This post will be short and sweet.
Chelsea got her ears pierced today!
We were at Walmart and I asked if they still pierced ears and the cost.
Got Chelsea all set up except she didn't like the ladies touching her ears, we were going to do the double team approach but it didn't work out that way.
One ear at a time and me holding her down.
Now before people go off on me, she has been asking to have this done, otherwise I would have waited.

I think I picked the wrong day to do it though but,
it's all over now and she has pretty much quit touching them to tell me they hurt.
The earrings are cute little pink stones that hopefully she won't be allergic to.
Christmas is coming and I know of a little something to put in her stocking.
*Carrie*

 Last Sunday we loaded up the whole crazy family and trucked it down to Apple Annie's in Wilcox.
I secretly came just for the sunflowers. shh... don't tell the kids OK?
I took more pictures of the sunflowers than I did my family.
Hey, I see them all the time, the sunflowers I get to see maybe once a year.
My only negative comment is toward Mother Nature. I really needed a cloudy day for my photo fun and do you know what she did? Mother Nature provided the cloudy day Monday! I got harsh shadows, really wickedly bright light and blow outs all over the place. Monday the clouds came in and it was just beautiful and no I didn't have the time to drive 1 1/2 to go back.

 I told the kids to pick out a reasonable sized pumpkin that suited them. Kelly picked this apple style, multi hued beauty that I think fits her perfectly. Ms. Chelsea picked a small white one...
and Wyatt looked and wandered, just trying to find the perfect one. We all tried to show him some cool pumpkins but to no avail.
Wyatt finally found one he deemed "perfect" but it was big. The pumpkin was bigger than I really wanted to pay but we were all waiting for Wyatt to finish up and it was taking forever so we just said OK and clipped the stem.

We loaded up our two wagon and Uncle Mikey and Nina walked back to the barns as we rode in the wagon. The kids just love the wagon.
Once the tractor gets us back to the barn the kids went to play in the corn kernels while I went back out to photograph more sunflowers.
I was out there long enough that Rob texted me to hurry up and get back to the group.

After our fun at the patch we drove over to the apple farm.
Sadly, the farm lost 50% of their crop this year due to a late frost and everything else was over picked.

When we walked up, I reminded the family to be on the lookout for a newsletter or something to see if they used my picture in the advertising.
There was a young lady handing out postcard type fliers with Apple Annie info on it and when you flipped it over there were 6 small pictures and Chelsea was the top left!
Nina, being the proud Grandma was letting every worker there know that this was her granddaughter in the picture. The workers got a kick out of meeting the people in the advertisement.
While mom was in the gift shop bragging, I was asking to speak to Anne aka Apple Annie. I introduced myself and thanked her for using the photo. I then introduced her to daddy and Chelsea. We talked for a few minutes before she had to get back to making pies. She thanked me for sending in the picture and told me to keep uploading.
After mom got all her shopping done we decided to hit the road and head back to Tucson. I had a good time and I know the kids did too. Wyatt and Chelsea were sacked out in the backseat most of the way home.
*Carrie*

Two weeks ago Rob took a little vacation, here he is on his first day, him and Chelsea were chillin on the couch watching some netflix and I looked over and saw this.
Rob is normally a go, go, go kind of guy so it was nice to see him be able to relax, even for just a short while.
Rob put plenty of stuff to do on his honey do list but somehow the rest of his time off he stayed busy enough where he really didn't get much done on the list.

The family Rob landscapes for called him one evening with an irrigation problem and we went up to their house so that he could fix it.
This family gets a little kick out of when I come over because I always bring my camera. The wife loves cactus and other desert blooming plants and I love to photograph them without going out into the desert.
This first photo is of some plant I don't know the name of but I have a similar shot of it in my living room, except that my original is not perfectly sharp so since I was there I would try again. Success!

