introducing the pterodactyl, sister of the stegosaurus

Another hand sewing job. I cut her wings out of some pillow cases we had and sewed them along her sleeve and then down the side of her shirt. She loved them.

The face paint we used was awesome. I got the recipe off the internet. 1/4 cup baby lotion, 1/4 teaspoon dish soap and poster paint. It went on so smoothly, looked great and then washed off with a few wipes of wet ones. No pain for the kids. They loved it, even though Candace doesn't look like it.

We got these two kids all dressed up and went to the "ward" Halloween party.

Joshua during the donut on a string contest.

The boys showing off their muscles.

Pierson and Joshua ready to escape.

Watching dad during a contest.

fall is officially here

The kids playing in the leaves in front of our house.

These are the Halloween sugar cookies the kids and I made.

dinosaur

Lately Joshua has fallen in love with dinosaurs. We thought it would be fun to make him a dinosaur costume for Halloween. I sewed everything by hand so it's not the best work, but it was fun to do. I cut out the spikes from my old scrubs and sewed them together. Then I stuffed them with newspaper and sewed them onto a sweatshirt and sweatpants. I think it turned out cute.

The next picture is of Joshua making a "scary" dinosaur face.

39 minutes

That's how long I had to keep putting Joshua back in his "big boy" bed tonight before he gave up and fell asleep. 39 minutes and over 200 times of putting him back. Exhausting.

How did we get to this point today? I'll tell you, and with as little embellishment as I can.

5:59 am - Joshua wakes up. Our day begins.

12:50 pm - Put Levi and Joshua down for a nap. (Put Joshua down in his crib like always.)

1:15 pm - Joshua comes WALKING out of his room. He's learned how to climb out of his crib. No nap today.

5:45 pm - Walk out the door to pick up James. Put Levi in the car and Candace in her seat, although not buckled. Run down the hill and around the apartment building to grab Joshua who has run off. When we get back to the car Candace is standing outside it. All doors are locked with Levi, my keys and my cell phone also inside. James runs home to rescue us.

8:00 pm - Begin the battle with Joshua to stay in his "big boy" bed.

8:39 pm - All kids are alseep.

I left out all of Levi's naps, feedings, books read, meals prepared, walking to campus to pick up Candace and walking home, etc. It was an exhausting day. I'm grateful for Emily, Stephanie, Becky, James and my parents who all rescued me multiple times today.

And to add an ironic twist to all of this, we are in charge of the "Dealing with Children Effectively" Booth at the ward Welfare Fair this Saturday.

if you obey me.....

Candace met a new friend on the playground today. A few minutes after they started playing together Candace and her new friend walk up to me. Candace states, "I told her that if she was really good and obeyed me she would get a really big treat." HAHAHAHAHAHA! I can't believe that cute girl. You can tell she's an oldest child and you can definitely see that I bribe my kids way too much. The next couple of minutes were spent trying to explain to Candace that our friends don't have to obey us like she has to obey her parents.

"the fun kids"

as they were and as they should have been

Each week, sometimes even twice a week, we check out about 30 different books from the BYU library. Sometimes I put a lot of thought into each book that we get and sometimes it's a free for all and I let the kids run around and pull whatever books they want off the shelf. This last trip was one of the free for all kinds. When we get home I usually sit down for about an hour and we read almost every single book. This is one of the books my kids picked out this time. It was written in 1904 and most of it is in huge contrast to how we expect children to behave today. i got a great laugh out of it and realized that more often than not my kid's were acting like the kids in the lefthanded pictures.

the cuteness