Halloween Night 2011

Shrek Dragon and Baby Shrek had fun tagging along with the big kids who had fun showing Tommy the ropes..."Now this is how you trick-or-treat." Shrek Dragon had a bit of a hard time keeping up with the big kids but, thank You, God, he remained cheerful and content throughout the activity. It had just a wee bit to do with the fact he was collecting candy and anticipated enjoying his bucketful of goodies!
No one wanted to slow down for a quick pic of the trick-or-treating...least of all Noah!

Fletcher, one of the Musketeers, was glad to switch from Shrek to more of an action figure...he just wanted to duel with his sword and found any opportunity to whip it out to battle the bad guys, namely his siblings!

After strongly urging him to wear Sarah's boots for the Shrek ensemble, he was an easy sell tonight when he put together a Musketeer's outfit. We copied the mustache idea from Sarah's Puss-n-boots character because people had asked her at the fall festival if she was a Musketeer. She opted for eyelinered whiskers tonight on her cheeks rather than the Puss-n-boots mustache. She was happy tonight when a teenager said to her friend, "Hey, there's a Puss-n-Boots!" Sarah was looking forward to being allowed to trick-or-treat alone with a friend this year for the first time. She hung with the family like a good sport for the hour or so that we all went together, and then met up with her friend, Olivia, our neighbor to finish trick-or-treating while we stayed home to pass out candy and put Noah to bed.

Love Noah's expression while the Musketeer holds him...Noah loves Fletcher; his face lights up when Noah interacts with his siblings.





Fletch loved his French mustache and was so pleased with it that he asked to "keep it on" overnight.

Some of the kids' best friends, Fall Festival 2011

The Campbell Family: Ryan, Raygan, and Reese (or Reesie Peesie, as Tommy calls him)

These are Fletcher, Paris, and Tommy's best friends. They LOVE the Campbells. The kids get to see each other every Tuesday now at Options. They are actually in different classes because of grade differences, but they still get to eat lunch together and play at recess. Tommy and Reesie have play dates on Tuesday mornings while the big kids are in school. Those two are Ree-dic-ulous together! So funny. So wild and rough and tumble. Luckily, they both like to wrestle and play BIG!

Lexie, one of Sarah's close friends, was a black cat. She and Monika (said "Monique-ah") came over after the Fall Fest for a slumber party. The three girls danced and sang until 1 a.m. They gave Charlie and I three dance performances before midnight which was cute.
Sarah and Monika, whom I love. Monika is dressed as Cleopatra in the costume she picked out and paid for with her own money. She is the SWEETEST thing! She is SO kind to Tommy and Noah. Her mom says she is so amazing with babies from choosing to help with them in the orphanage where she lived for many years.
My favorite picture of baby Shrek:

Southeast's Fall Festival 2011

Charlie took a break from being the event's photographer and helping with the Trunk and Treat to spend time with the Shrek family.

The Shrek "Dragon" was in rare form. I take that back; Dragon was his wild self that night. No one was mentioning to the three year old Dragon that in Shrek the dragon is actually a SHE!
Poor baby Shrek wasn't diggin' the green tube ears...Fiona made him wear them anyway...despite that they needed to be trimmed to a more appropriate baby Shrek length! Fiona was shocked baby Shrek dealt well with them all night. Maybe he got subliminal teachings this summer from his precious cousin, Julia, who tolerates her bow bows with much ease.
It's great what can be thrown together the morning of an event with much prayer and a few stops at consignment stores and Hobby Lobby! Thank you, God. No mom wants unhappy kids in costumes!

Big Kids' Costumes 2011

Puss n' Boots and the Gingerbread Man from Shrek:

Both girls were tickled with their outfits which so pleased me! I was so thankful they liked what they were wearing and how they looked.
This is our only picture with Fletch actually wearing his Shrek green tube ears! He did his own green face paint. We attempted to make a Shrek belly for him but nothing pleased him in that regard. His major complaint was having to wear Sarah's boots for Shrek booties...he was fine with the idea of just wearing tennis shoes. But Shrek wore brown booties, Fletch! Sarah's boots were just right for the costume but boy, oh boy, was he not thrilled with wearing something that was a GIRL'S! Oh my, MY!

