thanksgiving...

we had a wonderful thanksgiving with lots of good food and family. i didn't take any pictures on thanksgiving day, but i did the day after when we went to the park to play soccer with all of my family. the kids had a blast! i am so thankful that my kids have cousins and grandparents and aunts and uncles that live close by. it is so fun to get together.

dan and baby brother played goalie for a little while.

the little ones got bored with the soccer pretty quick, so emily and i took them to the playground area.

evan thought he was such a big kid.

the next day we headed back to the same park for a big kickball game that was a lot of fun. we missed my brothers who are in utah and my brother and his family who are in minnesota!

after the game, dan taught baby brother how to ride uncle carl's skateboard :)

new moon

dan and i saw new moon over the weekend. i loved it. dan...not so much. he was a little confused because he hasn't read any of the books or seen the first movie. but it was awesome of him to come with me. i'm now rereading the book because it has been such a long time since i read it. i downloaded most of the soundtrack to my ipod so i could listen to it while i read. and after seeing the movie, i definitely have a new appreciation for jacob ;)

little indians

i can't believe thanksgiving is next week! christmas will be here before i know it. here's a few photos of the girls in their indian costumes that they made at school. apparently fourth graders are too old to make indian and pilgrim costumes so i don't have a photo of elayna.

avery made this outfit at her preschool group. she wore it pretty much all day. and yes this is the smile she now gives me every time she sees the camera. i call it the crescent moon eyes smile.

and kyla came in second place in the turkey run at school. she is the second fastest girl in kindergarten! here's her ribbon.

fall flowers

chrysanthemums...one of my favorite flowers. nothing makes me happier than fresh flowers.

apple crisp...

...the perfect fall dessert. yum. i am loving fall. we have been having the most gorgeous weather. temperatures have been in the mid to upper seventies. i really wish it was like this all year.

halloween

witch

pirate

black cat

skeleton

jethro.
dan loves throwing together these last minute costumes. i think he had the most fun scaring dario and aiden.

the cousins had the BEST time trick or treating together. they got tons of candy! we spent the night with them at grammy and grandpa's house and stayed up way too late making treats and watching a scary movie.

preschool halloween party

this week we had a little halloween party at our house for avery's preschool friends. they are such cute, fun little girls! we played halloween games and songs, made handprint bats, and decorated and ate halloween cupcakes.

i think avery was pretending to be a cat in that photo. a very messy cat :)

witch shoes

i made these for the ladies i visit teach and filled them candy corn. they were really quick and easy to make. you can get the shoe template here and the shoe liner here.

note: i printed the template directly onto the cardstock, instead of tracing the template onto the cardstock. (and yes, it was possible to see back ink on black paper)

pumpkin carving

every year on the monday before halloween we carve pumpkins, listen to halloween music and have donuts, caramel popcorn and hot chocolate for treats. this year aunt jessica and uncle walter and grammy and grandpa and uncle carl joined us. we had a lot of fun.

things got a little crazy when grammy showed up dressed as the "housefairy witch". here she is dancing to ghostbusters :)

two front teeth...

kyla lost her two front teeth! she couldn't be prouder.

little pumpkin

yes, i'm a little obsessed with my grey seamless paper. and these skeleton baby legs. besides being really cute they make it a tad more comfortable for him when crawling on the hard floors.

purse notebooks

i'm the new activity day leader at church and we made these cute little purse notebooks at our activity last week. they are so easy to make. they girls had a lot of fun decorating their own.

i bought mini composition notebooks from the dollar store and trimmed the edges with an exacto knife. then the girls glued on paper and ribbons and embellishments. they all turned out so cute.

elayna made this one with the "e"

little sweetheart

baby brother is growing up too fast. he turned 7 months a couple weeks ago. he is such an active little guy. he started crawling at 6 months and shortly after started pulling himself up to stand. i think he is going to be an early walker like his big sister kyla.

it was nearly impossible to get a picture of him sitting still since all he wanted to do was get up and crawl away! he also has two little teeth. (you can see them in the next picture.) i think he might be cutting more because he is constantly drooling, hence the drool rash on his chin.

and this photo just makes me laugh...