A Quick Jaunt

We were super-excited to use my sister's buddy passes to join some of the family in Utah for my little nieces baptism last week. All it required was a two hour drive to Pittsburgh, a short flight to JFK, then a cross-country flight to SLC. Long day, but we were so happy to finally be there! Emily helping Aunt Nancy clean some spots on the floor while Ben and Annie colored with Bronwyn and Cosette worked with me to make freezer meals.

The kids all loved visiting Anderson Park, so we went a couple of times. I love these three sweeties!

It was cold. We were so UNprepared. Yes, little river was frozen over. The kids all thought it was so cool to walk on the frozen water...until I told Cosette to jump and it cracked...I said SORRY!

Playing Captain Hook and Peter Pan with Addy. We were lucky enough to see Addy's play our second night there where she STARRED (was AWESOME!!!) as Ouiser in a scene from Steel Magnolias... She wasn't home much, but the kids loved when she was there!!!

"duncan, you my friend." was Emily's most often-heard phrase. She LOVES this sweet perfect dog!

On our way to the baptism! Nancy has painted her front door this BRIGHT blue. It matched perfectly with Annie's dress. And - the bow is one that two of my sweet friends in Ohio helped make. One Friday evening, they dedicated time to help make my little girls actually LOOK like little girls, so I now have a bow hanger filled with bows!

The McArthurs!!!

Our last day there, we woke up to LOTS of snow! The kids had such a blast playing in it - until they got too cold. It was fabulous, especially because I got to finish my book! Here Grandma came by to say farewell and found her 12 year old granddaughter outside without a coat on! :)

Cute picture of my mom and dad. I've been asking for a few years for a 5x7 to put in my house, but it just hasn't happened yet. This will just have to do for now....shadows and all!

Naughty Little Girls

Well, we had a (nother) hair-cutting incident. I've tried to figure out WHY in the WORLD Annie keeps doing this, but I'm not finding one... Last time she cut her hair, I told her if she did it again, I was going to buzz it short like Ben's... Fifth time is a charm, I guess! Emily's butch-job. Poor little girl was a complete mess. She had no real idea what was going on and just smiled for the camera.

And...the other one. Yes, looks like a mug shot! Naughty little girl! The back was cut halfway through in the middle of her head as well. Where was I? I know this is the question everyone asks... I was reading Ben a book upstairs and had just checked on the little cherubs as they colored Thanksgiving cards and cut snowflakes. Just one book - doesn't take much time to cut hair!!!

Happy Thanksgiving! We had a great day watching Andy play football, raking leaves, watching movies and eating! Ben came down with HIGH fever just before dinner, so we had to cancel plans with friends for dessert. It was just a nice peaceful day!

Ohhh...the LEAVES

We have beautiful trees...that drop a LOT of leaves in a short amount of time. One of the trees really needs to be trimmed as it hangs over the house, and therefore, dropped LOTS of leaves on the roof. We finally made two hours one Saturday evening to start raking...

The kids obviously loved it...

After scrapping off the roof, we worked in the front. This is the only pile we got to that night; it filled 12 black trash bags FULL. This was about 3 weeks ago. We have now raked about 2/3 of the front yard...anyone want some service opportunities???

I never realized how much fun could be had in a big pile of leaves. Or piles of little leaves for that matter...

Happy Halloween

Halloween seemed to last for weeks on end! I quite dreaded it for a time, but it was fun once it actually got here! Here are my two beautiful princesses before our church Trunk or Treat. They were so excited to have makeup on and not get in trouble! Andy was his normal gorilla and Ben was a hiker.

Face painting. The Young Men and Young Women's organization ran the activities. Then, they did a dance with the lights out and florescent paint all over. The kids loved watching it and loved it even more when they were all invited to join the big kids in dancing to the YMCA.

This is Annie's cute friend Mia. They play together fabulously! Unfortunately, we have preschool on opposite days and live 15 minutes apart, so it's been hard to play this past month and a half!

Ben's class Halloween party - I am a room mom (but NOT the Head Mom) and had fun planning the activities.

We did the classic toilet paper game, which the kids LOVED.

This is why I never wanted to teach the lower grades. Although the kids love it, I would go crazy with the wall decorations. :) We love love love his teacher and the progress he is making. They are constantly taking assessments of the kids to make sure they are on track; LOVE IT!!! Carving Pumpkins. We almost didn't get to it since our days were so busy, but after a massive melt down by Ben, I called Andy and told him school had to slide this time because we HAVE TO HAVE TIME to do these pumpkins that the kids had looked forward to carving for weeks. They had a great time for the 45 minutes we had before play practice!

