Under Construction

A new look is on the way! (It may take a while to get things all settled... depending on how these days go :)

Also, if you use a feed reader (I love googlereader) and would like to read my blog there, please let me know. Jordan set up a fancy schmancy way to make it work even though this blog is private. I just send you a unique url that you add as a new subscription and it works just like any other blog. (Pretty cool!)

Thanks for reading. It's so fun to share.

Our ginkgo tree

Last week we had a night where the temperature dropped pretty suddenly. The next day, the ginkgo tree right outside our front door lost all of its leaves (!!!) All morning and early afternoon it looked like it was snowing out our front windows, but it was just the tree dropping all of its leaves.

Landon was asking all day to go out and rake and he had a blast playing in the soft feathery leaves (they dropped so quickly they were not crispy or crackly at all like normal). Though this tree was the most drastic I saw, all the way to school that morning the trees had round pools of leaves surrounding them. Seasons change quickly here! (Today was a beautiful Fall day -- tomorrow the snow is coming...)

Sitting has never been so exciting ( or cute!)

This little Owen just surprises me at how fast he is growing! A week or so ago he started sitting up well enough that I felt like I could let Landon sit behind him and guard him sitting - but he had to be on very constant watch with his arms out ready to catch. Within a couple of days, I realized Owen wasn't falling over any more -- he's a sitting guy now and he just loves it.

Happy Halloween!

Two happy little trick-or-treaters

I'm not such a huge Halloween fan, but I do love making costumes. It is my favorite kind of sewing -- quick and imperfect.

Some Halloween time fun --

• a ward party - Landon wore himself out and fell asleep on the way home from the church (a 1 minute drive)
• a Halloween party at Will's - complete with donuts on a string, lots of candy corn, and other gross treats :)
• pumpkin chocolate chip cookie making
• a school party today for Landon that I got to go and help with
• trick-or-treating at Lee's - from Landon "Wasnt' that so nice of them to give us a toothbrush even?!?
• a pumpkin soup bowl Halloween lunch - the soup wasn't a huge hit, but the sillyness of eating our bowls for lunch was :)
• and more pumpkin carving and trick-or-treating fun tonight.

The cute kiddos --

Landon always says that he wants to be a train engineer when he grows up. He had no debating about what to choose for Halloween. :)

A beautiful ballerina Ellie!

And the cutest litte autumn time Frosty the Snowman Owen

All the kids (I love the view of the park in the background too)

Lets go fight some bad guys!

Ellie has been carrying around these tinkertoys for the past few days searching for bad guys. "Let's go fight some bad guys!" she says. Or, "I'm the person who shoots the bad guys -- follow me!" Then we march through the house with Ellie's sing-song voice sending out commands -- "Oh! I see a little tiny mean guy on the fireplace! I will shoot the mean guys with my shooter thing!" Then off we go again "March, Mommy!" she calls then down the stairs with Ellie singing "We're looking for some mean guys... we're looking for some mean guys... and we will fight the mean guys..."

I think if it wasn't so funny to hear sweet little Ellie in search of the ever elusive bad guys I would probably work harder to encourage some different kind of play :) (It's all the sillier because she has no idea what shooting actually is -- the roughest she's gotten was to gently sweep an imaginary mean guy off of a seat chair. Otherwise we 'fight' the mean guys by saying 'go away mean guys!' or more often something like 'please will you go away mean guys?')

And some side notes --

One evening last week Jordan went online to look for some more tinkertoys to add to the kids' collection. He was pretty tired and amid the commotion of getting the kids to bed and other distractions, he forgot how ebay works and ended up bidding on 4 sets. Sadly (for him) but happily for the kids, he won three of the bids so we will have a lifetime supply of tinker toys at our house!

I made Ellie's cute skirt with my freshly serviced and repaired sewing machine! I hadn't realized how often I was using it until I had to go almost a week without it while it was at the repair shop. And oh it sounds so smooth and beautiful now without all of the crazy noises it was making! (I guess you are supposed to have your machine serviced more frequently than 7 years or so...)

