Halloween '09

This year I avoided the Halloween isles at the stores the best that I could. I was trying to avoid the kids seeing all the new costumes and asking for one. It's just that we have a bin FULL of costumes and dress-up stuff and I was bound and determined to not spend $60 (or more) on costumes this year. And it worked!!! Halloween got nearer and nearer and the kids ran to the bin to rustle up a costume no questions, and best of all no complaints! Though I had bought Lily's costume last year for $5, the boys found something that they hadn't been before and all were happy! Whew!

Here we are at our wards Trunk-or-Treat. I dusted off my old kung-fu gi and we were ready to go!

And here are the kids on Halloween night trick-or-treating. (Notice that Matthew has switched to Harry Potter.)

This is right before I let them dump out their bags and go to town!

Fancy-Shmancy Pumpkins

Well here they are. Our masterpieces. 2 hours of hand-cramping work to produce these great results. I did the spider web and Jess did the other two. He impressed me for sure! (And himself, I think!)

Milo

We've had him for a few months now, but here are some pics of Milo. The lone kitten born under our couch. The mama cat (Tori) went and got herself pregnant, but I was so excited to have kittens! Little did I know that she'd only have one baby. ONE KITTEN! Who's ever heard of such a thing?

Anyways we got a little attached (well duh!) and we decided to keep him. Especially since the behavior problems that we had with his mom and the other cat we had were getting worse and we had to give them to the shelter.

He is very tolerant and loving with the kids and puts up with a lot. Now that we have Abbie, Milo is very happy. The only-child kitten finally has a playmate!

Abbie-Gail

Here she is! The precious new addition to our family, Abbie-Gail. We've had our tiny Chihuahua pup now for a whole week and she's won over our hearts many times over. She weighs less than a pound and a half but has a big personality and an amazing tolerance for children.

Abbie is a very loving sweet little thing that is perfectly content to sleep on someones lap all day. She is mostly white except for a few, very cutely placed, tan spots. She fits perfectly into our family. Even our young cat Milo likes her!

More pictures to come...a warning to our friends and family though...Abbie comes with us wherever we go...a few exceptions of course. :)

"Wanna Play Mommy-Daddy?"

"Andrew, wanna play mommy-daddy?" This is the question Lily asks her brothers all the time. Since the other boys are at school Andrew is the lucky one who gets to play with her the most. It' is actually very cute and he seems to enjoy himself too! I thought these pics were priceless!

Big Frog

kind of weird, but we thought this was cool. One night when Jess got home late he found this big frog/toad...(not sure) by our driveway. He didn't do anything, he seemed scared of us, so we left him alone. We've seen our share of little frogs, but we've never seen one THIS big!

Matthew and Joey's First day of School

Here they are...my 3rd and 1st grader! This year we have switched schools are are going to Eduprize Charter School. Matthew was a little nervous, but mostly excited. Joey was very quiet all morning and didn't smile much...only for the pictures (and even then they looked strained). So he seemed pretty nervous....but don't they look so cute? They're getting so big!

Waiting in line...

Speed walking to his classroom because we missed the line getting Joey to HIS line...bad mom, but Matt didn't care. What a good boy.

We dropped the boys off and I got this amazingly sweet pic of Lily and Drew. Of all my kids they fight with eachother the most...so I love that I captured a sweet moment between them!
Yay!

When I picked them up from school it was smiles all around. Joey was excited that they got to go to computer lab and Matthew tried to reount every minute and what he did. I'm loving the new schedule so far, I hope this school is a fit for us!