Keeping current? Not gonna happen!

 Every few months when I finish a post, I think to myself, "If I can just keep on top of it, I won't need to post 3,247 pictures and spend two hours writing captions. I'll come back to this in a month and just upload a few." And then TWO MONTHS later, I'm on the computer, silently cursing myself and spending-you guessed it-two hours uploading photos and writing captions. *sigh*
Anyway, on with the photos!

This? This is the 40-foot climbing tower. The pink blob near the top? Bella. The first girl at her American Heritage Girls camping trip to make it to the top and ring the bell. She inspired a bunch of others to do the same.

Awful picture of us at Halloween. We did a Star Wars theme, so Joshua is the emperor, I'm Princess Leia from The Empire Strikes back, Bella is a Jedi, and Ryan is Darth Vader.

The kids are ready to go! Except it was windy and miserable and it SLEETED (slet? haha). So they made it an hour (with us driving them around!) and headed back home to watch Netflix and gorge ourselves on chocolate.

Bella got her ears pierced. She was a trooper and has since (yep, six weeks later as I type this) kept them clean and infection-free!

 Mid-November brought the Lego KidFest to Indy and we all headed there after church. It was fun! A bit different from the other Lego event we went to, but they handed out free Lego kits and the kids had a blast, so it's all good.

This boy was a BIT excited while we waited for them to open the event.

So creative! And completely made of Legos!

That's a pile of two MILLION Legos, folks.

I have cute kids.

Lightning McQueen! Made of Legos! If they had had PB&J there, it would have been a Ryan trifecta.

Love Bella doing her Captain Jack Sparrow impression.

 So, Joshua and I are sitting next to the brick pile, and I can't find Bella. Anywhere. I start sweeping the room, looking for the pink shirt. I walk toward the pile to ask Ryan if he knows where she is. And that's when I see her. Well, part of her. She made some friends with a few other girls (surprise!) and they'd buried her.

 You've seen Ryan's hair. You know there's no hope. That's why, the night he got it cut, I took a picture to remind myself that his hair CAN be tamed. If only until the gel dries and it reshapes itself into the crazy horns and swirls that are, and probably forever will be, Ryan's hair.

 I made the list! Ryan had to write what he was thankful for and here's the list, in case you can't read it: hoodie, May, Christmas, cars, Mom, trains. Love it!

 Our first snow at the house. The kids tried so hard to sled down the "hill" in the backyard.

Bella drew this on the window. I absolutely adore it. I love how she thinks Joshua is "aswesome."

Ryan's race track. He even has a pit lane. He ran many a race on this track with his NASCAR cars.

And somehow, I lost the few Thanksgiving pictures I thought I had. Christmas is in just over a week-you'll probably see those pictures in February. :o)

Winding Down

Oops! Time to catch up on all those pictures that I've taken but haven't posted about. The problem is I'm so busy being in the middle of things, that I rarely stop and think, "Hey, this would make a great blog post." None the less, here's what's been going on since...September! Yikes! (Blogger has a new photo format, so these are not necessarily in order. You'll be okay.)

A young man and his love of fishing! He was the only one who caught anything that day!

A trip to Missouri ALWAYS includes Braum's ice cream. Ryan has "cake batter" all over his mouth.

Dad put all the leaves in the ditch and we burned them. That's one of the best smells! But first, Ryan gets to play!

Remember this picture from 2007?

Here's the 2011 version. (I couldn't get them side by side.)

Kept the kids busy forever letting them throw rocks in the river.

We went here to see the thousands and thousands of lights. Bella rode her first roller coaster-she loved it!

A trip to "Ko-go" as Ryan calls it (Kroger). I didn't have to push a cart at all!

Ryan's new obsession is Cars. He asks to watch it every day. This is him, pleading his case with an adorable "Pweeeeease?" It's tough to resist!

Bella asked for another library picture. She practically covers the flower now.

The lobster tank. We visit this every.single.time we go to Meijer. Notice how Bella's dressed to go grocery shopping. In November.

Here's Bella in her little scrubs before her mole removal surgery. Despite the look on her face, this is before the meds kicked in! She had an amazing recovery and didn't have a bit of pain.

Bella loved her costume and told everyone she was Queen Esther. I had to bribe Ryan with the idea of candy in order for him to wear his prince cape (hard to see in the photo). In the end he wore it, and mopped up in mini candy bars and sugary treats.

