Hallowen - Early

The kids got dressed up and trick or treated at Aunt Kathy and Uncle Dale's today. Since we'll be gone on Halloween (we'll be in Indiana having the rehersal dinner for Sara's (my cousin) wedding), and the Harvest Festival, complete with costumes, was today at church so we made a one stop trick or treating run after the party. Alex was Indiana Jones, Max was Spiderman and Sophia followed in Max's footsteps and was Tigger.

ER

Yesterday at about 4(pm) Sophia slipped off one of our benches at the kitchen table. When I picked her up, she was gushing blood like crazy, and screaming. I called Randy and then the pediatrician. By this time I could see she had all her teeth and there was a big bite out of her lip, as well as a 2nd bite or cut. I took her into see the pediatrician and she recommended we take her to the ER to get stiches. Aunt Kathy and Uncle Dale took the boys - thank goodness- and off we went to the hospital. We got into a room rather quickly (for the ER), and they decided they were going to stich up her lip in both places. They would have to sedate her to do it and she had had a snack at 3:30 so they had to wait until 7:30 to start the stiches. It took about an hour to stich her up and they ended up putting in 10 stiches in total. Six in one cut and 4 in the other cut. We had to wait until the medicine wore off to take her home, so about 10 we were heading home. She was fussy today and her lip was sensitive. But she seemed to be doing a lot better after her afternoon nap.
And then today we celebrated Randy's birthday. Complete with an angel food cake just like when he was growing up. :)

Raingutter Regatta

Tonight was Alex's raingutter regatta for cubscouts. All of us went to cheer him on. He won 2 and lost 2 so that was good. He seemed fairly pleased with that. He also got to carry in the American flag for the opening ceremony for the night. It was a great surprise. Everyone had a very fun night.

Pumpkins last weekend

The kids and I went with our friends, Holly and Clari, to Tim's pumpkin patch. The first thing we did was get our pumpkins. Then we took them back out to the van. I dropped my camera off with the pumpkins, but I shouldn't have. The best was yet to come. They had fun going through a hay maze, and seeing and petting a bunch of farm animals, including a bunny some goats, and two 800lb. sows. But the best they said was playing in the corn box, a big sand box full of corn instead of sand. It was the perfect day for it and the drive was beautiful, a great fall day.

I had to share this picture of Sophia in her pigtails or you may never see her like that. She tends to pull them out. Randy think she looks like Aunt Sara with them in. And the other of Max and Sophie I just wanted to share.

Boy Scouts

Alex started boyscouts last Monday. I guess technically he isn't a boyscout for all you from or in the boyscout world. You work up to boyscout status is how I understand it. Technically he is a cougar scout. But he's very excited about it and loves it. Max has gotten very excited as well and can't wait until he can join (which isn't until 1st grade). So currently Alex is working with Randy on a boat to race in a rain gutter with all the other boys in his den.

Camping out in the treehouse

Tonight is the night for the annual treehouse campout for the Steffen boys. Sophia is still too little, so she's in the house with me. The boys were very excited. I went out to snap a few pictures and as I was leaving Alex and Max were making shadows on the celing of the treehouse with their flashlights. Creatively making big feet and big hand shadows, with lots of excited chatter and laughter. :) (I just realized our internet is being fickel I'll have to put the pics on later. Sorry.)

Treehouse pics