the girlies' preschool pics

Preschool picture day was in November.  Dressing the girls is definitely more of a challenge than the boys, especially now, since Kella is Very Opinionated about what she wears.   Kella picked out her dress (a size 3T that she still fits into) after we devastated her by saying she could not wear her Elsa costume for picture day (any other day, yes, she wears Elsa, just not picture day).  She loves those pink, sparkly shoes and topped it off by putting a bow in her hair.  What style!  Trust me, she was the fanciest girl in her class.

Kinley did a great job!  She wanted to wear a princess costume, too, but had to be satisfied with this.  She was happy to wear her pink shoes, just like big sis.  I was thrilled to see that she smiled for the camera.

These boys.....

I had to take a picture of Cale and Marcus each the other day.  Cale because he was dressed up for his Biztown interview at school and Marcus because he was sporting his new basketball warm-ups.  

Please excuse the hole in the wall.  That is Andy's next project once he is done with my closet reno-which is in progress!  Cale sprung the need to dress up for school the night before at 6pm.  I was not inclined to go shopping for interview duds.  Lucky for us, Marcus's concert band-wear from last year kind-of fit.  (which means that Marcus needs new clothes for his concert on Sunday *sigh)

Sporting the basketball warm-ups.  Marcus was excited to get these to wear to school on game days. 

And, isn't fun that both the boys look like they don't have hands in these photos?

A few Saturdays past we learned to use our sewing machine

Grammy Pammy came to visit and taught us how to use my birthday/Christmas present sewing machine.  Really, she came to see the kids, but I like to think she was excited to give a hands-on lesson in sewing machine operating.

I started out with doing some pillow forms with fabric that I bought pre-cut since I needed practice sewing in straight lines.  I think I got the hang of it.  Then, the boys heard the sewing noise and came to investigate.  Everyone wanted a turn helping sew.  We ended up making 2 pillows and 2 rice heating pads.  We even had enough rice in the pantry to fill one of the heat pads.

These colors are cute.  Now I need to get some filling for them.  And, more fabric.  I'm thinking I could replace all my couch throw pillows with these.

Kella spend her time during the sewing lessons by creating a habitat for her frog.

Liam got a turn, too.

Marcus, modeling the heat pack. The pack heated up nicely in the microwave.  Guess what the kids fought over the rest of the day/night?  Right.

Glasses selfie.

Probably the sweetest thing I heard one of my kids say (Cale), was that he thought his teacher would really like one for Christmas.  Of course, we will be making more heat packs.

just a flashback to October

Here are some gems from the girls' preschool Miss Spider's Tea Party.  This year, both the girls wore pink skirts, black shirts and pink wings.  No too creative, but easy.  I think this is our 10th or 11th year for this and my creativity is waning.  Also, I forgot my camera, so I guess my motivation is waning, too.  

Kinley, front and center.  She did not want to stand in the back.  You go girl!  She knew all the songs.

Lot's of little bugs.  Kella is behind the ladybug on your right.

Post show pic with my ladies.

The best I could get of my little, pink butterflies.

Let's celebrate Cale some more

Andy took Kella to preschool this morning, which leaves Kinley and I snuggling on the couch,watching PBS.  Kinley has  preschool, too, and in a little bit, we will start getting ready.  But for now, let's look at more pictures.

The kids (boys) like it when their presents are hidden and we (Andy) make up riddles for them to solve to find the presents.  Andy didn't disappoint this year.  Cale has a clipboard with a full list of riddles to solve.  

On to the opening.

Silly boy.  He was happy to get a phone.  

This game has been on his wish list for a long time.

A new blanket.  Dr. Who.  That's right.  Cale loves it.  He loves soft things.

Cake!  Of course Cale would pick a cake whose first step includes melting butter, brown sugar and cream together.  It's called a chocolate praline cake.  Pretty good.

Kella serenaded us with a song.

Then, we play.  The day wouldn't have been complete for Cale if we hadn't played his new game.  For a final present, Cale won.  Beginners luck, I say.

Andy had to hold his "baby" Cale.

I just needed to squish him next to me.

Let's hear from Cale! He's 11 now, you know.

