carving

we had a family day today and andy loves 'activities' on our family days, so his activity was carving the pumpkin. he went a little overboard:-) this is the most amazing pumpkin i have ever seen. it's a shame we don't have any trick or treaters, other than rowe & chapin. as you can see, rowe was a big help:-) he was mainly 'hugging' his other lion pumpkin.

by the way, rowe is moving on to north american mammals after his long love affair with africa. his new loves - the bobcat & the mountain lion. still sticking to his guns:-) so, here is the king of our colorado jungle in vegetable form, the mountain lion pumpkin.

billy

billy, you are a billy. this is gorgeous.

one of andy's old fishing guides/best friends from the ranch painted this watercolor for him - andy keeps saying, 'this is the best gift, this is the best gift, this is the best gift,' - over and over. it really is beautiful. anyway, we just had it framed and we wanted to show it to billy - so here it is - looks so good, billy.

fast

wow, this year has flown by.

glasses

mr. joe cool

ridin'

i only got the cowboy, not the horse, aka andy, in this pic.

peanut

the ranch's chef, wray, is a family favorite. he is just awesome. he is forever calling the littles one - peanut. so this shirt makes us think of you, wray.

wrestlin'

rowe and birdie fight like cats and dogs, or two year olds and puppies in this case. she just gets under his skin, but they have fun together every now and then. here is a 'having fun' moment - wrestling over mr. big dog. hopefully, there will be more 'fun together' in the future...but as for now, rowe wins some, and birdie wins some.

dunes

the sand dunes, now a national park, are about an hour from our house. they are the craziest things - massive dunes right underneath massive 14'ers. i was trying to find a pic of rowe and stumbled on this old photo - andy was trying to get the light right before he set up the tripod - which is why i am randomly staring out, holding the tripod. this pic makes me really love where we live.

ps - this is for you, too, lins - i know you are a huge sand dunes fan:-)

quilt

rowe loves playing the 'quilt' game with andy.

football

the newest broncos fan - at least a fan of wearing their helmet.

he looks like a middle linebacker to me. what do you think?

peace

this is for my friend lins in the peace corp. she has been the christensen kiddo's nanny for the majority of all of their lives - so she wanted to check on them & see how much they had grown. the boys sent you their best mean face & the girls their best happy face - luke's isn't really a mean face - he was sending you a kiss:-)

you can check on lins on her blog - peace.

cute

lots of cute

pink

lots of pink

bottle

andy gave chapin her 1st bottle tonight & she did great.

warm

this is chapin's 'going for a walk' attire. andy calls it the 'cocoon.' she loves it - totally puts her right to sleep. this is after the walk - and for the next three hours after that. she doesn't move a muscle. we are thinking about letting her sleep in it at night:-)

glasses

rowe's other new favorite toy

more

rowe found a new toy: the 4-wheeler cover. thanks, bro - provided hours of entertainment.

fishin'

a little monday afternoon fishin' - with a little rock throwin' as well

overalls

if you are a child of mine, you are destined to wear overalls - it's in your blood.

helper

"helping" wash dishes - the term 'helping' is used very loosely here

curls

the curls are on their way back

birdie

chapin's watch dog

ducks

checkin' 'em out