October 1st

Back in August, I had to make a royal "proclamation". We would not be discussing halloween costumes or decorations until October 1st. Now, before that sounds too ridiculous to you, you must understand that my third child is a Halloween junkie!! I'm mean, a SERIOUS junkie. When he was four, he talked about what he was going to be for the NEXT Halloween every day for NINE MONTHS. He also spent all of his time in the car for a good month poring over the Halloween edition of Oriental Trading-almost hours at a time. So the mandate was for my own sanity. Little did I know that we would have a countdown to October 1st, athough I'm not surprised one bit.

Now, I must mention that my dear mother is the great facilitator! She is on the lookout months in advance for Halloween things. She also has a serious addiction to Oriental Trading, but that's a story for another day. She has been dubbed the "Halloween Fairy" because she will sweep in from time to time and leave halloween things behind.

So, with all that being said, here is our first installment of Halloween decorations. I say first installment since the Halloween Fairy will be bringing craft projects by for the young ones as the month progresses.

So from our house to yours, Happy Halloween Season!!! (Delainey's name for it since she sobbed for about 20 minutes yesterday as she tried to process that Ocotber 1st, was in fact, NOT Halloween!)

The family room. The Halloween fairy delivered the things hanging from the ceiling, and to be honest, it looks really cool. Much to Matt's chagrin. (he's not completely sold on the "early decorating")


Books and sound making stuffables



The duckie line up-they are mummies, vampires, devils, and pumpkins, with a guest appearance of Spookely the square pumpin

Delainey's first day...

of preschool!! She had to wait and wait and wait, but it finally came and she's loving it. I will admit to a small tug on the heartstrings as I drove away Tuesday, but I've enjoyed my "free" time-already been on two bike rides!!

Moments of humor

Like my four year old singing Kelly Clarkson's "Life would suck without you" while putting away dishes...(and I'm sure that's not the real title, but it wouldn't be as funny!)

A very important day in our house

FINALLY, after nearly 13 years of waiting, my little army man has his very own OFFICIAL military uniform. He's in the Marine ROTC at school and after waiting for a month for all the gear to arrive, he finally got to wear it to school. He was all but giddy this morning. Go Andrew!

What to do with an unused kiddie pool

Row, row, row your boat anyone?

It's really hard to wake sleeping beauty

A picture is worth a thousand words...

What happens while the parents are at choir

A couple of weeks ago we came home from choir with dinner already made:



Andrew was very excited with his cooking prowess, making curry sauce to go on chicken



It wasn't too bad!!

The joys of being female

Our first real foray into night time curlers:



Finished product-she looks a bit like her friend Eden, who has beautiful natural curl, and it actually stayed rather curly for the whole day and into the next!

Florida rite of passage

I'm pretty sure that in the "Handbook of growing up in Florida" there has to be a passage on "catching a lizard all by yourself." For Chase, check the box as "done."

First day of school

I have to say that having school start right after the family reunion was quite anti-climactic! Not to mention that school started on August 10th (you don't want to open THAT can of worms!) All things regardless we got all three boys off on the first day quite successfully! Delainey will have her turn to start pre-school on a more respectable September 8th!

First, the First Grader



Next the Fifth Grader



And finally, the new High Schooler and Seminarian!

Family Picture

Getting a successful family picture with 24 people is tricky, but add the heat and humidity of Florida in August and it's downright miraculous!! Jessica Engleke was able to catch quite a few amazing pictures!!

Parents, kids, and spouses



Add the grandkids...



All of the attending grandkids

Family Reunion Montage

We had such a great time with our family reunion! I think almost all the cousins had been counting down for months and they seemed to all have a great time! We had a ton of fun in the pool (I was wondering how we would fit 20 plus people in our pool! with the uncles providing for some fabulous cannonball runs. Lots of refilling of the pool! We all got melty at SeaWorld, had a great time at the beach, and really lived it up at Rock Springs. We also had an adult bowling night (Sorry we missed Sara and Todd) and all around had a wonderful time! We also really missed Oliver, Kristin, Clara, and Anna.
Here are some pictures from the fun!

