And we have reached October!

Yes I've taken a month off from updating the blog. Yes, I'm getting further and further behind. An up-to-date summary of our life is coming, just waiting for Carter's official 6 month measurements!

Anyway, here's October! It's interesting for me to jump back because four months ago we were really struggling to keep the smiles on every day. Alex and I were definitely leaning on all the help that we have around here, and were looking for a light at the end of the tunnel as far as Carter is concerned. Here are a few of my pictures from the first week.

I'm kind of a stickler about not buying kids toys unless they are needed. This being said, I was thrilled when we found a used bike at a kids sale, I just KNEW that Olivia would love it, and it had a handle that would allow me to push while carrying Carter in a pack. So I was a little anxious and premature in taking a walk with her. She wasn't interested at all in the bike, she just took off for her regular walk. 'It's so much faster to run Mommy!'

Luckily there is a cone on the path that always allows me to catch up to her. She loves to dance on this bird-poop-covered caution cone!

Some friends from Fresno came to visit their family in Oregon that week, so we got to have a play date with Elli! It was so fun to see the girls play together, and at such a more independent stage than they were 5 months ago :).

 My picture resizing isn't working, so all of these pictures are stuck small. Here is the start to my packing list for our first trip with 2 kids! It was SOOOO long! This is just the kids page. There were a lot of family events and other things that we needed specific clothes for, and we wanted to wear orange as much as possible, so this trip took major planning. I'm hoping that future trips with the kids will get easier :), and maybe my brain will be more used to packing for four!

And yes, this is 4 days before we left...I had to start early, and consulted my list often.

OOPS! A neighbor accidentally backed into the door of the Focus :). Honestly I wasn't very broken up about it. We rarely drive the car, and I never loved it to begin with, so it's wasn't a very big deal. Gary was great about taking care of all the repairs, and we got a new door panel out of it :). We were hoping the car would need a paint job (it has peeling paint all over the hood and roof), but no such luck. Anyway, we got it back before too long, and it was totally good.

These two pictures were taken about 1 minute apart. Can you guess the story? The first is showing Olivia with my pump, 'feeding baby'. I thought it was hilarious, so I ran to get the picture instead of taking the heavy hard thing away from the almost two-year-old. Needless to say, she got too excited and threw the pump, and I had my first experience with two screaming kids who needed to be consoled. Luckily I picked up Carter and he quieted right down, so I was able to help Olivia know that she wasn't in trouble.

 Maybe the silliest thing I have done since having Carter was to go to a tailgate in Corvallis the day before we left for our big Boise/Utah trip. I have a hard time declining an invitation to a party, so we dressed the kids in orange (yes that majorly messed up my packing) and headed down to the game. We just went to the tailgate, then came back home, but we did have fun. O had some new friends to play with, and she got right to showing them how to dance and cheer. Later I found her on the bridge throwing nuts into the creek below with Kathy :). She loves Aunt Kathy, and asks to go to her house almost daily. A few times, she has grabbed her purse and said bye; when I asked her where she was going she always says 'kathy house'. I'm not at all surprised, because Kathy has both Toby and the marbles at her house :). Who can beat that?