Last Week and Veteran's Day

Grant had superhero day at school.

Camille did more dishes.

Good thing she's so cute.  We've been potty training and it has been hard...on both of us.  But she has made huge progress and I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel!

We stopped on our jog to watch this caterpillar cross the crack in the sidewalk.

He made it!

Camille really liked her burrito!

We made cookies!

Grant's school had a Veteran's Day celebration and he had two of his great-grandpa's attend as guests of honor.  Grant's class was chosen to sing a medley of the armed forces songs.  It was great!

Keith's grandpa.

My grandpa.

So glad these two grandpa's could come!

Reading with Daddy in Christmas PJ's while laying on a giant dog.  What could be better than that?  :)

We went on a morning jog/ bike ride on Veteran's Day and enjoyed all of the beautiful flags the Boy Scout's put out for the day.

We went to the zoo on Saturday (along with all of the Phoenix area) and saw more Lego statues.

This one is NOT Lego's.  I didn't know the zoo had gotten alligators!  I don't think I can go see these guys again.  They creeped me out big time!  They just have that look in their eyes!

"Milking" the cow.

Tyler is now sitting up by himself.

And crawling.

Yesterday he planted himself in front of the sliding glass door and stared out at the backyard for a while.  This was Camille's favorite spot when she was just starting to crawl too!

"Dab" and visitors

Last week when I got to do Art Masterpiece with Grant's class at school we worked with watercolor paints. As I passed out a folded paper towel to each kid and told them it was to dab their wet paint brush on, they were all laughing and saying, "dab?! dab, dab, dab."  I thought, "Is there a joke I'm missing here?"  So I asked Grant yesterday why all the kids were laughing at the word "dab."  And he  said, "'cause it's dabbing Mom!  Like the dance!"  Really?!  I had to look it up.  Sure enough "dabbing" is a dance and I had no idea.  But it suddenly explains why the kids were laughing in his class and why he's been going around doing the "dab."  Like in the picture below.  It's supposed to look like your sneezing into your elbow.  Ha!  Now I know.  And now you know.  I have yet to try it.  I might just stick to my mad running man skills.  Or the Roger Rabbit.  I was pretty good at that one.  I think we might have to use paints again at our next Art Masterpiece just so I can use the word again!  Ha!

We've been having a couple visitors at night lately.

Just recently Camille has started coming into our room in the middle of the night.  She crawls right up in the middle of the bed and gets all comfy between us.  If we are alert enough to notice, we take her back to her room and then she comes back a little while later.  Sometimes when we're super sleepy we wake up and wonder how long she's been there.

This little guy woke up unusually early this morning, but so did Keith.  So Keith went to get him and a bottle, but Ty just wanted to be social so Keith layed him next to me in bed where he quickly fell asleep.  I could have stayed their next to him like that all day, with his cute little warm feet pushed into my side!  Much better than Camille's really loud snoring and kicking!  But duty called and I had to get up to get Grant ready for school.  

In other news, we filled out our ballots this morning and Keith is dropping them off for us.  Oh boy!  This election day is going to be an interesting one!

Weekend Report

Grant ran his heart out at his fun run on Friday afternoon.  His bright red face was a little bummed when I told him that we'd walked to the school to watch him and that we would be walking back home.  He was so tired!  Maybe I'll drive next time.  :)

But, he did make this great collection of cool tree parts while we took our time walking home.  All the kids took turns piling on the jogging stroller, convinced that their legs couldn't take them another step.  Oh boy, it was pretty pathetic really.

I went through all of the older boys clothes and got their closets set up with winter clothes, leaving all of the shorts in their drawers because the weather is still so warm.  Then I made a list of the few things we need to go buy for them.  Brett is so excited to have new clothes to choose from.

I also got all of the windows washed, inside and out.  That was a task and a half and took a bit longer than I thought it would.  I was pretty sore and tired after that, but I love looking out my sparkling windows now!

We took the kids on a family date on Saturday night.  First stop was the tennis courts.

Brett mostly wanted to climb this fun tree.  (see him there in the middle)

Camille's first tennis lesson.

And....swing!

We got Brett down from that tree for a while to get his own little lesson too.  Isn't he so cute?!

Camille got a little tired by the end.

Keith really wanted to end the night with a drive by the temple.  So I drove us there while he fed Tyler a bottle in the back.  After I stopped to take a few pictures, I looked in the back of the van and Keith was totally asleep!  Ha!  He'd had a busy day too and the drive really lulled him to sleep!  