Snow Fort Fun

Sarah and Fletch spent hours building a snow fort using plastic buckets to form the snow bricks. They were looking for twigs, sticks for the roof, and when I suggested they use the lightweight sleds for a roof they replied indignantly, "Mom, this is an all-natural snow fort! We are only using natural things for it!"

Parie just eats snow constantly as she plays. She is always scooping up a handful as she walks along whether climbing back up the sledding hill or playing around in the yard.
Parie's quotable from the past year when she gets even slightly warm, "Mom, I'm BURNING!" So walking back up the sledding hill this week she wanted to take her coat off and just wear her snow pants with her lightweight three-quarter length sleeved shirt...I said, "No, leave your coat on." Isn't that what Moms are supposed to say? So I got the, "But Mom, I'm BURNING!" Parie quote. That girl is often one extreme or the other now. She's like me in that she is often cold and needs a warm hoodie on but if she is moving around in the slightest she'll get "Burning!" Sarah is still prone to being hot (rarely cold like me or Parie) and Fletch would never, ever wear a jacket if I didn't ask him to...maybe a Payson or a Charlie thing. I seem to remember my mom saying Payson would never wear a coat if he wasn't forced to. Charlie wears a coat now in CO more than Fletch would (if I wasn't around reminding him to please wear it!)

New used toys for fun activities...

We love Play it Again Sports. The store rocks! We've found great roller blades, a hockey stick, and now raquetball racket and scooter. Paris had been asking for a pink scooter, and Charlie had been wanting to play raquetball with Fletcher. Now, both activities are being greatly enjoyed by the kids. So fun that that store has items that greatly enhance our family time! Fletcher loves going to our local rec center with Charlie to hit some balls with him. Paris is having so much fun scootering around loving her PINK scooter.

Safety first with great protective eye wear!

Kids' Self-Portraits (Oct.2011)

"Pink Popper"

"Splat" by Fletcher
"Autumn" by Sarah
On October 6, 2011 the kids, their friend, Chantal, and I all went to an art show and had a blast looking at and talking about the pieces on display. One of the pieces was a really neat self-portrait that was a profile painted with bright, bold blocks of color. We decided to make our own self-portraits when we got home. We used a flashlight in the garage to trace the kids' profiles onto paper (not easy! in that the slightest movement drastically changes the profile as you trace/copy it onto paper). The kids then had fun painting them as I read out loud. We LOVED the final products. The kids were quite pleased with their creations!

Three harvests and counting...

The kids SO desperately want a garden every year, but we have always been moving in June and July (the past three years!) This year we aren't moving during the summer (WAHOO!!) We started some container gardening and have gotten three harvests of lettuces and spinach, enough for lots of salads for all of us! The kids LOVE chef salad, especially with their own produce. The kids really enjoy watering the pots by hand and cutting the produce themselves. Tommy and Paris had a ball cutting the most recent harvest, and Tommy washed it by himself in the sink which he thought was TONS of fun!

Paris is so sweet playing with Tommy!

One of Paris and Tommy's favorite activities is dressing up. They love to do this with their friends and together as siblings. Most days Tommy says, "Mom, me play dress up?" When I say, "Yes," he yells, "GUYS, Mom says, 'Us CAN dress up!'" The kids (T,P and F) also LOVE pretending to be animals together. They are most often a collection of felines these days. They pick a variety of cougars, cheetahs, & jaguars. They find the exact species in one of our animal books and love to show me the pictures of the ones they are pretending to be that day, well, that MOMENT, because they often switch species many times throughout the game! I love hearing them pounce around in the loft and chat about what their feline is doing throughout the imaginary play. The best part about these long playtimes is they rarely have any toys to clean up when they are done. When I tell them, "Time to clean up for dinner," they laugh and say, "Mom, we didn't use any toys! We are cheetahs!"

