Halloween 2014

Halloween, oh, Halloween. Bryant and Stuart lost their privilege of trick-or-treating this year. Bummer. Bummer for everyone. They make life more fun. They make Halloween more fun. They bring fun and excitement to Aubrey's world.

And they chose to give our sweet babysitter heck last night and therefore lost the privilege of dressing up and trick-or-treating.

Our bad choices affect everyone around us. Aubrey said as we were walking back from trick-or-treating, "This would have been a lot more fun with the boys."

She was a cute candy corn this year. She painted her nails orange and yellow, she designed and made her own hat, and she drew, colored, and cut out candy corn to tape on her shoes.

Emmett was Sully from Monsters, Inc.

Bryant said it wasn't very fun to hand out candy. Hopefully he will remember that. He also said, "At least I'll get presents at Christmas." I said, "Well, maybe." And then I said, "Just kidding." But we are continuing the discussion about the seriousness of our disobedience and rebellion.

Stuart didn't seem to care. We'll see as he talks to other people about his Halloween experience. He's a pretty straight forward kid, though, so it would make sense that he just accepted the punishment for his crime.

My favorite part of Halloween is that the next day is November, and we can be through with all the scary, dark, yucky decorations. Happy Halloween!

Going Private

To my blog followers, (Hi, Mom!)

I'm going to be making this blog private, just to add a measure of protection in the current world that we live in.

So please let me know via comment on this blog or via my phone or via email if you'd like to be invited to continue reading the blog.

It will go private beginning next week.

So Much to Catch Up On!

This has been a rather extraordinary autumn. As evidenced by the 603 pictures we had on our camera until I uploaded them onto the computer. Over 300 of those are pictures of John's trip to Alaska, so that will be a post all on its own.

 

Why 'extraordinary?' Well, we found out about a week ago that we will be moving back to Oregon! For real, for good, with no plans on moving away again. We have been anticipating finding out about our future for awhile and we received our answer and we are so darn excited we just about can't contain ourselves.

 

As I mentioned before, John took the opportunity to fly to Alaska to do some work and while he was away my mom came out to help me hold down the fort a bit. It was such a huge blessing to have my mom's help, and for the kids to have Nana to play with!

 

John's been doing a great job of taking a picture a day (or 10, depending on the situation), to document life as it happens with four kids and two tired parents.

 

Emmett likes Daddy's shop. And his 'horse.'

 Aubrey and Emmett share a very special bond.

 Aubrey does music lessons.

 This happens constantly.

 So does this.

 Aubrey loves being in the kitchen. She has started baking bread that John takes to work and sells. She is learning about 'overhead costs,' that she owes to Mommy for the ingredients, tithing, and saving for the camper Lego Friends set she wants so bad.

 This was our pizza night. Emmett likes to help with cooking so in my delirium I gave him the 1/4 full tub of cornmeal to 'cook' with.

 Cheeser.

 John and I went out on a long-awaited date. Emmett tried his darndest to wait up for us, but he didn't quite make it.

 Legos are a HUGE part of our lives these days. Aubrey creates beautiful, realistic structures, Bryant creates abstract, completely nonsensical 'warplane' type aircraft, and Stuart loves to have help making things straight out of the directions.

 We have started to go on family bike rides pretty regularly. After over 2 years of being off a bike it's been fun to brush off the dust and get out there with John and the kids.

Stuart, helping put breakfast on the table.

 One of Aubrey's Lego creations.

 And I have no idea here. But it made me laugh.

Bryant and Stuart are working on these toolboxes to sell.

 Aubrey and I were visiting with some friends for a bit one Sunday afternoon. Apparently the boys had some quality time out in the garage, eating graham crackers and doing some painting.

...and then this happened. Right before our sweet babysitter came over. Yes, I'm tired. With all the bread we've been baking we decided it would be a good idea to buy 50 lbs to stick in the freezer (to keep the bugs out.) But John wasn't home and after almost spilling the 50 lb bag right in the freezer as I lugged it out, I thought it best to wait until he came home to put it back. The bag was about 5 lbs lighter when John came home. And Emmett topped it off by dumping 2 glasses of milk out all over the table.

Yep. There is still flour in the grout lines of our tile floors.