Halloween recap

I know, Halloween has not even come yet and here we are doing a full recap of the holiday. This is because after two parties we have more candy than is ever needed for four lovely children and their pregnant mama. So we are going to be done for the holiday rather than doing Trick or Treating on Monday as well.

We started carving pumpkins as soon as Mason got home from school and had a great time scooping guts, drawing faces, and carving the face's out.

Mason was very eager to dive in there and although he was using a spoon I did convince him to use him hand one time to get some guts out of the pumpkin. Then he decided he was done with the project and wanted a movie instead. However, you can see just how excited he is about being able to help out with this messy fun.

Carter felt like the insides were quite nice feeling and enjoyed cleaning out the pumpkin so he could get to his carving! Carter actually carved his own pumpkin this year and did a great job and was very careful with the knife as well. I'm sure as the years go on this is going to become quite the experience in our household. I can see the contests for best carving being held already.

Brennan took a couple minutes to convince himself it would be okay to stick his hand in the pumpkin and get the gooey mess out. So finally he did it and didn't think it was half bad, he kept doing all the work while Taylor continued to be completely disgusted!

After I told Taylor that her dad would want a to see that she helped with her hands and want a picture to prove it she finally stuck her hand in and pulled out just as much as you see here. Of course she was telling us how gross it was while she did it. Then I put the camera away and she continued to pull it out and not think anything of it, stinker!

We were headed out to our ward's Trunk or Treat and made come candy corn cupcakes to take with us. We were sad that we couldn't find any actual candy corns to put on top of them. :(

I still needed to make Carter's Grim Reeper staff/hook thing and had to pull out some power tools to make it happen. Carter got the camera and told me, "Dad will be so proud of you for being able to do that!" It was pretty hilarious! Also, yes, I do realize that wearing a scarf in a shop isn't the best of ideas.

Grim Reeper, Witch, Iron Man and Jedi..all ready for the night of fun and games!

I did hop in to prove that I tried to at least be festive this year even if I didn't exactly dress up for this Halloween. The kids thought it was fun that even the baby dressed up.

The kids got more than their fair share of sweets for the night, it was unreal what those kids came home with. I'm glad I got a picture of the pumpkins actually carved because I had forgot to take one at the house. Mason was much better about actually going around to the different cars and not eating the candy as he received it this year.

Cake walkin' time! Brennan and Taylor were very excited to go the cake walk and finally be able to have one of the cakes that Mom had been telling them not to touch for hours before the party!

Carter thought dunking for apples was amazing! He ended up being the last person and got all seven apples that were left. It was a great end of the night so that he didn't have wash his face when he got home.

It's a beautiful baby.....?

Like always, this little bambino will be a surprise when it comes into the world hopefully on its' due date of February 29th, 2012! Our household is very excited for their newest little baby to join the family, and the kids especially have taken a special relationship to the process and joy in waiting. I had my scan a week ago now and it looks like this little person will fit right into the family by being super crazy and energetic. Everytime the technician would go to take a still shot the baby would kick, punch, or just roll over to avoid detection. It was slightly amusing for me to watch, although had to be a little frustrating for the tech. Good thing we didn't want to know what it was! Count your blessings lovely technician! :)

Taylor is very determined that this baby is a girl because, "we have enough boys in this family." Carter wants it to be another boy, Brennan doesn't care, and according to Mike's unofficial testing with asking Mason, it is a boy. So we will see who is right, and hopefully Taylor won't lose her mind too much if it happens to have a penius. I did ask her what she would do if it were a boy baby and she responded, "I will put it back and wait for it to grow again to be a girl." Although if you talk to her you would hear 'gel' not 'girl' very cute accent and all.

We were at the store yesterday picking up a few things we needed and were in the kids clothing section. Mason started babbling about the same time as Brennan was saying to look at all the baby stuff. Mason started grabbing little baby items and handing them to me with a huge smile on his face! I asked if he was shopping for the baby already and he clapped and laughed at me as he hit the baby bump.

