2012 Halloween...

We went to a fun birthday party at the Stafford's the weekend before Halloween. We borrowed these flamenco dresses from our friends who are from Spain, the Del Solar Sanz family. Aren't the cute!? (The color is AWFUL in these pics, but I don't care...I just need to catch up!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

We carved pumpkins one night at home. It was fun. Alice worked at cleaning her pumpkin, and was my partner for the carving part. She was the brains. I was the labor. Chris did Betsey's pumpkin and Ruby did her own carving this year.

 

 

 

 

Emily joined us for the fun!

 

This is what Chris created!

This one is Alice's...

 Emily made a pretty flower...

Ruby's scary pumpkin... 

 

I am super lame for holidays...I mean my kids wanted to be other things, and I would have gotten to making their Halloween dreams come true, but I borrowed these dresses and once they had them on they were sold. It is all about makeup for us. My lameness also means that I don't decorate much for holidays either. Nope. Just whatever pics the kids draw and tape around the house. :) So I came home from Florida and the man of the house, aka. super dad had gone to town decorating the entry of the house with the kids. They loved it. This is just a portion...there were fake tombstones in the front yard, etc.

 

Booing...

We haven't ever been booed before. Booing takes place around Halloween and is such fun because you take some goody over to someone's house and leave them with a sign to declare their already been booed status on their front door. I didn't get pics of our boo treats, but the treats pictured were given to us by our mysterious booers. My kids love nothing more than knocking and running, and hiding out to hear the responses. Some people are pretty hesitant to take the treats in their house. I think this might be a bigger trend among church friends, so we did it to neighbors and they actually didn't really know what to do with us. One of them left the treats (they were suspicious in a brown bag) on their front steps and we had to return and re-knock. Hahahaha. Emily is in these pics. She had a less traditional upbringing and really loves joining us on our traditions...carving pumpkins, Christmas morning, booing...etc. She'd never knocked and run before! We love her! I'm unsure if I have blogged about her before. She moved in with us in May of 2012 and she is Chris' sister's husband's sister's daughter. :) So she is cousin to my kids' cousins, Mattie, Pierce and Zoe. Does that help? She lives local and needed a break and a place to call home this year and we were happy to have her. She is grateful, calming, willing to help out and generally just a part of the family by now. We are so glad to have her in our home! She is getting married the end of June, and we are looking forward to that big event!!

 

 

 

 

Happy 7th Birthday to Alice!

For Alice's birthday, we went up to Oma's house and got Hailey and Emma to go to the American Girl store in Lynnwood. Alice got money for her birthday from us and her extended family and she knew she wanted to buy Julie, an American Girl doll. She was pretty thrilled!!

Here is a non-birthday pic of my girl. Notice the quilt I made for her! I love it! Anyway, conked out well after everyone else is awake...sleeping with her head at the wrong side of the bed...she's just a sound sleeper!

Back to the store...the girls loved going!

I love Alice because she is unique and endearing and surprising and hard to encapsulate in words. She is just worth knowing, but not very overtly known. She is kind and catches me and others off guard with her quirky humor and expressions and enthusiasm. She is very intrinsically motivated and works hard at everything she does. She is more concerned with her effort and experience than she is with results. I love that about her. Her joy is not from external affirmations. Happy birthday, pretty girl!!