Halloween '14

October is such a fast-paced month! I can't believe it's already over! Here's some of our Halloween festivities.

I love to rake leaves! It's just part of the Halloween/autumn routine!

 Bright sunny day at the pumpkin patch. I didn't know when we'd fit it in, but we went before dance one day and it was a lovely day!

Ward Halloween party. Austin and some of his super hero buddies. Erik didn't dress up 'til later and that was after convincing him that he wouldn't get candy unless he did. Luckily, he didn't get much candy anyhow. Once he got his first lolly pop, he was good to sit and suck on it for a while.

Victoria invited two friends from school. Janelle (Hermione) and Bethany (our neighbor). Victoria was Bellatrix Lestrange from Harry Potter. She was going to be Hermione too, but true to her costume choices of the past few years, she had to be something creepy.

Then, of course, there were many Elsas. Can you find Karissa? She is the second oldest in the group (actually, I don't know how old the tallest girl is, since she's a friend, but the girl who brought her just turned 7), but is standing among the youngest and isn't much taller than they, except little Abby, who was the only Anna in the group. Karissa really wanted to be Elsa, even though I told her there would be many of them, but she didn't care. I found her the costume for a pretty good deal at Target, then crocheted the cute braid hat.

She didn't like the hat at first, but her bff from church, Emma, had the same one, then she liked it!

Carving pumpkins was a hit, as usual, though Erik had no interest in getting his hands dirty for that.

We went for a hike the day before Halloween. The weather was nice that day.

 As for Halloween, the weather was awful, as usual. It has rained the past two years during trick-or-treat time. This year, is rained all day, then was misty and very cold for trick-or-treat. I convinced Victoria to wear a Santa hat, thinking she'd just be a caroler, but she wanted to still be Bellatrix and wore the cape over my black coat. Lucky for Karissa and Austin, a lot of their costume was on their head, so their coats being on didn't matter too much. Erik finally wanted to wear his costume, but wouldn't wear his coat (tough he did wear a hat), so he was pretty cold and miserable. After about 30 minutes I took him home. He wasn't letting anyone put candy in his bucket anyhow, after the first few houses. The others returned just 15 minutes later.

Karissa and Victoria then got to go to Bethany's church party at the corner of our neighborhood. They ate hot dogs, popcorn, jumped on the bouncy house, and Karissa won the costume contest for her age group! I am convinced it was not the Elsa dress that I'm sure a few other girls had worn. She said she got a lot of compliments on her hat. She won this web kins puppy and has been carrying it around ever since!

Meet Lizzie

Victoria decided some time over the summer that she really wanted a pet turtle. I guess it was because she had a chance to win some from her friend's vacation bible school. She didn't win, thank goodness! In the meantime, I had her research about taking care of turtles. We found out that they carry diseases and can be kind of smelly if their tank isn't cleaned out periodically. It sounded like too much work and nastiness to me.

We have some friends in our ward who have a crusted gecko. Karissa played at their house one day and fell in love with their's. I found out more about this type of lizard. They mostly eat a fruit powder, their tank doesn't need to be cleaned all the time, they don't smell, and they only need to have their tank sprayed with water daily. These friends brought their lizard over when they came for a play date. Victoria was sold and so was I! I told her she could get one for her birthday.

 After her birthday (that was too busy of a weekend to do anything about it) I took her to Petco. I had already bought a "tank" (plastic bin like the one our friends had their lizard in), and drilled some holes in the lid. At Petco, they mostly had leopard geckos, so we bought one of those, thinking their wasn't much difference, plus they look pretty cool. Well, they need to be fed fresh crickets every-other-day. I didn't think we'd be catching them all the time, which meant I'd have to go buy them a few times a week or create a cricket tank. I was not thrilled about that idea. Plus, the leopard gecko was too reptile-ish for me. I don't know, something about it made me more squirmy, After discussing it and researching more, we decided I needed to take it back and exchange for a crusted gecko. They had one left at Petco.

Now, we have a nice, easy-to-care for and not-creepy-to-me lizard named Lizzie. I actually think she's kind of cute! We haven't held her much yet, just here or there. They're supposed to have some time before they receive a lot of handling. They actually do well with kids, though.

