Day 305

Happy Halloween! In case you can't tell we are: a witch (yeah yeah, boring. I promise (myself) I'll put more thought into my costume next year), Hello Kitty, Indiana Jones, and a cowboy.
The day included:
-photo session (for my class)
-trick or treating, which both the kids really enjoyed
-games and movies with friends. We let the kids answer the door - I love that part!

Day 304

The night before halloween and here we are carving pumpkins. (still working on my manual camera settings - please excuse the quality of the photo)
It's been a busy week for all of us. Sam was/is working late. And I spent most of the day with friends working on preparations for a party and frankly I was exhausted. But you can't skip the pumpkin carving right? It's like having Thanksgiving without the turkey. So out came the carving stuff. And surprisingly, the kids helped more than I thought they would. Both of them made a very good effort to scoop all the yuckies out of their respective pumpkins, despite both of them making faces and saying how gross it was. Everyone had a good time, and the kids were very pleased with the results of our efforts. And even better - we are now Officially Ready for Halloween!

Day 303

You've seen the ears, here's the tail :)
Kaitlyn had her Halloween party at Kindergarten today. She was so excited to dress up. One of the few mornings since school started that I didn't have to cajole her into getting dressed first thing instead of taking her time to wake up.
I went up to the school to help out with the party. Kaitlyn loves when I do things like that, and I'm happy to do it. And as far as I can tell, she had a great time at the party.

Day 302

My first "decent" photo using the manual settings on my camera - oooooo! :) Not bad for indoors (my house has HORRIBLE lighting), at night, no flash. Having a very cute model helps.

People have been asking me to take photos for them. And whenever they do I feel totally inadequate, yet I still say yes. So, nudged along by 2 more photo session requests, and my wonderful, supportive husband, I signed up for a photography class. Total spur of the moment. The class is Creative Child Photography, but we're supposed to learn how to use natural light, filters, etc in addition to poses and how to work with kids. And let's face it, kids are what I photograph 90% of the time.

The first class was tonight and I am happy to say I learned some new things, including some of the functions of my camera. I have to admit I'm very intimidated though and feel like I am the least experienced person in the class. But that's why I'm there right? To learn. Yeah. I need to keep reminding myself of that and try to avoid freaking out over the prospect of having to jump right in with real "models" on Saturday.

Day 301

Day 300

...but they didn't bag up the leaves yesterday, so Kaitlyn got a turn to jump in them today.

Day 299

Sam and Ty raked up a big pile of leaves while Kate was in school.

Day 298

Tyler loves doing finger plays. One of his favorites is 5 Little Monkeys swinging in the trees, teasing Mr Crocdile...
He loves to make the crocodile SNAP! (clap)

Day 297

Day 296

Mom and I made Kaitlyn's Kitty ears and tail today. Now she's all set for Halloween!

Day 295

Watching TV with Emma. The kids love spending time with her.

Day 294

Got the pumpkins decorated. Seems like too soon to carve them - and since Sam refuses to help with the carving I always put it off to the last minute anyway. But I like this alternative. Kaitlyn decided what she wanted them to look like and drew the faces herself.

Day 293

Typical Sunday - grocery shopping and hanging out at home. Bought pumpkins today. Had thought about going to a pumpkin patch and making it an Event, but since we're down to 2 weeks before Halloween as it is, we settled for grabbing a couple at the store. The kids enjoyed it, anyway.

Day 292

Day 291

Wait, maybe this was yesterday's photo. Doesn't matter right? lol (this is what I get for waiting a week to post the photos!)
Kaitlyn was so happy to play with Maddie and Isabelle. I don't think they've had a real play date in at least a couple years. Crazy. They had a lot of fun, especially with the leaves. Hopefully it won't be another 2 years before the NEXT play date :)

Day 290

Party clean up today. Too exhausted to take photos. So here is another one of the birthday girl - blowing out her candles at the Family party.

Day 289

Happy Birthday Kaitlyn!
Kaitlyn's 6th birthday was full of fun all day long - from waking up to a birthday banner and a rainstorm of balloons to blowing out the candles on her monkey cake. With lots of presents, being the leader and doing her Show and Teach in school, and 2 full parties in between. Whew! What a day!
We love you so much sweetie!

