Happy Halloween

Here's the post where I detail our Halloween weekend complete with copious amounts of photos for your viewing pleasure. Or displeasure. Or whatever.

Friday night we let the carving begin. May have been a day or two early as the pumpkins almost did not make it until Halloween.

Chomp!

It's a shocker but I actually partook in the carving this year. Luckily, Kris scraped all the guts out for me.

Oh no! Hayley's pumpkin is eating Rex' arm!

Aunt Hayley and Uncle EJ joined us for the fun. Here's everyone standing behind their respective jack-o-lanterns.

Sunday night we had a little cousin party.

Kindra provided the sugar cookies, which in turn provided tons of fun and sprinkles.

Even cousin Steph partook of the fun (and sprinkles)!

Sugar cookie bliss for Rex

Big kid ghost game of some sort that Gracie was in charge of.

Then the little cousins played Pin the Face On the Jack-O-Lantern. Now, I'm a minimal effort kind of gal so the concept and design were very simple but it did provide a generous amount of entertainment for me and Kindra.

Noah's face

Rex' face

Walter's face, he decided to leave the blindfold on.

Ren's face

Matthew's cookie

Gracie and Macie

Nick and Owen

Audrey

That's my girl!

Pumpkin bowling was a bit of a bust (the small pumpkin got smashed before we could even play the game but it's all good, the big pumpkin was a least good for a rest).

We also played flashlight tag and had a touchy feely room with such creepy offerings as brains, eyeballs, mummy ears, ghost slime and monkey hearts, ewww!

It wasn't a fancy party but I think everyone had a great time!

Halloween night we went to the ward trunk or treat and played carnival games, jumped in the bouncy castles and trick-or-treated. Fun was had by all. We love Halloween in AZ since it's not so cold you have to wear a jacket!

My girls- a masquerade ball attendee and a pirate princess (or something like that, since I'm such a slacker and didn't even plan a costume for Leelee)

Owen was a dancing skeleton

Colby the Pirate and Darth Rex

(I just have to add that the next day Colby asked me to put on his mustache before we went out and was a little upset that I wouldn't do it.)

The sweetest treat of the night.

I'm a little bummed at how dark this picture is and apparently the editing I did didn't stick.

Matthew came home and carved his pumpkin at the end of the night since he missed our carving party due to a scout camp out.

At the end of the night after Owen had showered he still had a bit of makeup around his eyes and Kris and I thought he looked like a certain celebrity, any guesses?

What Happens When...

you leave Colby alone with a box of chocolate frosted donuts? 
He helps himself to a few, thank you very much.

 And he just likes to nibble the frosting off, cuz that waxy goodness is the best part, right?

Somebody had a birthday

We celebrated Colby's 3rd birthday at the end of August. He was super excited for his birthday donuts, even more excited for those than for his presents.

 We kept it a low key affair. When they're young and don't really know the difference I like to keep it easy and cheap. So we took the family swimming, it's one of Colby's favorite things to do so he was very happy. This happened to be Leelee's first trip to the pool.

 He got some birthday money in the mail from his grandparents in Idaho so he got to have a little shopping trip. It was hilarious. It hadn't started out as a trip to the store to spend his birthday money but we walked by these shoes at the end of an aisle and he was in love. "MOM, I WANT THESE!" And I was thinking, "No way!" (I'm generally not a fan of character shoes) plus they weren't even on sale. But then I remembered that he had his birthday money so I said, "well, if you really want them then you can buy them with your birthday money." He exclaimed, "I do want these. I REALLY do want these." So in the cart they went and thus began his shopping adventure.

 He wandered up and down the toy aisles looking and looking and when he found an item that he knew he wanted, in the basket it went. He was very picky and selected only items that he knew he would love. And if you know Colby you'll understand his next choice: a hat.

Here he is posing with all his loot: the shoes, the pirate hat, a bat and ball set, a giant bouncy ball, a Frisbee, and a Nerf rocket football. He was even funny when he had to choose between two items because he didn't have enough money left to buy both, he was very matter of fact and decisive. No tantrums, just a very satisfying shopping trip with a three year old. I'm still laughing about how grown up he was about the whole thing and how much fun he had getting to spend all of his money.

