November Randomness

Here is some randomness from the past couple weeks. Lindsey is sporting her gift to Larry for his birthday.

I'm not sure why Kara got so involved with her potatoe soup this time. It was fun going on, but she definatly didn't enjoy when it had to come off!

Again, Spencer cuddles up to his favorite heater. What you can't see is that there is a heater-sized hole in the middle of the box. And yes, he is asleep.

After sweeping one day, Kara triumphantly grabbed the broom and finished up where I'd left off. She thought that was the greatest thing!

Today I showed Kara the box of Megablocks. She made this entirely by herself.

We went rollerskating after Thanksgiving. The kids had a lot of fun, as usual.

Larry's birthday was a little while ago. Here is his Blazer cake.

For birthdays, I always take the kids to the dollar store to pick out things for each other. Larry got an excellent chestplate and shield, candy, Christmas decor, and a sailboat puzzle. He also got an ugly white vase that a friend gave us. It has to be displayed prominantly in our house until we give it to someone else for their birthday). Our favorite was Larry and Lori's gift- Alhambra- our new favorite game that included 5 expansions.

Larry's waterpolo season ended with a banquet for players and their families. Larry and head-coach Cam, were able to officially give the school about $3600 from Intel. Intel pays $10/hour for any volunteering you do and gives it to the school. I think Larry put in about 75 hours this year.

Here's the team!

A Random Day

On Thursday Lindsey got a black eye at preschool. One of her friends headbutted her. Apparently she cried for quite a while, but has since forgotten about it. I'm glad she hasn't looked too closely in the mirror! It is really dark purple now with some yellow. So, now begins my blog of a random Friday in our lives. After Kara takes her nap at 12:30, Spencer practises his reading with me, then he watches his cartoon. After that, Lindsey takes her nap. Since Spencer is scared of being alone, he is usually my shadow for about the next hour or so until Miranda and Derek come home. On this particular Friday he fell asleep on the heater vent. (It's his new favorite place-- since all he wants to eat is fruit and yogurt, he has a serious lack of body fat -- so he is always cold-- and he hates wearing socks, so that doesn't help either). This Friday, he was pretty worn down because he had chess club at 7:15 in the morning, so he had to get up an hour earlier.

I was enjoying my unexpected peaceful hour, when I heard Spencer come into the computer room. He plopped himself on the chair at my desk and actually fell into a deep sleep in this position!

Anyway, later that afternoon I took these pictures of the kids doing their thing sometime before dinner. The boys were playing chess...

Kara was climbing anything and everything in sight. ( Notice the kitchen chair pulled as far from the table as possible. She will climb onto them the moment they are near the table to get onto the table and scavenge for food- even if someone is still sitting on them). Lindsey was playing with the magnets. I think she was trying to make a princess castle.

Miranda was making a diorama (?) for a book report for school. Of course, the book was about a dog.

The new addition- with furniture

So here is our addition with furniture. There's nothing up on the walls yet, but the basics are there. This is looking towards the dining room and the boys room is in the back corner.

Here's our kid area. Now they have a puzze table and a place for all their books.

Current Sewing Projects

Ever since mid-October I've been really into a sewing thing. I helped a friend alter some baseball pants for her son for Halloween- changing the waistline, taking in the sides, and changing the length- it was a little challenging, but fun. That got me going with some other things. I feel so domestic lately... This is the beginnings of Lindsey's bedspread that she'll get for Christmas. You can see some of the rows of blocks on the machine. Her colors are purple, pink, white, and some green. I've now got all the blocks sewn together. I'm hoping to finish the borders on the front and start tying it this week.

This is another project that I've been working on for a while. I started it a couple years ago when I was in my first trimester with Kara. When we finally got the kids to bed at night, I was too tired to do anything but lay on the couch. So I worked on this to help me feel like I was actually accomplishing something. This is a stocking for Larry, but there is NO way it will be done for Christmas. Maybe next year.