This was with the first decor in her home, before redecorating. She's up on the right-hand side.

This is how her home looks now. Jason got her a little tree, which she loves! 

Soccer Season

Many of our friends had their kids in the DACA Soccer League last year. We decided to give it a try this fall. It's a great starting point for the sport. It was only 6 weeks long and for 1 hour on a Saturday. The kids were divided into age groups and played a half hour for practice and a half hour in a game against a team closest in age. Since we were going to take Austin there, we decided to let Victoria try it as well. She has wanted to try it for a while. It was fairly inexpensive and as I said, a good starting point.

Both Austin and Victoria enjoyed it, especially getting the trophy at the end! One day though, Austin did say he wanted to take gymnastics instead. Overall, I think he had a good experience and I know Victoria really enjoyed it. I don't think she will be serious about soccer like she is with dance, but maybe she can play it for fun here and there. A couple of the weeks were pretty muddy and Austin fell a lot. That was fun to clean up! it's a little dirtier than dance or gymnastics, that's for sure!

Austin, looking good with the ball!

Victoria, showing her stuff during practice!

Check out Austin's mudspot one week. No wonder he got so muddy a few times!

My 10-Year-Old

10 years has gone by way too fast! Victoria is still the spunky, vibrant, girl she has been since birth. I enjoy watching her use her spunk in her interactions with her friends. She has become more responsible, which is nice to see too.

Still dancing, playing the piano, and enjoying art and science, she got to try her hand (or foot) at soccer this fall for 6 weeks. She looked pretty good to me and seemed to enjoy it. She still has a great imagination and enjoys doing crafts with friends.  She loves to reorganize the stuff in her room over and over.

I measured her the other day and her eating more has paid off. She grew over 2 inches this last year! No wonder she's already borrowing some of my clothes!

She has been into Harry Potter the past few years, but this past year it has become one of her favorite things. We're reading the 6th book right now. After each book she gets to watch the movie.

When someone loves Harry Potter that much, what better than to have a Harry Potter party? I finally conceded and let her invite 12 girls to her party this year, though one didn't come. It was a hang -out party. The first Harry Potter movie (a 2 1/2 hour film) played for most of the time in the living room. I had the craft table set up in there too for the girls to decorate their witch hats. In the basement, beyond the "brick wall" and platform "9 3/4" was where the karaoke and Twister were set up. The basement ended up being the "crazy" place, including hide-and-go-seek in the dark, but everyone had fun and was safe. I was happily on the first floor where the kids would watch the movie, work on their craft, and eat. My younger three had a blast as well. Erik enjoyed all the attention, Austin liked playing with the crazies in the basement, and Karissa was like another guest doing a little of everything.

This, plus pizza, pumpkin bars, and cider, was our spread. 

Moaning Myrtle, right in front of the bathroom (you'll have to read or watch Harry Potter if you don't get it). 

Our "brick wall" to go through.

I didn't realized this was so blurry! Just the gang eating. 

They did watch a lot of the movie.

Witch hat craft

Blurry because Erik was trying to pull the tray down to blow out the candles himself. We sang in the living room so Victoria could play "Happy Birthday" on the piano while we sang. 

My kids aren't the only hams!

Erik loves Janelle. He's smiling here, even though you can't see it. 

Karissa's witch hat and a bat she made hanging from the ribbon. 

Saturday, Victoria's real birthday, was full of her last day of soccer (which included a banquet with trophies, to her excitement), dance class, and swimming at the Summit since it happened to be a "free" day with our pass. A friend ended up helping Jason with some electrical work on our shed, so we had him stay, and invited his family whose kids are friends of our kids, for dinner. Victoria always enjoys lots of attention, so it was a great day for her!

She's the one in the sun glasses. I'll post about the soccer season later.

The best part about soccer for her? Receiving a trophy!

Austin played too!

I love my 10-year-old!

