This is Halloween!

Halloween is always such a fun time of year for us! As usual, we were chalked full of fun activities. Here are a few snapshots of them.

We always love our trips out to the pumpkin patch. I love finding weird gourds to decorate the house with!

This is a few shots from our pumpkin carving party. I made my chicken tortilla soup and fun was had by all!

Here is our house all spooky and ready for trick or treaters!

We had a thunder and lightning machine, a fog machine, dry ice, and spooky music playing. We love decorating!

Here are a few shots of the family at the ward Halloween party.

Ellis was a BYU cheerleader, Rowan a shark, and Chandler a viking!
Bobby was a crusader and I was a country music singer.

The night of Halloween Ellis was Cinderella and I was a vampire.

We had a great Halloween and can't wait for the holiday season right around the corner!

It's Apple Season!

It's apple season in Northern California, which means Apple Hill time! One of our family traditions is to drive up to Camino each fall and visit the many apple ranches off of Hwy 50. Our favourites are High Hill Apple Ranch pictured below and Rainbow Ranch. We get caramel apples, apple cider, apple fudge, and fun crafts at High Hill. At Rainbow Ranch we get apple donuts, Bobby's favourite!

The ranch stocks the lake with fish for the kids to fish for.

Chandler brought his friend Matt and Josh with us this year.

A couple in our ward has apple trees that were overloaded with apples and they gave us a whole box! I quickly set to work and made apple pies and apple butter. Since it is also peach season I also made two little peach pies and canned some peaches as well. I never knew I liked canning and baking so much!

Home grown apples.

My apple pie!

Canned peaches, apple butter, and an apple marinade, so yummy!

Two little peach pies... to die for!

Farewell to Gaston

These are the last shots of our cockerel, Gaston before I took him back to the feed store where I bought him. I would have loved to have kept him, but we aren't allowed to have roosters in the city. :(

Just as we finally got up the gumption to get rid of Gaston a suspicion I had was confirmed this morning that our little Chouette is actually Claude. We heard this little guy beginning his weak new crow this morning!

The first signs I had where the hackles (the feathers around his neck) and the pointed feathers draping around his tail. He doesn't have a large comb and that's why I wasn't sure.

Rowan goes to preschool and work??

 Rowan started preschool this year! He is in a co-op down in Rocklin with some other kids from the Rocklin Stake. There are 6 boys and each mom takes a turn doing pre school at her house for a week. Rowan loves it and I'm told that he's the calm one. He comes home with fun projects and coloring that he's done. When I pick him up the first thing he asks me is, "Where is sister?" They don't like to separated for long!

Chandler also started Jr. High this year and loves it!

Rowan has a new game he loves to play. Every morning when he wakes up, the first thing he wants are his tools. He get's into the drawer and gets his measuring tapes and masking tape. Then he says he has to go to work. This is what he does...

I find this on the house, the cars, the plants. He very carefully measures and then tapes everything! Whenever Bobby is doing any home projects Rowan is always right there helping. He loves working with tools and building. I've had to begin hiding the screwdrivers...

Berry Time!

It's Blackberry Pie season! This pie is always special to me because my mother's birthday is on July 20th. For her birthday every year my grandma would make her a blackberry pie rather than a cake. After my grandma passed it was up to me to make the traditional pie.

Here are a few pictures of this year's pie. And yes, they are as yummy as the look!

We have eggs!!!

For a few days now our chickens have been acting a little odd. They run to us as soon as we come outside and follow us around. They seem extra friendly and also extra loud. We knew that any day we should be expecting eggs, as Fifi and Cosette are both 5 months old now.

I expected that the hens may begin to lay, but not use the boxes we built for them. We put golf balls in the nesting boxes to encourage them to lay their eggs there. Since I knew that there should be eggs any day I thought that today I would check the nesting boxes to see if there was anything in there, or at least some ruffling of the pine shavings. This is what I found!

Patience is not my strong point.

I've been dreaming about running. In my dream I can run far and fast and it feels wonderful. When I wake up I remember that I can't and it sucks. I hurt my knees in June. It's IBTS or runner's knee. I've kept off the running, I've been to the doctor, but I really haven't done much to prevent the problem coming back.

I've been planning to run Wharf to Wharf since March when I started running. It was a goal to show myself that I can do anything I set my mind to. The running has not only helped me to lose 40 pounds, but the mental health has been unbelievable! When I had to stop running, my motivation for any exercise kind of went out the door. I didn't know what to do or where to start. I did some walking, but just didn't get the rush or the accomplished feeling that I get after a run.

Anyway, I was planning on walking the Wharf to Wharf with some other ladies that were walking too. At the start of the race we had to jog, just a little to kind of filter everyone out... It was like giving a junky crack, I couldn't stop running. It felt SO wonderful! I told the other ladies that I was just going to run for a few minutes and then fall back on the right and walk again until we caught up to each other. I'm so impatient. I couldn't help myself and ran the first mile.

The running felt so great that at first I thought that I might be able to run the whole race, but by about .75 miles I could feel my knees. I got to the first mile marker and knew I had to start walking. I kept a fast walk, but by the end of the 2nd mile my knees actually hurt and the limp started. I had to limp out the rest of the 4 miles. I was so disappointed, so frustrated, and so embarrassed with myself for not just walking the whole thing.

I spent the rest of the day in a kind of haze. My husband and I were sitting in a restaurant on the water, eating fish tacos, great weather, and I was just blahhh. I couldn't shake the upset all day.

Today, I feel the motivation to call personal trainer and get my knees back in shape. I don't ever want to be in this position again. Obviously, just staying off the knees isn't going to make it better and I need to figure out what I'm going to do to keep myself from getting fat and crazy again! Today I'm really going to start healing. :)

Our new walk in closet!

We bought our dream home a year ago this last July and we have loved it! However, there are a few improvements to be made here and there. A big one was our master bedroom closet. It only held Bobby's clothes and I kept my clothes in the walk in closet downstairs. This week Bobby decided it was time to move me back in!

This was the closet before.

You can see into Ellis' room from our room. Her closet backed up to ours.

Here are Bobby and Grandpa Knotts tearing down the walls between the two rooms. (The fun part!)

I don't think Ellis quite knows what's going here.

Chandler and Uncle Bryce were a huge help!

Here, they have framed in the new wall in our room.

Grandpa is teaching Chandler how to use a drill. They are making Ellis a new closet.

A new wall in the back of the closet and in Ellis' room. We still have to texture and paint it.

Ellis' closet has dry wall, almost done!