Jordan just now took down that Happy Birthday banner (from the picture above). It has been on our front room wall since Landon's birthday (in July!) Time for some new decorations I suppose :)

Best Home Teachers Ever Award (from Landon)

Our home teachers visited on Sunday and brought Landon his very own hot chocolate maker! (I can't remember the details, but there was some history of them knowing this would be so cool for him...)

We have had a week of hot chocolate made by a very happy little boy.

(Cleaning his machine -- taking great care of his amazing new gift!)

Practicing

This morning on the way to school, Landon was asking me to make monster sounds. Mine didn't compare with his -- "I've been practicing" he said.

I thought it would be fun to remember a few things our kids are practicing these days:

Owen -- sitting up, sleeping (we wish he would practice a bit more...), rolling/inching/scooting/twisting, 'da-da-da'-ing

Ellie -- catching, hopping, counting, letter naming/sounding, pretending, singing, story-telling

Landon -- making monster sounds :), standing on his head/hands, helping Owen sit, bike-riding tricks, writing (w/ monkey tails -- d'nealian style), playing, tree climbing, kindergarten-ing

Saturday morning Sleep-in time

Jordan took the kids on a 'campout' this morning to let me sleep in a bit. (The word campout is a loose term at our house. For Ellie it means sitting on the backstep and eating marshmallows :) They bundled up and went up the canyon and spent the morning playing while I slept in and then cleaned and cleaned and cleaned with some lovely music for company. I even managed to take a walk around the house and take down the last remaining Springtime and 4th of July things, and put out some better fall decorations (Did you notice it was October? Two crazy things on the same day this week -- it snowed at our house and I spent 5 minutes glancing at Jordan's calendar (hanging in his office, still on July) before I realized that no, it's not July anymore. Not August even. Not September... October! When did this happen?)

Other Fall fun --

- Making salsa with April

- Picking apples, making apple pie

- Harvesting our garden - so fun to step outside and pick something to add to dinner right while I'm cooking.

- Canyon driving and campfires and smores

- A run in the rain yesterday morning w/ the kids

- Enjoying the cozyness of our fireplace

Something new

I've been learning to draw!

Most of these are pictures that I copied from here or here (aren't those darling sites?) -- but I drew them with my own hand -- no tracing or anything, just looking and drawing and erasing and fixing...

While Landon does his homework, I get out my drawing and we work side by side on our projects. I've always wanted to draw but thought it was a talent I just didn't have and could never learn. It's so exciting to be learning! To see the shape of something and be able to copy it with my own paper and pencil... it's kind of a thrill for me! Each time I finish a little person I have to go show it off to Jordan because I'm so excited to see what I've done.

These ones I drew on the computer with my Wacom tablet

Three wishes

Last night Landon and Ellie and I read a story called "The Three Wishes" where an old man and his wife are granted 3 wishes by a little dwarf and end up using all 3 wishes in silly ways. After the story, I asked them what they would wish for if they could have their own 3 wishes -- here is what Landon came up with:

(Version 1)

1. Everything I'll ever need for the rest of my life.

2. A cat and a dog

3. A horse

(Version 2)

Actually, to be a horse! (But only on the condition that when I (mom) get my wishes, my first wish is to change him back into a Landon. :)

(Version 3)

1. Mom to have triplets

2. Triplets again

3. Everything I'll need for the rest of my life.

(Version 4)

Actually, instead of triplets again, that next wish will be that mom doesn't have to take care of the triplets -- that they will just be all taken care of already by the wish.

A few little things to remember

From Landon, in the last few days --

"You're the prettiest girl in the whole world!"

"These are the BEST cookies ever! And that's because YOU made them."

And, I dreamed that Jordan had magic powers --

This morning Jordan took the kids fishing while I slept in. He came in early and whispered 'you can sleep as long as you want' before whisking away Owen and the kids. Not knowing they were going fishing, I spent the morning sleeping in and out and in the back of my mind half wondering how Jordan was keeping the kids so quiet and then enjoying the reassurance from my half asleep dreaming that he was just using his magic. (Something like this -- a vague, sleepy thought of 'why don't I hear more footsteps above me? followed by 'Oh Jordan's just using his magic to push the sound away. How sweet...'

Happy Saturday morning :)