The Whole....

...brood.  These are the people I get out of bed for every morning....literally.  

Oh, how I am thankful for my family!

Outside Fun

It was a beautiful day, and we headed outside to clean up the remains of summer around the yard. The kids helped, and Art came out as well, and we enjoyed one of the last warm days of the year, I am sure....however, I think I've said that half a dozen times, but really, I do believe this weather's not gonna last!

 The view from the top of our "holy hill"

 Even Moses got in on the fun!

Molly's "New Bed"

Lately, when I go to get Molly up from alone time, this is how I find her:

Sound asleep...on the floor!  I even found her one afternoon on the hardwood floor in Hannah & Abby's room, asleep.  When she sat up, she had lines on her face from the heat register.  It must've been a warm place to lie her head....

Crazy Hair Night

A few weeks ago at Awana, the girls had "Crazy Hair Night". Hannah was anxiously awaiting the night, because she loves doing crazy things with her sisters hair, so immediately after alone time, the crazy hair preparation began! The girls let her do whatever she wanted, and in the end, Abby even ended up winning a prize. Here's the creations:

 Doesn't look too crazy....

 Or maybe it does

 A little bit of ribbon to dress things up

WOW!  All I have to say....WOW! 

Here's the beauties!

Jack o' Lanterns

Last week, on the night I went out to see Secretariat, I had bought pumpkins for the kids to do jack o'lanterns.  Our kids have never done them before, since we usually are out for Halloween, so it was quite a novel concept for them.  I had found some pictures in a magazine of some pumpkins that I loved, so I left that with the Girls and Art, and headed out for the night.

This is what I came home to:

Art outlined the houses, and the girls painted them with black paint.  When they were done, he cut out the windows where they asked him too.  And, to boot, Hannah even looked up a recipe for roasted pumpkin seeds, wrote it out, and then her and Art made them.  I must admit, I did touch up the paint a little bit the next day, but they did really well!

Candy!!

Every year, after trick-or-treating, we dump out all the candy and go through it.  We organize it (of course!), chuck out the yucky stuff, and basically just have fun with the girls.  We finally did that last night, with some friends, and it was quite fun to watch the kids revel in their mass of candy...all 33 lbs. of it! 

Happy Halloween

Halloween always is a bit of a challenge for us in our household...not for any moral issues, but rather, because it's Abby's birthday.

This year, we ended up spent the evening with some good friends of ours.  We headed there for dinner and cupcakes, and then took the kids trick-or-treating.  This was the first time we'd ever been trick-or-treating in town, so it was quite the experience for our girls.  It was great weather (no snow!!), and we had a very fun time walking and talking and watching the kids get free candy!

 Our girls...the 2 cowgirls, the fairy princess, and the scarecrow

 the whole brood...add in another princess, buzz light year and a glow stick girl

 The scarecrow...with a 5 ft. arm span

 The little girls were gun-ho, and outran the big girls

 By the end of the night, Hannah had learned how to maneuver her masterpiece.  I kept saying that this was a Dad's costume idea...completely cool but totally impractical

 "Trick-or-Treat!"

 Here's the mother lode...we weighed it when we got home, and it was whopping 33 lbs. of candy.  Hooray for Halloween....lots of candy for me...I mean the Girls....!