Elyse's ten year old pics

I can't believe Elyse turns ten next week. Do you realize that I only have eight more years with her at home? Over half my time with her is gone. She's growing up too fast.

Family Pictures

So I am still learning a lot about photography. This week I took my SIL's fam picture and then set up the tripod and used a remote to shoot ours while she made all the kids smile. Number one lesson learned: never, ever, ever shoot from below. Always shoot from above. Unforunately, the best pic of everyone in the family is the one where I look like I have a huge double chin. I'm putting it up on the wall anyway. It will be great motivation to stick with my weight loss plan. Which do you like better? Black and white or the vintage look--Matt and I can't agree which to print.

Weigh In

I snapped these shortly after my biggest loser group meeting was over one week. They crack me up, so I thought I'd share.

riding bikes

Jarom borrowing Luke's helmut

If his tongue is hanging out, he's concentrating really hard. I keep expecting him to bite his tongue and bleed all ove the place at soccer games.

We finally put training wheels on a bike for Luke. He's getting pretty fast already and we've enjoyed a few fall family bike rides.

Pumpkins at Hemmeter Farm Market

Paul with his new marshmellow shooter that he wouldn't even let go of for one picture.

Hemmeter Market is my favorite place to buy pumpkins when our own crop produces nothing. Since this year we grew three puny pumpkins and there are six of us in the household, I took my parents over there to help us pick a few out. The farmer breeds these to have thick, curvy stems and they come in yellows, whites, and oranges, with tall tall narrow ones and large round ones. It's very hard to choose one, but it's easy to take lots of pictures.

Johnson's Giant Pumpkin Farm

My parents were here from Utah last week. Since they've never seen Michigan in the fall, we trekked out to Johnson's giant pumpkin farm to pet/feed the animals and stock up on the cider and cider doughnuts. I am not a doughnut fan. They never tempt me---except for cider doughnuts in the fall. I don't know what comes over me, but every day I think, "Man, I could really go for half a dozen cider doughnuts today." It's a serious effort to just stay in the car and keep driving past Hemmeter farm and their delicious doughnuts every time I have to pick Luke up from preschool. Johnson's farm seriously cakes on the cinnamon sugar and they were excellent doughnuts and we washed them down with cold, cold, cold Michigan cider. We let the kids run through the soybean maze one at a time and watched just the tops of their heads bobbing along above the dried out beans. I thought we'd lose jarom in there for sure, but Elyse caught up to him and carried him out. Paul ran through the thing four times in a row until he was beet red. We opted out of the giant corn maze this year because we've had terrible luck in the past. I've never been able to make it without using an emergency exit thanks to rain storms, mud up to my ankles, or dark advancing faster than I thought it would. We played it safe and just sat down to doughnuts instead.