This is classic Isabella-in her cute little flowered apron, having just helped me in the kitchen, with a toad she caught in the back yard! She's a brave one-I wouldn't go near it!

Not the clearest shot of this, but when Ryan doesn't get his way (or walk the direction he wants, as in this picture), we crinkles up his face and pouts. Although disobedient, it's absolutely adorable.

One of our treats is going to Arby's. The kids can split a $1 sandwich, I always have some sort of coupon for mine, and we split a $1 Jamocha shake. I have no idea what Bella's doing here.

A boy in love. Our library had a model train show and the four of us headed over. Ryan was enamored of all the different layouts and sizes, went back to this one twice, didn't want to leave, and cried when we had to. My poor baby boy!

Fall Fun

Halloween's up first (just because that's how I added the pictures). We went to the pumpkin patch and found the cutest little pumpkin there-look!
So we had our pumpkin picked out and thought we'd do a family-type carving. About two minutes in we realized that there was nothing for Bella to do. So she ran off and played and Joshua carved this amazing cat pattern onto our pumpkin.
We headed off to the zoo for "ZooBoo" and to sort of test-drive the costumes. On Halloween proper, we trick-or-treated around Bill and Volere's neighborhood. Isabella wasn't sure how the whole thing worked. Once she got the hang of it though, she was hooked.

I love how close the kids are (for the most part). We didn't even prompt this shot, they just sort of started walking off into the sunset by themselves.
This gives a good view of Ryan's deviled egg costume and Bella's ladybug getup. Plus, the look on Bella's face is priceless.
But not as priceless as this face. I don't remember what her deal was that day. It's Bella-there's no telling!
And here's a shot I took from the local news channel-one of three Joshua was on that day! It was so cool to see him in his uniform, doing the job he loves, even if it's just standing around securing the area. What a handsome devil he is!
The jumpy-jump has really taken a beating the past few days. We always love to watch the kids play in it, and especially love Bella's hair afterwards!
A beautiful fall day, Joshua's day off, a trip to the park. Here Joshua shares a slide trip with Ryan, although Ryan generally takes the slides at the other park by himself.
I'm biased, but I believe I have the cutest baby boy out there!
And the cutest mountain-climbing daughter!
One of the big deals around here was moving Ryan to his big boy bed after he'd jumped his crib into oblivion. Here he is the night we first tried it out: We went back in before bed and found him asleep on the floor (we would have gotten a picture but we were "Daisy sitting" and she bum-rushed him awake).

One night we found him like this...
And this...And this...Finally success!
This is how Bella sleeps. It cracks me up every time.
Here she is fresh from Nana's. She loves Nana's because it's a bacchanalian feast of Nick Jr. shows, goldfish crackers, and, as you can see, blueberries. I think she rather resembles the Joker in the latest Batman movie-don't you?
One day I took the kids to the park to walk the nature trail. Nothing special, just some shots of that.

Isabella loves coffee. Not just likes. And not just the sweetened, creamered stuff that I drink that's more like dessert than coffee. She likes black coffee. Here she is finishing Joshua's java before heading off to dance class.
Drive-in movie day! I was supposed to use a decorated cardboard box, but didn't have one Bells could sit in, so she got the laundry basket. The add-on snack tray has popcorn. You can tell Ryan is hovering as he usually does around food.
Tie + onesie + random pose = adorable picture!
As I mentioned last month, since we don't have a backyard, we have taken over the courtyard behind our house. Here are just some random shots I took of the kids while they played.

Ryan is wearing his "Awesome! See above for details" shirt.
Bella all dressed up for the "Fancy Nancy Parfait Soiree" at the library. We weren't familiar with the character, but thought we'd go for the free ice cream! I actually don't approve of Fancy Nancy-at least not her risque clothes! We'll stick to Dora, Blues Clues and Olivia (a pig from Nick Jr.).

Ryan running through his vocabulary so far and helping with the housework!


And I leave you with a fresh-just-two-minutes-ago quote, another one of those things you never think you'll say to your child: "Ryan, the crescent roll is NOT a piggy bank!" He took the roll I was saving for Bella, found some spare change on the dining room table, and put two and two together! Ah, never a dull moment...