Pyper & Agurkis 6th Annual Fall/Greenbluff/Pumpkin Carving extravaganza...

We had our fabulous friends, Doug & Sadie (and Buddy too!) in town from Seattle for the weekend for our Annual Fall festivities. Every October we head up to Greenbluff for some pumpkin doughnuts, carmeled apples, hot chocolate, and of course, pumpkin pickin'! We started this tradition way back in October of 2003 when we first met them and they lived here in Spokane. We did it the following year, when they still lived in Spokane. Even when they moved to Seattle in 2005, the tradition continued, and they come to Spokane every year! And we love it! We usually go to Knapps Farm, up in Greenbluff, they have a pumpkin chucker that's pretty cool, and you get to pick your own pumpkins there, like literally cut them off the vine! :) This year we decided to head over to the little country store, where its more of a carnival/festival place to be. We still had a fabulous time, and of course, love anything we do with Doug & Sadie!

I have spent the past 2 days trying to scan all the pictures in from the past 6 years. (some were taken before the digital era...I know, ancient, right!?) But sometimes my scanner scans in the pictures as .Jpeg, which is great, because then I can put them on the blog. But for some reason it scanned them all in as .Tif and then they won't upload. I can't figure out how to change it to scan them in as .Jpeg. It's been really frustrating! Can anyone help me out with this one? Anyway...here are the pictures from this year...

I don't remember what was going on in this picture, but I love it of these two, pretty typical.

Tucker got his like 40 kagillionth carmeled apple of the season. I usually eat the carmeled outside, because he can't reach his little mouth around it, but then he likes to just gnaw on the apple part like all day! Yeah, it works out well for the both of us! :) This is what happened when Sadie tried to sneak a bite...

Tucker was lovin' pumpkin land...

We took those babies home and carved'em right up!

Look at all of these cute boys. (I love this picture!) And the pumpkins look pretty cute on our front steps too!

All of us, this is a classic! Tucker was done with pictures by this time and Buddy's rear-end is facing the camera. It was definitely the end of a long weekend and everyone is picture'd out. (except me, of course!) :)

In order to get that fabulous shot of all of us, Sadie had to drive their car on our front lawn so I could prop the camera on it for the timer-delay. In this picture, I think he is wondering what the heck is going on! :) Anything for a shot, right! :)

And what was Tuckers favorite part of the weekend, you ask?

Well, let me show you...

I think he found his new BFF. And its a good thing we approve of his family! :)

We love you Doug & Sadie and can't wait to see you again, soon!

What we look forward to most in October...

Being able to stay home the first Sunday of the month to watch church on TV while in our PJ's all snuggled up on the couch... getting to listen to the prophets while being with those you love; I don't think it gets much better than that! :)

I think that Tucker and Keyton enjoyed it as much as we did! Ok, not at all, but it was really cute, they pulled this bench up right in front of the TV and were apparently really interested in what this speaker had to say. (or maybe it was the buttons on the TV that they were interested in!?)

Tucker was so happy he found a bottle of tic-tacs to share with Uncle Nathan...

Then he got in trouble because he wouldn't stop eating the afore mentioned tic-tacs, and who does he go to when he's in trouble from mommy???

And in whose arms did he stay for the rest of the day? And who was he mad at for the rest of the day? I'll give you two guesses, Grandma was one of them and I was one of them. And he's obviously not in my arms! :)

It was such a nice lazy day of being uplifted. Although Conference with a two year old makes me really appreciate the Ensign. I can't wait for it to come so I can read the talks that I missed out on by being distracted! :)

We also look forward to:

One word: Greenbluff!

Have I mentioned that I love Greenbluff?

We love bundling up with our friends:

Finding the perfect Pumpkin at the oh so cute pumpkin patch with our friends...

Eating yummy pumpkin doughnuts with our friends...

And last, but certainly not least, we love eating the yummy Carmel'd apples at Greenbluff...

I think this face pretty much sums up how we feel about the delicious treats offered at Greenbluff:

We had to finally bust out the Winter clothes and went outside to clean up the summer toys and get our back yard winterized. I had to clean out my garden and get all of the toys into our shed before the snow comes. Tucker looked too cute all bundled up, so I had to get a few shots before the work began.

Thank goodness for that Hot Tub behind Tucker, we will be spending many a night in that over these next few months! :)

I'm Baaaaaaack...

