Happy Thanksgiving!!

We're visiting my brother in Indiana this week. We'll update the blog next week.

Little Men..

Every night at bed time, William loves to go into Alan's room and play on his bed with all his stuffed animals. It's always really hard to get William away from Alan's room, so this particular night, Alan decided to pretend he was going to sleep so that William would want to go to sleep too. It didn't really work because William wanted to sleep in Alan's bed.

William has officially moved to a toddler bed. Being just under 2 yrs old, he is at the youngest age of all our children to move into a "big boy bed". He was climbing out of his crib, even when we put the mattress all the way on the floor, so we decided it was time.

Alan is also very proud of himself for peeling apples for the first time this morning. At first he was afraid he'd peel his fingers, but once he got the hang of it, he peeled enough for a whole apple pie!After he was done peeling, I caught him eating the peels.And, here's William trying some new food as well. Crayons.... always a treat..

Gobble gobble...

Today we made rice krispy turkeys. We used some fruity pebbles too. The pictures don't really show you how much they look like turkeys. Well... some of them look like turkeys. Anyway, we had lot's of fun making them.

Sarah had the most fun. She went crazy making a whole little Thanksgiving scene.

Here's Kaitlyn's turkey:

And of course the most fun was eating them.

Maybe we can make these with Uncle Johnny and Aunt Jenette in Indiana!

Fun with Uncle Mark

My younger brother Mark came to Georgia for an interview with a college in Savannah. He stayed with us for two nights, and took part in the chaos that is our family. The kids had lots of fun with him. We hope to see more of him if he get's accepted to the college in Savannah!!

Popsicles 5 cents...

I'm not sure if this is inspired by me selling puzzles or what, but Sarah decided yesterday that she was going to sell popsicles. She made up a sign and put some of our popsicles and ice cubes in a cooler. Then she sat out on our front lawn and waited for her customers. One person actually did stop to buy four popsicles. Even though said they were only 5 cents each, the lady gave her a dollar and told her to keep the change. Sarah was so excited about her one big sale, that she wants to do her posicle stand again tomorrow. Alan wants to get in on the action too and sell cotton candy. We'll see about that....

Happy Halloweeeeen!!!

It was a rainy Halloween night, but we had fun anyway. It was just a light mist coming down. I love rain and it wasn't even cold-well not compared to the rainy Halloween nights I had growing up. Anyway,..

See if you can guess what we are:Cleaning out the pumpkins is always fun.
Tom's Jack-o-lantern:Kaitlyn's Jack-o-lantern:Alan's Jack-o-lanternJennie's Jack-o-lanternSarah's Jack-o-lanternKaitlyn skipping down the front walk in her fairy costume....And after church today, the sorting of the candy began...

"I am a builder...."

For those of you who work in Primary you know the song "My Eternal Family". We put extra focus on learning that song today, and I built this little peg board and hammer for it. The song starts out, " I am a builder working each day... " and it has a very pronounced beat. So the kids got to hammer in the pegs as we sang the song. I had so much fun making this. I really didn't need to, but I almost never get to do wood projects for fun, so this was a treat. The kids really loved it too-especially William.

Kaitlyn the Cook

So, while I was cleaning up in the kitchen today around lunchtime, Kaitlyn decided to make herself a sandwhich. I looked over and saw that she was making one for William too. And then I took a closer look, because she had something else with the peanut butter between the bread, and it wasn't jelly. I watched as she continued to make the other sandwhich for William, and discovered the secret ingredient: Peanut Butter and Goldfish sandwhiches! Yum!!

Haunted Ginger Bread houses

We had a good time making some Haunted Halloween houses tonight. We didn't really use ginger bread. We just covered some big juice cartons in brown paper. Then we stuck candy on them with royal icing. Look at the candy mess!!

Sunday Pictures

"Mommy," Alan whispers in sacrament meeting, "Can I draw a picture?"

"Yes," I answer, "But only if you draw a Sunday picture."

So, here are the Sunday pictures that Alan and Sarah drew today.
Sarah drew this:

Alan drew this:I guess I should've clarified that even though there are wars in the Book of Mormon, it's not really appropriate to be drawing them in sacrament meeting.

Moster Mash

Fiddlers, and Pythons and Goats, Oh My!

We went to the Georgia National Fair on Saturday. The kids really enjoyed it. When we first got there, we saw an older couple singing and playing the fiddle with a bunch of wooden noise maker toys in front of them. They had a sign that said, "Kids wanted to make music". So our kids sat down and played and tapped to the music. We saw lots of little side shows around the fair. At one of them they asked for 10 volunteers to help hold the last animal in the show. They didn't say what the animal was until they had 10 children lined up to hold it. Then they brought out a giant python. Kaitlyn and Sarah were a little scared, but eventually they helped hold it. Alan thought it was neat.

We also went to a petting zoo at the fair where we could help feed the animals. William loved feeding the animals and kept holding his hand out for more food to give to them. It didn't bother him at all to have them eat right out of his hand.

We also saw a water show and some cow boys in action, and Tom and the 3 older kids got to ride a few rides at the carnival end of the fair. Lot's of fun!! It was only $8 per adult and kids 10 and under were free. A really good price for all the entertainment that was there.

Super easy, super cute pumpkin project

So, I saw this idea on a craft blog to mod podge orange tissue paper to glass jars, and then cut out faces with black paper and glue them on. And then mod podge them again with a high gloss mod podge. I decided that was too much work, plus I didn't have any orange tissue paper or mod podge.

But, I really liked the look of them and thought it would be waaaayyy faster to just paint them!! And it was. They look just as cute as the fancy ones on the craft blog if I do say so myself. The most important part was that Kaitlyn had a great time doing it with me.

All you do is paint the jars orange and the rims with green with normal acrylic paint . Wait a few minutes for the orange to dry, then draw the faces on with a black permanent marker. You can also paint the faces on with black paint. After they're dry string some white Christmas lights in them. Or, you can put candles in them as well! Here they are in our fireplace. It was close to 90 degrees today so we won't be having fires in the fireplace any time soon. :(

Some pumpkins have faces...

This week we've been having fun with pumpkins. First, Kaitlyn and I made paper bag pumpkins. She really enjoyed stuffing the bag with newspaper and then getting to paint it. She used black paint to put little faces all over it. I also covered an ice cream container with orange felt, then cut a variety of felt shapes for her to make faces with. She also cut some felt to make some face peices. We keep the peices inside the "pumpkin". Even the big kids have had fun making different faces on the felt pumpkin bucket.

Lovely Letters

Here's Kaitlyn and William getting to know their letters. I bought these neat foam alphabet letters on sale at Toys R Us. They love them! Because she's been playing with them alot, Kaitlyn has started writing capital letters on her own. I find little "notes" that she's written on papers around the house.