The kids really loved seeing the temple.  We drove through the parking lot around it with the windows down.  The weather was perfect!  We talked with the kids a little about why we have temples, what we do when we go there, and how much we love the temple.  It was a nice chat!

I love this side of the temple with all of the water flowing down!

Ty wore his cute suit to church.  Our friends grandson had a matching suit, but they had to leave early so we didn't get a picture of the two of them.  

I spent a good chunk of time on Sunday afternoon holding this sleeping boy.  It was the best!  Everyone left me alone and I just enjoyed some quiet time with him.  He's just growing so fast and pretty soon I won't be doing this anymore!

We went to Keith's parent's house for dessert and a nice visit last night and now we are off to a new week!

This week

Tyler's started eating solids in the evening and he LOVES it!  He can't get enough!  He's a huge fan of veggies, not so much of fruits.  The fruits are a bit too tart for him.

The older boys were in the Primary Program last Sunday.  Brett had been sick the day before but seemed fine that morning so he went.  They both did well with their speaking parts.  Grant fearlessly sang a solo (I wish I could be that fearless!!!), and Brett sang in a group.  I got to lead one of the songs while the real chorister played her flute.  I was nervous enough just doing that!  Ha!  As soon as we got home Brett's fever was back and Grant suddenly had a fever too!  Argh!

Halloween came and went.

These boys spent a lot of time in their beds or on the couch.  They went to the doctor the day after Halloween and found that they both had really bad ear infections.  Grant's was about to burst, and Brett's had bursted already.  I didn't even know that was possible!  No wonder they were crying all night!  We got these boys on meds real quick and by the next day they were doing so much better, and the next day Grant was finally back at school where he had been well missed.

Tyler was trying to crawl last night!!!

Glorious rain yesterday!  And thunder and lightening!  It cooled everything off really nice!

The first fire of the season!

It was so nice to open up all the windows to let in the cool air and then to snuggle up by the fire!

I love being able to open up the house and get a nice breeze going through!

Camille eating her "oatmilk"

This sweet boy!  Oh, I love him!

Now that it's cooled off I've been putting a blanket on Tyler when he goes to bed.  He didn't need one all summer because his rooms tends to be on the almost too warm side.  He grabs it and rubs his face on it and smiles so big.  He loves having something soft and cuddly with him.

This morning I did Art Masterpiece in Grant's classroom.  I wish I'd taken a picture!  It was really fun and turned out well.  I'm excited to do it again in a couple months.

We will watch Grant in the fun run after school today and if the fields didn't get flooded from yesterday's rain, we will also be watching him play baseball tonight.

Have a happy weekend!

Halloween 2016

(The Man in the Yellow Hat holding a turtle, wonder woman, Mr. Bones (PJ's), "Blue Storm" (Keith insisted I needed a name :) ), and Captain America.)

Unfortunately Grant and Brett were sick this past weekend, and into the week.  We did manage to carve pumpkins on Sunday night before these boys crashed into bed with a good dose of Ibuprofen.

Brett thought the "guts" were cool.  Grant wouldn't even look at them!

I always think they look cool too!

We saved all of the seeds and I roasted them in the oven that night.

Camille's Ghosts

Grant's Scary Eye

Brett's Happy Pumpkin

Keith's Bat Cat

My peeled pumpkin.  I wanted to try out a super squash peeler I'd been borrowing from Keith's mom.  It worked great on my butternut squash that I'd used for soup that night.  It was trickier to use on the pumpkin because of the bumpy skin.  

By the next morning this skinless pumpkin had collapsed!  I guess that thin layer of skin is really needed to hold up those pumpkins!

The boys were still sick on Halloween morning, but we got them into their costumes for a quick picture anyway.

Brett was pretty super considering how miserably sick he was.

After getting ready for the day I put my wig on and came out to see my kids.  They thought I looked so cool!  I wore it most of the day just to brighten their day.

This pic is from the Fall Festival on Saturday night.  Keith won the costume contest for the adults.  I think the monkey pinned to his shoulder was a nice touch!

Camille was our only trick-or-treater this year.  Keith took her to a few houses and of course over to his parents house that's close by.  The boys stayed inside (mostly) and watched a movie.  They were really good sports about it all.  Keith and I sat outside on our driveway handing out candy til about 8:00 when I deemed it too late for trick-or-treating and I gave out big handfuls of candy, to get rid of it, and then went inside and turned out the lights.  Then we let the boys trick-or-treat inside from door to door in the house.  They got a kick out of that and then they went to bed.  Unfortunately they were both up most of the night crying in pain because their ears hurt.  But that's for another post!  

Even though it wasn't the ideal Halloween for all the kids, it was still great and definitely memorable!