Happy Halloween!!!!

This year's Halloween was a blast! Izzy was a mad scientist, Lily a fairy, Chloe was Rapunzel with the long hair, and Olivia a ladybug!


Here they are with Rory at Nana and Grandpa's before heading out to trick or treat:



A quick shot of Brayden too:

Individual shots before we left:

We actually went to a few pre-Halloween parties this year. This was one at our friend's house where EVERYONE had to dress up, even the grown ups. Ben and I went as PB+J, a PB+J sandwich! It was fun:

We had to hug to make the sandwich part!

These are the treats we brought, Rice Krispies shaped into pumpkins.

Our pumpkin carving for FHE the monday before:

The girls were excited to have this blow up cat--thank you Grandpa!

Our ward did this fun little activity where you "BOO" another family, by putting treats at their door and running so they don't know who gave the treats to them. You were supposed to put this ghost sign up on your door so families would know to "BOO" someone else. Well, even with ghost sign on our door, we got "BOO-ed" 5 times! The girls had fun making treats for the families.

I also wanted to throw in a photo of these fun cupcakes I made for Chloe's playschool. My friend made them and they were so cute and easy to make I thought I would make them for the playschool kids. The kids loved them. All in all it was a great Halloween!

Olivia Loves VASELINE

Olivia has an obsession with Vaseline, lip balm, glue sticks, anything greasy, oily, sticky, and hard to clean up. It is as if these things call out to her, "Play with me, make a mess of me." She smears these things on the wall, on furniture, in her hair, all over her face, on her clothes. I have learned to either throw these things away, or hide them on high dressers, underneath things, in inconspicuous boxes, etc. but she uses things to climb up and seems to always find them. And only when I am not paying my absolute 100% attention to her. For example, when I am helping the older girls with their homework, making dinner, etc. The video below happened few days ago when her and Chloe were happily and peacefully playing in their room, and I thought I could squeeze in a quick vacuuming of the living room. When I saw what she did, I decided to put it on video in hopes that we may all look back on this time in her life and have a good laugh.

Time to dust this off...

Well, I haven't been on here for the longest time. We have been very busy with all of the back to school stuff and getting back into the whole back to school routine. The girls are all very busy with their activities and school.

Izzy and Lily have started basketball! They play every Friday night and Ben is one of the coaches. They love the first part, where they get to practise, do drills, shoot for fun, etc. The second part is the game part, and neither of them really like that part yet. The reason is right now their age group is boys and girls, and the boys really dominate the court! They are just so much more aggressive and stronger, all of the girls really just kind of stand back. But they like going still and it gives them a good little workout. Next year they can separate into just girls.

They are enjoying another year of piano too. We got another new teacher this year, and they love her! I have noticed an improvement in both of their sight reading skills. I guess that practising over the summer really helped!

Both Isabelle and Lily have really learned to ride their bikes so well. They love to ride them around the block and neighbourhood together after school. I am happy the fall weather has been so nice that it allows them to do it.

Izzy also joined the choir at her school, which is once a week at lunch. She has always loved singing, and is going to join the choir at church too

Lily's teacher said that she is the best reader in her class! She loves to read and is great at it. She has to bring home more "advanced" books for her home reading. We are so proud of her.

Chloe is still loving playschool so much. It is really bringing her closer to the kids she goes to church with and helping us all to get to know those families more. Her teacher this month is teaching them a little French. She told me that Chloe is actually getting the hang of French really well! Maybe it is because she knows a little Spanish from her sisters, and so the French is similar? It was nice to hear that.

We also signed Chloe up for a Cookie Monster class at the YMCA where she gets to make fun treats and food and bring them home. She once had to draw a picture of herself and the teacher wrote a cute thing she said underneath her drawing. It said, "I am big because I eat lots and lots of meatballs!" She loves meatballs and spaghetti and requests that meal almost everyday.

One morning a week, during Chloe's playschool, I take Olivia to a Gym n' Swim class at the YMCA with other little 2 year olds. Whenever we are getting Chloe ready to go for playschool, Olivia says, "Yay, I lub gym and swim! My teacher sings lots of songs." It is fun to spend the one on one time with her.

Ben started a new position at work that allows him to work from home. He only needs to go into the office a couple of days a month. I wasn't sure how I would like it, having him home all the time. But I must say I absolutely love it! It will be hard to ever go back. He still works really hard all day, and me and the girls just stay out of that room. It is just that he is here for lunch and breaks, and when he ends at 4:30 he is here with us at precisely 4:31! It is nice having him around more. When Olivia naps in the afternoon, I can take just Chloe out to do something, because he is there to listen for her.

Chloe Loves To Catch Ladybugs

For the past month, Chloe's favourite activity has been going in our backyard and finding ladybugs and putting them in the back of Olivia's tricycle. Usually she finds one, two, or at the most three, and is so proud of herself, and loves to "get food" for them, which is just grass and leaves. Today she was outside finding ladybugs and came in a couple of times to tell me she found, "hundreds and thousands of ladybugs!" I thought she had found maybe 4 or 5 instead of 2 or 3, and was so surprised to see how many she found. They were everywhere to be found today!

Chloe and Olivia's Ladybugs!

Chloe's First Day Of Playschool!

She was so excited. She had to wait until after the long weekend for her school to start, so she has been very patient. She has been asking me almost everyday if she starts tomorrow. She picked out this little bunny backpack. She is happy she gets to go to school with most of the little girls from church.

It is strange to have just Olivia for those three hours Chloe is gone, and the older two are at their school. Olivia of course wanted to stay and play too. Chloe did that when Lily went to playschool, and Lily did that when Izzy went to playschool. Olivia was OK once I took the playdough out at home for her. She was happy to have Chloe back home for the afternoon though. Olivia is starting to cut out her naps altogether, and she is just happy as can be following Chloe around and doing everything she does. It is really sweet.

First Day Of School

Today was the big first day of Grade 1 and Grade 3! I can't believe the two oldest girls are now in school full time!!!! They have been so excited and looking forward to this day. So far they love their teachers and everything. They were happy to see old friends.

Lily was so excited to get a desk, instead of just tables they used in Kindergarten. She also LOVED her agenda book she gets to bring home everyday "just like Izzy." She loved her outfit she is wearing in the above picture, too. She picked it out herself when we went shopping. She said she loves PEACE signs. She did look really cute.

Izzy told me last night, "Clothes are cool when they don't match." I thought that was funny. She did choose to wear matching clothes though. She is really growing up. She doesn't like it when I say, "that shirt is cute," or "that is a cute top," or anything CUTE. She thinks that word belongs to babies I guess. I explained that it is another way of saying nice, or cool. She is happy with her teacher, who is new this year. I could tell she was a little nervous, but she was so brave and grown up and happy to be back at school. She said her class this year will study Peru, and she is so happy because that is where Ben served his mission.

Here they all are after school, happy to be together again. It was really different having just the two girls all day. Chloe starts her Playschool next week and is SO excited.