Here is a close-up of Kara's costume. She was a carrot. I loved how the hat turned out. It was fun to do the hand stitching on the hat and the lines on the carrot.

This Saturday, for Relief Society, I'm making pillowcases for the kids out of LDS fabrics. One is a missionary print, the other are boy and girl scenes in life from baptism, marriage, etc. Maybe I'll post a picture if I get ambitious.

Halloween Fun

Halloween started on Friday for Larry at work. His team dressed up as the "Captain Planet" team. They even won the prize after doing a skit.

Miranda had a lot of fun putting together her outfit of plka dots. She painted the circles on her shirt, then we added dots on her arms and face.

Larry thought it would be funny to be the easter bunny after he found this costume in his parents' attic. He gave out easter eggs at the trunk-or-treat at the church. He also had Peter Cottontail music in the background. Kara is a carrot. I love her hat! It was fun to make.

Here's the rest of the crew- all ready for trick-or-treating. The kids got at least 2 bucketfulls each, with Miranda and Spencer getting about 3 because they wanted to keep going.

Here's the haul! We're going to have candy coming out of our ears for a couple weeks.

Well...?

What would YOU do if you saw the lights on, the stool conveniently placed, the lid up, and the yellow water beckoning?? This all happened while I was frantically trying to put those last few dishes into the dishwasher (Kara LOVES to climb on the door of the dishwasher and take out the dirty dishes, so I have to be very sneaky). Needless to say, she quickly got stripped down and put into the bath-- that is, after I took a couple pictures...

I'm not sure what is so attractive about these places to climb in. We found her doing this "split style" exploring in her exersaucer and the ever popular toilet again today.

Isn't it just fun to sit in a box, basket, or wagon?

On a completely different note, I've decided that every small household appliance is made to last 10 years or less. Since our 10 year anniversary is creeping up on us, we find ourselves replacing a lot of stuff lately. You know your family is getting big when you need a 4 slice toaster.

In other news, this is Larry's last week of waterpolo! Yay! Larry also had a fun "date" with Lindsey to Disney on Ice. She loved seeing the princesses and dancing in the hallways.

Busy October

Man, I didn't realize how busy our October has been until I downloaded our pictures! So, here's an update- in pretty much reverse order...Last weekend, we went to a pumpkin patch by our house. It was a beautiful October day. We did everything and then Larry came back with the kids to do the corn maze. It took them almost 2 hours to find all the clues to get their prizes. (I'm glad I wasn't there!) The kids were so tired by the end that they just laid down in the dirt, while Larry would ask other people in the maze for help.

The kids were SO excited to be there.

They had this fun little train attatched to a tractor. We filled up half the train ourselves.

While the kids had school off for conferences, we went to Wolf Lodge- a hotel with an indoor waterpark. The kids were so excited to try everything out. Of course, once we got in there, Lindsey didn't want to do much and Kara was tired and wanted to be held most of the time. Larry and I took turns with the kids in the wave pool, water slides and another pool with things to climb on.

After dinner back in the room, they had a short trick-or-treating trail inside the hotel. The kids were thrilled to get some candy. They got even more the next day when they visited the arcade. A few different people gave their tickets to the kids, so they got a ball, candy, and a Halloween decoration. (I was reading my book in the van- so we both got something nice out of it).

Last week, I took Miranda in to get her braces. She did SO well, and they were quick. It took less than an hour. She loved picking out her rainbow colored elastics. She will have these upper braces for about a year and a half, she will also have reverse head gear in about 6 months (she doesn't know about this yet), then retainers until she is older. Probably when she is around 13, "phase 2" will happen with a full set of braces and who knows what. She has adjusted really well, except she hates how it feels when I floss her upper teeth- and she doesn't like that I check to make sure there's no food stuck in there.

We had our Conference Breakfast to watch the Sunday morning session of General Conference as usual. (You all need to live in Oregon so you can come too.) It was fun and yummy, and I even managed to stay awake during all 4 sessions.

I just love this picture. Larry was doing a simultaneous tickle on the girls.

