Halloween Fun

October flew by very quickly. I barely knew what happened! We did manage to get some huge pumpkins and carve them together, despite an extremely busy month! Austin was particularly excited about making Halloween crafts. We got some supplies so he could make these cute pumpkins out of dryer vents and spray paint. 

The real one in the middle he painted at school. He loves Halloween crafts!

Leia's first Halloween and she thought the pumpkins were very tasty!

I finally decided to try those stencils for carving. It made for some fun designs.

Erik and Victoria used the stencils, with a lot of help from me!

Austin got this idea off YouTube.

Karissa did a cat again, designed by herself.

In September I was able to get super good deals on every one's costumes from Target's one day 40% off sale on all things Halloween. My mom gave Jason and I the idea of dressing up in our pjs to be movie watchers, since everyone wanted to be a character from a movie.

Rey and Yoda from Star Wars.

Wonder Women

Harry Potter

Erik's is a toddler costume, so I added some fabric to his cloak so it would be longer. 

Karissa's is the only one we didn't buy. We just put some things together. It was much better than the plastic one I found. 

Victoria trick-or-treated with her friends, Karissa went to Olivia's house, again, to trick-or-treat, and we met up with Austin's friend Kaleb. Kaleb has a younger brother who Erik ran around with.

At Miller's Haunted Hallways

It was a fun day, as always. Now they are singing Christmas songs!

Note to Self

Dear Self,

    Next time you decide to try a trick that no one else can do, like jumping as high as you can from your knees into the air, please think twice about it.  You may end up landing on your pinkie finger and breaking it,  landing you in a cast. Also,  please be careful what you do almost exactly two years from now. It seems we have a pattern of breaking something on the right arm every other year in the fall.

Sincerely,
"Austin "

It makes for a great shooting device, though...

Soccer Season

Phew! Adding a real soccer season for both my boys this fall really made our schedules full, but it was worth it! I had mentioned before that Austin had a little bit of an adjustment to make in jumping in with a team that had already been working together for a few years and getting to know the positions and rules of the game.  He improved each game and his coach didn't have to yell at him quite as much.  In defense of his coach, he did what all coaches do, and was great! One nice thing about Austin is that he still isn't very competitive in soccer yet. They lost about half their games,  maybe even more, but he wasn't phased about it. He was also found doing the "floss" and the "hype " dance on the sidelines at times.  Well, that's what you get with two older sisters and a mom who love to dance at home!

This wasn't soccer, but at his school's fun run. His smile was the best.

He's with the red sleeves, to the left.

This one didn't turn out as clear. 

 Austin's team had a parent/son game at practice the last night. He's with the blue shirt on the far left and Jason has on the burgundy shorts on the right. Parents won!

Austin going up against his coach!

Erik really improved with his soccer skills as well.  It's fun to watch him and Austin apply what they learned to their own games at home.  It was also nice to see Austin "coaching" Erik from the sidelines at his games.  Erik's team only lost the first game out of 8 and had some high scoring games! They were a great team!

Erik's team

I think we'll be doing Canton Celtic soccer again!

14 and 8th Grade

Victoria is 14 now. She's an 8th grader at Discovery Middle School. This is her last year there. Next year she'll be at Salem High School. I can't believe she's 14. She gets to go to her first youth dance next month and start driver's ed over the summer. I clearly remember my days as a 14-year-old and in 8th grade, so it seems weird to me to be raising my child who's this age.

Victoria has taken a big step in the dance direction. She's been dancing since she was 3, but wasn't fully committed until even just last year. I finally convinced her that if this is the direction she wants to go, then she can't do cross country and track, like last year. She added jazz this year and dances 4 days a week, which includes a day that she was selected to be a demonstrator for a class two years younger than her for Cecchetti ballet. She loves it! When she's at home, she's constantly dancing and stretching. She is supposed to choreograph a ballet number as part of her exam this year, so she's starting to decide what music she wants to use.

She's working on her back flexibility so she can paint her toes over her shoulders ;)

Victoria, Karissa, and I doing some group yoga poses.

Speaking of music, she still loves playing the violin in the orchestra and singing in the choir at school. This year she was selected to be in the advanced choral group. It reminds me of myself. I tried out my last year of Junior high and made it and so did she! She likes singing, but has already decided that in high school she will only do orchestra, since she won't be able to do choir as well. She's still taking piano lessons., but I think this will be the last year for that also. Her heart isn't quite in it to practice enough anymore. She plays once a month for Young Women's opening exercises and for her choir teacher when she needs it, so it has been a great skill for her.

She still loves improving her hair skills!

She started taking Spanish this year and I'm so happy that she is! That was always one of my favorite classes in school and I love brushing up on some of my Spanish skills with her!

Her birthday party was last Friday. She was in charge of everything, but she requested a taco bar, which I gladly provided, and after some hanging out at our house, we went to the Summit to swim (for free with a bunch of passes) and then they hung out more here after wards. A few girls spent the night (the first slumber party we had) and it went well. One of Victoria's best friends had moved an hour away and came all the way here for the party, so she and two others slept here. I was impressed with Victoria's friends. Some of them I hadn't met and they were so pleasant to have here. They were all so impressed that I cooked the food and made the birthday cake! It makes me laugh that so many people don't do that anymore! They thought it was a real treat and were so gracious! I felt good about my home cooked food!

Birthday party dinner. Some friends were here for that and had to leave and some friends came later.

Taco bar

Her friend who moved. Erik missed her too.

So glad her sister is her good friend too!

Pool party!

Lazy river.

Slide

It's hard to have my kids growing up! I want them to stay young forever, but she and I have had some good conversations in the car on the way to dance and I love seeing the young woman she's growing into. It's been a great adventure!

On her birthday, Austin gave her a chocolate frog. She's wearing her new sweatshirt too.

Taco Bell dinner on her birthday due to lack of time for anything else. Did you guess that tacos are her favorite?

She wanted to decorate her own cake.

The finished product! (Did you notice she has braids while decorating the cake and a bun in this picture? She just loves doing her hair!)

Some scrunchies arrived the next day form Aunt Karina. She loved another day of gifts! Her final gift is this week. She goes to Washington DC for the 8th grade field trip from Thursday to Sunday. What a lucky girl!