Thanksgiving 09

Thanksgiving dinner this year was at my mom's. It was fun to see my sister Julie and her family, and my brother Kevin and his wife Trish (who drove up from St. George with their 3 kids). I love family time! It's just never long enough...

My mom always sets a fancy table. We were in charge of place cards this year. Me and the girls made these Thanksgiving morning.

The twins had their dinner before everyone else. Most of it went on the floor. I guess they thought the meat was dry...

After dinner we have a tradition of doing crafts. It started when I was just a teenager, and we've continued it all these years. It's one of my favorite parts of the day! I usually bring stuff for the kids to make Christmas countdown calendars (a great use for all the Halloween candy!). I didn't get a picture of the calendars, but Brighton found the suckers and made good use of them. 3 at a time!

We've started taking turns with who's in charge of the crafts. This year was my sister, Julie. She outdid herself with 3 fun crafts. We made Joys for our tables...

and hanging signs (she has a vinyl cutting business)...

and tree blocks. The bling totally made them fabulous. Simple, but they looked so cute when I was done blinging them! These were vinyl too. Thanks Julie!

Tuckered out

I guess his busy day caught up with him finally.

Evening neckware

For some reason, this girl loves to put things around her neck. Usually it's necklaces or beads, sometimes it's the handles on a purse. Well, she is moving up in the world of fancy, creative neckware since she discovered my underwear drawer! She's going to hate this picture when she's older, but she does it so often I had to take one. I don't think the Queen of Sheba herself walked around with more pride, as does this little one when she's wearing my underthings. Don't everybody go out at once to purchase some...

Groovy baby!

Love the new dress from Children's Place outlet! I love big flower headbands, but she will NOT keep them on. Luckily she cooperated til I was done shootin.

We sure do love our Wavy! She is already a ham and says cheese whenever a camera comes out, no matter who it's shooting.

Cute twins

Just some cute pictures of the twins in their pre-Christmas outfits.

We enjoy these two so much, more than I ever thought possible. Twins come at a high price, but that's because they also come with more than double the blessings.

Keaton. I love when little boys are dressed like miniature men!

Waverly

And, of course, Brighton had to get in them, too!

This is the only time since she was an infant that Waverly has fallen asleep somewhere besides her crib. It amazes me how one can sleep through the racket the other makes when they are screaming.

Introducing Scottina!

Ok, Scott, don't be mad, but these photos were too funny not to share! Just a goofy moment one night while putting the girls to bed.

1st day of school, part 2

We are so proud of Irelynd! And sad, too, that we will be losing our little girl one year earlier than originally planned. Upon recommendation from her 1st grade teacher and the school principal, we graduated Irelynd up to second grade after 2 1/2 months of school. She was bored and hating school, which is not typical for her. We agonized over the decision, as she had already made friends in her class, and loved her teacher, but decided to give it a try. She resisted, but after the first day, we were both glad we made the decision we did. She loves school again and is finally challenged in the work. I just didn't expect to lose another daughter a whole year earlier than I thought I would to college.

Happy Halloween!

We had another full day of Halloween fun, like every year, so pardon the number the pictures. Like every year, the girls' school did their History Fair where each grade dresses from the time period they are studying. The 5th grade did Civil War and 1st grade did Ancient Egypt. I had grand plans of making Savannah a fancy, full belle dress, but took the easy way out and found one on Ebay. I figured I saved myself money, and money talks, right? Does she look like a tavern girl, or what, in her red silk and black lace? No matter, she loved it, and it suits her red hair, right? I loved the ringlets we put in her hair. Why did that go out of style??? So adorable! Just a great change from the 70's style, parted in the middle and straight down she usually insists on wearing. Doesn't she look so feminine?

I had to get the back, of course!

Both of my girls. Funny story about Savannah's costume. When I first proposed that she go as a belle, I got this blank, dumb stare from her. Slowly she looked at me like I had just told her to remove her head and walk backwards. "a bell? You want me to go as a bell?" she kept saying. Finally it dawned on me that she thought I meant a bell, like ding dong bell.

Doesn't Irelynd look fantastic? I did make her costume. I thought, how hard can it be, just a basic, straight dress with some embellishment. It was hard. Mostly because the sizing was off and I had to cut it down 3+ times. But I loved how it turned out. Before the gold stuff went on, she looked like a cross between a BOM angel and Princess Leah. I made the embellishments removable, just in case she gets into Star Wars later. Don't the pink flip flops totally complete the look?

During the morning, the school does a costume parade in the gym. Here's my cute Egyptian waltzing by. I was impressed with some of the costumes. I thought the best one was a kid dressed as a pyramid. Creative! Does she walk like an Egyptian?:)

Savannah, Lily and Chloe.

Trick-or-treating later that night. I put the twins in the wagon to make our rounds around the ward. Waverly was a lamb, Keaton was a bat, and Brighton was Bob the Builder. Grandma and Grandpa gave him the perfect shirt for his birthday to be Bob the Builder. I couldn't have picked a better shirt myself. Thanks, guys!

The twins wouldn't stay seated in the wagon. I nearly dumped Keaton out the back side more than once. They weren't too excited to come along like I thought they were. I had to stuff them with Smarties every time we stopped to keep them both happy. Waverly learned a new word this night from Brighton and repeated it all through our walk. "Creepy" was the word of the day, though it came out "peepy" from her, "keepy" from Brighton. Don't they look so cute? I had high plans of a family costume theme from Harry Potter, since we had half the costumes already from Savannah's party. But, like always, I ran out of time. So they got hand-me-down, mismatched costumes. Maybe next year. I wonder if Waverly will have enough hair to pull off Leah, and Keaton can be Luke?... Brighton's perfect for Darth Vader, the little despot. Savannah spent most of the day with Lily and her sisters and Grammy. Here's the two of them as they head out to do their activities. Lily had an awesom gypsy costume her grammy had made.

