Check up

 Kaylee and Brooke had a check up this week. Brooke was so excited the doctor office was decorated like Candyland and they got to collect candy at different spaces.

Brooke's 10 year stats- 54 1/8 inches 44th percentile

58 lbs 9th percentile

Kaylee's 12 year stats- 59 5/8 inches 48th percentile

74 lbs 11th percentile 

Every Day stuff

Recently I was thinking back to the days when I had just had a few little kids at home. I don't remember what we did. What were our days like? I write about the events and fun things we do but not a lot about our day to day things.

Kaylee leaves for the bus stop every morning around 7:30. She's really good about getting herself up and ready and making her lunch the night before. We do have a lot of drama nearly every morning about clothes though. She is between clothing sizes and I have to hear all morning about how nothing fits her. I recently took her and Brooke shopping to find dresses for Kelli's wedding and it was a frustrating experience as everything was "too short, too itchy, too wide, too tight, or just "uncomfortable. "  

This face shows what she thought of most of what she tried on.

Brooke on the other hand was happy with everything she tried on.

Brooke and Austin start school at 9:05. They have plenty of time in the morning to get ready, make their lunches (Austin despises making his own lunch), read, practice the piano (Brooke) and time left over to fight and tease one another. Some mornings are great and others have too much fighting. 

Emma has preschool at 9:30-12:00 Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and we have a weekly play date with 3 other little girl on Thursdays at the same time ( I have them once a month but have free time the other days).  This gives me a few hours most day to run errands, clean the house, and watch a show I want to watch on Netflix). 

When Emma's home we play games, read stories, watch tv, and she plays with friends a lot. Monday afternoons she has ballet, Wednesdays I plan a ward playgroup. Our days keep fairly busy but I do have a lot more free time.  Wednesday nights Kaylee and I have Young Women activities. Thursday Kaylee and Brooke have piano from 4:30-5:30 and then Tumbling from 7:00-8:00.

Jake leave around 7am  every morning and comes home around 5:30-6:00. We eat dinner, get the kid ready for bed, and then he has more work to do - teaching a class. He's a busy man!

New Things

Emma finally learned how to pump herself on the swing. I'm always so excited when my kids lean this skill and I don't have to push them all the time.

Yesterday we took Kaylee to the temple to do baptisms for the first time. It was really cool to be able to take our daughter with us. A member of the temple presidency came down to talk to her and all the workers were so nice and made a big deal of it being her first time. I hope she remembers it as a good experience and has a desire to go back.

 

When I was a teenager we always went to get ice cream after going to the temple so we kept up tradition. She loves frozen yogurt places and she sure loaded up on the different flavors and toppings. 

Halloween

We had our ward Trunk or Treat and chili cook off. Brooke was feeling sick and didn't get to come so I trunk or treated for her.

First Austin was sick (only for a day), then it spread to Brooke (5 days), then Emma (4 days). Brooke felt pretty sick but the others would throw up then be fine. Emma missed out on church, preschool, a field trip to the pumpkin patch, and ballet class. We played lots of games while she was sick - lots and lots and lots of Candyland... and of course a lot of TV was watched too. After a week and a half of sick kids I was so happy when they were all better.

The kids were all better in time for a Halloween party at the Partridge's house.

Dinner, games, and costumes.

Sunday we carved our pumpkins. Brooke grew this pumpkin in our backyard and was quite proud of it.

I really hate scraping out pumpkin guts but I love how excited the kids get about carving.

On Halloween morning the kids all woke themselves up early so we could go to IHOP for free scary face pancakes. Brooke in particular had been wanting to go IHOP for a while. 

It was an exciting treat for them since we don't go out to eat much. 

The elementary school had a costume parade. The kids all walked around the track outside.

I was in charge of games for Brooke's class party. We played some minute to win it games- mini golf, spider toss, picking up marshmallows with vampire teeth in, and witch hat ring toss. I think all the kids had a good time.

Of course we had jack o' lantern pizza for dinner. 

We started trick or treating a little after 6:00. Kaylee  went a little way with us then stopped at a friend's house to hang out and watch a movie.

We met up with Brooke's friends from the ward/neighborhood.

Brooklyn, Brooke, Rachel, and Katie got a lot of candy!

Emma was a witch on Halloween. (She had been a vampire for trunk or treat, a fairy for ballet class, and Elsa riding a unicorn for preschool.)

Kaylee was a butterfly, Brooke a black cat, and Austin a ninja.

Fall Leaves

I love fall leaves. I can't help but take a million pictures even thought the picture doesn't do them justice. 

The streets in our neighborhood are all tree lined and beautiful.

The kids spend lots of time raking and playing in leaves- it reminded me of my childhood- making leaf nests/houses and jumping in big piles of leaves.