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We’re a little late posting this but we went to the pumpkin patch weekend before last.  We visited the Carpinitos Farm down in Kent.  Apparently we just missed the Earle’s that day.  It was fun to wander around all the pumpkins and we spent quite a bit of time finding the PERFECT pumpkin.  After we left the pumpkin patch, we went over to Joan’s to clear out her sprinkler system and we had dinner over there.  Aunt Jean was there too, although she left before dinner.

Here are a few shots from the pumpkin patch.  As you can see, Emma has started taking pictures too!

I have been working on a new craft - crocheting.  It started by me wanting to make a tea cozy for Jeff.  I went into my closet and found a stash of old Crochet needles, and instructions that my mother gave me several years ago that I tucked away.  Anyway, Jeff wanted a tea cozy for his tiny tea pot which he uses daily.  I started with the books, and went stitch by stitch trying to capture as much information on the stitches and train my hands as best as I could.  I made a few attempts at trying to read a pattern, and felt paralyzed by the hieroglyphics in them.  I decided to try to create a tea cozy without a pattern, and made about 3.  Looking back, they were awful, but a good start.  With our trip to Montana coming up, I called upon the help of Joan, and she helped me learn to read the pattern, and crochet the tea cozy.  Thank you Joan!!!  I could not have gotten as far as I have without your help.

So, fast-forwarding, I have made several cozies, based on the same pattern.  I have given some away - to my sister, and her mother-in-law, my mother, and made several for myself and Jeff. 

I have now made several dish cloths, and a doll that I saw on the Internet, and attempted to make. 

Here are my some of my cozies:

Here is my doll attempt. 

Here is one of my favorite crochet site on the Internet. 
This lady makes the CUTEST little dolls (and I mean THE CUTEST!!!)         Curls of Sunshine

Anyway, I plan to find other projects to do, since there are only so many tea cozies you can make!!!!!  If you have any ideas for me to try, let me know :)

-Katie

My Darth Vader Halloween costume arrived:  I was very excited because yesterday something very exciting was delivered from the Fedex Truck. I opened the box, and I got surprised!  because I didn’t know that my costume was in there :) I was really excited, and took the costume out and I wore it!! 

Emma’s Book Choice:    One other exciting this is:  I like my book called If You Take A Mouse to School, but if you did that for reallife, you would get in trouble! 

Upcoming Activities: My mom and dad are taking me into the Pumpkin Patch.

My most recent activity:  Drawing and coloring in the lines.  Also, painting.

My typing:  dfwfcv

Mommy sneaked into my room and took this picture of me just going to sleep!

We are so bummed to be preparing for winter.  Summer seemed to go so fast and it’s hard to believe it’s over.  School has been in full swing for over a month now and we are nice and settled in to our new routine.  Emma is still enjoying kindergarten and her reading is really progressing.  She has long since given up on the "easy readers" and is reading all kinds of interesting books.  Needless to say, the library card is getting a lot of use.  Emma even has her own card now and loves to scan the books out at the self checkout.

So, winterizing is in full swing.  We are putting away lawn furniture, insulating hose bibs etc.  Today we will be spending part of the day at mom’s doing some winterizing there too and then will stay for dinner.

Emma has decided that she wants to be Darth Vader for Halloween.  We went online and found a good deal on a Darth Vader costume for kids at Amazon.com and it arrived yesterday.  Emma didn’t have school yesterday (teacher workshop day) so she stayed home with Aunt Jean and anxiously awaited the costume delivery.  It finally came around 4:00 and Emma instantly put it on.  We spent a lot of time last night playing Star Wars at our house, that’s for sure.  Emma’s friend Jena is going to be a cheerleader for Halloween so when Emma went down to show Jena her costume, they both ran around in their costumes.  At one point Emma traded her light saber for the pom pom’s and became the evil Darth Vader Cheerleader  (and the pom poms lit up too).  We all had a good laugh.

Work is going well for Katie and I.  Of course we are keeping our eye on the economic issues going on which has caused us to increase our saving even more than we were before.  You just never know what is coming.  The last couple weeks in the stock market have  been amazing and we’ve certainly seen our investments shrink.  The good news is that we have a long way to go until we hit retirement and have lots of time to make it up.  We are actually kind of excited at how cheap some of the stocks out there have gotten.  You can bet we’ll be buying a bit as the bottom seems to form.