Halloween 2007

Tinkerbell, Wendy, Peter Pan, and Captain Hook

(Elizabeth, Rachel, Oliver, and Tristan)

Daniel and I took all the kids trick-or-treating. They all loved it, but is was especially funny to see Lizzy get into it for the first time. We only sent her up to a few houses (the ones with relatively safe paths up to the doors), and she thought it was so great. After she got her treat, though, she kept plopping herself down right on people's porches to investigate her bucket. She also kept trying to give people treats back from her bucket - she would do little trades. The rest of the time she sat in the wagon while the other kids went up, and searched through her basket for suspicious things to throw out. Things that were iffy ended up being placed in the bottom of the wagon, and then things that were really weird looking were tossed out onto the sidewalk.

At one house all the kids got a little microwave popcorn package, which I thought was a cute idea, but Lizzy had very mixed feelings about it. She didn't want to completely abandon it (she threw it out of the wagon a few times but then wanted it back), but she was not comfortable with it being in her bucket, either, so it ended up with a special spot on the bench across from her. Once in a while she would change her mind and give it a chance back in her bucket, but it never stayed there for long.

When we got back, I put Lizzy to bed while Daniel organized a candy sorting/choosing party. I wasn't involved, but I could hear from the other room that great fun was being had by all. All the buckets were dumped and then sorted into different kinds of candy. Then each of the kids got to choose 20 pieces (they had already chosen 10 from their Halloween party, so they got to choose 10 more from trick-or-treating).

I love that they accept this with no fuss. On our way home from our ward party last Friday, I kind of casually mentioned that when they got home they could choose out 10 and then we'd put the rest in the give-away bucket. The boys each said one thing, like 'oh, we don't get to keep it all?', and I just said, 'What!? Do you guys think it would be healthy to eat all this candy?' Then they were immediately on my side, saying things like, 'Oh, yeah, you're totally right, Mom. We forgot about that. That would be really bad. Of course we shouldn't eat this much.' Tristan even went so far as to say that if they ate that much candy all of their teeth would probably fall out. I told him probably not all (I don't want him to think later that he's been lied too) but it still wouldn't be good for his teeth.

I'm sure it won't always be that easy.

Halloween pictures:

Halloween Decorations

Some of you may remember how much Oliver really loved all the Christmas decorations last year. I did not realize that he would get so into Halloween decorations, too. He loves driving around and seeing what other people put in their yards and on their windows. A few weeks ago he asked me why I hadn't set up any Halloween decorations at our house. I told him that he could make some himself, so he got right to it and started drawing pictures to hang up on our front windows and door. He was not super happy with them, though, and was really concerned that they might not show very well from the street. I wasn't sure why it really mattered.

Then last week we got a big pumpkin and made a jack-o-lantern, and each of the kids got a little mini pumpkin to decorate. Oliver was really excited, but to my surprise, he still did not seem content. He kept saying that people wouldn't see our pumpkin when they drove by. The next day he spent a lot of time out in the front yard, and I wasn't sure what he was doing. He asked me if he could move around some of the pumpkins, and I said okay. He went back out for awhile, but I still wasn't sure what was going on.

Then he came inside and sat down by me, kind of looking depressed. He said, 'Mom, is this ALL the Halloween decoration stuff we have? Like, is there any more in a box somewhere that I could use?' I didn't know what he was talking about, but told him that we didn't really have any Halloween stuff.

Finally I went outside to see what he had been up to. I started laughing as soon as I saw it. He had found a little bag that we got from a party that had little Halloween trinkets in it (straws, pencils, rings, finger puppets) and had set them up on the front porch and in the front yard. He had also moved the little pumpkins around so they would be more visible from the street. It was so cute to see that he had been trying to make our yard look presentable compared to our neighbors.

Poor kid. I know he was so frustrated that we only had little teeny things to set up. I felt so sad for him when I realized that that's why he had come in and asked if we had any more Halloween stuff - I think he knew that the things he was setting up weren't quite the same as 'real' Halloween decorations. Anyway, he has completely put himself in charge of the decorating job, and each day it looks a little different out there, as he struggles to come up with new arrangements that he feels will look okay. He always asks me, 'Do you think people can see it?' And I say they can. (I don't add that they might have to use binoculars.)

I took some pictures so you can see how funny it is - I don't know if you can tell the scale from the pictures, but these are seriously TINY decorations - there is a little ghost in front of our doormat, and it is only about a half inch taller than our doormat. Maybe you will understand Oliver's frustrations.

Updating The Blog

Now that I'm finally attempting to update this blog, I'm going to try to fill in the gap a little - I haven't posted anything for over a year, so I'm going to start going through my old journal entries* and then I'll copy and paste any fun stories that I find onto the blog.

I'm going to change the dates of each post to match the date that it was actually written, so that it will all make sense in the archives. So don't be surprised if all of a sudden lots of new posts start showing up that say they were posted sometime last year (I know it's a little sneaky to pretend that I've been posting all along, but hey, it's my blog, right?)

*When I say "journal entries", I actually mean old emails/letters that I have written to my family and then saved in a big Word document that I call my journal. That's about as close to journal writing as I get these days. So don't worry - they aren't really "dear diary" sort of entries.

