twins have started to dress themselves. Harper managed to put her pants on all by herself today. This picture is of Ava giving it a try. Ava had a little, okay, it was a major meltdown on the way home today when Papa was trying to buckle her into her carseat. At her Dad's urging and with his help, she called Papa later to say she was sorry. The girls are so happy to see Auna after school everyday. She plays with them so well, and of course, they both had to sit on her lap to play with Play-Doh.

Playing with their cars

It was such a beautiful fall day, and lots of critters around to show the girls. "Hi caterpiller!" Harper said, then Ava showed him a special rock she was packing around
They also saw a ladybug and later on a walk over to visit Macee they found a grasshopper. In the afternoon they were playing with their cars, which they still haven't figured out how to propel with their feet, they just get out and push them.

Shadows

Ava and Harper were fascinated today by their shadows. Ava kept trying to catch

hers and had fun stepping on Papa and Harper's.

This afternoon we were anxious to see their reaction to the DVD player we set up for them in the car, and they didn't disappoint us. They were whooping and hollering when Papa turned on a Max and Ruby video, and he said he didn't hear a word out of them on the ride home. No more bored little commuters.

Harper was out of sorts today for some reason, we thought maybe she is cutting a tooth or something. She just wanted to be held most of the day, until Auna showed up, then she perked up and played. Their morning computer routine with Papa includes reading the blogs before going to Starfall

Papa and Ava

Harper spotted the cows over in the field so we walked over to feed them some apples. Then we went to swing on the big swing but they both saw some Halloween skulls in Gabe and Des' driveway that scared them so we had to go in the house after that because they wouldn't get down and walk anymore.

Ava's blanket

Ava was still tired this morning and obviously not at all ready to face the world. She does this in the car, too, when she gets frustrated that Papa won't stop and adjust her carseat. She first will complain that the straps are too tight, then she says her back hurts, and when Papa stops responding to her pleas-she hides under her blanket.

No more highchairs!

I love this picture Laury sent me this picture of Emmy taken Saturday during her match. It was "Dig Pink" night for breast cancer awareness and they auctioned off their jerseys during the match-Auna came home with Emmy's. Today we decided that the girls are eating neatly enough to eat at the table so they had breakfast at the big table and lunch at their little table. They have been protesting sitting in their highchairs lately so it was time.

After breakfast I attempted to continue with the "big girl" theme and have them try going potty but that was met with united opposition in the form of very loud shouting of "no potty" so we'll just take one step at a time for now.

Sick Harper

Poor little Harper was sick this morning and threw up as soon as she got here. Papa said she had drank a lot of water on the way here, and Charb said she seemed kind of sad with her head on his shoulder. I didn't want to feed her anything but she was starving and begging for food when we were fixing breakfast so we went ahead and let her eat, hoping it would stay down. It did, but she was very tired and listless all morning and just wanted to be held. Papa kept a bowl close by just in case Harper had another bout of nausea
After a 3 hour nap, she woke up very hungry and ate a big lunch and then seemed back to normal. She played happily with Ava all afternoon, with only 2 little disagreements. One over a book and the other over whether they would listen to the stereo and dance, or watch TV (they now know how to turn on the stereo and adjust the volume, too).
After Papa took the girls back to Grandma Barb and I dropped off Rielee at her piano lesson, we met at James' football game at Cascade. Parker and Auna came along with me. James' played well but they lost in OT.

Pumpkin Patch

Kelly sent me these pictures of their annual visit to the pumpkin patch today. Harper is really studying that pumpkin!

Such cute kids!

Kelly said Harper just loved her pumpkin and kissed, hugged and wouldn't let go of it!

R.A. Long and Homecoming

The Rockets played in and won the R.A.Long Tournament today. Macee and Ava Charb and Kelly brought the kids up and watched the last two matches.

It was funny after they won the championship, normally the team would pose for pictures with the trophy but being that the Homecoming dance is tonight and by then it was about 4:00 p.m.-they all just high fived and ran off the court to head home to get ready! As we were driving up the freeway, both Macee and Tierney passed us. Kenzie Dahl, Tierney and Macee
Unfortunately, my picture of all four girls (including Maddie Seidl) didn't turn out. It is so nice that these four girls have such a close friendship, playing volleyball, basketball and softball together. They and their dates all met at Macee's and left for the dance at the high school together.

After we left the picture-taking session we went over to the Dolan's to watch Emmy's match against Alaska on their computer, since for some reason the live video won't play on ours. It was fun to see Emmy's team win and she played well with 6 kills.

Picking up Rielee

Ava and Harper got to ride along with Papa today to pick up Rielee at school. I went to watch Macee perform in the Homecoming LipSync contest, she did great (lip syncing to Abba's "Dancing Girl") as did Tierney and Ty, and the Junior class won it. Papa said the girls sat in the hall nicely while they waited for Rielee. Rielee was thrilled that they came along.

James and Alan came over to visit after school and good grief, James is now taller than me! Parker stopped by to see James, too. We had a good time talking and reminiscing, and decided we need to go to Kah-Nee-Ta again next summer. After they left, Rielee called and asked if she could stay with us during the football game, she also asked if I would take her to Walmart to look for a Halloween costume. I tried to say no, that I was tired and would take her tomorrow but she started bawling so I caved and said okay. Auna went with us. Rielee found a witch costume, hat and broom at Walmart, striped tights and some black and green hairspray at Target, so she is all set for Halloween.

1st Craft

This afternoon I thought I would try doing a craft with the girls. Harper was busy having a snack with Papa so I took Ava by herself and let her make a pumpkin. She wanted circle eyes, a triangle nose and a smile for hers and did really well with the glue stick. When it was Harper's turn it got a little chaotic, she thought the glue was a marker at first and was frustrated when everything was sticking to her. Then Ava tried to help Harper put the eyes on her pumpkin, which Harper didn't like, of course, so our craft session wrapped up pretty quickly. They were proud of their finished pictures though and excited when they got to put them on the fridge.
In the evening we went to watch the Rockets beat Kalama.

Look alikes

The twins seem to be looking more alike the past couple of weeks. I had them mixed up a couple of times today, of course Papa has them mixed up more often than not. It didn't help that they were both wearing pink shirts and jeans.Papa got their strollers out today to take them for a walk, before long they were out and pushing them and he had to bring out their babies for rides instead.

Halloween preview

A couple of weeks ago Charb ordered Supergirl and Batgirl costumes for the twins but initially they were both afraid of the Batgirl and would only try on the Supergirl one. Tonight Harper finally decided she was going to be Batgirl, making Daddy very happy.A Super-hero hug!

Tonight Rielee took home the biggest pumpkin out of the garden, she was so proud of it and couldn't believe she actually grew it in her garden!

Emmy at St. Martin's

We started our day at 10:30 with Rielee's soccer game then went to part of Auna's soccer game at noon. Parker had a football game at 4:00, we watched them win and then headed to Olympia to watch Emmy's CWU volleyball team play St. Martin's College at 7:00. Macee rode up with us.

Emmy is #6 at the net waiting for a serve. Central won in 3 sets and Emmy had 4 kills. It was a fun match to watch with several long rallies.

Getting some instruction during timeout.

Macee, Tierney, and Emmy-3 happy cousins!

Everyone stayed to visit with Emmy after the game and we took lots of pictures. Emmy had 22 family members and friends that came up to watch her play, including her former coach Tiffaney Golden and her summer-league Alumni Team coach Judy Frandsen, and Uncle Barry (it was his first volleyball game ever!).
Emmy's fans!