More Halloween...

Betsey barely left the house for Halloween. She was beat and I didn't dress her up (she even has a bee costume hand-me-down from Alice, but we never put her in it). She just had a little pumpkin hat and we called it good.

Alice got dressed up in her witch get up like three times...that's a lot of black hairspray...see below. I don't know why her witch faces make me laugh so hard, but I can't get enough of them...so here are more! (I have my real camera and my simple point and shoot, and I just barely got my point and shoot images off that camera, hence the extra posts).

Is this funny to anyone else? I just think she is a crack up!

Nothing like a little black bath water!

A Ninja and a witch...

Another fun Halloween, and this year I had two girls clad in 100% black...a ninja and a witch. I didn't plan ahead on the picture thing, we were headed out the door for a trunk or treat in our church parking lot, and I had lights set up in the dining room, and so we just ran in there and took a few pics real quick. I pretty much hit the jackpot on these pictures of Alice...she is killing me with her funny witch faces in these pics. I might need to print them and put them up each Halloween...oh wait...I'm not that on top of it.

On Halloween day we went over for dinner at Mimi and John's and Mimi made a super tasty Butternut Squash soup and some funny witch fingers out of bread dough and almonds. After we ate, the kids went on their quick walk around the neighborhood and came home with plenty of candy! Halloween isn't my very favorite, I just don't like my kids eating all that candy...then they get sick too!

Video: Betsey and Roxy...

The girls and I got a serious laugh out of this video...lots of times...there's no sound on the video unless you really listen at the very end when the cat turns her head and imitates a bird (when her mouth opens and closes).

Video: Betsey scooting...

Ruby to Daddy

Ruby and Chris have a great thing going. I mentioned around Father's Day that Ruby gave Chris a journal where they could write private letters back and forth to each other. Of course I read them, and my mommy heart just loved today's entry...

Dear: Dad

I love'd the tickl fite
and hug 'o' war, it was fun.
Mom is calling you
rite now and I relly
misst you today and I
can't wate to codl with you
in 20 minits
(then there is "othr" with an arrow letting him know that there's more on the next page)

This is call'd
How much I love you (picture of an eye with a heart and a capital U)

I love you (eye heart U) to the
moon to the stars
to Colorado: Back
to our house
and the way to
Narnia to Aslans
Casle and back
to Puallup.

Love: Ruby
To: Dad

Alice's "Balloon Party"...

Alice originally wanted and Ariel party, but she's super easy...if you don't want a lame princess party, you just suggest something else and she jumps for joy...no coercing or anything, she just totally goes for it. I'm glad I suggested this because tonight (I'm writing this one month to the day after her birthday), she said out of the blue, "Mom, can I have another balloon party for my next birthday?" I've also heard reports that some of her friends in attendance would like the same thing. So...it wasn't my idea! I got the idea from Sommer's sister-in-law, Brooke Reynolds (who was the creative director for Martha Stewart Kids for a while).

To invite her friends, we rolled up these invites into helium filled balloons and attached a "pop me" tag. We took them to her friends and they popped the balloon to reveal the invite.

Knocking on the door at Braden's house...

She invited Braden Benner, Ellie and Jensen McDonald, Eli Eugenio, Thomas Owen, Camden and Ella Reed, Noah Mondrut, Katie Ceresa and Ammon and Shayla Johnson. Only Katie couldn't make it, and once we added uncles Jordan and Braden and cousin Mason and Oma and Opa, we had quite a crowd!

Due to it being really early in the day and wet outside, we didn't get to do the balloon obstacle course, so we played musical chairs (spots on the floor) and Mimi came and made balloon animals, swords and crowns for each of the kids (she really knows what she's doing)!

Ruby with the birthday girl's crown on...

Uncle Jordan with Betsey!

I adored the version of a balloon pinata we came up with. The one Brooke did didn't work for us, we found that regular balloons really weren't able to hold the candy, even doing it the way she showed on her blog. So we had to use the punch balloons that I had bought for party favors and fill them up with candy, and they were HUGE...so we just hung them from this rope and had the kids throw darts at just one balloon and collect their candy. They loved it, there wasn't any danger and no tears over unfair candy distribution...and it was really cute, right?

It was a beautiful day, Mt. Rainier is right there behind the kids and was beautiful, but the sky is all blown out in this pic, so you can't see it.

We had lunch, just round peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, soda pop (Alice obsesses with it whenever it is available), grapes and chips.

This was Alice's first real birthday party in years, I think maybe since she turned one. Does that face tell you how beside herself she was? She's just so easy and not demanding that in the past, we'd just invite one friend over or have a family party and she was super pleased. This year, I just had to give her a real party with friends...she's FIVE!

She got the nicest presents, a pillow pet, LPS, clothes for her Jenny doll, a purse and a fun Jenny doll (American Girl knock-off named Jenny) salon chair with accessories from my folks. Everyone was so generous and she was thrilled by it all. One friend's mom even made her a laminated memory card game using pictures she got off of my blog! We play it all the time! So thoughtful.

Since Jenny is one of Alice's favorite things of late, my mom made her a dress, too!

I was a little disappointed that the balloons for the cake weren't primary and bold looking once they were blown up, but what can you do an hour into the party when you discover this?

