Halloween

We have had a fun-filled week of Halloween activities. First, on Monday, I took Karissa and Austin to a special Halloween story-time at the library. They got to go trick-or-treating around the library, listen to Halloween stories and songs, and make a craft and treat. Here is Austin saying "cheese!", his new favorite word.
Karissa chose to be a princess this day.
On Thursday Victoria had her Halloween party at school. She chose to be Ariel that day, which surprised me that she didn't want to wear her "funky" kitty costume.
Here she is in her parade. I was able to volunteer for her class party, which was fun.

Friday night, the kids went trick-or-treating at friend's houses in our ward. A bunch of us opened our houses Friday night so we wouldn't have to go on Sunday. Austin was loving the idea of getting candy in a bucket. It's amazing how young the third child is when they discover candy! His sisters never had candy at his age!

Saturday, Karissa went to a birthday/costume party and was a witch for that.
Saturday night, we all went to the ward Halloween party. The kids wore the costumes that they went trick-or-treating in. Austin was Boots, Karissa was Dora, Victoria was Alicia, Jason was Diego, and I got to be Isa, the iguana. (In case you're not familiar with some of these characters, Alicia is Diego's sister and they are Dora's cousins and Isa is Dora's friend).

Here is Boots watching the cotton candy being made. These are the famous boots that were mine and both Victoria's and Karissa's.
Here's my spikes. It's not my dream costume, but at least I got a good hoodie out of it! (Yes, I plan on taking the spikes out.)
Yes, Boots' ears are a little big, but I converted his costume from Dumbo to Boots and didn't take enough out for the ears. At least he's a cute monkey, even if his ears are too big!

Primary Program

Since I am the primary secretary at church I got to sit up in the stands during the primary program yesterday. We practiced the previous two Sundays and it paid off- the program was beautiful! It wasn't too short, or too long, and everything went smoothly. The kids sang beautifully and the Spirit was there! We had a full house in the chapel with all the extra visitors who came, including our neighbor, Victoria's friend, Bethany.

Karissa was the first child to say her line. She said, "I am grateful for my family because they buy things for me." She had a 9-year-old helper who reminded her of the second part of her line when she froze up. She was adorable! I am told that she sang well for most of the songs.

Victoria was flawless on her line. She spoke slowly, clearly, and reverently. She said, "My favorite story of Jesus is when He raised the girl from the dead." She was sitting right in front and Jason said she was reverent the whole time, which was good. She has been known to wave a lot from the stand and I was afraid she was going to wave to Bethany the whole time!

Fall Fun

Here are some of the fall season activities we did this week.

We went on a nature walk with our neighbor friends.

We went to the zoo with our "far-away" friends. Luckily, we came home with all of the kids. We had a scare when we couldn't find Karissa for about 10 min. and I found her with a security guard. On the way home, I asked her if she wanted a drink of water and she said, "No, I have my slobber I can drink." Nice!

For the Halloween festivities, they had some moon bounce/obstacle courses. Austin, and everyone else, had a blast!

And we carved pumpkins. Austin enjoyed this more than his sisters did at that age.

Sweetest Day

Have you ever heard of Sweetest Day? Well, I hadn't, until a couple of days ago I saw those words a couple of times on the Internet, but I didn't think much about it. So I found out yesterday from my neighbor that yesterday was Sweetest Day. He and his wife had exchanged gifts just like it was Valentine's Day. I asked him if it was just a Michigan holiday or one celebrated throughout the US. He told me everyone in the US celebrates it and it has been a "holiday" since 1920! Later, I asked Jason about it, 'cause I really didn't think I was that out of it and he told me it was like a regional thing, around Ohio and Michigan mostly. Phew! But still, we've lived here 4 years now and I've never heard of it until now!

