Halloween 2012



Here is the pumpkin Michael and the kids carved.  Well, Michael did the carving and the kids cheered him on. :-)  Spooky!

 

This was taken at our ward's Fall Festival.  There was a chili/soup cookoff.  I won for best unusual chili--unusual in the sense that mine was the only soup and all the others were chili.  After the meal, the kids trick-or-treated around the hallway to the different rooms, where families had decorated.  This picture is Jonathan with his "best friend" Annie Mae.  She was a cat, and he was Mickey Mouse!

Nathaniel was too cool for an actual costume, and everyone thought this was pretty clever.

Ready for some trick-or-treating!  Daniel was Thomas again, Andrew was a pirate, and Emily was a sorceress.  I took the kids this time, while Michael stayed home to hand out candy.  He even had some Halloween music playing for the trick-or-treaters.

Here is a good picture of Jonathan in his costume.  He didn't want to wear the ears, but I finally convinced him.  It would have been even cuter with white gloves, but I didn't even bother because I knew he wouldn't wear them.  I tried putting black makeup on his nose for a Mickey nose, but he hated it.  He cried until I wiped it off, and he then proceeded to scold me for a few minutes about how he never wanted me to do that again.  Sheesh!  Another cute thing Jonathan kept doing--if he didn't like the candy, he handed it back to the person at the door.  It was so embarrassing and so cute at the same time.  It was like he was saying, "Um, I don't like these.  What else ya got?"

Emily as a sorceress.  She had wanted to be a zombie, but we talked her out of it.

The LOOT! (this is from the Fall Festival, trick-or-treating for Andrew and Daniel at their school, and trick-or-treating in our neighborhood)

Happy Halloween!

Daniel's Projects

Do you ever just look at your child an fall in love with him or her?  That happens to me on a daily basis, but I caught this one on film.  Daniel has started making little "projects" at home.  He'll go into my office and make a huge mess and come up with some cute drawing that he'll carry around for days. 

This one is called "blue pumpkin."  He even made a replica for me that was green.  The next morning, he couldn't find it and he was sobbing about how he lost it.  We told him he would find it, and he did.  I made a copy of it for him, and he thought that was pretty cool.

He also had a school project to do, which was decorating this turkey.  It's supposed to be a "family" project.  He went to town on it today.  I was so glad to see him taking initiative with his school work that I didn't have the heart to tell him that the snowman and Santa stickers weren't exactly related to a Thanksgiving turkey.

Great job, Daniel!

Emily's Chorus Concert

Emily auditioned for Chorus at her school, and she made it in!  It is only for 4th and 5th graders, so this is the first year she could do it.  She goes early every Wednesday morning for practice.  She loves it!  They had their first concert on Saturday and it was wonderful.  Great job, Emily!

 

Lemonade Stand

This weekend was wonderful!  It was General Conference, so we got to hear from our prophet and apostles by satellite broadcast.  It is always a blessing to hear their counsel and to be together as a family.  One of my favorites was a talk by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, here.  I realize that it's a little ironic that I'm posting a link to it--those who heard it will understand. :-)   

On Saturday, our neighborhood had a community yard sale.  The kids had their hearts set on doing a lemonade stand.  We tried to explain that not many people would want to buy lemonade on a cool morning, but they were undeterred.  So, I made a batch of pan cookies and we made two gallons of lemonade.  Saturday morning, Emily and Andrew were at my bedside by 6:45am telling me, "Mom, we better get started!"  Groan!  They guilted me into getting up and we were out there bright and early.  We had asked our neighbor if we could set up on his corner and there was a lot of traffic.  The kids made $25!  Nathaniel and Daniel had said they weren't interested, but I think they were sorry for that when they found out how much Andrew and Emily made.  We quit after we sold the last cookie, which was around 9:30am.  Some people just stopped to give them money because they were so cute.  It was actually a lot of fun.

While Andrew, Emily and I were at the lemonade stand, Michael was in the house with Jonny and Nathaniel was riding around looking for deals at the yard sales.  He found a nice Lego set for $2, so he was pretty excited about that.  Daniel practiced riding the scooter.  He came over to me and I couldn't help giggling--he was using three of Emily's pink knee and elbow pads and one of Andrew's, and he had put elbow pads on his calves and knee pads on his elbows.  "Safety always comes first, Mom!" he said. 

Too Many Toys

And you thought VHS tapes were obsolete. Not in our house. We use them as blocks, or in this case, a tall garage for cars and trains.

Here is yet another use--a ramp for bridges.

Andrew took it upon himself to clean out Jonny's toy closet. I had been avoiding it, but he did a pretty good job getting it started. I finished up and now it's completely empty--all of the toys are organized and I put them in the upstairs playroom. I plan to use the closet for storage now.

Here is Jonny on an afternoon when he had refused to nap. On the way to pick up Emily from dance class, he covered his face with his blanket and fell fast asleep.  It's not really related to the rest of this post, but I just thought it was so cute!