The wife, we will call her M, has several blue agave plants with VERY sharp spines on it. I was trying another look straight down shot and kept getting poked.
I'll have to go through some more of the photos to see what I like to maybe put up in the house, or print and give to M.
Have a safe weekend, we have a soccer game Saturday and heading out to Wilcox to visit Apple Annie's on Sunday. Busy, busy
*Carrie*

At Kelly's last dental check up the dentist said that two of her molars one on either side were loose.
Loose?
This is Kelly code for, let me rip out my teeth to get money.
So she wiggled, and wiggled some more and on Monday night handed me a tooth.
Well, Monday night was also girls scouts and we forgot about the tooth until the next morning.
Last night I walked into the kitchen and Kelly is at the sink with a bloody napkin.
"Did you pull out that other tooth", I ask
"uh huh, now I get two dollars", she says with a big ol' smile
So last night I'm doing my tooth fairy duties, which I find harder to do, due to the fact that she now sleeps on the top bunk.
I finally locate the baggie with the teeth and find a note in it.
Dear Tooth Fairy,
Can I please have two movies?
Love, Kelly
Thanks to Grandma Ross when each tooth has come out she would buy a cheap movie and sneak it over. I warned her this wasn't wise but I must respect my elders. When Wyatt lost his tooth last week he got a movie. Anyway I saw this note and froze. I didn't have any movies and it was too late to call Grandma, so I did what any crafty mom would do. I went to my scrap room grabbed a piece of pretty paper, wrote in a loopy script that I owed her two movies and signed it, the tooth fairy.
She was so excited this morning when she found the note and the money. I made sure after I dropped the kids off at school to call Grandma and let her know, so if she didn't want to buy two movies I would go out and buy the second.
Now I'm sure your amazed that my 9yr old still believes in the tooth fairy, but no one has ruined that one for her and I haven't been caught yet so we'll keep going until the jig is up. I find it kind of cool.
I'll have to get their thoughts on Santa, hmm....
*Carrie*

Wyatt lost another tooth and things kids say

Last Thursday I pulled out Wyatts top tooth!!
It has been a bit wiggly and he was working at getting it out at lunch time.
When I asked him if I could wiggle it I noticed that it was loose side to side and just needed a tug.
I asked Wyatt if I could pull it and he said yes.
I grabbed a napkin, grabbed the tooth and gently as possible, tugged.
It popped right out.
Wyatt was giggling he was so excited.
The tooth fairy brought him a dollar and a movie.
Lucky kid, all I used to get was $.50.
Now Wyatt has a hole on one side where the top and bottom teeth are missing. I'm just loving how he talks now, instead of saying Pizza it comes out Pisa. The TH's are coming out kind of funny too. It's just so darn cute.
We're heading to the dentist on the 28th for his cleaning and we'll see how what the doctor says.

Chelsea has a colorful vocabulary herself lately and not all of it is good.
Pajamas are Fajamas, everytime we hear a fire truck she yells that somebody needs help.
Oh and it has become the norm for her to tell me that she hates me.
Oh yeah and she says stupid and Ug-a-ly when she gets mad at anyone.
The more colorful words that we are trying to break her of is, dammit and once in a blue moon I have caught her saying fu**ing sh*t. Yep, she said it a few minutes ago when she was in the hallway trying to reach a movie she wanted to watch. I lit into her little butt and threatened to wash her mouth out with soap.
I'm not sure where she got that one because I don't use the f-word.

*Carrie*

My camera has been out in force the last couple of weeks and now it's time to show you what we've been up to.
Last week the cub scouts did a class on bicycles and each kid was to bring their bikes and helmets.When the boys got home that evening Rob said that while he was on vacation that he wanted to buckle down and get Wyatt to learn to ride his bike.
Well the guys went up to the school and with hardly a blink Wyatt was riding around the basketball courts with no training wheels. 

