After five months I am now officially happy with the outside of my house.  So now I will post a picture of it on the blog.  It was not cutting down the big ugly bushes in front that did it.  It was not the paint job alone that did it.  It was the paint job AND the shutters that did it.  I have always wanted a house with shutters and now I’ve got one!  Thanks to my wonderful husband for putting them up for me.  And for putting up with my silly dreams.

In honor of Thanksgiving this week, here is a tribute to wings.

The first set of wings-I found this little person in my closet this week.

Second Set of wings-made at Lego Club this week:

In honor of yesterday’s fun calendar date we decided to do as much with the numbers 11, 12, and 13 as we could.  So, we read 11 picture books, did our very best to play 12 games, though we really only got to 7, (this was blind man’s bluff)

and watched 13 Piano Guys videos-our favorite music group.


For lunch we had 11 olives and pieces of pepperoni, 12 pieces of popcorn and pieces of cheese and 13 chocolate chips and slices of bananas.  


Here’s to 12-13-14!

Here are some random happenings I wanted to share from the last couple months.

Cade is the crafty kid in our house.  The other day at the library he saw this owl up on the wall and decided to go home and make it… without instructions.

I picked up some more origami books for him at the library and here are some of the cool creations he made.

I love fall!  We have four of these babies in our back yard!  I’ve always wanted a bright red tree in my yard!  I know I will probably think differently after this fall.

We had our annual pumpkin cookie decorating. 
Cade had just learned about how Henry Ford invented the assembly line, so they made up their own assembly line.  Reagan was the mouths, Levi was the noses and Cade was the eyes.

This was my new favorite Halloween décor.
 
Our second year of Lego Club is off to a great start. 

This was a pully the boys had to create to go fishing for the fish they made.  Here’s Cade’s.

And lastly, some  funnies from Liberty.  The other day I picked her up after she’d been cuddling with a newly showered Daddy.  When I smelled her I said, “You smell like, Daddy.”  And she replied, “You mean I stink?”

And this one is from way back on Rock’s birthday.  I forgot I’d written it down and didn’t get it into the blog post about his birthday, so here it is.  When everyone was giving Rock their gifts, she said, “I have a gift for you too, but you’ll have to go find it because I can’t find it.”

Yesterday, after I had taken her on a “date” the night before, she woke up and said to me, “Mom, I want LOTS of dates and lots of birthdays!”

We recently finished up learning about the Pilgrims in our history curriculum and so even though the 392nd Thanksgiving is just around the corner, we decided to do one of our own now. 

Doesn’t Rock look stunning as William Bradford?  None of the boys wanted to be a pilgrim.  Go figure.  I’ve studied the Pilgrims over and over throughout my life and it’s only now as an adult with children that I truly appreciate what they did.  I am so impressed and grateful  for their courage and fortitude.  I could not have done what they did. 

Pumpkin Bread

After the feast Reagan and I decided to make a Teepee with all the branches we cut down recently and some old painting tarps.  It took us a good hour or more and I wish we had gotten some pictures of the process, but you’ll just have to live with the finished product.  It looks more like a big monster than a teepee because I didn’t want to cut a hole in the middle of my painting tarps, but the kids have loved it.

Happy Thanksgiving Early!

As you may or may not remember, last year Cade threw up about twenty minutes before he was to go trick or treating, and the year before that, we were in NJ and had a freak snow storm that cancelled Halloween.  So Cade has not gone trick or treating for a few years now and has been anxiously awaiting this Halloween.  He has even included a plea in his family prayers for good health and weather this year.  And lucky for him, there was no tossing of the cookies and no freakish weather.  Here are the picture highlights.

Reagan got creative with the legos.

And I got creative with the pizza.  Ok, it was really Papa Murphy’s.  It was my attempt to get a picture of all four kids smiling.  I failed.

Three Heroes and a Princess

The Princess-No, excuse me, the FAIRY princess.

At one door the lady said, “Have a good night, Princess!” And Liberty informed her in no uncertain terms that she was a Fairy Princess, not a princess.  Big brother had done his work well.  Weeks ago  I bought her a princess costume because it was cheap, but figured I would not tell her about it and let her decide what she wanted to be.  They often change their minds.  Sure enough right about that time she started saying she wanted to be a butterfly instead.  She was jumping off every couch she could find because she’d recently seen a Tinkerbell movie.  She’d flap her “wings” and away she’d fly.  Well, Reagan knew I had the princess costume and so he used his lawyer skills to convince Liberty that she wanted to be a fairy princess.  It worked.  All we had to do was get her a pair of wings and she was happy.

Captain America

Bumblebee the Transformer

Harry Potter

It was the perfect fall night to go trick or treating.  Crunchy leaves under our feet, a chilly night and lots of little ghosts and goblins running around. 

I’m so glad this wonderful tradition hasn’t died out yet, even though the trunk or treaters and our paranoid society want to kill it.  It builds community and it’s fun!  I will say, however, that the kids got more candy than they’ve ever gotten in their lives.  They got more candy than I ever got in MY life. 

This little guy came and brought his brother Spider-man to go trick or treating with us. 

Love this one.  Don’t ask me why they decided to sit down right as it was time to go.  Libby couldn’t figure it out either.

The sorting.  Not into houses, but into peanuts/non peanuts.   

I love Halloween.  I love the decorations, the costumes, the parties and most of all Halloween Night.  But boy am I glad when October is over.  Whew!