Jack turns 6...

A typical Jack look when one asks for him to smile for the camera! I try to get him to show his teeth, but he is following in the footsteps of his dad with only a smirk. I do love it, though!

Jack got this hat for Halloween, as part of his costume. He has not not worn it for one day since. It is his security blanket!

I thought I would include this one, because the hat is often turned backward like this!

Jack about to enjoy a birthday cupcake up in Portland. While not a natural smile on his face, he really was excited to eat the cake.

A hiking we will go...

We found these huge maple leaves that we all collected. Jessica and I took a funny picture posing with the leaves!

This was the waterfall at the end of the hike. I love this picture that Jessica captured. Great light, and a great shot of Jack.

The kids eagerly awaiting the hike. I love the hat on Jack with his ears folded forward!

The epic...

There is a lot to look at below. November is a month of celebration for us Parkers! We have birthdays, visits from family, Thanksgiving. I hope that you enjoy what follows this blog entry. I have a love/hate relationship with this month. I love to celebrate birthdays because it is fun to think about my children getting older and how they have changed/grown up in a year, BUT it is also way too crazy. It is a time filled with lots of sugar and promises about how we will do it differently next year to make it more calm - which in reality probably won't happen. The good thing is the kids are loved on, and feel special on their day. They love celebrating with each other - I do love having their birthdays close for that reason!

I could go on, but won't. Enjoy the pictures and the very little editorial that I have included with the pictures. Then rest assured that there is still more to come in the next couple of days - we still have pictures of Jack's actual birthday day, and I am hoping to document my turning 35 - welcome to the mid-30's! Stay tuned...

The birthday party...

Molly being sung to before she blows out the candle with cheezits in her mouth!

Jack blowing out his candle!

Molly enjoying the wave pool in the shallow part!

Jack riding the waves all by himself! Later we got the bright idea that it would be a better idea to have him wear a life jacket while riding the waves by himself since he does not know how to swim all by himself. He loved the wave pool, and had no fear going out there by himself.

Welcome to the family...

Last Friday, we welcomed a new addition to the family...baby Sam, Sammy, Samantha! Molly received a new baby doll for her birthday. She loves her, and has promptly put baby Betsy in the baby cradle to sleep since Friday. Today I asked her if baby Betsy didn't need to wake up and play or eat, and she said that it was not time to wake her up and that she needed to keep sleeping. I am beginning to wonder if baby Betsy will ever wake up again! Baby Sam has provided much opportunity to pretend play for Molly, which for a mom is always fun to watch. She has changed her diaper, fed her, walked her, read to her, taken her for a walk to the grocery store, burped her, etc. You get the idea - Molly is in love and welcoming to the idea of being a mother to her baby - ahh, the mother hen personality trait is being fed!

Molly & the hat...

My mom knit this hat, and Molly immediately fell in love with it! I captured these great pictures of her. It was pure luck that the hat matched her outfit and skin coloring perfectly. I think she could be a child model - don't you think?!

My niece, Rynn...

I love this picture. I was trying to capture all the grandkids with Grammy. Rynn for some reason was wanting to take all the pictures with her mouth open. When I look at this one, I smile really big. There was no sound to come with the open mouth, but I got a lot with her mouth opened like this!

Molly turns 4...

So, I am couple of days late on this post - it has been busy! Molly turned four last Friday! We journeyed up to Portland to pick up Grammy. While there, we decided to have a little family birthday lunch with my brother and her cousins. We ate yummy pizza, then we went for cupcakes. This is Molly's red velvet cupcake. She loved it, but was too full from all the lunch she ate that we ended up taking it home with only a little icing missing from the teeny tiny licks she took while at the shop.

Who can go the deepest?...

I captured this picture on our recent trip to Portland to pick up Grammy. We ate lunch with Jason and the girls. We were hanging out at their house. I tried to get some candid pictures of Grammy with all four grandkids. I happened to get this picture, which when I saw it brought a smile and a little giggle to my face. What are the chances of getting a picture with BOTH kids picking their noses? It also kind of looks like Jack is getting some coaching from Grammy on how to get a good one!

Halloween 2009...

Halloween was a fun filled day at the Parkers. I got up early for a run with my good friend, then we meet other ladies from the church for our monthly Women's walk and coffee...all the while Kyle and the kids were gearing up for a day of Duck football (it was a big game for the Ducks against the USC Trojans)! I came home long enough to shower, feed the kids a light lunch, and we were off to help a little friend celebrate his 3rd birthday - a costume party. After the party, we dined at a friend's house before the long anticipated time of trick or treating!! The kids were most excited. It had been cloudy all day, but right as were taking some pictures outside it began to rain. Luckily, it only last a few minutes. The kids charged ahead of the adults, and scored quite a lot of good candy this year. We end the night very tired and bags of candy. They enjoyed their costumes, and look forward to it again next year.

Jack's Jog-a-thon...

Jack had a fund raiser for his school this last month - it was a jog-a-thon. I didn't know what to expect from such an event. It was a lot of fun! The kids had 45 minutes to run around the high school track. Jack raised money based not on laps because I did not know just how many laps he would complete. To my utter surprise he ran...2 1/2 miles (or 10 times around the track). He struggled a little in the middle - he really didn't have an idea about how to pace himself - so I ran/walked the last five or so laps. I was proud of him. They had a great day to do it, and Jack got to ride on his first school bus to get to the track. Thank you to all those who helped support him and the school. We really appreciated it!