After the store we had a doctors appt for Taylor. We were all gathered in the doctors office waiting for the doctor to come in. Mason stood up and went to lay his head on Taylor's stomach and give her a hug. Carter started to laugh and asked Mason if he thought Taylor had a baby in her tummy as well. Mason quickly turned around came back to me and proceeded to try and lift my shirt up while babbling and smiling at Carter. I think he was proving to him that he did in fact know where the baby was growing.

Tonight we took the time to use our baby heart doppler(e hired a fancy one to have at the house) to listen to bambino's heart and move around a bit. Carter and Taylor love that the baby can now hear them and have been talking to the baby since I told them it could hear all the noise they make. Bambino was being stubborn about being heard and had tucked itself way in the back and wasn't coming out. Well, Carter never deterred by a challenge went and got his tenor horn that he has been learning to play at school. He proceeded to play some notes for the baby in hopes it would be excited and move around. Boy was he ever pleased when we could hear the kicking sounds through the doppler, the heart beat was much closer to the surface and all of a sudden the baby was a big lump on the side of my stomach trying to come out and play. The kids thought this was hilarious and enjoyed singing their two favorites to the baby, "Twinkle Twinkle" and "Humpty Dumpty." I then put the doppler away and the kids started playing another game while I was looking through a book with Mason, and I hear Carter whispering to Brennan. He was telling him that we could sing and talk to the baby now because it could hear us, he told him he should go tell the baby that he is Brennan, the big brother. Brennan comes running over, leans over my stomach and says, "Baby, I am Brennan, I big, and I love you!" It was so very sweet tonight to have the kids so excited about the future boy or girl that will join our brood.

Those were just a few of the baby things that have been going on here and not much else happens besides the regular day to day, school, cleaning, playing, etc.

For the sake of memories I should mention that Carter was wondering why it hurt to have a baby. So I explained a bit about the uterus, contractions, the pushing the baby out and he was very intrigued about the whole process. I think if they would let him in Labor and Delivery he would be right there! I also thought another trip to the Natural History Museum in the human section might be helpful for the curious Carter.

20 weeks and counting...

Finally had Carter take a snapshot of the growing baby bump. I am 20 weeks and a few days in this picture. Feeling pretty good and working hard to get my list of projects done before I am too big to care about my list of projects that need to be done.

Autumn

We have had such wonderful weather this October, it has been fantastic for us to play outside and enjoy all the sunshine while we can. Brennan loves our lovely swing and wanted to be on there all day yesterday! He was pretty ticked when I had to share myself and jump on the trampoline with Mason as well.

Money Chores

Carter is growing up! He did his first 'big' money chore this weekend, and after such hard work earned himself $10.00. We had been at the store that day and he kept seeing kids with toys and was saying how lucky they were to have such great things. I told him that he could earn some money and buy his own great things if he would do the work. As soon as we got home he set to work and did a great job mowing the lawn. He felt great about his new stash of hard earned cash!

Happy Columbus Day

I am very aware that Columbus Day is an important day, good to remember good ol' Christopher Columbus and all he did back in 1492. HOWEVER---Mason is not happy about not going to school today because of this day. He stood, cried, and banged at the door for 45 minutes this morning while I got the other kids ready for school. He was ticked off that his taxi was not coming, regardless of how many times I told him there was no school today. He has since been okay with not going because we had BK for breakfast, got him new shoes, and went shopping at the commisary. Yup, I resorted to bribery to make the poor boy happy that he had to stay home with mom. Now he is watching his favorite show of the week, The Wizard of Oz, while I am folding socks/blogging. :)

There is a small story behind his new shoes. He had perfectly wonderful shoes last week until he took them off himself and somehow lost one shoe. He was alone for 5-10 minutes so I'm not sure how this happened. We found one outside by the trampoline, but the other has since disappeared into thin air. I figured the only way to find the other shoe was to cave and buy new ones. So far, no luck.

