fall festival

As a family we don't celebrate Halloween. Every year instead, growing up, we did a fall festival. We had a big family/ home school group that participated growing up. The last couple years my Aunt Nancy has been kind of hosting it herself. So this year I decided to revamp and and hopefully reinvigorate the festival. This year I set up all the games and had each family bring prizes for a game and one member of the family hosted the game. We ended up putting Joe, James, Rachel (she created her own obstacle course), my mom, Uncle Matt, Aunt Nancy, and then all the parent "volunteers" on games. It was really fun we had several throwing games, walk of colors, bingo, ring toss,mystery box, a few other games..., pumpkin painting, tattoo station (we didn't have any artistic volunteers for face painting) and a food station with hot fresh popcorn and decorate you own cookies. I think everyone one had lots of fun.

when the festival is over we all share a potluck meal. William was wiped and couldn't keep his eyes open any more. This year Rachel set up an obstacle course. At the end of the day it was a huge hit. Here Charity is taking her turn.
Allie was hanging out there with daddy at the obstacle course

It was so fun to have James and Joe "host games" this year.

Joe was running basket ball bounce

Little Autumn getting in on the action

Josh sneaking some pop corn while running the ring toss

My mom hosting character Bingo

The kids painting pumpkins

Gav participating in the basketball bounce. Nate did animal balloons which were really fun

Carson ridding the bike

Allie getting on the trampoline

She is so cute!

Wills on the obstacle course. He did really well

the festival was really fun. Chrisy helped me set everything up and I am always so thankful for her. She makes doing this stuff really fun because she is creative and very helpful. Thank you everyone who came!

update

I am sorry that I have ignored my blog for the last couple of weeks. I haven't been feeling well and with Nick in school three days a week it makes for some long weeks for me. We are finally getting into a routine for our weeks. On Mondays Nick comes home for lunch (he usually does) and then is gone till 9:30 so the kids and I usually go to my parents house. Tuesday he comes home from 4-5:15 and then leaves till 9:30 we usually stay home and hang out. On Wed he gets home at 6:30. On Wednesday mornings William has been participating in our little "mothers church" preschool. There are 9 kids and they meet on for an hour and half . One mom teaches, one assists and the others watch the kids. It has been so much fun for us. He is really enjoying learning and it helps us to keep doing a "school" throughout the week. I have been really impressed by how much he is developing. He is really motivated at home to to do his work. I love it! I have noticed a huge improvement in his desire to learn "school", his writing has improved a ton, his coloring is better, and he is even able to focus better. I was pretty worried a few months ago that he wouldn't like school at all and he would be really hard to teach. He seemed a little dense but I have been really excited to find out that he actually loves it and is doing really well. Anyway... the rest of the week is pretty normal we go up to my parents house a lot because the kids and Nick can't handle staying at our apartment. The kids love Grandma and grandpa's house. They love to ride the dirt bike and quad and play with the Thornton's.

With such busy weeks we really enjoy our weekends which go way to fast! This last weekend we headed up to Cisco Grove (right below Tahoe and part of Tahoe National Forest) the weather was beautiful! Sunny and just crisp enough. We took the jeep and did a little mild off roading. We went up to Sterling lake. It took about an hour to go 8 miles. I love little family trips! they are so fun and special.before we headed out we stopped at REI and bought William some water proof boots. He was pretty stoked! We tried on another pair of shoes first and he was like they are ok then we put the boots on and he was like MOMMY LETS BUY THEM! it was really cute! he didn't seemed to understand however that if water got over the boots his feet would still get wet. I guess we will be working on that.such a sweet little baby! she is getting so big!William climbed up on this rock and anything brother can do so can she...supposedly. I love this picture though.i couldn't pick my favoritedaddy helpingThis is William tolerant face. He doesn't want to take a picture but mommy wants him to.this was pretty steep! I was impressed that William could climb it so well with those killer new boots.this girl tries to climb everything and she falls a lot so Nick finally just put her on his shouldershelping allie upso cute!determined Little girl. She cracks me up! she is such a tenacious little thing. She likes to do everything herself. She runs everywhere!!! i guess walking just isn't fast enough. She adores her daddy and starts yelling at him as soon as he comes in the house. She loves to yell. Thankfully not scream. She hates to be left out of anything. She loves the word no. She likes to try to say words. She loves to follow William everywhere and do whatever he is doing. Although they fight all the time they love each other. She loves to drive dirt bikes and quads. She is starting to hit and throw fits. When she doesn't get what she wants she will sits down and cry. She is a sweet little girl and she is getting so big! Everyone keeps mentioning how long her hair is. She does have a lot of hair and it is still curly in the back. I am sure there are a lot of other things I should mention about our sweet little baby who is growing so fast but that is all I can think about at the moment.We had a Thornton family reunion two weeks ago. I didn't take many pictures. (you might be thankful :) Here William is walking Bubba. He loves dogs!!! he can't wait to get one.Aunt Sue feeding a bottle to AutumnGrandma helping Allie in the bounce house. She wouldn't go in aloneThe other thing that we do a lot of in the fall is watch soccer games. I can't believe that William can play soccer next year. It should be fun. He gets to play with Kate so we are very excited about that.This was Rebecca and Karissa's game. Risa is the big scorer on the team and Becca actually got right in there this game.I am sorry these are all out of order. I didn't pay attention and blogger won't let me move the pictures. Soooo... here are some pictures of my concert weekend. Nick watched the kids Friday and Saturday night (a few weeks ago) so I could go to two concerts.I didn't bring the Camera so these are from my cell. My mom, sister and cousin Jocey went to a Colbie Callet concert. It was fabulous! I love her music. Back to more soccer. Here is Nate couching Gavthe cousins watching the gameWills playing during one of the gamesCharity is a super star this year. I think she has only played one game that she hasn't scored in. She scored three goals this game. It is pretty funny cause she is way smaller then most the players.Allie being a trouble maker in an unstable chairMy second concert of my concert weekends was Brad Paisley. Rachel bought me tickets for my birthday. It was a great present and we both had a blast!this is my favorite picture... LOL rach took itit is so uncomfy to pose for a picture by yourselfI only brought the 50 mm lens so it is hard to see. It was so fun!!!cute little kidsAllie climbs everything!Charity had a princess party back at the end of August. I had several pictures but a few of them got deleted some how. bummer sorry! this picture makes me laugh. It is kind of embarissing honestly. I got to be the special princess for the day and put on Chrisy's wedding dress. I had to squeeze but it fit. LOL