Day 288

Party prep day! Had to make 2 batches of cupcakes and turn them into monkeys. Kaitlyn's job was adding the eyes.

Day 287

(will update later)

Day 286

(photo to be added)
Monsters and Aliens DVD + eggnog (can you believe it's out in stores already??) + popcorn = movie night!

Day 285

Saturday = family fun day! Today we took the kids to the corn maze at Thanksgiving Point. The kids had so much fun doing all the activities - the big 3 person slide was an especially big hit. The maze itself was also fun. It took us an hour and 12 minutes to complete it - and the kids didn't get sick of it until the last 20 minutes.

Day 284

And the celebrations continue...
The kids started dance class today - my mom chose (after much debate, thus the late start) to do a dance class not only for Kaitlyn but also Tyler this year. They were all so cute in their dance outfits - Kaitlyn looking SO grown up this year, and Tyler so excited and enthusiastic.
I watched a little of each class then I was off to the city for lunch with Audrey (Cheesecake Factory! another MMMMM) and some shopping. It was a lot of fun. Then home to celebrate Wyatt's birthday with dinner out with the family. (the photo is of the kids helping him open his gift - we all went in on a camera for him)

Day 283

Happy Birthday to ME!
I started the day trying to comfort poor Kaitlyn who woke up "thinking about what the fireman told me...that we can't get our favorite toys if there's a fire..." (she was SO upset - do they realize how what they say can come back and haunt kids?) But after we explained things to her, I got to open presents. I got tickets to Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and a Dance Dance Revolution game (for the Wii) from the kids. It was kind of fun not to get anything practical. And fun to "dance" with Kaitlyn when she got home from school.

Lots of little gestures - phone calls, a few people stopping by with gifts, and lots of birthday wishes on Facebook - throughout the day made me feel a little special all day long. Sam topped off the day by making dinner for us. Then he surprised me by inviting my family over for cake - ice cream cake from Cold Stone! MMMM

Day 282

Had to share this photo from yesterday. Dari left Emma with us while running an errand before our weekly Project Time. When Emma woke up from her little nap Tyler thought she should watch a movie with him.

Day 281

Awww. Sam surprised me with flowers. They were all set up waiting for me to find them when I woke up (which happened sooner than he would have thought since my hands were hurting at 1 AM). So sweet.

Day 280

Isn't that funny? He fell asleep sitting up he was so tired.
We spent the whole day canning salsa with some friends. We had like 8 kids running around the house the whole time, which was just way too much confusion for Ty to even think about taking a nap. So we're all really exhausted. But it sure was fun!

*A little tip for those of you that may not know it (or those of you that do but don't realize how much it will hurt) - NEVER cut hot peppers with bare hands. We talked about getting out the gloves but were half-way through before some were found. Which didn't bother me at the time, but after 20 minutes with my hands in the tomatoes, they really started burning.

Day 279

Fall really does have beautiful colors and they are all around us now, including on my kitchen island. There sits the "leaf bouquet" the kids collected on their "looking trip" with grandma and grandpa the other day.

Day 278

A cute photo of Grandma and the kids at the zoo yesterday. I didn't take the camera with me today, although we did go to JDs birthday party and would have ended up with a cute shot of the kids hitting the pinata.

Day 277

We took Grandma Alene with us to the zoo today to see all the baby animals. And oh how cute they were! And so many of them! Usually a zoo with have a baby once in a blue moon. But this year the zoo had a baby elephant, baby giraffe, 3 baby tiger cubs, a baby snow leopard (that we're not sure we spotted), a baby crocodile (that was no longer there), and a tiny new baby monkey. We got there shortly after the zoo opened when the animals were all out for the breakfast and feeling energic. The animals were the most entertaining I've ever seen them, especially the baby elephant. She (?) reminded me of a 2 year old, running from one toy to another, stopping to eat for a second, then on to get into more mischief.
Once we had seen all the animals we went to lunch. Then decided to take advantage of the time in the city and run errands. We were able to meet up with Sam for dinner before he went on to his second jobsite of the day - and we're very happy about that. He's still been working a lot of long hours, plus he was headed down to the base for the weekend and we won't see him until Monday night.

Day 276

And these are the results of the first snow of the season. Just enough to cover the ground and give the kids something to play with. They were excited to bundle up and get outside first thing. And it was a good thing they did too. The snow was melted by noon.