Tommy posing in Feb. 2011 wearing Paris' panties one day when she thought it would be funny to put girl underwear on him. Notice how she gathered them in a side knot and rubber banded them to be smaller and fit snugly!
The Spiderman mask from Grandma is a big hit and fun for the kids!
Paris and Tommy playing dinosaur set-up together. I often hear, most frequently from Tommy these days, "Hey Mom, come see my set-up!" The kids used to laugh behind his back because he'd sometimes have just two toys "set-up" for his play scene. When they would ask me to see their set-up, it would be an intricate scene of many toys, but Tommy joined in the excitement of showing Mom set-ups and would call for me with just a couple toys ready for action!

On another note about Tommy, today we had a five minute banter back and forth about "Bat-a-wang." I could not for the life of me figure out if he meant Batman's batteries (which didn't make sense because we both know Batman doesn't have batteries) or Batman's wings (his new action figure has black wings as opposed to the other Batman figures which have capes). He was so frustrated with me not understanding what he was asking me about Batman. It turns out that I finally figured out he was asking about his new Batman's Bat-a-rangs which Batman uses to catch the bad guys. Ohhhh. NOW, I understand..."bat-a-wang"...not Batman batteries or Batman wings, Bat-a-rangs, of course!

Valentine's Day Fun, 2011

The kids show off their creations:

Tommy loved tasting the creations:
Daddy was an enthusiastic overseer of the dipping work:
Paris just loves her new friend, MaKenna, and the two enjoyed the Young's Valentine's Day party together.
Sarah and the girls had a ball with the Valentines exchange and special food treats. Our kids brought gift baggies of their hand-dipped chocolate pretzel rods with sprinkles to give to all their friends and some to share at the party, along with their chocolate covered strawberries.
(Sarah, Lauren Keegan, Katelyn Keegan, Lexi Young)

Sarah's Monart Class projects from Nov. & Dec. 2010

Sarah so looks forward to her weekly art class. She is beginning to ask for her own art supplies (for her 10th birthday) to experiment with pastels at home in between art lessons. The great thing about Monart is all the supplies are provided for the kids. She is currently working on a sea turtle at Monart which is really cute as well. We couldn't be more pleased for her. We are so thankful she is getting to spend time developing her love of art. If Sarah is not reading, she is most definitely drawing- her two favorite passtimes by far! She is usually drawing with a pen and white computer paper, and most drawings involve families of people. She loves drawing many people on each page and naming all of them is half the fun for her! She often has little story lines for each group of people she's drawn. We talk about different illustrations and illustrators' styles as we read library books each week. I tell Sarah I could totally see her being a published author and illustrator one day!

One of Sarah's recently completed art pieces

Sarah finished this ballerina in just two or three of her Monart art classes. She is LOVING her weekly class!

Pumpkin Fun

Our little pumpkin with Pay Pay's pumpkin. (Tommy calls Paris, "Pay Pay," so now we all do!)

I think our pumpkin is ready for his Superman costume...he looks like he is ready to fly away!

Paris and our friend, Chris Page, who joined in the family carving fun are proud of their creations.

Paris so carefully planned out her jack-o-lantern's face all by herself. She couldn't have been more thrilled with her results. :)

Halloween 2010

Our Cowgirl Diva was excited about getting to wear make-up!

Our Ninja and Batman loved wrestling together and being as wild as possible in their tough guy costumes!

Sarah enjoyed carving her What Would Jesus Do jack-o-lantern with her best friend, Chantal, and Charlie. We came home to the three of them engrossed in their pumpkin carving project and seed baking party. SO cute to see this Daddy daughter (and friend) activity happening at our kitchen table.

Fletcher joined in the fun and designed his Flash Gordon pumpkin complete with lightning bolts above the eyes. My favorite part is the cute crooked smile.

Our three superheroes were ready for action! Wonderwoman
is helping Superman out with his flying!