Most of October

I think that my use of instagram has been the downfall of my blogging. It's a lot easier to just put a picture up on there with a short caption and not fuss with the blog, but I must prevail!

Fall 2015

The kids still dress up a ton. Coincidentally, they were these exact things for Halloween, but this picture was taken a while ago.

 Eli loves baths/bathtubs.

 Our pergola is done! This is before Dan put the porch swing back up.

 We watched a lot of soccer games and practices.

Sam scored two goals in the same game! It was amazing.

Eli had his 9-month check-up and shots.

 Afton lost her first tooth! And Sam lost a few more, as well. The tooth fairy brought Afton $1. Sam got $1.50 for his most recent tooth.

 Eli was being fussy and I needed to go to Kroger, so I gave him a cardboard tube and he chewed on it the whole walk there, around the store, and back home.

I, Kristen Durst, grilled for the first time in my life. Chicken kabobs and pineapple. I decided I don't like grilled pineapple, but the kabobs were on point.

 Mom came and we went to Hollywood Cemetery. This grave was intense. A scaled down cathedral or something.

 Sam will read anytime, anywhere.

 We got a new pet. The kids named him Jerry. He is an outside dog and loves to terrorize the neighbors.

 School pictures came back. If you look closely at Afton's eyes, it looks like she was almost crying.

 And Sam looks really old in his picture.

 While Dan was out of town on his man date, Afton threw a major tantrum. About doing her hair in a bun. I did, but it wasn't good enough. She wanted me to take it out, so I did. Then she cried FOR.EV.ER.

 Eli observed some Mousetrap.

 Afton's class has a "class pet" named Scruffy. Each child takes a turn bringing Scruffy home for the weekend and taking care of him. At the end of the weekend, they have to draw a picture of their time with Scruffy and tell about what they did. I couldn't resist taking a picture of Scruffy at church. He was very well behaved.

 Sam loves to play chess with Dan. I think Afton took this picture.

 There's nothing Eli likes as much as eating paper. Specifically toilet paper.

Despite our best efforts, inevitably someone leaves the bathroom door open and Eli makes his move.

 Afton's tooth started coming in.

 Park time. Love this picture.,

 Afton wants to be a horse when she grows up.

 We went to a super cool playground about 30 minutes away from our house. It has a few playhouses, a big wooden playset and a zipline.

We got family pictures taken a few weeks ago. We wanted a picture of each of the kids alone, but the only one the photographer got of Eli that turned out well also has a teddy bear in it. I didn't want to use that one (for Christmas cards) so I took him back out and snapped a few more. Here are some of the "out takes."

 He looks so concerned.

I need to darken them a little bit.