Seriously, where have the past few weeks gone? I can NOT believe that it is now TWO weeks later! We have been busy busy busy and I have to apologize to you blogging world for my lack of as of late.! :) I know you all have been DYING to know just what the Pyper household has been up to! I started to add pictures to this post and there were so many, I have just put together some photo collages instead! You can click on them to make them larger if you so desire! So we got back from Seattle, and the very next week we went up to the Wagstaff's to watch their kids while they went on a cruise. They have two 15 year old twin boys, and two girls, 9 & 11. Needless to say, it was an eventful week! Tucker loved having 'older siblings' for a week and we actually had a really great time! The kids were excellent, and I spent my days shuttling kids, listening to the piano (and cello, and violin) being practiced and making BIG delicious homemade dinners! I know, can you believe it! My Betty Crocker skills were put to the test! Including...homemade ice-cream, Italian sodas, the best darn waffles you will ever eat and even did some grillin' (ok that was Ben).

1. Ben challenged Tucker to an arm wrestling match and as you can see he wasn't exactly too sure about it! 2. Tucker loved to get right up there with the girls on the piano. 3. Making Italian Sodas, the girls getting crazy with the whip cream. 4. The Beautiful and delicious berries we picked at Greenbluff to go in the Yummy home made ice-cream we made. And Tucker loving every minute of it!

We also went to Greenbluff one afternoon to pick Blackberries, Raspberries and Peaches! It was so much fun and our goods were SO delicious! We munched on them all week, adding them to the ice-cream, the waffles and even the Italian sodas!

We had so much fun at Greenbluff with the Wagstaffs, we went back the next week with my parents and did it all over again! (minus the peaches) Tuckers shoe broke once we had gotten up there, so he had to stay in his stroller the whole time this time. Poor guy! Luckily he took advantage of being with his grandma (which means he always gets his way) and some how got himself down to chase a cat he found!

We also somehow fit in a REALLY CLASSY dinner party! :) We were actually suspects in the death of Bubba, the local town bar owner! All of his friends were there, and we still couldn't figure out who killed 'im.

1.Ryan 'the town preacher' who we later found out was the REAL murder! 2. The whole classy gang! 3. I was the town sheriff and Heather, the town beautician. 4. No, those aren't Jevon's real teeth, or his real hair! 5. Jason was the town crazy who had been abducted by aliens a few times (hence the tin-foil on his head). 5. That IS Gary's real hair! (ok, its not either). 6. All of the girls. 7. Makes me REALLY happy that Ben isn't a woman and doesn't have hair! 8. Heather and Jevon (post-teeth and hat hair!)

Also, in going through my pictures over the past few weeks, I had to put in some of what Tucker's been up to and ALL of his new faces. Here's what Tuckers world consists of right now:

Hanging out with his two favorite Lady friends, Brookelyn and Carly, Finding and playing with bugs, Eating lots and lots(especially enjoys crawling up on the table while mom isn't looking and finding candy and eating it while watching Dora), And taking baths and giving me dirty looks when I want him to smile for the camera. It really is a hard life for him right now!

Oh, and I've managed to squeeze in a few photo sessions, which has been SO much fun!

I did his Senior Pictures:

(which I think turned out GREAT)

And I also did her Senior pictures:

(which I am still working on, but here's a little preview)

Oh, and I found this fun little thing where you can type in your blog address and it takes the most common words on the blog and puts it together in a little collage. The bigger the word, the more it is used on your blog. (Ok, so its a total time waster, but its kind of fun to see) So, I did this awhile ago after the Moncrief ladies were here visiting and you will notice that Cookie and Olivia's names are BOTH bigger than Ben's! oops-sorry Ben! :) (I don't know why its so small!)

OK, that's all for my mammoth post, and you're all caught up on the Pypers! :) Lucky you! Now that we're home and back to our routine, I'll be back more often, I promise! :) Hope everyone else's Fall is starting out just as wonderful! I LOVE this time of year! :)

5 YEARS!!!

September 13th, 2003

Ben and I have been married for 5 years!!! Can you believe it? In some ways it feels like we have been married for WAY longer than that, like it just seems that I've just been with Ben forever! And in other ways, it feels like it seriously JUST happened, like I can't believe that its been 5 years already! Its been over a week now, but I had to write about our wonderful weekend last week! Anyone who knows Ben knows that he is the most frugal person on the planet. So since we've been married I've tried to plan fun surprises, or little weekend getaways for special occasions, and Ben freaks out. He worries that I have spent too much money on all that is planned, or I didn't look hard enough to find the BEST deal, and Its like he has to plan the big celebrations or big events himself, just so HE knows that the celebration will cost us the absolute least amount as possible. (I have a tendency to just to buy the first thing that comes along when planning something, he however will scour every resource possible to find the cheapest deal) Anyway, I have long given up planning surprises for Ben. He is the planner, and he also loves doing it. Which is A-OK with me. He loves planning the evenings for our anniversary or valentines day or birthdays, or whatever, and I have let him take that aspect of our relationship over. It sometimes drives me crazy, but I love that he loves to plan fun things for us, and I know that in the long run, being frugal is the best way.

