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!

It’s so great when they are old enough to do it themselves.  Levi was not allowed near any sharp objects.

And they want to save these seeds every year????  I’m not diggin through that.  No way!

And the Jack-o-Lanterns

I was just bragging the other day to a friend that Levi has been ER free for over a year now.  She told me to knock on wood….but I didn’t.  Everyone who knows Levi and his history with the Emergency Room can now join me in a collective sigh.

Exhibit A

Exhibit A is an EPI pen case with an unused EPI pen in it.  Reagan and Cade have to have one of these with them wherever they go because they are allergic to nuts. (Cade is probably not anymore, but that is a post for another day)  I keep one of these EPI pens in my purse, in the Sunday bag, and in the kitchen.  I get to freak babysitters and grandparents out when I explain to them the procedure for using one.  It’s a really big needle full of epinephrine that you stick into the child’s thigh if they go into anaphylactic shock.  The look of terror on the would be babysitter’s face is always fun to watch.

Exhibit B

Exhibit B is an empty EPI pen case.  There is no EPI pen in this one because curious little Levi was missing the ER nurses and decided to get into Mom’s purse today, pull out the EPI pen and stick himself with it-all the way through his thumb.  After lots of blood and screaming (from Levi and Mom) Rock took him to the ER.  We didn’t know what kind of effect the Epinephrine would have on his little body, especially because it was Reagan’s adult dose EPI. 

Exhibit C

Exhibit C is Levi, $75 whopping dollars later, home from the ER and none the worse for wear.  Doesn’t even need a bandaid! He didn’t get any of the medicine into his body (or it would have turned his finger white-we now know) If you have really good eyes you can see the tiny bruise on his thumb that was left by the needle. 

Ironically enough, I’ve been thinking I need to teach Reagan how to give himself the EPI pen if he ever needs it, now that he’s old enough.  Now I can just have Levi show him how!  Thank goodness you’re around to keep life interesting, Levi.  It was getting a little dull around here.

Reagan turned 11 yesterday!  He’s still waiting for his Hogwarts acceptance letter…… But here’s the party.  We decided to go with a Harry Potter theme because he’s 11 and because he decided to get one more year out of his Harry Potter costume since we are in a new neighborhood. 

Dinner at Fuddruckers
Yes, that hamburger is too big and no, he didn’t finish it. 

The Presents

This is Reagan opening up his new (our old) camera.  He’s been begging for a camera for a while now and our new cell phones have really good cameras, so he got the hand me down and is thrilled.  When we took his friend home they made an 11 minute long goofy, giggly video.  He was in heaven.

The Cake


For those who are not familiar with the story, this is the Gryffindor shield, a Quidditch  broomstick and snitches. This cake is nowhere near as good as all the incredible ones I saw online.  But Reagan thought it was amazing and I think it turned out pretty well if I do say so myself. 

We definitely have a tween now.  He wants to do his hair, he’s asking for an i-pod and I caught this picture at the store the other day.

He’s using the mirror in the refrigerated section of the grocery store to fix his hair.  Watch out girls!

The pumpkin patch, unlike apple picking, usually seems to go well for us.  No fighting, everybody’s happy.  Hallelujah!

While the big boys got themselves lost in the corn maze, the little ones played in the corn.

This kid is so stinkin cute I can’t stand it!

At one point I lost track of Liberty and turned around to find her sitting in this little wagon.

The hay ride!

This picture is very telling.  The similarities in the two on the left and then the two on the right show through.  Left- focused, Right- distracted.

At first she wanted this one…

But then she found THIS one…

This is my favorite.

Happy October!!!

This week Cade hurt his ankle in soccer and has had to stay off it so the swelling would go down.  This is next to impossible for a nine year old boy and so big brother decided to help.  We were cutting down some big bushes in our yard on Saturday and Reagan decided to put the branches to good use.  He asked to use the saw and before we knew it, he’d created new transportation for Cade.

That is a snow hat and painters tape.  We have a regular MacGyver on our hands!  Yes, the real MacGyver would have used duct tape, but our MacGyver had just used up the last of our duct tape a few days before on some other crazy project.

Earlier this week Liberty wasn’t feeling well.  Before I could do anything about it, Reagan Nightingale had her all taken care of.

Not pictured is the barf bowl on the floor. 

The leaves are starting to fall in our yard, but we don’t have enough to jump in quite yet.  Every day the kids go out there and rake up what has fallen in the hopes that it might be big enough, but to no avail.  So yesterday Reagan convinced several friends on the street to help him rake up THEIR leaves and then wheelbarrow them to OUR backyard to make our pile big enough to jump in.  They had quite the system.  I had random little boys with their own wheelbarrows dumping leaves in my yard all afternoon.  I think I’ll have him paint the fence next week!!-White.

I didn’t have the heart to tell Reagan that once all the leaves fall, he’ll be so sick of raking that he’ll seriously regret this idea.  But they had fun just the same.  And that’s the whole point with Reagan.  He’s always trying to have fun or help and even though he sometimes gets into trouble because of them, his wonderful ideas never stop. 

Libby loves to do hair as you’ve seen in the past.  She did this hairdo on me last week.

She is now open for customers because yesterday she did her Aunt Penny’s hair.

Call today for your free hair consultation at Liberty Dawn’s Hair Salon!