I have to say that this little boy challenges me to the very innermost core of my being. I was sorta hoping that once he turned three all the difficulties I have with him would just melt away and I would have this delightful little three year old. I love three year olds, it's such a fun age. Alas, it has not exactly turned out that way. He knows how to push buttons I didn't even know I had and I have come to the determination that he is the child that will teach me patience far greater than all the others. BUT, I love him fiercely and our family wouldn't be the same without him. He definitely livens this place up! He's already looking forward to his next birthday and talks about this birthday as if it were yesterday. He tells people "my birthday was 'last day' " (meaning yesterday). I tried to explain to him about Christmas and I think he's starting to get excited for that.

We love you Colby!

New Beginnings (again)

This year the first day of school was perhaps even harder than last year. New schools (again) for everyone.  More nervousness, trepidation, and excitement. All from me.

Ha! Not all from me, but most of it.

Matthew started Jr. high at a school where he hardly knows a soul. I can't believe I have a 7th grader! He seems even more grown up now than during the summer.

Gracie's a 5th grader. It was a rough first few weeks, being the only new girl in her grade. Tears were shed, discussions were held about going back to the old school but she stuck it out. She's settling in nicely now. Just got elected class representative for student council. Settling in quite nicely it would seem.

Owen's a big ol' second grader now. Owen's a cool cat, makes lots of friends wherever he goes and charms the pants off his teachers. No worries here.

My little Rexy started kindergarten this year, my first full day-er to date. It was hard on me but he was so excited and he loves school. It helps that he has two siblings at the school with him.  It's so fun to see the excitement of learning through his eyes.

Poor little Colby, once he saw all the big kids go off to school he suddenly decided he wanted to go too. He didn't want to leave after we took them all to their classes. Poor kid, nobody tell him he's got three years to go...

As I said, he was pretty sad he doesn't get to go...

This was the only picture I took of Leelee on the first day of school. At this point in her life she was still sleeping most of the time. :)

Double Digits!!!

My little girl isn't so little anymore, well she hasn't been for quite some time but at least her age is starting to catch up to her. She'll probably still get mistaken for a teenager but at least now that she's in the double digits it will hopefully not seem so shocking, at least for me. 

Dad got her a special pink coconut covered donut. She loves coconut.

This year for her birthday Gracie said she wanted a shopping spree. So all she got for her birthday was money and she and I (and the baby, of course) spent the day shopping. We stopped by Dad's work and then went to Ikea, the mall and Target. She cracked me up with how frugal she was. Ikea was pretty much a waste of time because she didn't want to buy anything there without seeing what all her options at the mall were. She spent a ridiculously large amount of time at the rock store as she carefully chose a few select rocks. She bought a geode which was cool because she came home and got to break it open to see what was inside. 

 After about four hours of shopping she had spent a whopping $11, she eventually spent more over the next week or so.

A few facts about Gracie:

She wears a size 11 shoe in womens. Yes, you read that right- size 11. Bigger than me, we barely got to enjoy the sharing shoe phase and she's 10 for crying out loud. Oh please do not let this girl be taller than six feet, but her big feet have me concerned.  I should note that it does not seem to bother her one bit at all and unfortunately she has been blessed with no coordination.

I have never had to deal with friend drama with her at all. She is a good friend and she gets along well with others and doesn't seem to ever get caught up in any nonsense.

She hates (HATES, I tell you!) to do chores. You see, she is a child who likes to have fun. She likes to craft and write and play and daydream and do fun things! And chores are so not fun! Oh, and she also always leaves her dirty clothes in the bathroom. But, I might add, she has been keeping her room in super neat condition (mostly) since we moved into our house, nothing like this.

She's an awesome big sister. Since she likes to have fun she is always coming up with new games to play with her little brothers. She was my savior this summer while I was suffering through my pregnancy. She kept those boys entertained for hours each day playing school and doing other fun activities.

She's super smart. She scored 100 on the state standardized test in the language/reading section and only missed 3 points overall. (But I'm not bragging or anything :)

She practices her instruments faithfully, without ever being asked to do it. Last year it was the violin, this year it's the clarinet (sorry Em!) since she wanted to join the band.

