Halloween 2017

10-27

Eating a snack

 All of the kids crowded around this Spot It game one Friday morning. I LOVE it when they all play together nicely! 

Police officer and Julia Child by day, Frankenstein and monkey by night! Molly and Hattie wore the same costumes that they wore last year; a ladybug and a cupcake. :) Molly put in several good requests for her Halloween costume; a preying mantis, a stoplight, a bagel and cream cheese, a grasshopper, a cartwheel (CARTWHEEL!?!? what in the heck? how?), and about two dozen more things. I thought she would want to be a princess of some kind because she was talking about Elsa for a few weeks prior to Halloween, but after trying on one princess dress, she decided to go a different route. Honestly, I don't want to put in too much effort for Halloween costumes. Super lazy mom moment. Molly tried to have other plans. Bagel and cream cheese - she is so stinkin' funny!!!

 This precious cupcake was pretty excited!

 The almost required post-trick-or-treating candy sort. Check out that huge piece in Alanna's cheek! 

Happy 2nd Birthday, Hattie Elizabeth!!

10-22

After a lot of thought, I finally decided on a crayon birthday cake for our little birthday girl. :) She loves to color and draw and do anything at the table with her sisters and brother! 

At first, it was going to be a pink crayon. I dyed the frosting pink and got the cake shape all put together. Once I frosted the cake with the light pink frosting, it looked very much like an inappropriate male body part. Yikes! I ended up making blue fondant to cover it up. It turned out really cute! 

How do you like Matt's birthday banner? We had two reusable birthday banners and I had asked Matt to pick one and put it up. Instead, he came up with this little number. Yep, it's actual paint on the wall! I had a few paint samples on the wall and was going to paint the kitchen relatively soon anyway, so Matt went for something totally different and just painted the words. It's so funny!

Birthday breakfast for Hattie - monkey bread! It's a family favorite and I don't make it too often, thus increasing the special-ness when we do have it! 

A little outdoor playtime. It was a cool fall day, a nice day to celebrate a birthday. 

Hattie's aunties were in town visiting over her birthday weekend. I picked Jill and Kathy up in Colorado Springs on Friday night (the 20th) and brought them back to the airport on Monday (the 23rd). We had so much fun together; lots of conversation, lots of giggling, lots of catching up, and a little afternoon outing checking out the sights of Canon City. On Sunday, Jill, Kathy, and I headed downtown to do a bit of browsing around the shops while Hattie took a little birthday nap. To finish off their visit, we took a little road trip up to Castle Rock before coming back to Colorado Springs so they could catch their flight home. Jill and Kathy played a game of "How Much Can Your Carry-On Hold?" and totally WON at that game. I am super thankful that Jill and Kathy were able to sneak away for a weekend to come out and see us! What a gift!

So then we went for a walk up to the facility behind our house (not right behind, but a quarter mile away or so). We asked Charlie and Alanna to take a picture of the three of us together. The following picture was taken by Charlie. I think.... yep, if you look closely, you can see three people-ish figured in the middle of the picture. That's us. :)

Back to our birthday girl! Of course, I took a picture of Hattie with her gifts. Goodness, she is so precious. Those pigtails! And cheeks! 

We had some of Hattie's favorites for lunch. Matt grilled brats and hot dogs and we had macaroni and cheese, fries, baked beans, and grapes with it. 

Manicure time!

Hattie opened her gifts after her nap. She loved opening each present! 

Since Jill and Kathy were visiting, we had a few extra hands to take a family photo of us crowded around the birthday girl! 

Aunties!!

Swensons and Edwards' gave Hattie a little doll bunk bed with two little dolls. It was a hit!

Hattie's holding a $5 bill and trying to figure out what this toy "does". 

Shhhhh! The babies are sleeping!

After dinner, we had birthday cake and ice cream. Hattie tried so hard to blow out her candles but couldn't quite get them out without some help.

Cake and ice cream for Hattie! Two-year-olds are sooooo much neater than one-year-olds. Can you see all of the pink frosting under the blue fondant? 

Silly cake face!

Happy birthday to our youngest, our last baby, our darling Hatite Elizabeth. We love you so very much, little girl! 

Kinder Field Trip

10-19

When I heard that Alanna's class was taking a field trip to Diana's Pumpkin Patch, I quickly volunteered to help! As an added bonus to that, a girlfriend of mine texted me and asked if she could hang out with her little friends at the exact same time and day as the field trip! So strange... I'm super thankful that Donna offered to watch Molly and Hattie so I could go with Alanna and just focus on her. There were several parents who volunteered to help so we were put in really small groups. We were able to run around the place with three kids and two parents! My friend Tina, Bentley's mom, had asked Mrs. Jarvis to be put in a group with me and so we had fun chatting while we explored with the kids. We arrived at 11:30 and the kids boarded the bus to go back to school just after 1:00. We squeezed in a lot of activities and even ate lunch while we were there. It was a beautiful, warm October day for us to spend a few hours at the pumpkin patch! 

Alanna, Alex Piquette, Bentley Olguin (Tina's son)

 Alanna and Alex are pretty good friends. I've known Alex's mom, Vicki, for years after first meeting her at MOPS way back in the day. We were pregnant with these two girls together as well as the next ones (Molly and Alan). In fact, it was a presentation that Vicki did at MOPS that introduced me to couponing! She's a couponing wiz. 

 Teamwork from the kids - hauling those pumpkins back to the bus. 

 These three are pretty great!

 Tina and I got to pick out pumpkins, too, so the cart was extra full. 

 Alanna, Alex, and I took a quick jaunt through a small portion of the corn maze before it was time to head back for the group picture.

 The whole kindergarten class. The back row is all the boys. There are only 9 boys in her class! There are 17 girls (one was in the bathroom and missed the picture) making for quite a lop-sided group. It really seems like a nice group of kids as I've gotten a chance to at least talk with several of the parents. And just in case you can't find her, Alanna is on her knees on the far right in the very front row. 

Sibling Love

10-14

When you're casually sitting at the table and do this with your hands and head: 

 ...your littlest sister is likely to copy you because she just loves you SO VERY MUCH. 

 Later that night, Charlie, Alanna, and Molly all had a sleepover in Charlie's room. It seems like the kids ask to have sleepovers about every week! The big kids weren't even trying to go to sleep since Charlie's little lamp was still on. Molly, however, is completely asleep right between them in bed! I don't even think she has her head on a pillow - she obviously didn't care because she was so tired! Don't mind Molly, they just played right around her! 

Lake Isabel Take 2

10-8

Sunday afternoons are for family time, and family time in the fall means looking at changing leaves. We made another run down to Lake Isabel and this time, the weather was near perfect. A surprising amount of leaves changed color and dropped since the kids and I were there a week prior! We spent the afternoon walking down by the lake, fishing, and throwing rocks into the water. 

 Charlie deserves an award for being the most persistent fisherman I've ever met. I can't tell you how many casts and how much time he has spent fishing without catching a thing. I don't know if he caught a fish in CO all summer!? Good thing he loves it and isn't as easily discouraged as his mother would probably be. ;)

 Love this guy.