Pictures

On Monday we braved the weather and did some family pictures in our yard. Our friend Laura came to take the pictures, quite a task with Ethan fake smiling, Elijah all over the place and Amelia watching Elijah. Oh well, from the ones she has posted on her blog it looks like we got some good ones. If you want to check out the pictures she has on her blog I put her on my blogger friend list so you can click on it to view them.

Also a pregnancy milestone - I hit the halfway point this week, 20 weeks, yeah! Here's a picture for those who don't see me often.

Harvest Festival

Friday night was the Harvest Festival at School. The kids were very excited to go again this year! I was a volunteer for this event so I kept busy with meal portion of the evening while Mark took care of the kids. We had great weather and a wonderful turnout for our first fundraiser of the year!

Amelia showing off her face painting.

We quickly got Elijah on one of the inflatables before the "big kids" came back.

Ethan (in the orange) and his friend Ben riding the train.

Amelia trying her hand at the chicken toss.

Barnyard Billie making the kids balloon animals.

Ang & Elijah hanging out.

Elijah

Around 14 months old each grandkid gets their picture taken for Grandma Boender's wall. Boys wear Grandpa's shirt and girls wear one similar to the one Grandma wore in her baby picture. Grandma also took a 14 month pictures of each of her kids, which makes for fun comparing kids to parents at the same age wearing the same outfit.

My favorite of Elijah.

Another picture I liked.

As you can see he got sick of me taking his picture. :)

Soccer

Ethan started soccer on Tuesday night. He had lots of fun and enjoys playing so far. He is on team Navy with 5 other boys, they have a good coach and another dad who will help most nights. Mark got to help them on Thursday which Ethan LOVED! Ethan's favorite practice game is called "ouch" it's where the kids kick the soccer balls at the coachs trying to hit them and make them say ouch. If the coach/dads say ouch then the kid gets a point. The following pictures are from Ethan's first game last night.

Practice before the game.

Nice block Ethan!

Their game is four 12 minute quarters.

Nice kick!

Birdhouse Builder

One of Ethan's favorite hobbies to to build things out of scrap wood. He has made a couple cat houses and several other box-like structures. When I made a birdhouse at the GEMS campout I knew that Ethan would love to build one too. We had a couple extra so I was able to take one home for him. Here is a few pictures of us finishing up our project.

Getting ready to put the roof on.

A little help from mom to balance the boards.

The finished product!
Ethan's comment, "I think Grandma Van Den Broek would like this for her birds." :)

Praying Mantis'

If you've followed our family's blog for awhile you may remember my post in May about the cocoon of praying mantises that escaped in my kitchen. Anyway while pulling weeds in my garden I found three of the survivors all grown up.

Amelia's comment "MOM, don't touch him, he's disgusting!"

They kind of look like aliens.

Just to show you how big they got.