Potpourri

Folks, I have gotten so far behind that you’re about to get picture dumped to death. Here’s the first of who knows how many installments.

Dallas and his friend, Alvin:

Spencer’s field trip last fall to the pumpkin patch:

This round of potpourri has a lot of pictures of Madison looking cute.

She looks cute in her Dad’s arms:

And in her Mom’s arms:

And in Brooke’s arms:

And in Caroline’s arms:

And even in Spencer’s arms:

She looks cute holding a baby:

And wearing the crowns that Brooke and Caroline like to make for her:

Crying pictures are cute, too, right?

Such a sweet little baby:

Here’s someone in disguise:

Here’s Caroline wearing cones on her extremities:

We had our annual ward talent show.  Dallas had the brilliant idea of putting Brooke’s stop motions on a disc and playing them on a loop so people could watch them.  I loved seeing Brooke so proud of her movies.  She kept a constant eye on the TV and just beamed when she saw people stop to watch them:

I’ve been getting some family movies from the library for us to watch and have enjoyed exposing the kids to stories that aren’t just cartoons.  I got Dolphin Tale a little while ago which is the true story of Winter, a dolphin, who had to get his tail cut off.  The people in the story fit him with a prosthetic tail.  Brooke drew this picture after watching it:

(The boy off to the side is saying, “You have to Winter” meaning he has to wear his prosthetic tail, and the girl in the water is saying, “Wear that Winter.”)

Spencer and Caroline made a huge road for cars out of all our pens and pencils:

Brooke learned how to ride a bike without training wheels!  Kind of.  She got the hang of it really fast but stopping is still a bit of a problem.

Brooke is very excited to go to college ever since I told her she gets to live in a dorm.

Brooke:  “You mean I can decorate it however I want?!”

Me:  “Yes!” (and thinking…”Don’t you already decorate your room however you want?”)

She compiled a list of things she will need (translation in green):

Brooke’s future roommate, whoever you are, good luck.

I believe this is the first piece of artwork featured on our blog that Spencer did.  He colored this police car and I thought he did such a good job using lots of colors and staying mostly in the lines:

Caroline made a jellyfish in her preschool.  Brooke decided she also needed to make one.  The next morning I saw that the girls had made an entire habitat for their jellyfish:

Brooke lost her first tooth!  Red-letter day!  She had been DYING to lose a tooth.  When one finally became loose, she immediately got mad and felt betrayed by all her friends who had already lost teeth.  “No one ever told me having a loose tooth would hurt!”Caroline made a house for her little Dora characters:

We asked Brooke to take a bath.  She insisted she needed a straw in order to do so.  A few minutes later we found her snorkeling:

Brooke found some fabric scraps and turned herself into Little Red Riding Hood:As the weather has turned colder, I’ve resorted to pulling out our Play-Doh to keep the kids happy and occupied.  Works like a charm: Spencer thought he looked so pretty with his “princess” on:One of Br————–>ooke’s homework papers:I taught Caroline’s preschool class.  Spencer looked so cute joining all the “big kids” for the art projects: We went for a walk in the woods.  Brooke was excited to find acorns because she was just sure she could catch a squirrel now which I guess was a high priority for her.  She made up a little trap and monitored it constantly.  She couldn’t figure out why the squirrels weren’t taking the bait: It’s about time we got a picture of Baby #4 up on the blog:Our baby in utero has a much more pleasant profile than Spencer did on this day:He fell no less than six times in one day and hit the exact same spot on his head each time.  It’s rough being little sometimes.