Dusty

The Hardins had a pet this weekend. Conleigh brought home her class pet, a guinea pig. I was being a good sport mom to have it come home, but we have thoroughly enjoyed having Dusty here. The kids have loved checking in on him and petting him. This is the funniest picture. Alex was enjoying holding & petting Dusty. All of the sudden Alex is wiggly and we lift Dusty up & he had taken care of business all over Alex's lap. It was hilarious.
Below is when I think Alex was getting soaked by Dusty. Now is the photo of him between laughing & crying.

Conleigh had told her teacher she was going to put Dusty in a Barbie car, so here is evidence of that.
I enjoyed watching the kids enjoy the pig.

I'm still not ready to get a pet though.

Fall is Here

All the decorations will be up before the weekend is over!

12 years ago today...

I went on a first date. It wasn't the last one with this special guy. He's still my main squeeze. I love you Peter!

Thankful Thursday

My family. We each put a handprint in our new patio. It is hard to see but the order L to R is: Kate, Campbell, Alex, Conleigh, Peter!

The patio & stair reveal coming soon. Wait for it!

Out with the Old

These two sets of pitiful stairs have been the entrance to our house since we bought it five plus years ago now. Peter says it is like someone built the house and then said, "oh, how do we get into it?" And they proceeded to build the smallest, cheapest stairs they could.



The house has survived for the last 30+ years this way, but I'm happy to say that as of tomorrow we will have 'majestic' stairs as one friend calls them. Juan and his crew have been working for close to two weeks on more grand stairs and ones that don't let the rain sit on the porch like you can see in these photos. We are also having our patio enlarged and steps made down to the driveway from the backyard. Pictures of the new concrete coming soon.

Tri Alex

Getting Marked!
Tiny bike, big ride!
We are so proud of Alex! He did a Triathlon this morning. His friend Marko participated in it as well. It was limited to 250 kids, and 58 of those were 5-6 year olds. Of course, the course was abbreviated. Alex swam 25 meters, rode his bike half a mile, and ran 500 meters. We don't have his time yet. I'll update when we do. He had a great time, and we think if he had a reasonable bike, he would have rocked it even more. One dad called Alex's 12 inch bike, a clown bike. I hauled it to the car as soon as I could. I didn't want Alex to have his feelings hurt, but needless to say, I think his birthday next month will bring a much larger bicycle this way. Buddies, Alex & Marko!
This Triathlon was run by a group called Colin's Hope. Colin was a 4 year old who had completed swimming lessons, and the very next day drown in shallow water. The group is committed to teaching about how quickly & silently drowning can occur. Proud finisher! Mom, Alex & Dad!
While we were at the race, Conleigh & Campbell stayed home with Granny. Conleigh worked on making this scary haunted house with various colors of clay. Our first Halloween decoration. I really like it. She is so creative.

She's a Dancing Queen

Campbell enjoyed her second dance class today and then went on to have a dance party here at home. Granny & I were her audience. She is one fancy, dance-y girl!