Reid and Stefani Adopt

Thanksgiving this year was a success.  Reid successfully smoked a delicious turkey, and it is all gone already.  For the first time in 5 years, Reid's family didn't come to celebrate Thanksgiving with us.  We missed them, but the day was still good.  We had a quiet Thanksgiving dinner at a friend's house.  We went to the park afterwards. Esther played on the playground equipment, and I got to hold a baby. Isaac and Reid played baseball.  Somehow, the baseball ended up in a fenced tennis court that was locked.  So then I felt double lucky when I got to hand our friend's baby to Reid and climb the fence to get the ball.  Then the mosquitos came calling, so we went back and had pie.  The kids fell asleep in the car on the way home.  I think the kids had fun with their friends and we definitely ate well. The day after Thanksgiving was Esther's 3rd Birthday.  It's crazy to think that 3 years have already passed since this little sassy pants entered our lives.

So far this month, Isaac finished his last soccer game with his favorite coach (Reid), and our children continue to entertain us with the funny things they say and do, and we went to see Santa at the Mall in Orlando.  Isaac loved having his dad as a soccer coach this year.  He has really improved as a soccer player.  He made more goals the last half of the season and had a blast the whole season.  I remember one day when we went to soccer just to turn around and go home because it had been cancelled due to rain, and Isaac cried pretty hard over that.  Last Saturday he had a get together with his friends from soccer and had one last hurrah with them.  They played and had cupcakes and popcorn.  It was fun to watch them play together.  Needless to say, he will miss soccer. Our children are always doing things that both make us laugh and frustrate us.  I had taken out the carseats to clean them, and Isaac's carseat was sitting in the living room waiting for me to put it back

This Halloween we did a family costume theme, which we have never done before.  We would never have pulled it off except our good friends the Terrys already had a Gru and Lucy costume from a few years prior.  So if you can't tell yet, I am Lucy Wilde from Despicable Me 2, and Reid is Gru, and our children are minions.   I also did the traditional Monster Mash, Monster Lips, Bug Juice, and Pumpkin Roll-ups I've done in previous years--only to discover no one but me really likes the Monster Mash.  (Insert frowny emoji here.)  Anyway, it may be time for a new Halloween themed meal.  One that I don't have to force my kids to eat before they get any Halloween candy would be good.   The ward Trunk-or-Treat Friday night. Isaac got Vampire teeth at church.  Esther and her monster mash and pumpkin rolls-ups. Isaac loving on his monster themed dinner.  Isaac's witch pumpkin, carved by Mom (right).  Isaac's painted pumpkin from Preschool (middle)

Just about 2 weeks ago, Hurricane Matthew worked his way up The Eastern side of the United States starting with Florida.  We prepared as well as we knew how.  We had our hurricane shutters up, a generator and fuel in the ready, and lots of water, batteries, and canned food.  We took all the swings off of the swing set and detached the slide.  We moved all of our unsecured outdoor toys and furniture to the garage, and made room for both cars as well, which we have never been able to do before.  I guess it just goes to show what you can accomplish with the correct motivation.  We trimmed the trees and stored the palm fronds in the garage to stop them from becoming projectiles in a category 4 hurricane.  We helped neighbors and friends with remaining time left before go time and then we hunkered down and waited.  The kids slept like logs through the whole storm.  Reid and I pretty much laid awake listening to the wind batter the house.  The next day, we broke out the special coloring boo

A few weeks ago Reid had to go out of town for a few days for his grandpa's funeral.  To try and keep things fun and keep up my moral, I decided to have a picnic dinner in the playhouse and allow my kids to bike through the puddles.  They loved it.  I had to pry them away from those puddles, and convince Esther that biking through them was sufficient and that she didn't need to get off her bike and lay in the puddle. The next morning, we got up early and picked up Daddy from the airport.  It was good to have him back. Dinner in the playhouse just to keep things interesting.  A bike ride after the rain. The puddles were the favorite thing to ride through. They did get pretty wet.

So summer has already ended. School starts insanely early here.  Nonetheless, Isaac was VERY excited to get to go to preschool.  Our last hooray of the summer was to go to a party at Reid's work with the kids.  They were pretty cute walking up the sidewalk together holding hands. Then we had Isaac get a haircut so he could look sharp for the new school year.   We had a special family home evening lesson in which we taught the kids that they were on "Team Archibald," and that they all needed to do their jobs to help us be a successful family.  Then they were given their own job charts to do in the morning to help us get ready for school on time.  Wednesday we got to take first day of school pictures.  Isaac had no problems saying goodbye to Mom and Dad as we dropped him off at school for the first time. Esther and Mom got some one-on-one girl time, which was nice.  She and I got to do her own "homework" while Isaac was away--whic

   Isaac was one of the last kids in his cohort to turn 4.  He felt so left behind. He's very proud of the fact that he is now four.  In fact, he keeps telling everyone the reason he can do this or that is because "now I'm four."   I hope he doesn't become super disappointed when, in 5 months, one of the girls in his group has her 5th birthday.    He originally wanted a white cake with pink dots, but daddy nixed that idea.  Luckily for his daddy, Isaac was equally excited about a minion cake.  We had a birthday party at the community pool.  I didn't get a lot of pictures because I was running around trying to get cake and food to everybody, then clean up.  But Isaac had a ball.   We also had a little mini family celebration 2 days before his party on his actual birthday.  He got to choose whatever kind of cupcake he wanted at the grocery store.  He chose mini muffins, and ate 4 of them.  Then we went bowling.  I am not a fan of bowling, since I got a con

Aw, Memorial Day.  Our hearts were turned to the one little grave we left behind in Michigan when we moved to Florida.  Thankfully, we have a great friend there who also lost a baby around the same time as us, and she has been our hands on memorial day.  This year, I asked a special request that, if she could find them, I would like baby's breath and forget-me-nots to be planted next to Rachel's grave.  I knew that was a strange pick in flowers, and that they might be hard to find, but she took the trouble and then sent us the picture below.  I am so grateful to Lisa for doing this for us.  It is a great consolation to know that the little one we buried was not forgotten this year on memorial day. Baby's Breath (left) and Forget-me-nots (right) Memorial day weekend was not all re-visiting grief though.  We like to mix a little sunshine in with our tears and watch life sparkle, so we took a trip to St. Augustine, FL.  We got to see the oldest fort in America.  

We were just living life this week.  Reid mowed the lawn and then ate a popsicle with Isaac.  Isaac helped me build a 9 cube organizer to put toys in.  We did go to the beach on Saturday too, then went for ice-cream.  The bath tub was full of sand, and the kids were happy.  Can't ask for more than that.

This past weekend we got to go camping with some members of our congregation and other congregations of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints at the Deseret Ranch Campground in Florida.  It is beautiful there.  The purpose of this shindig was to do some service for the camp Saturday morning, but since my kids were a little too small to paint the cabins, Reid went to go paint and I watched the kids.  I had a great time playing with them.  We got to swing, play in the leaves, and climb trees.  It was a lovely campout.  This first little video was on the way there.  The kids were so excited for this campout.