Let's Pray Together

A couple weeks ago (Nov. 13 to be exact), the little girls and I were in the front yard. It was after the last soccer games, you can see Lauren has her trophy. They were laughing and playing, like they usually do, then Lauren says, "Okay Caroline, let's pray." Of course Caroline wants to do whatever Lauren does, so this sounded good to her. Lauren tried to help her along, like Daddy does at bedtime. "Caroline, say, 'Dear God...Bless Mommy and Daddy...'".

Caroline pretty much knows the routine and continued on her own: "Bess Mommy and Daddy. Bess Djulia and Austin and Lauwren. Tank you for Grandpa and Grandma. And Grandma Alvina..." It went on for quite awhile. And Lauren had her own turn also. She does pretty good coming up with a little originality, not just a recitation, and it was so cute to hear!


Say 'Amen', Caroline! ;) They repeated their prayers several times. I'm still not sure where Lauren got the idea they should pray together on the front porch right then and there. But it's a good thing she wants to pray with her sister, right?

Season Wrap-Up

I had a bunch of pictures in my Blog folder. For whatever reason, they never got posted, probably b/c they are just random shots. I wanted to share them before we get too far into the Christmas season! They are mostly from Sept. and Oct., with a few Nov. pictures at the end.

Busy girls: Caroline is my big helper during the day when she's the only kid at home. ;) I let the girls draw outside one afternoon when it was warm--of course that was fun, something different. Notice Lauren wearing two Silly Bands.

When I make coffee, Caroline tells me, "Smell de aroma!" And expects me to let me sniff my coffee, just like Grandpa taught her! Here she's enjoying some end-of-summer fruit...

Caroline is such a character! Do you like her knee socks? Her borrowed shoes? One day I was coughing quite a bit, and she told me, "Mommy got a hairball." Oh boy. She also likes to point out one particular mole on my face. She touches it with one little finger, and says about the mole, "He's okay. I pet him gentle!"

My big helper again: She loves helping me cook and bake. She gets so excited pouring/scooping/dumping the ingredients. She likes helping crack eggs, too, "Tap, tap, crack!"

Chocolate chips are so tempting. She couldn't resist sneaking a few--a few handfuls, that is, while I took her picture!

When it was still warm, Caroline and I would go out to water the plants in pots most days. That was so much fun for her. Don't let that sour face fool you--she loved watering the plants, not being interrupted for pictures!

Caroline keeps busy while the big kids are at school: she tries her best to be
gentle and careful with their toys. Meaning, she's not purposefully destructive.
She does break plenty of Lego creations, which Austin yells about! She's been
known to disturb Barbie houses and doll set-ups too.

If I ask her about any cut or scrape on her, "Where did you get that?", she'll answer, "Hurt a coffee table." Every "owie" she gets, it happened like that, "Hurt a coffee table."

One day she said sadly, "My feelings hurt." She pointed to her shoulder, and said, "Dey hurt wright dere..."

Another day she told me, "I got a pwroblem." I asked, "What's your problem?" She replied, taking my hand, "Let's go find it..."

Some of the last popsicles, while the weather was warm.

Lauren drew that "Funny Man" (what Caroline calls him), and traced her own hands and feet to glue on the man's body. It was supposed to look like a scary Halloween man, and it's still hanging up on my pantry door!

Modeling sunglasses

Pretty Lauren... I don't care if they pick these blue daisies, as we have a ton of them!

See, Caroline has more daisies. Austin's doing homework. Love his footstool. ;)

He's not allowed to do homework in the family room anymore, b/c he left his pencils laying around too many times. Our Big Helper gets into them and scribbles on walls, books, tables... The last straw was when he left a black Marks-A-Lot pen at his "homework station". Thankfully I found that before Caroline!

Sweet little pumpkins

Every year, thousands of Monarch Butterflies migrate from the north to spend their winter in Pismo Beach. One day when we were outside, there were two butterflies flying lazily around our blue salvia bushes. They were so fun to watch, as they swooped through the air, then landed on the plants.

