The Christmas season is here....

We got the tree up and decorated....

Izzy made this little home made Nativity set out of rocks (for the people and characters) and a shoebox. Chloe and Lily helped decorate it and color it. I remember doing something similar with my older brothers when I was little.

Here they are in front of it all decorated. This was the night before we went to our Stake Choir festival. The girls were asked with other girls to sing a little part in the beginning. They have been working on memorizing the song, "Stars Were Gleaming." They did a great job. During one rehearsal, Olivia started singing along too, and she knew all the words and tune too. It was really cute, and our choir director was very impressed! Her nursery leader told me that she loves singing all of the songs in nursery. She always participates and does a great job.

We've had fun baking too. These are some Peanut Butter Reindeer cookies Chloe, Olivia and I made:

That night for FHE, we went tobogganing just at the playground by our house. We made a hill that made us slide right onto the road. Don't worry it was not a busy road at all. We then came home and decorated gingerbread cookies. Olivia called them,"Ginger Man cookies."

She mostly liked sucking the icing tube:

Odds and Sodds

Winter is upon us now, there is more snow than in this photo. The girls are having fun shoveling, and playing in it though. They even made a couple snowmen yesterday.

Chloe and I made up this grocery list where we drew a picture of what we needed and she would check it off when we put it in the cart. It was fun for her and she didn't ask for one thing that was not on the list! If there was something I wanted to get that I forgot to put on the list, she would say, "but Mom it isn't on the list we CAN'T get it!"

We started a new scripture study routine in our house, where we challenged the girls to read their scriptures everyday for at least 3 min. We bought them all little kitchen timers to time themselves. They are having fun with it. Here is a picture of Lily doing it one day, immediately after school, right when she got home:

I found this unopened cucumber in my bedroom, with little bite marks in it. I wonder who did that? OLIVIA!!!!! I just hope she didn't swallow any of that plastic!

Izzy and Lily Play Basketball

Well so far they love it! These pictures are not the greatest, they were taken with the iPhone, in poor light, and the girls were running around in them. But you can get the general idea that they are having fun! Go White Go!

Beaver Bums!!!

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.