Physical and Spiritual

Saturday was a great day. I ran a half marathon, doing better than I had hoped. I averaged a 7:47 pace and finished with a PR of 1:42! The best part about it was that throughout the whole race I didn't even feel like I was pushing it. I decided to kick it gear the last mile, but felt very comfortable the rest of the race. I even recovered very well and I almost miss the thought of "training for a race". Of course I'm still running, but I don't have a race coming up to focus on.

It was called Heroes on Hines and was a race for the local emergency crews. They had this old fire truck on display. If you want to see action pics, Jason posted them on facebook.

 It was great that my mom, Jason, and the kids could see me twice during the run, even if they didn't as I finished. (We had soccer for Victoria and Austin). I finished first for my age group and 4th overall for women!

The rest of the day, I enjoyed listening to General Conference. There were some great talks! Sunday, brought more GC. We had some new members come to watch with us. It was great to share the tradition of Conference with them, food, and getting to know them better. 

Conference snacks

Susan and Paul were baptized a month ago. My friend, Marigold, had to leave early. She was baptized 10 months ago. 

Family Selfie!

Cheerleaders at soccer.

After soccer

Grandma with the soon-to-be birthday girl

The kids enjoyed the week with Grandma Pat here and we all enjoyed her help for our busy Saturday!

Similarities and Differences

Similarities: This was Erik at the apple orchard last week.

 Here was Victoria when she was about a year younger. (I seem to not have as many pictures on my computer after we lost a bunch of files. I know I had a better one of her!)

 Like we all thought, they resemble each other in appearance and personality.

Differences: Austin told me Sunday morning that he had a loose tooth. That was the first I knew of him having a loose tooth. That evening, during Family Home Evening, he ripped it out during the prayer as he was saying the prayer! (It's a good thing for Victoria something exciting happened, for she was about to get a tongue lashing for how irreverent she was during the prayer, which was probably due to the fact that she was watching Austin pull out his tooth while praying.)

Karissa, however, has a loose tooth for months before it either falls out on it's own with very minimal pulling, or comes out in a cinnamon roll, like one of her first teeth did!

I love to see the similarities and differences between our children!

And Then There was One

For the past four weeks I've had only Erik at home, at least of my kids. I have watched Logan many times, often I pick him up from preschool, and I have watched other kids here and there. Erik has adjusted better to the new schedule than I thought he would. He has played really well with Logan and the other friends who have come over (all mostly older than him), and he has played well with just me around. Sometimes he helps me when I'm gardening, baking, doing laundry, or cleaning, sometimes he likes to play by himself. He loves to give Austin a big hug, though, as soon as Austin comes out of his class. It's pretty darn cute!

It's still different for me to watch three of my kids get out of the car and walk up to the school. Austin has just been good about it from the beginning, like he's been doing it for years. He used to always be somewhat crabby in the evening and kindergarten hasn't made that any different! He's not any more tired than he used to be. Often, when I pick up the kids and have Logan with me, Austin enjoys the few minutes he has to play with him on the playground before we take Logan home and doesn't complain about not having had much time with his friend.

Ready for picture day! 

 Karissa has loads of homework for a second grader (more than Victoria has by far!), but she's doing well adjusting to the load. Victoria has only one week night of dance, and the other dance day is Saturday, so that makes her week days a little less busy, which is nice.

So what have I been doing with only one kid at home? Besides watching other kids, spending time with Erik, and working on my calling for church (I'm now the Relief Society activity coordinator), I've been canning salsa, apple butter, raspberry jam, and freezing pesto and other apples to use up our harvest. I've been helping a few friends with some things and I've been cleaning and organizing. It's nice to see the house a little cleaner with less kids at home the whole day to mess it up! While I enjoy my time without the three older kids, I do enjoy it when the return home and I feel more relaxed and ready to chat with them and take them to their after school activities on the nights we have things going on.

After preschool, waiting for the older kids to get out of school.

Logan's first day of preschool.

Didn't know this came out so blurry! Erik and I went to a music class yesterday. We'll start doing some more "Mommy and Me" classes as the year continues.

I really look forward to the "swim and gym" playgroup Erik and I will start soon and to our cooking class in January. I'm hoping it will help his interest in food!