Our big boy is learning to read!!!

Evus went to visit his brother last week and they gave him these great little books that their kids love to read.  Willard has been inhaling them!  They go perfectly with the reading lessons he has been doing with mommy. (Englemann's "Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons")

We are so proud :)

A Beautiful Week of Adventures

The weather this past week was absolutely perfect.  I love waking up to the fog...and Evan and I have decided that the more fog in the morning the better the rest of the day.  By noon it melts off and the rest of the day is nothing but blue sky and crisp but warm fall weather.

We found a fish ladder right outside of town.  We only saw one small fish but it was really cool and we will be checking back in hopes of seeing more migrating fish.

Next we escaped to the North Umpqua Trail and found this beauty along the Tioga Trail--Deadline Falls.

The leaves in the Cascades are beautiful and we spent most of our time breaking rocks open (the boys LOVE this past time) and so do we!  Our little miss even got into the action on daddy's back.

To celebrate the end of the week we escaped to Cavitt Creek Falls and decided that this was our favorite spot so far.

It is secluded and peaceful.  The small falls empty into a big open pool and there is a camp ground right new to the creek.  We are planning to go back next summer and camp so we can play in that pool, it is so fun...anyone want to come and join us???

And we discovered a covered bridge that was so Ichabod-ish :)

We finally broke down and bought a year pass to the Wildlife Safari that is only 15 minutes from our home.  Turns out that there is this small town next to where we live that has this amazing Wildlife Park.  They have a sweet village you can walk around for free and see lots of animals and then there is a HUGE park you can drive around and see TONS of amazing animals in a very free and wild setting.  Our boys LOVE it and we went twice this week.  We were able to take some new friends through too and the boys had fun hanging out with their buddies in the back of the van watching out for wildlife.  If you come to visit plan on seeing this place!

Last of all we ended the week with a festive trip to the local Farm market with some new friends.  We took a haywagon ride out to the pumpkin field and the kiddos got to pick out their perfect pumpkins.

Willard picked the one that was the hugest!

Porky loved his because it was not like any other pumpkin in the patch.

(And we picked up a cute little one for Little Miss)

 Loved this photo of brotherly love...this little girl is learning patience early :)

There was a corn maze and a hay maze and after exploring through each we called it an evening.  The weather was perfect and all I can say is we are LOVING autumn in Oregon :)

Columbus Day--Spice of Life

Columbus Day...what an interesting holiday.  Columbus was not the nicest man...nor was he the first to "discover" the Americas.  However he was the first European explorer to stay and because of that many came and so his journeys are significant.
 

So we celebrated by learning about three ships that made the first journey (Pinta, Nina, and Santa Maria) and we made Spiced Cider because of the Spice Trade.

The boys didn't dig the cider much...more for me :)

The Falling Leaves

The fall colors are in beautiful display here in Oregon.  The boys each made a beautiful artistic tribute to the season this week.

In the end I had to join in too :)  Happy Autumn!!!

General Conference

There is something about a man in a suit holding a baby girl in a sweet little dress that just makes me happy.

So, twice a year members of the Mormon church (that is us) listen to our leaders all weekend long (8 hours worth).  It is a big deal.  We look forward to it and love it.  In our family we go to the church to listen and with three kids it is no simple practice.  We enter the chapel with boxes of supplies and blankets and snacks. After a few years of doing this every six months are kids are pretty use to it though and spend most of the time coloring or putting together floor puzzles.  Evan and I do our best to listen and I can truthfully say I always leave feeling a distinct warmth of the spirit inside.  It feels good to be gathered and listening to prophets and apostles.

So lately I am rereading a great book about finance called "The Automatic Millionaire" by David Bach.  It has some pretty simple but effective tips on paying yourself first and saving up for retirement...blah blah, and what does this have to do with General Conference.

Anyway...as I was reading this week something caught my attention and really struck me.  After setting up the basic principles of finance that this author wanted his readers to put into practice, he had a section titled "Taking Action".  In this section he made the simple statement, "Inspiration unused is merely entertainment.  To get new results, you need to take new actions."  That thought really stayed with me this week as we prepared for Conference.

As wonderful as it is to sit and hear uplifting talks about increasing spirituality and nearing ourselves to Christ, if the feelings felt don't lead to new actions all we have done is entertained ourselves all weekend.  What we learned has to be used.  New results in our lives require us to take "new actions".  I'm thankful that the spirit drew my attention to this idea this week and I hope to work more diligently from today forward to set goals and make changes based on what I have felt in our church meetings.

If anyone has not listened to a Mormon Conference and would like to, you can access them here:

http://www.lds.org/general-conference/watch?cid=HPFR100413105&lang=eng

Wizard of Oz--revisited

A few weeks ago we read "The Wizard of Oz" and had a lot of fun with preschool activities that were tied to the story.  In all of this, we anticipated the upcoming release of the 75th Anniversary DVD that would be sold at Walmart starting October 1st.  So this week I ran to the store to buy "The Wizard of Oz" and we had ourselves a little party.  The boys brought out all their stuffed dogs to act as "Toto".  We drank "Liquid Courage"--which is not in the movie, but in the book...either way water is significant in the story as it melts the witch.  And because the water melted the witch...we ate her hat.  We also had Emerald City candy and Oreo because the Winkies like them (at least that is what great advertising has led me to believe).  It was simple and fun.  The boys actually really liked the movie, I would recommend it to anyone.  Its an oldie but a goodie :) and a great way to kick off October.  Any guesses what we are going to be for Halloween?