Kevin and Alison

H a p p y H a l l o w e e n ! This picture cracks me up -- their expressions look like "my mom made me wear this weird costume" :) Bumblebee April Ladybug Chloe Lion Connor

Halfway to her first birthday, April weighs in at 13 pounds 8 ounces and is 25.5 inches long. This little girl is working on sitting up by herself and still really enjoys tummy time. In the last month, she's switched to sleeping on her belly. We put her to sleep on her back, but every time she wakes up, she's on her belly! She likes her swing and really enjoys bath time - just kicks and kicks when she's in the water. She eats rice cereal at breakfast and at dinner time, and will start baby food this month. She naps pretty well through out the day and even when we have to skip a rest time, she's usually a very pleasant baby! She might be our 'daredevil' girl because she likes to be (gently) tossed and bounced around :) April's favorite song is still Row Row Row Your Boat, although she seems to enjoy Chloe's singing too :) She is so joyful and we pray that she learns that true Joy comes from God! We love you April Hope!

Our interesting news this week ~ our driveway was completely re-done and is now concrete! It looks BEAUTIFUL! Can't wait until it's dried completely and we can 'play' on it :) A big thank you to Mimi and Poppop for helping make this much needed project a reality. Check out the pictures for the whole process: Before Digging started on Tuesday afternoon.... more digging and the frames going up: and the concrete was poured on Saturday....here is the first pour: First half done! The guys had to wait for it to start to harden, and then they put this nice pattern in and finished off the edges: The second half being poured: Chloe was watching a lot during the morning.... she was making sure they were doing it right :) Here are the guys putting the pattern onto the concrete- they stayed on those boards the whole time they were on the surface - good balancing act! Isn't it pretty? :)

I see the moon And the moon sees me God bless the moon and God bless me It makes me happy to remember that we all see the same moon - no matter how far apart some of our family members are. What a great thought - and a great Creator God!

I took my 'pumpkin heads' to the Pumpkin Patch! Well, April was a pumpkin head :) First, Chloe was scared of the tractor and we decided to play on the wooden one - and she was totally fine during the wagon ride! The wagon dropped us off in the middle of the pumpkin patch....We had to walk to find the perfect pumpkin: Found it! Looks good enough to eat: All that searching for the perfect pumpkin was exhausting: But we had enough energy left to feed the animals: and have lunch ourselves! :) It was a fun day! :)

I'm amazed every time I watch Chloe build towers with blocks.....Take a look...She built the whole thing by herself (I just didn't have the camera at the start)...

Good thing I had such good practice on my Barbie dolls ;) This child will only sit still long enough while watching tv, and by "sitting still" I mean wiggling the whole time ;) And this little Miss wants to make sure she's paying attention to everything that's going on. She's started scooting around in circles on the floor - always looking at all the activity! Practicing that scooting will soon lead to crawling!

Now I have two helpers in the kitchen! :) We made some pumpkin cookies! Hooray for Fall!

It's still fun for me to compare pictures of Chloe and Connor. Here are two examples (stole the pictures from Laura's latest blog post) from when they are both around 8 months :)

Just in case you were wondering..... Puppy is being taken care of.... ...this little girl loves him :) Oh, and April says hello! :) We miss you!