Luckily, we really had it all planned out. Jason had bought tickets awhile back for us to go to the Michigan -Iowa game at the "Big House" (Michigan's stadium which is the largest football stadium in the US). We got a babysitter and I was away from the kids for over 6 hours-- what a record! It was a fun game, even though we lost and Michigan really had some rough moments, but there were some hopeful moments and exciting ones as well. The best part was being alone with my hubby at a football game, just like back in the day. Another cool part was that we were two of the 112,734 people at this game, which is a record for people attending a college football game (though I know how they fit so many people at the Big House, the seats are 6 inches smaller than at other stadiums!) Also, when we got home, the house was somewhat in order and all of my kids were in bed! I did miss putting my babies to bed, but I must say it was nice to just come home and relax!

Happy Sweetest Day!

Here's what a quarter of 112,734 looks like.Let's go Blue!

Here's our wrinkly faces in the sun.

6th Birthday

Victoria's real birthday was today and unlike other years, this one had more meaning to me, probably because she was born on Monday, Columbus Day, so the timing between General Conference and her birthday was the same. It also helped that my sister-in-law was overdue with her first little chica and gave birth to her just 4 days ago, bringing back the memories of waiting anxiously for my first to come at exactly the same time of year.

I chuckle at the thoughts I had when I would think about my first baby, Victoria. I always pictured her as a sweet, little, soft-spoken girl; maybe a little shy. It wasn't too far of a stretch, I had some of those qualities when I was little. Instead, she is a free-spirited, outgoing, friendly girl with a very loud voice. In fact, she came out of the birth canal with her mouth wide open wailing loudly and did not stop for more than 30 minutes (I remember being stitched up for all that time and hearing her cry, loud as can be, the whole time)!

But, even though she is not what I expected, she is better. With the qualities and talents she already has, including her intelligence, she will lead a great life.

Happy Birthday Victoria!

We got her roller skates, upon her request. During Austin's nap, she, Karissa, and I roller skated in the cul-de-sac. I had bought Karissa some roller skates at a garage sale and gave them to her when Victoria opened hers.She really wanted to go to Bob's Big Boy for dinner since we drive by it every day and she's never been.
Jammin' to the Beatles' birthday song.

Our last few pieces of cake from the party.

G-I-R-L-S Rock!

Everyone who knows us, knows that Victoria is quite the performer/diva. These are just some of the pictures that she requests I take of her almost every time she is singing and dancing, which we do just about every day. But, a lot of people don't know that Karissa is a budding performer/diva. Check out these pictures!
Such heart and soul in these songs she's singing!

It came as no surprise when Victoria wanted to have a Hannah Montana birthday party this year. Since I didn't really want to do a party based around Hannah Montana, we chose a theme from Oriental Trading that we found a great deal on: G-i-r-l-s Rock! We got 8 goodie bags already stuffed with these fun little dive-like treasures,

guitar confetti, hot pink and purple streamers and balloons, plates, cups, napkins, utensils for eight, and a purple table cloth for $50! It was a pretty good deal, especially considering the quality of the goodie bag toys (goodie bags are my biggest complaint when buying for a birthday party, so this just made it easier and less expensive).

Victoria was very excited for her theme. We made cardboard guitars for her and her friends to decorate at the party. Here she is, practicing her guitar.

We had the party on Friday evening so Jason could be there, instead of needing to be off at the library studying as he would have been if it were on a Saturday, though he did have to come home from work early.

We played freeze dance and musical chairs, all to the tunes of Hannah, of course.

Even Austin was playing musical chairs.

Decorated their guitars, with feathers, buttons, the guitar confetti, beads, stickers, and glittery puffy paint. It was a big hit!
Eating pizza outside on the unusually warm October day.

Singing "Happy Birthday". (She wasn't giving everyone a dirty look here, she must have been clearing her throat.)
Of course I had to make a guitar cake!

She is leading her friends in a song from school here while we wait for everyone to finish eating cake and come watch Victoria open her presents.
Here's the birthday girl with her new shirt and decorated guitar.

Pumpkin Patch

I love visiting the pumpkin patch with my kids! Here is our recent visit there over the weekend. You can tell who the first child is and that she was born in October by her ease in posing with pumpkins!

Austin didn't exactly enjoy the wagon ride here...