I really enjoy the change of seasons and seeing my kids' new clothes. Lauren was so pleased with her "horsey shirt". She wanted her picture taken with Manny. Though Manny has since been renamed "Penny". :) The kids played with the horse so much its sound-maker fell out!

Caroline plays baby dolls quite often these days. Here she's reading Our Daily Bread to her baby. She calls it her Bible.

Getting a horsey ride from Daddy. And playing Mommy again. Using her new birthday stroller this time. The one above was broken from too many kids sitting in it and has been thrown away!

Picture 1: Julia's collection of Silly Bands... We took her to the Dollar Tree one Saturday in Sept. so she could get some Silly Bands with her allowance money. The kids at school were collecting and trading them, and Julia wanted in on the fun. It was fun while it lasted anyway, as too many kids were distracted with the bracelets during class. Now Silly Bands aren't allowed at school.

Picture 2: Lauren was beyond excited to get to go to the Awana store, since she's in Sparks now. One of the things she bought on her first trip there: these movie star glasses.

Lauren's teacher said Lauren is a good listener and a hard worker. And that she's a sweetheart, which is most important. :) Lauren is always eager to do her homework, just like Julia and Austin. Though hers is decidedly more fun!

One day Lauren came home from school after having a substitute, and told me, "That teacher needs to go to speech! She couldn't say our names right!"

She's learning to read and spell many, many short-vowel words. Caroline thinks she's learning to read too.

So many Legos sit on the family room floor. I am constantly stepping on those little pieces, and they hurt my feet! Austin plays with them all, so I hate to make him pick them all up, when he's gotten his "story" started.

These one-dot pieces have gotten vacuumed a few times. I can't bear for them to be thrown in the trash, when I know Austin uses them (and how much it would cost to replace them! ;) ), so I dig them out of the lint and cat hair if that happens! Who else does that?!

Austin's dinosaur skeletons he bought at the Awana store, intermixed with his Lego fighter guys and his own collection of Silly Bands.

Drive-In Movie Night

Nov. 19 was the Sparks Drive-In Movie Night. Brian made cars out of cardboard boxes for both Austin and Lauren. They helped him paint the cars. They use leftover house paint from painting rooms in our house. Austin's car was sky blue, the blue on the top part of the girls' walls, and Lauren chose the lavender that makes up most of the girls' walls.


The Sparkies played some games. Here they are playing Mousetrap. Lauren was so glad she could partner with her friend, Miley. They are both quiet little girls and get along well. But they don't talk much. LOL Lauren calls Miley, "Smiley", and the funny thing is, I think she really thinks that's her name! I've tried correcting Lauren, and she says, "No, it's S-miley!"

The kids settled in to watch the movie. Brian went to help serve popcorn and lemonade. He'd built cup holders into each kid's car. They watched a short Kurt Warner kids movie.

They had a parade of cars where they pushed their cars around the gym. Lauren chose #82, which I cut with my Cricut. Austin made flames for his car first, and Lauren liked the idea so much that she traced his flames and cut some out for herself. :D

Austin chose #41. I cut it with the Cricut, and his wheels too. But he drew his own flames. I thought he did a great job!

The cars are still sitting around the house. Sometimes the kids will watch TV while sitting in them, including Caroline. She likes the cars! She can lay down in them, as they're just her size for a little bed!

New 4-H'er

Julia joined one of the local 4-H clubs in September. She has no desire to do any sport (well, with the exception of swimming...), but wanted a fun activity to participate in. This club meets about 5 minutes from our house, once a month. Julia decided she wanted to join the photography, arts and crafts, and scrapbook groups. There are other options, but we thought that was enough to be involved in to start with.

A lot of the kids are in various animal groups, but it's not like we have room to raise a pig or a sheep. I'm pretty sure our HOA rules prevent us from even having chickens, let alone big farm animals! ;) Julia could raise rabbits, we have room for those, but I'm not too keen on the idea. Plus, she said herself, "It's something else to take care of!" Ha ha--she already has to clean the cat litter box twice a week.