Can he keep the hat on all day? Yes he can! I love Halloween--all kids look so cute in their costumes! Except for the ones dripping blood or gore. That's just ew!

Mommy had a little lamb... We went to the school's Halloween Fair before trick-or-treating, and this is the costume contest part. Waverly stood right up there on the dais and held the mike like she was going to break into song. Or braying, maybe. (Would a kid with less fat cheeks look as cute in this costume? I think not.)

This was my favorite costume. Savannah and Irelynd both were supposed to go as Hogwarts students, Hermione and Ginny Weasley, but only Irelynd wore hers, and went as Ginny. I ended up turning Savannah's cloak into a fur-lined evening cloak for her to wear over her Southern belle dress. It did look pretty great after the alteration, but I liked Irelynd's better. Again, notice the flip flops:)

Keaton was less-than-thrilled with his costume, and being strapped into a stroller during naptime.

Irelynd got her face painted at the fair.

Brighton jumped in the bouncehouse. This picture was too cute to leave out.

This is our house decorated for the holiday. Scott loves to go all out for Halloween, and has started sitting outside in various places and costumes. His goal is to make someone pee their pants every year. Everybody's gotta have goals!

He made these fences for the "cemetary." They looked awesom! Halloween is our holiday of choice in our house.

Done for the night.

Waverly loves this holiday. When else can one attain two suckers for such a small effort?

Had to get a picture of the back. Isn't the tail cute??? Even better when she walked and it moved.

We made our way to Grandma's house, and met cousin Wrigley there as Eeyore. These 2 are only 11 days apart. They were due 6 weeks apart, but Wrigley came late and Waverly early.

We went to a party at a neighbor's house a few days before Halloween. I tried to get us to coordinate, but Scott wouldn't cooperate and be Professor Snape, and I wasn't going in tights as Wonder Girl, or a brassiere as Wonder Woman, so we went as the odd couple: Professor McGonagall and Prince Charming. I guess every girl dreams of finding a prince, right?

The Young Ambassadors

In October, Savannah had the opportunity, along with her cousin Chloe, to participate with the Young Ambassadors in a two-day workshop at school. They learned song and dance in a fun, energetic way. Never heard of the Young Ambassadors? We hadn't either until they came to school. I was very impressed with them after the show they put on with the students after the second day. WOW! What a fun group of kids to watch perform. We were very lucky to have them come to our little town and educate our kids. Savannah had a great time with them, and learned a lot.

Zoo day with the First Grade

Scott and Brighton went along with Irelynd's first grade class to the zoo for a field trip.

Irelynd and cousin Madilyn.

The zoo recently had some new babies born; one of these was the baby elephant. So cute!

Shiver me timbers!

Since the 3 oldest all have birthdays within one month of each other, we decided this year to lump them all together and celebrate at one time. Yeah, we had birthday parties for them, but I like to celebrate them as just a family as well. We'd been trying to get to Pirate Island for weeks, but were waylaid several times by sick kids (Irelynd being the worst with 10-day-long swine flu!) We finally made it on the night after Brighton's birthday party. What a fun restaurant! They serve mostly pizza and pasta, but it's much better than I expected from a themed restaurant (think The Mayan in SLC. blech!). The decor was worthy of a Disney-themed establishment, in my opinion, and the costumed waiters were adorable!

This is the entrance/waiting area. I tell you, I'm going to put a wishing fountain in front of my house one year--people will throw money in any body of water! Irelynd is still in her deer-in-the-headlights phase of taking pictures.

The kids liked the cardboard hats they were given.

Are pirates supposed to be this cute?

They were all decked out for Halloween, with ghosts hanging from the trees and paper lanterns. Doesn't this look fun??? It was!

They had a balloon-making pirate roaming around doing what you'd expect from a balloon-making pirate: he was making balloons! Savannah and Irelynd each got a pink parrot. Scott and I each got a headache from listening to these parrots "talk" for the rest of the evening. (Aach! Polly want a cracker! replayed 137 times)

We discovered just before leaving the play area on the other side of the building. If you go here with little kids, ask to sit here. It would have kept our twins busy playing on the small ship and slides.

Don't you just want to eat him up? Love this kid.

Haunted Salt Lake

In an effort to do something "different" this year with our best friends, Alyssa suggested a ghost tour of SLC. I am a wimp when it comes to scary stuff, especially dealing with the supernatural. Not wanting to appear a yella-belly, I went along. Peer pressure still works at 30-something:) Turns out I didn't need to be worried. We met at the Gateway for dinner at Cafe Rio, then hauled butt over about 6 blocks, through some scary parts of town, to catch our bus in front of the Rio Grand Hotel. We had to hold the bus up for Alyssa and Dave, and Alyssa's 9 month pregnant belly:) We heard stories from the Hotel, the Beehive House, the Masonic Temple, the old cemetary, The is the Place park, and others, but, thankfully, everything was not too scary, even for me, a wimp. At Capitol Hill they let us out to walk down the pathway to the park below. We were supposed to take pictures of the darkness around us and try to capture, on film, the spirits that are rumored to be there from something or other, I don't remember the story. I tried, but only got the living:) Us with Mike and Michelle. Dave and Lyss and the others with us opted not to get off the bus. Scaredy cats!

Scott looks a bit weirded-out in this picture, doesn't he? And, no, we really aren't that much taller than our friends--they are standing downhill from us. This was a fun night with friends and local history, but I'm still wondering what happened to the girls who entered the hotel with the staircase that went nowhere! (the storyteller rambled a bit)