Halloween Costumes Part 1

We are having two dress up activities this year. One in CA and one in MI! Brody was a Colts football player for the party last weekend. He loved it!! Makena was a Colts cheerleader. She has been playing in her cheerleading outfit so much since we got it. We watched a cheerleading show on TV and she saw how some of the girls wear their hair down so she wanted it like that instead of a ponytail. She has lots of ideas about her hair! For the MI Halloween, Brody will be a firefighter and Makena will be a cheerleader again. Enjoy!

P is for Pumpkin

On Friday we carved our pumpkin with the kids! They had fun scooping out the insides and feeling the "slimy" strings. Makena designed the face and Ryan carved it. Then we lit a candle in the pumpkin and placed it outside to shine!

It's Raining...

The first big rain in two years happened yesterday and it was great! The kids splashed in the puddles with their rainboots and got soaked. The boots were filled with water when they took them off so I had to dump them out on the front porch. It was a wonderful, cozy day.
Fast forward to today....
Makena and I walked into the playroom and she said, "Mommy, why is the carpet all wet?" I checked it out and much to my frusturation realized that all of the wonderful rain leaked into my garage/playroom thru the flower bed. This has happened before but we replaced the garage floor and added some cement outside hoping to have solved the issue. So I called Ryan at work and let him know that we needed gutters. Ahhhh, gotta love spending more money on our little house that we are outgrowing. :)
UPDATE:
It really wasn't leaking into the playroom/garage, it was our water softener that malfunctioned! Yea! This is a good thing because it means that our new cement floor worked. :)
Here are the pictures from the rain day!

Halloween Cupcakes

Tonight we are headed to a Halloween party for our kids and we are bringing cupcakes. Since we were making 24 vanilla and chocolate so we decided to make it 48 and pass the extras out to our wonderful neighbors. So this afternoon, Makena and I packed up the extra cupcakes and went door to door to pass them out. It was fun to surprise our neighbors and they always are doing such kind things for us so it felt great to "repay" them.

When we finished passing them out Makena and I came home and walked into our kitchen. There, on the back slider, were 12 bees!! Four were on the inside of the screen and eight were on the outside trying to get in the house. Whoa...the bees were crazy! We woke Ryan up, who had just fallen asleep to take a nap, to get the bees. He was our hero!

BTW, those are not the cupcakes we made, but ours looked similar!

Creative Names

I saw something similar to this a few weeks ago in Laguna. I think it is so creative! Check out this site. I'd like one to say our last name but I am wondering if I can just create one myself. Hmmm.... http://www.createsticksandstones.com/Default.aspx

This is all from Makena

Ok, this is Makena's post all about her day today:
We went to school and we had lots of fun. We did crafts and fun things and centers. My center was the listening center today and we had fun. My teacher's name is Mrs.*****. Thank you!
Me: what about after school?
I played with my friend S after school. She is my good friend and today we copied each other on our papers. We had lots and lots of fun.

Morning Announcements

At Makena's school they older kids do announcements each morning. They start off with saying, "Good Morning Happy Highlanders......" and end with , "Have a great day and don't forget to smile!" It is quite adorable! Well, today Makena was playing with her microphone and she did her own announcement. It was funny!!

Got Gum?

Brody this morning...."take a picture of my gum."

"mom, here it is. that's my gum!"Yumm...

Biggest Fan

Savannah, Makena, and Aunite Angie!

Savannah and Auntie Melanie!

Savannah was Makena's biggest fan at the soccer games she attended. Savannah, my neice, would scream and cheer for Makena the whole game! It was adorable. She came to two games and it was so hot (90 -95 degrees) and not once did she complain! What a doll!!

Swimming

When my mom and Savannah came here to visit, we went to Auntie Angie's pool one afternoon. Ryan flipped the girls, everyone swam, and Brody had a splashing contest with me. It was wonderful!

14 weeks to go

We have moved the kids into bunk beds in Brody's room. I still haven't found bedding yet but I am ok with it. :) Makena and Brody love bunking together and it only took two nights for them to get used to sleeping with one another. Ok, look closely at the bunk beds. Notice the head boards and foot boards...notice the top spindles...yep, we order the right bed and they sent us the wrong one. So, we are now waiting for the right bed to come and be delivered. Fun eh?

I realized last night that I have 14 weeks to get the new baby's room painted...well I have to choose the idea/paint color and then Ryan will paint, find new bedding for all of the kids, switch Makena's letter name to her new room, add all of her books, clean out her old closet, finish combining clothes in M and B's combo room, select two baby names, shop for Christmas, plan Thanksgiving, fly to MI to see my family and friends, clean out our closet, paint our bedroom after we choose a color, organize and donate some toys in the playroom toys as we have added a ton to that room, plus more.... Yes, I have a lot to do in 14 weeks. I actually want the baby's room painted by Thanksgiving and all of the Christmas presents done by then. I do not want to have to battle the other shoppers with a huge belly and a little one in tow while M is at school. :) Fun times!!

Oh and not knowing if we are having a boy or girl is making it so HARD to plan anything. Hmmm....perhaps Ryan and I will find out...

A Mini Bath

I set up the water table one morning and left Brody to play with it while I changed the laundry. I came outside about 3 minutes later and he had taken off his shorts and diaper and climbed into the water table! I grabbed my camera and snapped some pictures before he climbed out with my help.