we're having a shrimp boil!

very last minute but that is sort of our style. if you are free come on by. saturday night. just listen for the zydeco and follow your nose on up the hill. we promise there will be plenty!

rub-a-dub-dub two roes and a cummings in the tub!

kate, andrew and trey getting clean and having fun doing it!

jeff and pete making an Oktoberfest home brew

my turn!

kate striking a pose with andrew and uncle jeff

kate continuing to smoother andrew

just one more smooch before he loses his temper...

Oh how my heart aches for iowa...

especially after seeing these pictures from last weekend. everyone gathered in solon at my mom and dad's house to celebrate fall. it pains me to see that my nieces and nephews are growing up so incredibly fast. sweet baby alli is no longer a baby. she is now a little girl and a gorgeous little girl at that. the only saving grace is that they still live near my mom and dad and because i talk to my mom almost everyday i get to hear about all that they are doing.

we'll be heading to iowa this winter. possibly the day after christmas. i can't wait. i long to hear austin laugh that contagious laugh and see charlie's amazing smile. i just hope they all know how much their aunt sarah loves and misses them all.

until december...

keep your fingers crossed!

Pete and I have been talking about adding a second pooch to the family ever since last year. We decided we didn't want a puppy and we definitely wanted to rescue. After a couple months of checking the NC Lab Rescue website regularly and considering available dogs we found one we are hoping to adopt. Last Saturday we filled out the online adoption questionnaire with Kate and we are anxiously awaiting word. Mom, Carolyn, Heather we listed you all as character references so be on alert!

ONLINE DESCRIPTION:

Are you looking for a mellow fellow? Someone to love and love you back? JONAS could be the fellow. JONAS is about 5 years old and good with children. He enjoys being outside -- wading in the kiddie pool is a favorite on hot days. He enjoys playing tug, fetch and keep-away with his canine foster siblings, so he would probably be a happy addition to a family whose dog needs a buddy. He is easygoing and would probably do well in any environment-- though he might take very well to the life of a sofa-hound

meet some of the oakley smarties~

kate's best bud caitlin
kater

ricky

wesley

sweet henry

some of kate's work

i had the pleasure of popping into kater's class earlier today to snap some photos for a craft we are all going to be doing at the harvest festival later in the week.

i am always amazed by the energy in these classrooms and the amazing things they are learning and creating. kates teacher mrs. dotson affectionately refers to her students as her smarties. and that they are!

my pumpkin is pooped!

this was trey after a late night, an early morning and a very long and hard day of play. our sweet little bear insisted that he wasn't tired. i started sid the science kid and within two minutes his sweet little eyelids had turned in.

for those of you that know how the roe men sleep check it out. no matter how i find him sleeping his feet are always crossed. everytime i see him or pete doing that i think fondly of great grandpa roe.

here they are...

spooky, somewhat spectacular and even silly, that is our line up for this year. with pete heading off for the week we made sunday our pumpkin carving extravaganza. pete and i both decided to venture outside our box this year. i went for the pirate skull and he went with a full spider web. mine was looking pretty good until trey in on of his very tire 3-year old fits kicked that eyes right in for no apparent reason. deep breath, but who cares, it's just a pumpkin and we've all been there.

here's to a happy, healthy and safe holiday for all of our friends and loved ones!

our mooresville TRI-fecta...

friday after school we packed up and headed to mooresville for abby's 7th birthday. it's hard to believe kate was a mere 17 months old when we meet the bigleys. the girls have shared a lot of firsts together and despite the distance between the two of them they are still thick as thieves.

this was the third weekend in a row that we were able to spend time with folks from mooresville. we are blessed to have such good friends!

3 1/2 weeks later while eating pizza...

with a very strange look on her face kate said mid-chew, i think my tooth just fell out

look how tiny

got the tooth pillow right here!

kate and caitlin being silly. friends sharing in the excitement.

and trey telling us that his tooth just fell out too...

out she popped. just like that. completely painless! just the way we like it.

this morning she excitedly announced that the tooth fairy had left 2 gold nickles under her pillow.

she was very relieved that the fairy was able to find us here in asheville.

by george i think she's on to something!

those that know we well know that i truly love many of the domestic duties involved with keeping a house and rearing of children. however one of the duties that i continue to struggle with is the laundry. sort of surprising considering an obsession with laundry runs in my family.

my mother is the queen of the laundry room. when you can't find mika there are two places i always recommend checking. first the laundry room and if she is not there she is probably outside. i've never know anyone able to get whites whiter then her and stains, you can forget about them. she has a potion that will knock anything out. and then there is my aunt paula. another women that has mastered her skills in the laundry room. pulling items out of the dryer before they are actually dry so they don't shrink and so she can keep collars crisp. as much as i admire these two women i just can't seem to get my head around their love for laundry.

at our house i have tried doing a load or two a day but i usually forget about the load and it sits in the wash machine overnight. those of you with front loaders know what that means. they stink to high heaven and they need to be washed again! more often i wait until the weekend and spend an entire day slaving away in an attempt to fill closets with clean clothes before the start of a new week. but even this routine fails me. as a matter of fact i collected all the dirty clothes in the house last friday and until just yesterday; which was 5 full days later, the pile just sat in the back entry and trey was jumping off the stairs into it. argh!

tuesday night while at dance class my friend cindy shared her strategy with me. skeptical i put it to work yesterday and i have to tell you i love it. it works! at least it worked for me yesterday... who knows what next week will bring. but check this out, it is as simple as washing loads specific to the members of your family. that's right forget about sorting before it goes in. just pull out the delicates and in our case the jeans too and start washing.

yesterday i started with kate because she and her little girlie friends go through an insane number of clothes changes per day. she had 2 full loads. first all the socks, panties and PJs. next load everything else. i do wash everything in cold which prevents the colors from bleeding for those of you that are concered by that... after kate's wash came treys and so on. cindy's method also made putting the clothes away much easier. i had been folding into a large basket where the clothes would inevitably sit for dayS before ever finding a home. with this practice i folded the load as it came out of the dryer and ran it up to the said childs room and put it away.

some may say think this method is a bit risky (mom) but i have to tell you i genuinely think she's on to something!

thanks sharing cindy. i owe you~

J-U-M-P!!!

here is our little nut ball in action! a new satae means new adventures for trey.

check out the handy work!

bare with me for a while i brag on my sweet husband for minute. both of these structures (benches) were created by him for ME and i love them both!

come home to us soon so we can sit and watch the leave change and the kids play.