Thankfully daddy got this all on his phone.
Rob is so proud of Wyatt and he said that he was in tears with how easy Wyatt just stayed on and stayed at riding.
There were a couple of spills but Wy took them in stride and kept going.
Now what about Kelly?
Kelly has been adamant for years that she didn't want to learn to ride so we really haven't pushed the issue.
I learned to ride by the time I was five and Rob said he didn't learn to ride until he was older than Kelly so we both have been lax.
But... with Kelly seeing how great Wyatt was doing she wanted to go up to the school and try again.
The next evening Rob took the kids back up and  Kelly took to riding like a duck to water. I think that girl has been scamming us. Rob got it all on video and I got to see when they got home. The kids called the grandmas to give them the big news and then we went out to our street so that I could see and get some pictures.
Our next goal is to get them conditioned to ride a little bit longer distances and more comfortable on their bikes so that we can do family bike rides.
*Carrie*

 Have you ever reflected back on your week and think that you didn't really accomplish anything significant?
That was my thought this morning while I was thinking about what to write about.
Then I started scrolling through the photos that I've taken just this past week.
I was blown away by what I caught.
Not that it was anything amazing but it was the amazing in the every day.

Rob and the kids were off this past week so we spent lots of family time together.
On Tuesday we headed up to Mt. Lemmon to see what fall foliage was around. I'm probably a week or so away from more red trees but there was plenty of yellow.

 We went exploring around the mountain again and went higher than ever before.
On my list this trip was to check out Marshall Gulch. Rob and I had seen a news report on the hiking trails there and it looked just beautiful.
Oh, it was.
A little creek with water, lots of fallen logs, perfect for the kids to scamper around. The weather was perfect and for the most part the kids were too.
After roaming around, jumping the creek, having a snack, we decided to check out some of the roads and cabins around Summerhaven.

Riding around in a long truck is not very easy on the very narrow streets of Summerhaven. Lots of dead ends and steep driveways make maneuvering tricky. On one road we spooked a doe and two bucks. The group split up but I was able to get a picture of them. It was the first time I have ever seen deer on the mountain. Gosh they were beautiful and looked healthy.
On our ride back down we swung into some remote camp areas that in previous years have had nice foliage. This last picture is the one tree that I remember from years before. It's still just as beautiful.
We ended our little jaunt at Mc D's for some lunch and so that the kids could play. It was such a nice day and so nice to be able to spend it together.
*Carrie*

Most mornings when I get up I head out my front door to see what kind of sunrise might be in store.
I love the quiet of the morning, those 15-20 minutes where the house is quiet and it's just Rob and myself awake, well Braxton too.
Some morning we have our quiet time with God, others we just sit and talk and sometimes we turn on the TV. Whatever way we go its a nice way start to the day.
Fall has officially begun and we are finally getting the nicer temps this week that makes it feel more like fall. My hope for this weekend is to get up the few Halloween decorations up.
The last 10 years we have used my mom's decorations because where she was living she didn't need them. We always set up something kinda spooky here and mom has dressed as a witch and handed out the candy.
This year is going to be different because mom now has a house in a neighborhood and she can trick it out like nobodies business.
This leaves us with some choices. Are we going to hand out candy? And where are we going to trick or treat? My biggest problem has already been taken care of and that's getting the kids costumes.
The couple of Halloween decorations I have put up are not scary at all and yet Chelsea is asking me to take them down. Chelsea loves the idea of dressing up and candy but wants nothing to do with anything scary and that's what most of my meager decorations are.
I may just have to go and make something cutesy that will satisfy both of us.

I have been working in my scraproom and trying to get things put away so that I can start creating. I do have some things that I need to cut out and I'm already getting started on my Christmas cards.

I'm excited about creating again, not that I have stopped but I haven't been as productive as I would like. I have several projects started but, either I'm missing pieces or I have run out of money to finish them because other matters take precedence, just the other day I was able to get the rest of the materials to finish my bar stools.

<---Those are my bar stools that I picked up for $4.00 a piece. I plan on keeping one in my craft room and one in the kitchen. The kids have loved having the stools around because they can scoot one up to the computer desk while the other kid is on the computer and watch them.

I have also started working on Christmas presents for the families, which puts my projects on the back burner. I see all these great ideas and make plans to complete them and then...I start having second thoughts. My biggest worry is that they won't like the item that I made. I know that this is something most crafters worry about so I try my hardest to overcome my mental objections.

I need to start making lists of gifts and ideas for each person so that I'm a little better organized and not wasting any time and money.

*Carrie*