Caroline brought home this paper from school:
…giving me flashbacks to this paper that Brooke brought home last year. I’m surprised to see Caroline embellish her name. I kind of love it.
She has also started drawing some…uh…interesting-looking people:
Something about the huge eyeballs looking so severely to the side and the wide, toothy grins creeps me out just a little bit…but there again…I also kind of love it.
Kid artwork is pretty much the best.
The other day I went into the basement and saw someone had drawn people all over our whiteboard down there. I couldn’t figure out who had done it since it didn’t look like the people Brooke or Caroline draw and Spencer doesn’t draw according to all I thought I knew about him.
I must have wondered aloud who the artist was because Spencer came up behind me and said he drew the people. I didn’t believe him so I asked him to draw me some more while I watched. Sure enough – he was the artist.
Now he draws his little face-people everywhere:
They’re pretty versatile. He discovered if you give the guy just one eyeball he turns into Mike Wazowski:
Add a nose and a stem and he was thrilled to create a portrait of his Halloween pumpkin:
I did a post all about Madison and meant to follow it right up with this post about what everyone else has been up to…and it’s taken me weeks to get to it. Better late than never?
We happened upon fire safety day at the library and Spencer got a hat. He wore it everywhere we went for two weeks straight. Once we were in the car headed to the store and he realized he had forgotten his beloved hat. Oh the tears. I must admit – I loved my little fireman errand buddy.
We enrolled Caroline in a gymnastics class. She loved it and I was so impressed with all she learned.
The kids had their dental checkup. Somehow I heard the words “no cavities” from the dentist after which I nearly had to be treated for shock:
When the weather was nice the kids really got into making chalk cities on the driveway:
The kids love play-doh and while it does make a mess, it also keeps them happy for hours so I love it, too.
Every morning I have two peanut butter toast for breakfast. One morning Brooke made the toast for me…and positioned them into a heart:
I got to go on a field trip with Caroline to the farm:
Dallas trying to get Madison to crawl:
Brooke wanted to sketch Caroline’s portrait. She got her dressed up and is working to position her in the right pose:
The kids have been playing school a lot lately and it’s adorable:
We like to walk to school when the weather permits. We bundle Madison up so only her eyes show and we never know how Spencer will accessorize for the journey. Usually it’s with his fireman hat and clutching his lawn mower, but today it was goggles and a butterfly net:
The girls had crazy hair day. Brooke won a prize for her crazy hair!
We went to the Discovery Gateway Museum. Brooke made this:
An employee passed by and glanced over. She stopped in her tracks and exclaimed, “Oh my gosh! She made a horse!” Yes she did. She can turn anything into a horse!
I promised myself I wouldn’t wait forever to post our Halloween pictures on our blog…and here we are three weeks past Halloween. At least I’m getting this posted before Thanksgiving. I’ll consider that a victory.
We’ll begin our Halloween adventures with our ward Halloween carnival. Here are the kids in all their costume glory:
We have a unicorn, Anna and Elsa, and Lightning McQueen.
Me: “Let me get a picture of each of you alone.”
Brooke: “Yes, okay. We all need to have a pose. This is mine.”
I guess this is Spencer’s?
Madison liked eating her skirt:
We went to the Monster Block Party at the Gallivan Center one Saturday. It was so fun.
They had a guy making huge bubbles for the kids to pop.
(Love that there are three Elsas in that picture.)
Madison loved watching the giant bubbles float by:
Free pony rides? Heaven for at least one of my children:
They got a crane fire truck and dropped pumpkins off of it. Here we are waiting for the pumpkins to splat:
We got to decorate cookies: 
We took advantage of the free train rides.
Heaven for another one of my children:
Then we had the highly-anticipated family Halloween party. In our planning stages we started off with a Frozen family theme. Caroline was going to be Elsa. Check. Brooke was set to be Anna. Then we went looking for costumes and she found that lovely unicorn hood. There was no turning back after that. Madison was going to be Olaf, but I had the hardest time figuring out how to make that costume. Once Brooke bailed on being Anna I decided to make Madison Anna. Perfect.
From day one Spencer was dead set on being the snow monster. I didn’t even recall a snow monster in the movie but a quick Google search showed me this character:
So much for thinking the Olaf costume would be my biggest hurdle this year. Spencer was so adamant that he be the snow monster…until the day I went to buy supplies for it. For some reason he completely changed his mind and decided to be Lightning McQueen. Perhaps you recall he was Lightning McQueen last year? And by that I mean Dallas cut out a felt lightning bolt and the race number and we sewed it onto a red shirt. Spencer’s change of heart made my job a whole lot easier since we could just reuse the felt pictures so Lightning McQueen it was! Then on the day of the party he decided he didn’t even want to wear the “costume” we had made, but instead just wanted to wear his regular old Lightning McQueen T-shirt. Whatever.
Then we have me and Dallas. I thought it would be fun to go as the Love Experts. Need a picture?
So that’s what I was in case you couldn’t tell. (No one could tell.)
Since the family theme had totally disintegrated, Dallas decided to do his own thing. And that’s how George McFly was born.
My parents impressed us all with their costumes:
My cousin, Wes, was a shadow. Brooke had the idea to both pose the same way and this picture was born:
Then Caroline took a picture with her shadow:
We saw the girls in their school costume parade. Here Caroline had spotted Madison, hence the enthusiastic reaction:
Finally Halloween day was upon us.
l