Cale's birthday was last Sunday.  I think he had a pretty good birthday, got some great gifts, played some basketball and had an awesome cake.  Those pictures will come later.  Right now, let's see what Cale likes as a new 11 year old.

"Hi Cale.  What is your.....

Favorite color?  Green

Favorite stuffed animal?  the duck (a small yellow duck he has had since he was little)

Favorite thing to sleep with?  the duck

Favorite fruit?  banana

Favorite dessert?  anything

Favorite drink?  soda

Favorite animal?  panda

Favorite movie?  Age of Ultron

Favorite thing to do outside?  play

Church style

Lookin good for church.  I know some of the members like seeing what our kids are wearing.

Rocking out the princess look with a silver crown and sparkly pink shoes.  

Kind of a Harry Potter-type look.  With wristbands.

Kinley loves being a princess, too.

Halloween time

Not gonna lie, Halloween is my least favorite holiday.  I hate the costumes.  I hate handing out candy.  Andy's friend was right when he said this holiday doesn't make sense.  364 days of the the year we tell our kids not to talk to strangers and not to take candy from people they don't know.  Then, Halloween comes and all bets are off.  

But, I have children.  And, they like Halloween.  And, I try to do the least amount of work as possible.  And, Andy was gone for the weekend, so I couldn't even complain to him.

The first time this fall the kids got some carmel apples. (Or, the only time this fall that Cale will eat an apple.)

Kella sat by herself.

Once we had some sugar, it was time to carve some pumpkins.  I waited until Halloween to go looking for pumpkins to buy.  Guess what?  The stores were wiped out.  Lucky for us, we had aquired several pumpkins throughout the month of October that were begging to be carved.  The big three did most of the work on their own pumpkins.  I even had the carving tools from last year to use.

Liam with his pumpkin. Liam was pretty excited to bring home a pumpkin from school.  The class had been studying the pumpkins and the top was already cut open for me.  Liam named the pumpkin Steve.  Steve got carved.

Five little pumpkins, all in a row.

Ewan, Kella, Liam (Steve), Marcus and Cale

Then it was time to assemble costumes.  I pretty much made the kids make costumes from the supply of dress up gear that we have.  Ewan spend some of his money on the Chewbacca mask and nerf crossbow.  Otherwise, I just ended up buying a few accessories.  

We have Vampire Cale, Butterfly Kella,  Hobo Marcus, Fastboy Liam (he made up his own superhero name) and Chewbacca Ewan.

And, then Kinely.  I took her to the girls closet and held up princess dresses until she picked one.  Kinley has a thing for pink right now.  I decided to sport my Doctor Who scarf.  The weather was ick.  I figured it would keep me warm.

Fastboy, me and Princess Kinley

Time to walk.  We went to the front of the subdivision for a trunk-or-treat to start with.  The weather was decent for about 30 minutes and then it got more overcast and windy.  Typical.

Here are the girls, ready to travel in style.

 There are four streets in our subdivision. We did 1 and a half before most of our party was ready to go home.  It was windy and starting to sprinkle-rain this year and not snow.  I let Cale walk to rest by himself since he was pumped to go to the house that gives out the big candy bars.  

And, being best mom ever, I let my kids eat bunches of candy and watch Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. We chased that with some hot chocolate (Liam might have coughed up some hot chocolate-I think we filled his sugar hole to the top) and the last half of LOTR: Return of the King.  All tucked with the fireplace on, it was quite cozy.

The quotable Liam

After putting on matching wristbands...(because sometimes he doesn't)

"I have doppelganger wristbands on." -Liam, age 6

picture dump from the phone, part 2

Yes.  Some more pictures of us doing life.  These are from our stay-cation fall break.  

We had a marble playing revival.  The court was drawn on the carpet with chalk.  There was some "discussion" about whose marbles were whose and who did/did not have a shooter (or more than one).

We played Clue.  Look at Detective Kella, ready to solve a crime.

More ants came for Liam's ant farm, take 2.

Cale made cupcakes.  I made Cale do some real-life math on his own.  That about killed the cupcake dream, but Cale's love of sugar won out.

Just a little geocaching.

We went to the nature center and one of the parks we visited that week.  I had lofty goals to go to a park every day the week of fall break.  We made it to 3 parks.

Ant farm, crayons, science experiment kit.  This variety is what our life looks like most days.