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.

picture dump from the phone, part 1

Just some random-ness of pictures that I have taken with my phone over the past few weeks.  Kind of lets you see things we are doing.  And, I like the pictures.  So, I put them here. 

Not too often I get pics with my boys. 

Love this indoor garden at the "main house" of the hospital.  The nun statues are in the back.  It's much prettier in person. Took this as I was leaving after a night of being floated to another unit.

  

Random, pretty sunrise.

Kinley in her sparkly shoes.  Her sense of fashion is coming out.  Right now, she is into the color pink.

Liam got his Bobcat badge for scouts.  They flip the boys over, pin them and the the boys turns the pin after he does "a good turn" for someone else.

Ponyo loves the electric blanket.

Mr. Orange loves naptime.

Playing with hair at karate.  We have to do something to keep occupied.

Kinley, in on the action.

Silly sister selfies.

That annual preschool trip to the pumpkin patch

Way back in October, the girls' preschool visited the pumpkin patch.  The only thing I was excited about this field trip was that although most of the preschool had to ride for 45+ minutes to get there, the girls and I just had to drive about 15 minutes.  Was I pumped about going? No.  Would the girls had noticed if we didn't go? Probably not.  I'm going to remember that for next year.  

It was a damp, foggy morning that we set out for the patch.  We left late, but still managed to get there at the same time as the preschool.  

Here we go.  Let the fun begin.

Waiting in line for the hayride.

Hayride selfie.

The hayride took us to the middle of some Christmas trees where it looked like the pumpkins had just been tossed among the pines.  The magical place where two holidays combined.  

Looking for just the right pumpkin.

Found them!

Kinley could have cared less about this.  I picked out the smallest pumpkin I could find for her so I wouldn't have to carry anything too heavy.

Let's ride back.

Then, the group of 15-ish 2-5 year olds had to wait for their turn at a story.  Even then, when it was our turn, another group decided to have lunch on the tables right next to the story.  So much for being able to hear.  Or pay attention.  That was a fail.

Kella and Sage.  Friends.

Honestly, trying to get these kids to sit still...Sage, Kella, Raelyn and Kinley.

Someone liked climbing on the bales of hay.

After the "story", the kids got to go see some animals.  The girls really liked this rabbit enclosure.  There were some cute bunnies hopping around in there.  And, since the girls backs were to me while they looked at all the animals, I stopped taking pictures.  

Then we went to the bookstore and tried not to take apart the childrens' section.  

I was tired by the time we got home.