It was a very happy birthday for my Alice, and I think I may have enjoyed the day as much as she did or maybe even more. I just loved how fun it was for her to be the center of attention for once, she's so good at tagging along, sometimes it's nice to put her in the spotlight.

Presents from Grandma and Grandpa...

On Alice's actual birthday, she opened gifts from Grandma and Grandpa Pierce. She really, really wanted a bed for her Jenny doll for her birthday, and that's what she got! She loves it, and also loves the jammies that Jenny gets to wear when Alice tucks her into her bed at night. THANK YOU!

My Alice is FIVE!

I haven't done their special annual portraits, so here's one of Alice I took back in May. She is five years old now! I just have to document what a special little girl she is at five! She is my right hand girl, she wants to be doing everything...changing diapers, mixing muffin batter, carrying Betsey down the stairs with no help, pushing the laundry machine buttons, cleaning toilets, mopping floors, working in her own school workbooks...she just loves learning and doing. I have NEVER had her initiate the end of our piano practices or school time, she just has a really intense attention span and thirst for learning. Alice adores Ruby. If she's at a friend's house and they offer her a treat, she always asks for one for Ruby too! If she makes a craft at her little kindergarten co-op, she dedicates the masterpiece to her big sis right when she gets in the car with it. Her halloween candy? Gone...she gave a ton of it to Ruby, who will literally eat it for like a year. Alice has a voice that is very cute, unique and endearing. I could listen to her talk all day long. She also enunciates drastically, so all her syllables are spoken with emphasis. I love it!

At five, she's learning to read, play the piano, do simple math and rollerblade. She likes to watch old reruns of "Full House" and has learned from that to say, "How RUDE!" when Ruby bugs her. When Alice is angry, her entire body reveals it...her voice sounds super scary and mean and her face matches it. She is still pretty impulsive and this can get her in trouble.

We are so lucky to have Alice as a part of our family! Happy, Happy Birthday!!

How to print your blog...

Now...I've been holding out on you...really, this is the bomb. I am never going to scrapbook, and I love my blog because I feel I am able to document everything with no mess, no expense and nothing is forgotten. However, I lacked something tangible that we could hold in our hands and look through and laugh at and remember together. I spend enough time just blogging, and I didn't want to do the blurb thing and have to rearrange all my images and text to work with their templates. I really just wanted to print my blog...and you can!!! But it is better than that, because it is bound and awesome. Here are three volumes...one for each year I have been blogging...

You can see that all the pics are the same smallish size...there's no frills, themes or color...but isn't that all eventually dated anyhow? What I love is that it took me literally less than 2 minutes from start to finish, I only provided them with my blog address and...oh, it was a little more time consuming because it allows you to scroll through your posts and uncheck the ones you don't want to include in your book (like American Idol rants or posts like this one that won't be relevant in a few years). That takes a second, then you order and done. Amazing. It's such a treasure. I love them, my kids love them, my husband loves them!

Cost?? I blog a lot and my books ranged from $60-$100 final cost. I had a 15% off coupon for one of them. Just printing all these pictures at Costco would have cost more than that and that wouldn't have included the albums or my time to put them all together...and let's face it, that would have never happened.

Where do you go for this amazingness? Click here, even if you aren't ready to buy...you don't have to do anything to see what your book would look like...you just tell them your address and you are good to go. Oh, I'm not getting referral credits or anything for this...I just really think it's the bomb and everyone should do it.

If you are short on cash, you can order a .pdf file of your blog from them too for like $8.00.

If your blog is private like mine, you won't be able to quickly see your book like I said, but you just have to go through really easy steps to temporarily give them access to your blog so that they can get the info they need to show you your book.

A visit from Megan...

One of my dearest friends came to visit me the first weekend of October. Megan and I have been friends since our freshman year of college when we met in Spanish class. She was also in my student ward, and if you can have like at first sight, I just totally remember wanting to be her friend the first time I laid eyes on her. Ha, ha. Really, she was brand new mid-year, and was asked to give a talk at church. I remember sitting there thinking, I want to be her friend...then she was in my Spanish class, so I introduced myself and the rest is history.

Megan hadn't been out to visit since Ruby was maybe six months old (though I've been to see her twice in Texas and we met up once in Denver too), so it was fun to have her in our home and for her to meet Betsey and get to know the girls better.

She wanted to go to an apple orchard (she's from Houston, so there aren't many apple trees by her), and we found one really close by! It turns out that the local YMCA has this farm and as a YMCA member, I can go pick stuff there for free! We picked a bunch of apples and they were so crisp and tasty! We made an apple crisp that evening...mmmmmmmmm.

We went to Issaquah Days...it was insanely busy. I have never been to a street fair so packed, and I even though we had fun, I probably wouldn't go again, there were just too many people and it was hard to move from A to B and take advantage of any of the activities they had going on.

We drove by Snoqualmie Falls real fast after Issaquah Days. She and I went out one night to a hockey game which was interesting, we just gabbed through it. We were super lazy all day that Sunday because it was the televised general conference of our church and so we just watched that and took it easy at the house. I just love her and am so glad that she came out to see us!