She gets hot very easily, hence the flushed cheek look she sports in so many pictures. The only one of my kids to suffer from this. Weird.

Happy 10th Gracie, my dear, you are a supremely wonderful, fantastically amazing daughter! We're so lucky you're ours!

Little Leelee

I'm finally getting around to posting our baby story. Around the first week of July I was starting to get excited for Leelee to join us and as the dates started to roll by I kept hoping I'd go into labor. July 7th would have been cool since her sister's birthday is 8/8, or 7/8 would have been fun too, or lucky 7/11, or 7/13 (my birthday), 7/15 (Michelle's birthday), 7/17 (I just like the numbers), 7/20 (my grandma's birthday), or 7/21 (Kris' grandma's birthday).  Pretty much any day in July would have worked. My due date was the 19th so I was praying that whatever day she did decide to come it would be before that date.  I was going out of my mind crazy being super pregnant in the middle of this hot summer with all the kids home. Out. Of. My. Mind. Crazy. Just ask Kris or the kids. On second thought, don't ask them as I'm sure they would be brutally honest and I'd rather pretend like it didn't happen.

I had lots of contractions starting around the second week of July thus feeding into my furious desire to go into labor. I dragged Kris on many hot summer night walks around the neighborhood trying to get them to progress into something serious.  We had an unfortunate trip to the hospital after having several hours of regular contractions that were getting seemingly stronger and were less than five minutes apart. We dragged the kids out of their beds in the middle of the night and hauled them to my mom's only to be sent home from the hospital after 5 hours of being monitored and walking the halls. I don't dilate early and I was too far from my due date for them to "help" me along so they sent me home and of course eventually the contractions stopped. That had never happened to me before, I felt so dumb. Here I am having my sixth child, I KNOW what it's like to go into labor for crying out loud! I thought for sure I would not leave that hospital without a baby.  And to top it off Kris wasted one of his precious vacation days that would've come in handy when the baby actually got here!

Further into the month I began to get increasingly discouraged but eventually came to the realization there was nothing I could do to speed things up. So we waited and waited. We watched her due date roll by (the kids were certain she would be born that day since it was her DUE DATE after all!) At my appointment that day the doctor left it up to me, whether I wanted to be induced or not. At this point my frazzled brain and hot, heavy laden body could handle no more. Induce me! Please! I was SO ready!

I really wanted to go into labor on my own but I don't think she had any intentions of coming out anytime soon so on the 22nd we headed to the hospital to help her along. We had an awesome nurse, same one that had been there the night we had the false episode and she remembered us. We laughed and joked the whole time. She has a son named Rush, how cool is that? Everything went so smoothly. The anesthesiologist jokingly asked us if we were going for the big family discount, buy 6 get one free.

Me, moments before changing into that lovely hospital gown.

Kris moved his chair across the room so he could sit next to me in the rocker. This is the scene our nurse walked into and she asked us for our camera. We were like two little old people sitting in our rockers watching TV. Reminds me of my great-grandma and grandpa, they had two recliners together in front of the TV.

The labor and delivery were great. Once my water was broken she was born quickly. In fact, we had been watching Wheel of Fortune, my mom was there and if you know my mom she doesn't miss Wheel, not even for a grandbaby :) and Leelee happened to be born right during the middle of it. Not that we were watching or anything (well, Mom might have been) and we joked about naming her Vanna. Such a happy, wonderful time. We are so blessed.

Our Little Leelee

July 22nd

8 lbs. 15 oz.

21in.

(2nd biggest, I can't believe I thought she would be my smallest!)

It's good to start life off with a few good leg rolls.

Finally a sister!

Big Bro Colbs

Daddy and daughter

Meeting Grannie, part of her namesake. (Actually, she'd already met her the day before...)

A family portrait for me at the hospital by Owen

Big Bro Matt

Big Bro O

Big Bro Rex

(this little girl is going to have some serious protection)

Our happy family

We feel so blessed and happy to have Leelee in our family. She has a sweet and calming presence. She is loved by all. Colby has his moments of picking on her but mostly he loves to hold his little Weelee (as he calls her). I am just trying to savor the days of her newborn babyness, I know they will be gone far too soon...