Au Revoir!

just a few pictures we took with Mike leaving for France for awhile. He is deployed there and enjoying not being in the Middle East for this deployment.

Hedgehog

We had this little friend take refuge in our bungalow behind the house, the kids found it among the toys of theirs and wanted to keep him for their own. After we explained that he was covered in fleas and other nasty bugs. They had to say goodbye, but we took one picture to help them remember their little friend.

School Days

Mason started 5th Grade

Mason in his taxi on his first day, he was so anxious to get going and get to school. The summer is way to long for his liking!

Carter started Year 4 and is in Red Class. He was nervous because he is the oldest in the school and is, "responsible to look after the younger children."

Taylor is in Year 1 and can't get enough school. She is the one picking up her homework without any reminders and gets cross with us if we aren't helping fast enough.

Brennan wanted this day to be his first day, but he had to wait two more days! It was torture for him, he was so anxious!

Finally Brennan's big day was here. His first official day of school. This boy was super excited and was so good at school. He loves going on his three days in the week and begs to go on his 'home days' as well. He has never felt sad about leaving me when I drop him off. He is so independent and confident about school, I love it.

We had this gorgeous rainbow that I wish I would have the photography skills to capture its full beauty. I couldn't even fit the whole thing from any angle at our house, the kids were so thrilled to see the massive rainbow in the sky.

S'mores Story

There are certain things that are just better in America, marshmallows are one of those things we recently discovered on our camping trip through Scotland. Mike had brought home jumbo marshmallows from his visit to America in June. We were saving them for our special trip and wouldn't you know it, we forgot them! We were lucky that I had thrown in an extra emergency stash of marshmallows in the camping gear just in case we ran out of the big ones. So that emergency stash was our only stash, until we went to a local store in Scotland and bought some marshmallows. We learned really fast that marshmallows here in the UK--are horrible!! They melt to this weird liquid consistency and don't puff up at all, they get barely brown before falling off the roasting stick..and the taste, not yummy!
We decided that we would have a post camping trip s'more night once we got home. Boy oh boy!!! Those jumbo marshmallows are a whole new experience for s'mores. It was hilarious watching the kids try and eat this mass amount of marshmallow in their mouths. Brennan was by far the messiest, which was surprising with Mason in this family.

Last Night

We had such a great week travelling through Scotland and camping in all sorts of different conditions. It was adventurous and a great time with our little family and friends. The big boys had some lovely camping Root Beer floats our last night, because we were officially out of any S'more making materials.
We also had a lovely camping site just outside of Inverness, and we actually got a day full of sunshine! We had fun skipping stones into the sea and playing in the creek nearby. Then we took advantage of the sun and were trying to dry clothes. The shade came to quickly and rather than untying the line and repositioning Mike just put the van in reverse and drove the line to the sun again.

Isle of Skye and Dunvegan Castle

Although most of the Isle of Skye wasn't the most gorgeous place in Scotland, some scenes were gorgeous!! We only stayed on the Isle for one night, because lets face it, camping sites there were limited and they sucked.

A family picture on the grounds of Dunvegan Castle. This castle is home to the Clan Macleod and has been for 700 years! I wish I could have taken pictures of the inside because there were bits and pieces in there that were remarkable. As always I wanted to jump the rope that blocked off the library/study room and tear into the books that were trapped behind glass cases, just waiting for very curious fingers to flip through them, carefully of course.

This may have been my favorite little treasure at the castle. It was on the sea side wall and had barely noticeable stairs leading up to this gate. You know my imagination went wild with the possibilities of its use and who had crossed under this now locked and rusted gate. We had to climb the stairs and that was pretty risky just to get close enough for a picture.

The kids at the front gate on our way out. It did sprinkle the whole time we were there, but it wasn't bad enough to make the experience unpleasant.

Now for my other favorite treasure from the trip. These church ruins were the resting place of many chiefs of Clan Macleod and their families. It was amazing to see the family history that ran through these walls and the surrounding area with the cemetery.