Happy Halloween!

Our Halloween trick-or-treating will be done up in Spring again. When the kids wake up from their naps, we'll pick up Matix and go straight there. They are BEYOND excited. Costumes are ready and candy is waiting. Happy Halloween!

Also, how adorable is this picture of Lullaby? My mom mailed us some more leaves from Wisconsin last week for me to use in preschool, but the kids of course had to open the package and see what was inside first. Thanks Grandma Kim!

mug shots

My friend Mindy, who hosted the murder mystery party, posted lots of additional pictures on her blog. So I stole a few. :) Here are some more great pics from the night. It was so fun! Our fabulous co-hostesses!

Some mug shots, and couples shots, and fun from throughout the night.

Kindergarten Behavior Chart

Matix LOVES kindergarten. Loves it. They use a positive behavior chart in class and Matix has already filled his first one completely up. That means he's been having excellent behavior in class. I went to his first conference EVER yesterday, and the teacher had only good things to say about our Matix man. He is amazing, and I'm glad that everyone else sees it too. 

Children's Museum

Our trips to the Children's Museum this month have been extra fun because of all the Halloween fun, especially trick-or-treating. I love it.

Spooky

Our house is in constant modification mode. The kids LOVE decorating for things, and putting up more spider webs and hanging ghosts and other Halloween creepies in the trees has been SO fun.  How boring holidays are without kids.

Then Grandma brought MORE decorations! Woohoo! You can never have too many!

International Festival

Matix's school had their International Festival and we went for a little bit. The kids LOVED watching and listening to all the performances from around the world. Matix's school is SO diverse. It led to a beautiful festival.  

Matix's friend Taka performed with a large group of other Japanese children. Matix ran up front to watch. He was very impressed.

The Chinese Dragon Dancers were amazing. It was a really fun show to watch. After dancing a while, they walked out into the audience so the kids could touch the fur. Hawken and Solace loved it, but Lullaby was SUPER nervous. Matix was sitting with his friends by that point and I don't know what he thought of the dragons. He was too busy socializing, as always.

After the festival, the kids and I met Paul at the movie theatre to see "Meet The Mormons". It was VERY well done. I liked it a lot. Hopefully we can see it again at night when the kids are sleeping so we can catch all the little details. The kids were pretty good to sit through the whole thing. It helped that we had LOTS of food for them, but even then, we missed lots of the movie. :) 

sweetheart

Hawken is a very thoughtful person. He notices things about people and wants everyone to be happy. He was thinking about his primary teacher from church, and drew her a picture and wrote her a note. Then he asked if we could drop it off at her house. She was at work, but we left it at her front door, with a treasure Hawken found, and flowers he picked from her yard. Such a sweet boy.

doctor visits

Three check-ups in two days, and one kid getting taken out of and brought back to school... I need an award. Solace's one year check-up was late because his 9 month check-up was late. Everything looks good for him and there were no concerns. He falls into the 25% for weight and 30% for height. No wonder why he reminds us so much of Hawken. :)  He also had to get lots of shots, poor thing. He is such a tough little guy though and did very well.

Matix and Lullaby did great too. Matix got his vision and hearing checked and passed both with flying colors. No shots for them this year because they are all up to date. Hooray! Hawken knows he will get a shot at his 5 year check-up and this was the one time he wasn't annoyed that he had to wait for his birthday. Matix is in the 50% for height, and the 40% for weight. Lullaby is thinning out and is down to the 79% for height and the 70% for weight.  Everyone looks good and there were no concerns for them either. We had to wait a SUPER long time to see Matix and Lullaby's doctor, but the kids were good to play with Sully while we waited.

cart FULL

There was a sale on cute babies at the store. :)

reading

The best way to read a book. Curled up in a blanket. I love this girl.

love-hate relationship

Lullaby and Grandma have an interesting relationship right now. It's a known fact that this princess baby has her OWN ideas about everything, and can be VERY stubborn. She is either SUPER happy that Grandma is here and spending her time playing with her, or Lullaby will be shooting her sharp mean looks for some awful thing that Grandma did to her (like asking if Lulli wanted another animal cracker - the NERVE of some people!). I'm sure by the end of Grandma's trip, Lullaby will be more loving and less hating, but right now, it's a toss up. Stubborn thing.

catch!

Solace LOVES playing catch. If no one will play with him, he often crawls after the ball pushing it with his hands along the way. It's super funny.  Lullaby is good to play with him (sometimes) and rolls it softly to him (sometimes). :)

Grandma Stacy is here!

Grandma Stacy got here last week and we have been enjoying having her with us. There haven't been as many adventures as usual, but that's because Kindergarten sucks up a LOT of our time now. We're still having fun though.  On Sunday, we realized we were all wearing peach orange and/or blue. It was fun. All the boys, then all the girls.

Murder At The Juice Joint!

We went to a murder mystery party last night, and it was SO fun. We each had character roles and secret information that only WE knew. I was "Flirty Flapper" and Paul was "P. I. Pinkerton" - the private investigator. Thank you Stacy for watching the kids, thank you Shane and Colleen for letting us borrow your coat, hat and boa!

When we got to the  party, we got additional information and objectives at the party. The party was decorated super well and it was so fun to see all the work that they put into it. It was a speakeasy in the 20's.

Since my character was ULTRA flirty, I had to awkwardly flirt with several of my friends' husbands... It was all in good fun, but still awkward.  Everyone got into character and it was so fun trying to solve the mystery. I sort of figured it out, but was thinking my original guess was too obvious, so I guessed someone else. Turns out, I was right with my first guess. Oh well. :)  Group pictures of the 11 couples who came!

Hopefully I will get the rest of the pictures from the other people soon so I can post those too. Thanks Mindy and Ally for the fun night!