Sign Language

Tristan and Rachel have decided to only use sign language when answering 'yes' or 'no'. I don't know how Tristan learned it, but one day he just started doing it. Then out of the blue, Rachel became a mute answerer, too: I asked her a question and heard no answer. I turned around, and there she was, solemnly staring at me, signing 'no'. Now they both do it all the time. They never forget. Actually, Rachel sometimes forgets, but then she has me ask the question again, and she answers in sign language. I have learned that I need to be facing them when I ask them something, or else I think they're ignoring me. Weirdos.

Update: After I wrote this, Rachel decided to make up a new sign. She asked me what the sign was for 'you're welcome', and upon hearing that I didn't know it, she promptly made up her own sign. It's hard to describe, but it involves putting both arms up kind of like chicken wings and then waggling them up and down. It almost looks like a legitimate sign. Anyway, I know at least she's considering it legitimate, because first thing this morning I thanked her for something, and sure enough, I received the chicken sign.

Flag Football

Tristan has had such a fun time playing flag football this year. He's finished with all the regular games now, but they'll start the playoffs in a few weeks.

I didn't take a lot of pictures of him while he was playing because I was trying to videotape most of the games, and it was hard to take pictures at the same time. Here are some of the pictures I took over the course of the season. When he's holding up his fingers, that's to show how many flags he pulled that game:

I did take lots of pictures of the other kids (Oliver, Rachel, and Elizabeth) playing around at Tristan's games. We usually had to get to the games pretty early for warmups, so it was nice when there was a playground near the field for the kids to play on while we waited for the game to start. If the game was far away and we didn't have time to eat before we left, sometimes we dropped Daniel and Tristan off to warm-up and then we went to breakfast. The kids loved that.

Here is a little highlight video of Tristan pulling flags. I made it after the first two games, so it is very, very short. I'll update this with a longer one once I upload the action from all of his games.

Rachel's Idea of a Great Outfit

I brought in a box of winter clothes from the garage and let Rachel sort through them. This is what she came up with to wear today.

She Doesn't Ask for Much

I was tucking in my precious 3-year old for her nap the other day, being very tender and loving and kind, and this is what happened:

Me: I sure love you a lot.

Rachel (looking up at me sweetly, surely about to say how much she loves me back): Mom, when are you going to start being REALLY nice to me?

Me: What??? What do you mean? What things would I do if I was REALLY nice to you?

Rachel: You know - you would give me lots of ice-cream and buy me a new bed and all that stuff.

Me: ?????

Me: Since when do you need a new bed? You already have two beds in your room.

End of conversation. The mom is left wondering what the heck 'all that stuff' is that she's supposed to be buying, and what on earth made 3-year old think she needed a new bed. The 3-year old is left in her unsatisfactory bed, probably wishing she could somehow trade in for a mom who was REALLY nice.

I just love these kinds of meaningful heart-to-heart conversations.

Rachel's Song

Rachel found an old hymn book that she loves to carry around. She says it has lots of special songs in it, and she loves to sing these made-up songs while pretending to read from the book.

I call this song "Wishful Thinking" - Rachel goes on and on about how perfect her life is: everyone loves her so much and wants to sit by her in the car, the family goes to McDonalds and eats beautiful pink ice-cream, she has a pink bed and a red bed, Mom lets her turn on her pink lamp in her room, Lizzy is so nice to her and always gives her lots of kisses when she hurts her every day (this part is definitely wishful thinking - Lizzy is not very nice to Rachel), she gets banana splits and cake for snack time, etc., etc.

It's obvious from the raw talent shown here that Rachel is going to have a great future in the music industry.

Art Lessons

Oliver teaching Rachel how to draw a jack-o-lantern. They were both taking it very seriously.

BBQ with Daniel's Work

We had a little get-together with Daniel's team from work. There was a great playground there and the kids had a lot of fun.

Rachel's Progression as an Artist

Today I was looking through Rachel's stack of drawings that I have saved, and I was really impressed with how much she has improved over the last few months.

She first started trying to draw princesses around the middle of the summer. Her initial attempts were pretty bad, and she gave up for awhile, but then she decided to keep trying, and she has drawn hundreds of princesses since then, getting better all the while.

Here are a bunch of her drawings: The slide show starts back with her early attempts and then goes through gradually to some samples from the end of the summer, ending with the princess she drew this morning (this is just a small sample, as she draws several princesses every day).

I think it's pretty funny how her princesses have evolved over time.

Happy Birthday, Daniel!

Daniel's birthday, which we celebrated with delicious ice-cream cake (no dinosaurs and volcanoes for this 30-year old).

It was kind of weird to have someone turn 30 in our family. Oliver even wrote about it in his weekly journal: "My dad turned 30 today." That's all he wrote - it sounded very solemn.

*Tristan and Oliver do not have tattoos, in case you were wondering. They are just the fake sticker kind. Very classy.

Four Little Artists

Here are all four children coloring together. Lizzy thinks she is one of the big kids, and loves to climb up on the benches and scribble on paper, which is fine, except she is not very safe on the benches, and she also loves to scribble on everyone else's drawings, which is not appreciated. She is a huge cause of trouble in our house these days. But she draws very lovely "scribble-scrabbles" , which she claims are either babies or trees.