Don't you just hate it when you suddenly realize that it has been "too quiet"? When I realized that I hadn't seen Kara in quite some time, I went exploring and found her in the bathroom sucking on the kids' toothpaste tube and their toothbrushes. She was loving it.

Earlier this month, I decided to be ambitious and make applesauce. I went to a local farm and bought some MONSTER apples. They were almost as big as Kara's head! I had never seen anything like them! It only took 2 1/2 apples to make a quart of applesauce. I ended up with 44 quarts, and I still had a box leftover. After 2 1/2 days of making the stuff, my neck/back muscles freaked out, so I stopped. With a few long massages, heat, and Tylenol, I was finally back to my old self after a few days.

September and October were filled with soccer for the oldest 3 kids. Larry coached Miranda's team (notice that Kara is quite comfy sitting amongst them, looking for snacks). Miranda enjoyed it more than she ever has, but likes playing defense- she's just not aggressive in sports. Spencer loved it, of course, even though I had to ignore him most of the time. He was fun to watch when I got a chance, though. He loved to run around the mob of kids going for the ball, humming to himself, then zeroing in to kick it away when it got close to the goal. Derek enjoyed being with his best bud, Kyler. He liked it, but most of the time when I watched him, he was either playing with his ear or talking to himself or someone else.

So that's about it for us. Larry has two more weeks of waterpolo coaching. The kids are SO excited for Halloween- and I'm going to bed.

Spencer is Five!

An interview with Spencer of his favorites:

TV show: Scooby-Doo

Color: Blue

Parent: mom!

Sibling: Miranda

Foods: Sandwiches, Yogurt, Strawberries

Drink: Applejuice

Treat: Cake that's blue

Toy: Legos, puzzles

Things to do: Ride bikes, find bugs

Thing at school: Art, PE, and reading, recess, and music, and going on the bus

What do you want for Christmas? The Death Star ($500 Lego set) and 2 more MTTs

Where do you want to go on vacation? A playplace and Disneyworld and Utah and my grandma's house.

Favorite animal? Dogs and Cats

Favorite Book? Scooby-Doo books and animal books

Blubbs and Glubbs

As Spencer is tipping the large yogurt container over to put some on his plate, he comments, "I only want one Blubb of yogurt". Apparently it is a large glob of yogurt that falls out of the container at the same time.
Lindsey was looking at some of the board books at the library. One of them had pictures of household items, clothes, and food. When she saw the picture of the orange, fuzzy gloves she exclaims, "my Glubbs!"

Kara is One!

Kara had her first birthday almost a month ago, so I thought I'd write a little bit about her. Here is Kara trying so hard to get outside to play with the squirrels that run around out there. If anyone leaves a door open, she totally bolts for it. She's made it down the driveway twice and out into the backyard a few times before we knew where she was! Yikes! She absolutely loves being outside. After watching a few soccer games, she even has been crawling and kicking balls. Now that she is walking, she loves to kick and throw balls as well.

She loved when Larry blew his whistle for her. She is such a fun baby to have around- she is so silly lately and loves to laugh.

For her birthday she absolutely demolished her cake (my first child to do so). This girl LOVES to eat. She will eat anything, although she definatly has favorites- watermelon, PB&Jam sandwiches, and other fruit.

Since she has really been walking for about a month now, she is everywhere and into everything- including the toothbrushes and toothpaste that she found in the kid's bathroom. Yum! She also loved finding the drawer with ziplock bags- those were sure fun to pull out one by one. She loves musical toys and has even started to dance. It's really cute. She can say "mama", and she has said "Da," and "Ditty"(kitty), a couple times. She also signs, "All done" when she is done eating. She still has her beautiful gray/green/brown eyes and now has 7 teeth. She LOVES animals and has crawled/walked across a whole soccer field to stand right next to a few dogs. She is fascinated by them (and really doesn't even care if I'm within a hundred yards of her- she is fearless).
Kara is RAD!