Family reunion montage 2

Family reunion prep

How do you get ready for a family reunion??

I honestly love moments like this when all four of my children are working together or doing things together. With thier widespread ages, it doesn't happen as much as I like.

Scrubbng the cabinets



Shredding



Getting rid of the last of the boxes!! YEAHHHH!!!

Storm time

While Matt and I were in Orlano Friday night making an attempt at attending the temple (there's no 8:00 session and we arrived at 7:25) there was a very large storm. Andrew called about the thunder shaking the house and such. We came home and found this:



Andrew is on the floor! Since we've spent many a night with others in our bed turnabout is fair play right??

Reading time

It's great help for a mom to have some help from time to time!

Braden and Andrew prepared some science projects to do with the kids. This is Braden reading to the kids about volcanos. They made a volcano with the traditional baking powder, vinegar, soap, and food coloring after reading!



Reading stories before bed

Chase's birthday

Happy birthday to Chase!! Our "littlest boy" turned six last Sunday! He had a fun family birthday party and was very excited for his party with his friends today! I actually have some pictures for this one!

Here's the food. We had live worms (hot dogs cut into strips), croc teeth (apple chunks), dried ants (cranberries), twisty vines (braided pretzels), beetle wings (veggie chips), snake eggs (grapes), and cake and ice cream.



The party guests



The frog pond, alligator alley, and quicksand (part of the obstacle course)



The frog game-throwing sticky frogs at the leaves for points



The waterfall-general decor and part of the obstacle course



Everyone had a good time and we followed things up with a dip in the alligator pond-the pool-complete with a 72 inch inflatable gator! Don't worry cousins, it should still be here when you come!!

Summer posting

It's been a while since I posted! This summer has just taken over my life and I want some control back!!! We've had far too many things brewing here....a little recap.

Andrew was attending summer practices with the high school basketball team. It was a great experience for him in playing time and getting to know some plays and the coaches. We're hoping it helps him come tryout time! Since that was four days a week, two hours a day I needed to find something for the other three to do. We've been going to the library on Mondays, bowling on Tuesdays, the free movies on Wednesdays, and to the beach on Thursdays. In between all of that we've done chiropractic appointments (Braden has been suffering from headaches since developing mono), orthodontists, piano, etc. It's amazing how difficult it is to have any consisitency or productivity in life when your day is constantly cut up into segments.

Andrew had the opportunity to go to Denver for TSA nationals. Matt's sister, Sara, was kind enough to pick him up at the airport so he could go to church and hang out with them on the day they flew in. He enjoyed being with them and it made a nice connection for the upcoming family reunion. He had a great experience at nationals. Three of his four projects had top 10 finishes, with one taking 2nd. Overall their team had 24 top ten finishes and 12 top three! According to their calculations, that would make them the top middle school in the nation! We're really glad he was able to have the opportunity to go.

Matt and Andrew are off to scout camp for eight days so I'm hoping we can calm down a bit! That's very highly unlikely knowing us, but maybe just a bit more down time! After all, we have a family reunion to get ready for!!

Dancing Bear

On Saturday, my parents, Matt, and I went to Delainey's first dance recital! Yes, it was a precious affair, make-up, flowers, big fluffy, WHITE costume, and lots of excitement. We had a great time-it was fun, and some of it was funny-especially the little girls, as expected.

I was interested to see what Delainey's class would do, since they were all over the place in class, and didn't really do the dance during the first run through at dress rehearsal. And oh, they never practiced on a stage....




They did very well-and I was especially proud of Delainey. She really seemed to take the lead-mostly due to her slightly competitive nature (cough, cough, cough)but mostly I was happy that she actually did the dance!!

A few more pictures of the big dance...

Make-up!! (I think mom better take some make-upping classes)



Arabesque (or however you spell it-and yes, there is ketchup on her left knee...)



Flowers after the show from Dad!

For Janene

The height check would surpass you Janene-the boy is around 6'2'' now!!

Hey, are you and David going to trip on down to Florida in July for HP6???
Plenty of space for a grad school break!!!