Halloween

Pre-Halloween excitement:

Clockwise, starting from top left:

1. Ghosts, bats, and jack-o-lanterns hanging over our kitchen table. The kids created this all by themselves at the beginning of October, and they've been super pleased with it all month. I got so used to it, I forgot I can take it down now that Halloween is over. It might become a permanent decoration.
2. Mini-pumpkins that the kids painted. Only Tristan's pumpkin (the greenish one on the end) was left bare, because he claimed he "wasn't really into painting pumpkins anymore." Whatever.
3. Elizabeth trying to be very brave and reach into the gutted pumpkin to grab a seed (the kids are always grossed out by the stringy pumpkin guts, so this year I offered 10 cents to anyone who would reach in and grab out a seed. It almost wasn't worth it for Lizza, but in the end she decided she couldn't let everyone else be braver than she was. Mostly she just wanted 10 cents though.)
4. Triumphant Lizza with her pumpkin seed.
5. The door of the girls' room. I told Rachel and Lizza they couldn't hang their Halloween drawings all over the house, but they could hang whatever they wanted in their room.
6. Creepy spider web. I always feel bad that I don't do more holiday decorations for the kids (see here and here)- they were thrilled (and shocked) when I bought this spider web and hung it upstairs by their rooms. $2 goes a long way when expectations are low, I guess.
7. Tristan made an awesome Halloween bingo game for us to play.
8. Rachel bravely reaching into the pumpkin.

Posing with the jack-o-lantern:


Rachel, Lizza, and Henry getting ready to go to a party (they were waiting at the window for our ride). This was one of Lizza's many costumes - we went to a few different Halloween events, and every time she would grab something different out of the dress-up box. I think here she is a ballerina queen (Rachel's a dancer, and Henry's a pirate).


Rachel won the oreo stacking contest:



Halloween Night:

Tristan. Pirate.


Oliver. Pirate. He lost his first tooth a few hours before we went trick-or-treating (he pulled it out himself) and was very pleased with the authentic pirate look it gave him.


Rachel. Dancer. She's never been in any dance classes, but recieved this little dance outfit as a hand-me-down, and there was no talking her out of it. (I tried - the original plan was for them all to be pirates).

And of course, because she's Rachel, she added a special twist - she was wearing this weird necklace thing with a big fake pink watch attached to it. She told me it was her special dancing watch that let her know when it was time to start dancing. She made a big point of checking it all the time, and requested that I get a picture of her looking down at it.

Elizabeth. Pirate princess.

She wasn't sure how she felt about the clip-on earring. Rachel, on the other hand, was thrilled to learn about clip-ons. Both she and Elizabeth have vowed that they will never get their ears pierced and will just "wear bracelets, necklaces, and rings to be fancy" (not a moral stance - they are just scared of the pain). Rachel has now decided that her future will be in clip-ons. I told her she might change her mind when she's older, but I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Henry. Little pirate baby who wouldn't stand still for the camera.

The whole gang getting ready to go - four pirates and a time-conscious dancer:

We let Henry go out trick-or-treating to a few houses before I took him home and put him to bed. I thought he would get the hang of it and be excited about getting treats. He wasn't. He was just excited to run around through people's yards. He did go up to a few doors, but he'd always turn around and run away before he even got any treats.

Handing out treats after they got back - one of the highlights of their evening:

The Day After:

We always do a candy "draft" after Halloween that the kids (and Daniel) take pretty seriously. All the candy is combined and then sorted into different types.

Daniel then gave a little pre-draft talk, touching on different draft strategies, and also letting the kids know what some of his favorites were ("This is a Butterfinger. If you choose this, you will get a spanking because I want them all. These are suckers. Some kids like them, but they are gross. If you choose them, that is unacceptable and you will be out of the draft." Etc.) Poor Elizabeth was nodding her head solemnly through all of this - I had to quickly explain that he was joking.

Then a draft order was determined and each kid got to choose 15 pieces, to be eaten whenever they want. It's funny to watch what they do with it. Lizza plowed through 4 or 5 of hers right away. Tristan has decided to save all of his, and only eat a few pieces on the weekends, and none during the week. The other kids are somewhere in between.

