November!

It's been a whirlwind week around here.  I'm exhausted! 

We started off with Halloween last Monday! 

Here was Emily being a cutie in the morning.  She was still pretty congested and coughing but her fever was gone Monday morning. 

And here is our officially official 9 year old ready to head off to school on her birthday.  She was so excited.

I put Emily in the little pumpkin outfit Megan had worn the day she was born.  It was huge on Megan then, and tight on Emily now, but oh so cute.

Brooke woke up with a fever on Monday morning.  So even though she was dressed and ready for school, she got to stay home to hang with me, Jack, and Emily.  I panicked a bit when Brooke woke up sick because I had places to be during the day, but thankfully Dan was able to work from home after about 10 am so I could still get everything in.  

I got my grocery shopping done, ran home to put it away with Dan's help, and ran back to the school with a Happy Meal for Megan and cupcakes to share with her classmates.  It was a fun lunch.

Here is Brooke modeling her finished wig.  My first attempt at wig making, but it turned out fine and Brooke loved it.

Our lovely Jasmine.  

 There just wasn't time after school and before dinner and trick or treating to actually carve pumpkins this year.  So we compromised and Dan oversaw the painting (and watched BYU basketball) while I got dinner going.  Megan requested egg drop soup.

After dinner, we got everyone dressed up and Ali and her family came over so we could all trick or treat together.  Love this crew.  We started trick or treating at 6 pm and were back home by 7 and had the kids in bed by 7:30.  Dan and I got to watch a scary movie (the one time a year I am willing to watch one with him).  I didn't even have nightmares :).

Tuesday Nov 1:  Brooke was home sick again. It was picture retake day for Candy and I forgot, so hopefully she smiled cute since her hair was a little crazy!  We laid low during the day and she and Jack had a blast playing.  It was actually really nice to have Brooke home to entertain Jack--they both loved it and it gave me time to get laundry done and stuff.  Megan had piano after school.

Wed Nov 2:  Brooke was back to school.  I picked up my nephew Luke for playgroup at our favorite park.  The weather has been so warm still, but nice in the shade. 

Thu Nov 3:  We tagged along for the joy school field trip to the butterfly museum.  It was so fun.  We had a picnic lunch at the base of the hill by Miller Outdoor after.  Ali watched some of my kids after school (I kept Brooke and Emily) so we could go do some birthday shopping for Jack and get some presents for a toy drive that night.  We had a RS activity that night where we wrapped all the donated toys and that was a lot of fun.  I ran back to the store after it for some last minute things for Jack's party on Friday.

Friday Nov 4:  Jack turned 3!  Baba turned 93!  I sent the kids to school and then got busy getting ready for hosting playschool.  It was the letter I (I is for insects) and the kids were adorable.  I invited Jack's other friends outside of playschool to join us from 11:30 to 12:30 for his party.  We had lunch, ate cake and ice cream (red cake and red icing like Lightning McQueen), the kids colored Lightning McQueen pages and ran races in the backyard, and then we opened presents.  Jack was SO happy all day long.  I kept Ashley's kids at naptime that day so she could do some service.  When Dan got home from work we opened presents from grandparents and us and then had a fast dinner.  There was a family dance at picnic at the school that night.  It was so fun.  In PE for the last month the kids have been learning dances and they performed them all--each grade level did a dance and then there was a K-2 number and a 3-5  number.  There were also family dances--chicken dance, cotton eyed joe, and hokey pokey and a mother/son-father/daughter dance to end it.  The girls were so excited to share with us and it was a blast.

3 years!

Red Cake!

Friends!

Running...

 

Jack was swinging his little hips side to side and jamming while we sang to him.  He's so fun!

Jack and Mal after the party.  She's holding a container of oreos that he's "sharing" with her.  They are the cutest friends.

Family present time.

Emily tried sitting at the island like a big kid on Jack's bday.  She did pretty good--she liked gnawing on the granite!

Saturday Nov. 5:  Dan had his 2nd half of his sailing course so it was me and the kids all day.  Megan went on a field trip with the A Days girls to the temple to walk around the outside.  She had fun.  While she was gone we ran some errands.  Brooke had a school friend's birthday party and we took the other kids to babysit swap at the Tracy's.  We had dinner with our neighbors that are in the ward and went to a movie. 

Sun Nov. 6:  Emily is 8 months old!  She's rolling all over the place, still scooting backwards only, babbling and happy all day long, and she got her first two teeth on the bottom in the past week!  She's seriously the happiest little chubby baby and we love to kiss on her squishy cheeks. 

3 crazies in the tub before church.

Dan had early meetings so he was gone and with the time change overnight it was a rough morning before church.  We picked up a friend's daughter (her other kids were sick) and we made it before the meeting started so I'll take it.  Sacrament meeting was interesting.  The beginning was typical, nice testimonies (especially one by my friend who talked about trusting in the Lord to let things work out for you just as they should even when it's not the way you may have wanted it to happen), but after the sacrament they announced that at 45 after we'd be singing our closing song and having a closing prayer but could we all stay in our seats after that.  Our stake has been doing a pilot program for the church where it hosts self reliance classes and the church is rolling it out in other areas and making videos for lds.org as resources as it gets rolled out.  They were highlighting a lady in the other ward in the building, but the photographers had some scheduling conflicts so after our official close of the meeting, we got to stay for a mock meeting where her Bishop called her up to talk about the self reliance program and they both gave short talks.  So we were all extras.  It was so weird to have cameras in the chapel!  She ended up sitting on the end of our row, so Jack may be playing with his cars in the background!  Other than that, it was a normal Sunday.  My class was about Mormon and the destruction of the Nephites.  It was crazy to realize that he had been singled out by the prophet to keep the records when he was just 10--one year older than my class kids!  AFter church and dinner we played games as a family and navigated some tantrums (ahem, Brooke, ahem) and then sent them all to bed.  Dan and I watched a newly released training about Teacher's councils that was live yesterday but we missed it with him sailing.  Elder Holland presided and it was great. 

Emily has been hating her medicine this week (she's finishing out an antibiotic), so she's also been annoyed at baby food but she actually ate some tonight. 

8 months and getting so big!

 That's it for me.  I'm glad to be done with birthdays for a while.  Now on to Thanksgiving and Christmas!