Anyway, with all of that being said about his frugality, Ben way out-did himself this year. He took me to Seattle for the weekend and we saw 'Phantom of the Opera'! It was SO much fun! The weekend was perfect! (besides a few little hitches-like almost calling it quits right then and there when we got lost on the way to the Melting Pot) :) More or less, it was Perfect! We stayed at a beautiful hotel downtown, went to dinner at the Melting Pot, which I had been dying to do, and then went to Phantom at this old beautiful historic theatre right in downtown Seattle.

September 13th, 2008

This is the Theatre, it was beautiful!

(which you TOTALLY can not tell from this picture-but isn't that a nice one-way sign?) :)

Here's the inside- do you see the Phantom lurking anywhere?

(and yet another Crappy picture) :)

This was my first time ever seeing Phantom, and I loved it! Loved the story, loved the singing, loved all of it, it was a perfect! Ben and I are still singing Phantom songs, I think he has been even more than me! :) He likes to make up his own words that go with whatever he happens to be doing at the time.

This was after the play, can you tell that Ben was in a rush to get to the car and DID NOT want to take this picture??? :)

Tomatoes, B-days, Fairs and such...

So last week Ben comes walking in from the back yard with an arm full of tomatoes. I've loved having a garden and taking care of it and watering it, etc etc... But I haven't been so good at the harvesting part. (I know, the whole point of a garden, right?) So apparently our tomato plant has produced hundreds of juicy delicious red tomato's, and I hadn't even noticed. To give myself some credit, from the front of the plant all you see is a green bush. The tomatoes for some reason are all showing from the back of the plant. Anyway, I was excited, I didn't realize that one little plant could produce so many tomatoes. I seriously had grocery bags full of them! I'm not a big tomato lover, but my family and friends (whom I gave the tomatoes away to) all said they were delicious.

So the weather has been yo-yoing around here from pretty cold fall-type weather to beautiful summer weather all over again. Our pool had closed for the summer, but then the weather got so good again, they opened it up for another week. We took advantage and had a little b-day party for Tuckers friend, Carly. I can't believe that she is already 2! That means that Tucker will soon be 2 as well! And that CAN NOT be right!

I made her the cutest little bug cakes. It is a cakelet pan from William-Sonoma that I got last year that I have been dying to use. They turned out so cute, and it wasn't even that hard! I also have a train one that I will use for Tuckers b-day in November.



They could have turned out even cuter with more time and the right tools. :) It was a big hit with the kids, so I must have done something right! :)

We also went to the Spokane County fair, which is always fun! :) Tucker got to ride a llama.

He always wants to go on the rides, but then his face looks like this the whole time, so I'm sure he's NOT enjoying it. But then he wants to go again and again and again. Its really funny! This one was going up and down and pretty fast.

He liked the cars that just went around and around.

Nathan and Ben went on the big kid rides and Tucker thought it was so cool when they would 'fly' by us.

And here is a picture of all of us 'fishing'!

Tucker has been wanting to take his naps on 'Dada's bed' lately. It hasn't worked out too well and I usually have to con him into sleeping in his own bed somehow. Although this morning we went to the library and on the way home he kept on saying nigh-night and that he wanted a bottle, so when we got home I made him one and went to put him down and he wanted to go straight to his crib. He didn't even want to rock and sing with me, which we usually do for a few minutes before he goes down. He's getting to be such a big and independent boy. Wheres my little baby? We got him a twin mattress that is down in our basement right now, for his 'big-boy' bed, and I'm thinking he might be ready for it soon. We'll see!

I've been so used to using an SLR camera lately that going back to my point and shoot camera is a little strange. I took this one and forgot that the point and shoots take so long to actually snap-so I moved the camera before it even took. oops! I still thought it was cute of him.

I was loading my car to go somewhere the other day and he just hopped right in the driver seat like he knew exactly what he was doing! The little stinker just wants to be a big boy so bad!

PS... Ben and I just got back from Seattle for the weekend for our 5 year anniversary and saw 'Phantom of the Opera.' It was amazing! I will be posting about that next! :) I just had to catch up.

Americas Next Top Model Is...

So I found some more lost pictures. How I overlooked these, I do not know. We were flipping through the TV and ended on 'Americas Next Top Model.' Cookie was inspired, and luckily I had my camera ready and in-hand.

I'm still trying to figure out why everyone (myself included) loves to post funny pictures of Cookie on their blogs? Why is it so fun??? I think its because we LOVE you so much! :) I love how the eyes aren't ever opened, not even once! :) Those sure are bunzzz of steel you have there! :)

Love you Cookie! :)