And I haven't decided yet what I'm going to do (Daniel and I got all the leftovers).

September

Here are some pictures and fun stuff from September (which seems forever ago, now that it's almost November, but really it was only last month, so I'm barely even late in posting these, right?):

1) Swimming. This was our final trip to the pool this year. The slides and playground stuff by the pool were finally not too hot to play on:



Lizza "helping" me take care of Henry. I realized it was much harder to go swimming with him now that he can walk.


Rachel showing off her new swimming skills that she learned over the summer:

So of course, Lizza had to show off hers, too:

2) Work party/Round Rock Express baseball game

3) Henry's new favorite sleeping arrangement:

He lifts up the padding that goes on the bottom of his porta-crib, folds it up, and then just lays there on top of the bars. I don't know how he sleeps like that - it seems so uncomfortable.

He is pretty pleased about his bed-wrecking abilities, though:

4) He tries to make up for all his mischievousness by being extra cute- he thinks all is forgiven when he offers up his favorite trick, the bend:

And he's usually right.

5) And finally, here are Rachel and Elizabeth being "Princesses of the Night."

I'm not sure what those are, but here's another one:

(She was very specific: "Mom, I am not a regular princess. I am a Princess of the Night!")

I don't know - I think maybe it's the baseball and the sword that are the tipping point from just regular old princess in a bunny dress over to the dark side of princess-ness.

Anyway, that's it for random September photos. Maybe before Christmas I'll actually get to October.

Henry being a little more manly

After my last post, I figured I better show some proof that Henry does more than just dance around the house in a tutu all day.

Here he is doing some of his more manly activities:

Driving a motorcycle across the kitchen. He loves cars, motorcycles, airplanes, the garbage truck, and all other big trucks (or "big,big,bigs" as he calls them).

Hauling around his two favorite dinosaurs. He loves dinosaurs (he calls them "niners"), and is always walking around growling.


Playing with balls. Here he is making a nice crisp salad out of them in my lettuce spinner, but he also loves throwing them.

And wacking them around with baseball bats.

Walking around being manly with his batman mask, helicoptor shirt, and favorite black horse. He's probably growling in this picture.

Here's a video clip of him that same day. At first he just wanted to see the baby (himself) on the camera screen (he keeps saying "ga-gee" over and over and trying to walk around me - that's how he says baby), but he does offer up a little dinosaur growl after that. (Side note: watch for Lizza posing with the Memory game at the end - that might be my favorite part. Although Henry making his horse gallop along the floor is close):



He does take a break once in a while to try on some princess shoes:

But at the end of the day he's still our little man.

Henry's Dancing Skills

Henry loves to dance. He's only got two moves (bending his knees as he bounces up and down to the music, and turning around in a circle over and over again), but, as everything else he does, it's pretty darn cute.

Here he is (in Lizza's tutu and Rachel's shawl) showing off his "turn in a circle" move. You can tell he takes his dancing pretty seriously by the solemn look on his face, and also by the glares he keeps giving Lizza when she interrupts him (she wanted her tutu back).

(Please excuse Lizza walking around with no pants on in this second clip - as I mentioned before, Henry had stolen her tutu)



I love how he concentrates so hard as he's turning around and around - I don't know how he doesn't get dizzy.

I should probably post some manly pictures/video clips of Henry to make up for this, but I do think he's pretty adorable in all his fancy get-up:

I think this one's my favorite - he loses the serious look for a second and just gets caught up in the joy of the dance:

I don't remember pictures like this with Tristan and Oliver - I guess this is the result of Henry having two older sisters. Lucky him!

"And I am talking about Aliens. . ."

