Halloween Happened:

This year was all about $1 costumes. I kept thinking what have I got that I can put together…Emma was going to be Princess Cinderella (dress up from her birthday). However, she's pretty sensitive to touch and her sleeves were bothering her at the 11th hour! So I asked if she wanted to be Lois Lane to go with Parker's costume (Clark Kent, his Sunday clothes plus a p.j. shirt and glasses from the dollar store). Emma got pretty excited when I told her Lois likes to wear her hair up in a messy bun (the only hair-do Emma will allow me to do anymore) and she could borrow some of mommy's old lipstick!

  So I pulled out the computer, printed off some press passes and laminated them (a whopping 5 minutes tops)! I was pretty pleased that I somehow got my kids dressed and up and at the neighborhood carnival on time. My costume? I was dressed like a mom: threw on my fluffy pink robe, put in a few well placed curlers, one earring, a sucker was stuck to my back and there may have been a few stickers on me too. Again, not my best of efforts but not bad when Emma says an hour before we leave: "Mom where's your costume? I want you to dress up too!"

Emma toted around a pad of paper and a pencil too (she wanted to know what a journalist was).

An Amazing Fall:

This season has been good to us all, we might as well been in paradise. It has been a warm comfortable 68 degrees in the afternoons. We soaked up the sunshine as much as we could because we all know 'Winter' comes and it stays until April! Sometimes even later than that.

Anyway, It snowed significantly yesterday and on our way to church the car said it was 5 degrees…goodbye paradise and hello 'Winter'.

Playing outside on November 6th.

He likes to share rocks…he also likes to put them in his pockets and sneak them inside.

What we like to do

Emma has been enjoying her schooling. There are (naturally) times that she refuses to do her program but we work through those hard days. Over all I'm enjoying how the program runs and what it has to offer. There are weekly progress reports showing (in comparison to correct answers given) what percentage she in understanding a concept. Overall, I have high hopes that she will be reading comfortably before the end of the 'school year'.


In other news, Emma and I have taken to playing a board game before bedtime most nights. We have to wait until Parker is in bed because he tends to monopolize any playing board we put out. Emma is very patient (sometimes) with Parker stealing the players and running off with the cards.

Overall it's a good daily routine. School work in the morning, games and stories at night, and all sorts of tantrums, coloring, car racing, egg collecting, plant watering, mess making fun in-between.

School work, with her beads for counting.

Playing Candy Land, princess style (with a police officer so there will be a 'Prince' to dance with at the winner's circle).

And here's Parker, one of the last photos with him and his binky (outside of the crib anyway, the weening process is slow for him).

Comparisions

Well, the grass has been growing for almost 6 weeks now! Here's how it compares

10 Days

20 Days

30 Days

40 Days!

40 days, and already cutting down on the dirt that blows into the house.

Oh and here are the kids, they tend to grow too :)

The Birthday

Well, I got older again. I suppose I should be used to it by now it happens every year…sigh

I actually had a wonderful time turing 30 with my family. Shane did a lot of working so we celebrated a little each day for several days in a row :) I think it was officially October when Emma said, "Okay Mommy this is your last birthday today so what do you want to do?"

 We did presents one day, we worked outside in the grass one day, we ate cake one day, and we sang happy birthday everyday for a solid week! If I had to get older at least I felt special.

General Conference Weekend

I look forward and love hearing from a living prophet (and those that work so closely with him). However, this year was a total bust. The kids refused to participate appropriately. I've got 95% of conference to catch up on…that's a lot of studying to do. On a brighter note, I've got 6 months for catch up and study!

Here's a picture of my kids playing together quietly during the opening Hymn of the Saturday Morning Session. I innocently thought "wow, we might get an hour in before they need something!" It was 30 seconds after the prayer that everything hit the fan, hehe it's still good to be a mom.

Outside

Here's the 30 day grass update: Shane now has to mow the lawn and there are 5 twigs trees waiting to grow into beautiful eye candy.  Plus we started to pull pumpkins out of the garden!

I know it's hard to see the trees, but I'm sure I'll be posting more photos another day ;)