This is such a typical Emily picture; the child loves to be naked. She's also normally colored in some type of pen or marker (as she is at the moment - red). I don't know where she finds them all, but some day I will blackmail her with all of her crazy pictures!

Yippee! We are almost got done! Annie and I did the smaller pumpkin while Andy and Ben designed the bigger one. It was actually much easier than I remember!

Yes - Emily with a pen...again...and her two pigs which she has come to insist on each morning even though her hair is finally getting longer!

Happy Halloween! We spent most of the day either in the car on the way to/from Columbus or in the Temple there. Ben fell asleep about ten minutes before we got home and didn't want to go trick-or-treating. Andy took the girls and we joined them about 45 minutes later to catch up with all the preschool friends and their families!

Preschool Fun!

So, there are four of us moms with four year olds that have come together to do a little preschool. We rotate teaching, and the kids all love it. Emily is so excited when it's finally at our house so she can participate! Last time I taught we learned about fruits one day (made fruit pizza for snack) and vegetables the other day (and made vegetable soup).

We've taken a few field trips so far and look forward to many more! This was at the Apple Orchard about 45 minutes away. LOVED IT!!! Probably more than the kids did! It was amazing to watch the process of cleaning the apples, and the cider was DIVINE.

Cutie kiddos and some siblings...

Looking at the apple trees. I was surprised they keep them trimmed so short.

After the apples have been washed and polished, they are sorted by weight and then bagged.

Butterflies and Grandparents

We heard about this fabulous little butterfly house, so we went one day to check it out. Annie was in complete heaven for a good hour and would have to loved to stay longer if Emily wasn't DONE.

It was the most amazing thing! Kids (and adults) can carry around little Q-tips with sugar water on them and feed the butterflies.

Grandma and Grandpa Maas came to visit when we'd been here a few weeks 'on the way home' from Minnesota. We had the most beautiful weather and basically lived outside! One morning I was teaching preschool, so they took Emily shopping. She was thrilled to not have to complete for attention!

This was just a few days after we discovered the Butterfly place, so we showed it to Grandma and Grandpa also. (We took Ben back the next week as he was a bit disgruntled not to have been included TWICE. With him we found a little hiking trail and spent most of a Saturday afternoon exploring.) They brought the girls butterfly shirts that are black and white inside the house, but the colors show up in the sun. VERY cool!

Grandma kept Emily occupied, so Annie was able to sit and catch her butterflies without a 2 year old scaring them away!

Oh, the intense concentration on this face!

Emily also learned to ride her bike while they were here. Grandma Maas was patient enough to walk along and help her turn her little legs over and over and over.

Ben lost his first tooth the second day of school and we pull his second a few days before Grandma and Grandpa came. As my camera was MIA, Grandpa took a picture for us!

Ben got a scooter and Annie got a bike for their birthdays this year. We live on a quiet dead end street with no sidewalks and a little bit of a hill, so they LOVE to just ride up and down over and over.

Here is happy, independent EMILY!

So Much FUN with the Castles!!!

We love playing with the Castles! One depressing morning, we dropped by and dragged them to the zoo with us. After a little convincing, Angie bought a zoo pass and we've now had three lovely days at the zoo while the kids wear themselves out. LOVE IT!!! Annie and Carter as penguins Ben got to go with us the first time. This zoo is different than anything else I've been to. They don't have a lot of the large animals, but there are places for children to play EVERYWHERE! This was a giant eagle's nest.

I just love this one of Annie because she is actually LOOKING at the camera! Of course, it was Sis. Castle's camera and not mom's...maybe that makes a difference!

One night Angie had YW and her husband had YM, so we got to have a pajama party...on a school night! The kids were VERY excited! We played upstairs for a bit, made some Halloween cookies and then watched Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure.

I watched the move and folded laundry with my newest love, Miles. He is the most cuddly baby and gives the absolute SWEETEST hugs! However, Andy TERRIFIES him - thus the look on his face.

I never seemed to have my camera around in September and most of October, but I did a lot of fun things with friends. SO - here are two links to my friend's blog with most of our activities for those two months.
Lindsey's Birthday and Law School Pot Luck

Amish Village and Cake Bites

Enjoy my friend Jen and her cute dog Jax that my children are in love with. Not to be confused with Baby Jack who is our other law school buddy!

MIA

I am still here - just really busy. This whole Halloween season has kicked our trash! We are also in the final moments of play practices for The Dreamcatcher that both Ben and Annie are in through the town library. Annie is a lollipop and Ben is a soldier. Tonight they got costumes, so it is finally becoming more real! That will consume us for the next two weeks of evenings. The timing has worked out great because Andy has some big memo due on the 21st, so we will all be busy! Pictures to come of Halloween - at least for those who willingly took pictures. :)