Daniel's birthday was on Sunday. The kids were super excited, and spent all of last week making elaborate birthday cards for him. Before we got up on Sunday morning we could hear them tiptoeing around in the kitchen, whispering and giggling as they set up all their cards on the counter. This ended up being just a small sample of the many cards he would receive throughout the day:



Of course, as the mother of the card-makers, I thought all of the cards were cute, but I scanned some of my favorites from each of the kids:

Tristan had made a really fancy card, complete with pockets on the inside, which held these 3 coupons:

(Good for three 7-minute massages, three 7-minute tickle your backs, and three 10-minute foot rubs)
On the back of the card, he included a "Joke of the Day", to help Daniel's special day be full of laughter and fun. It said, "What happens to a wooden airplane with a wooden engine?" Then there was a special little flap that you had to open up to find the answer: "It wooden go." Haha!

He also included a nice message inside the card: "Dear Daniel, Have a great birthday and have fun turning 32!" I think it's funny because Tristan and Oliver are always very aware of exactly how old Daniel and I are. I don't know why that's so funny to me. It just is.

Oliver also put forth a lot of effort into his cards. I think this kid might have a future as a card-maker. He was making up some of the funniest little sayings to go in his cards.

On one of his, he had a picture of the solar sytem on the outside:

And on the inside, a picture of a rocket, along with this message: "Dear Daniel, let's fly in are rocket to the best birthday ever! Wish you luck. love Oliver"

There are so many things that I love about this card! I think the little rocket saying is so cute, because I think Oliver is aware that real birthday cards always have dorky little sayings like that. Also, I love the "wish you luck" that he threw in there at the end - like 32 is kind of a scary year or something.

I think this was my favorite message from Oliver, though, in yet another outer-space themed card:

And I am talking about Aliens! Hahaha! I can't stop saying that.

Rachel's cards were mostly full of beautiful pictures. I liked this one where she and Henry are playing together under the table, because she included a fondue pot on the table (Daniel picked fondue for his birthday meal), and she also drew an exact replica of Henry's green and purple sippy cup:

Elizabeth won the prize for most cards made. She seriously made upwards of 15 birthday cards. She's been working on her drawing skills lately, and her princesses are improving daily:

My favorite part of her cards, though, were the messages that she had me write on them.

These messages were on 3 separate cards:

"To Daniel, for his birthday. Happy Daniel, it's his birthday! I love you! Happy birthday to you! I love you because you're so cuddly! Thank you for the football that you gave me!"

"Dad - I love you. And Dad, could I just say something? Dad, I just love you so much - even I love your face! Dad, I love you so much!"

"Daniel, I love you, I love you, I love you just so, so, so much! I just don't believe it! I love you because you always tackle me. When you get home can you tackle me? Love, Elizabeth."

I don't know - do you think she loves her dad?

Like I mentioned before, we decided to do a fondue party (Melting Pot style) for Daniel's birthday. It was so much fun!

We started out with a cheese fondue:

Here's Elizabeth making her first cheese dip with some celery (she burned her mouth right after this picture was taken so we decided it might be better to just put some cheese on a plate and let her dip from there):

Tristan was a pro, dipping right from the pot:

Oliver loved dipping the green apples:

And Rachel just loved the fact that everyone had their own individual different colored fondue fork:

(Can you see President Eyring in the background? We listened to General Conference as we dipped.)

After the cheese fondue, we moved on to the second course - a variety of meat, veggies, and ravioli cooked in a special broth and dipped in fancy dips:

And after that, we were ready for the most anticipated part of the day - chocolate fondue! Angel food cake, marshmallows, fresh pineapple, strawberries, and bananas dipped into a pot of melted chocolate:

Here's Daniel blowing out the candles with his girls (who happen to be soaking wet - I had sent the kids out to the back porch to watch the rainstorm while I cleaned up from the second fondue course - they came back in looking like they had just gone swimming in their clothes):

Classic Elizabeth: huge goose-egg on her forehead from running straight into a wall, soaking wet from playing in the rain sitting reverently on the porch, chocolate all over her face, and a huge grin:

Unlimited marshmallows and chocolate! Oliver was in heaven:

And so was everybody else:



It was a very fun birthday - I think we took Oliver's advice and "flew in our rocket to the best birthday ever!"

And Daniel really is the best (dad/husband) in the universe.

And when I say universe, I mean universe.

And I am talking about aliens.