Anyway, Sunday, Nov. 7, Julia attended her second photography meeting, this time at Windmill Farms. She took pictures, and I took a few. Other moms were too.


The kids weren't really taking pictures of each other, but mostly of things they saw around the farm. It started raining just as we left.

Julia's second scrapbook meeting was today at 9 am. The leader is great! All the leaders are very friendly and eager to answer questions. The kids made their scrapbook pages during the first hour, then made cards to donate to a local hospital, where they'll be given to cancer patients, during the second hour.

At 12:30 today, Julia helped at a holiday boutique, selling goodies at her 4-H club's bake sale table. She was sooooo eager to help! She wanted to help in the T Ball snack shop, but kids aren't allowed. Same for the soccer snack bar. Then she was sad she couldn't sell baked potatoes at the Octoberfest, b/c we were in WA. Anyway, she had fun talking to a friend who volunteered at the same time. She got to get people coffee and water, hand them the goodies, and take the money. Right up her alley!

Picture 1: An interesting flower I saw on the photography outing.

Picture 2: a collage of baked goodies.

Tuesday and Friday afternoon this last week, Julia went to her arts-and-crafts leader's house. Tuesday, the kids made gift tags to sell at the holiday boutique. Then Friday they made the reindeer cupcakes at the top of the collage above. They sold them for $1 each at the bake sale today. I was walking around with this plate of them that I bought for Austin, Lauren, and Caroline, and got so many comments!

Julia chose to make the Brownie Alpine Biscotti, for our food donation. She did most of it; I just helped with the cutting and drizzling on the white chocolate. They were yummy, but a pain in the neck, and I will not be making them again! Far too complicated and time-consuming for me. ;) I did plenty of grumbling to myself when they wouldn't cut nicely, then when the chocolate wouldn't drizzle nicely. I was happy when the lady at the bake sale said they sold for $2 a bag. The club ended up selling out of all their goodies and made $461.63. :) Pretty good!

Soccer...Done!

These pictures are from two weeks ago. It was Lauren's day to bring snacks, and she decorated each bag again. She wrote, "Run a lap" on each teammate's bag. I think she wanted to write them a little note, soccer-related, and that's what she came up with that she could spell herself. :) Caroline had just started getting sick. Doesn't she look miserable?


My boy, playing hard as usual. Run, boys, run!

Austin got excellent grades on his report card, but one of the two highest marks was in PE!! Exemplary mastery of standards... He has his daddy to thank for mastering any athletic standards... His other highest grade was for subtraction benchmarks. But that doesn't have much to do with soccer. ;)

Lauren liked to write with sticks in the dirt during Austin's game. This day, she'd found a walnut shell to play with.

Sad, sick Caroline mustering a little smile. She was so cute toddling around with her kitty hood. She was sick for a good week and a half. It was weird, b/c she had no fever, just a bit of runny nose. She also had a very small appetite, and was extremely tired. She just laid on us like a sack of potatoes. Or laid in the recliner. Or even on the floor. I was getting concerned about her, and took her to the dr. on the 8th day. He said her stomach was churning, when he listened with his stethoscope, but said it was probably just a virus. Finally she snapped out of it, earlier this week!

The kids' last games were last Saturday, November 13. All the kids like running through the tunnel after their game. In the second picture, Lauren had to sit out and tried on Brian's sunglasses.

The Purple Ponies hugging their coach. He did a great job, and I think they all liked him a lot. They all improved playing, so that is good!

The last little Pony pow wow...Brian handed out their trophies.

Then on to Austin's game. He gave it all he had, once again! Those boys move sooooo fast! It's really hard to get pictures of them playing. Austin scored the first goal of the game, and the Lava Monsters went on to win the game!

Austin's party was right after his game, a BBQ at his teammate's house. Brian took him, as Julia had to go to a birthday party in Santa Maria. I drove her there. We didn't have a party for Lauren's team, and she was a little disappointed about that. But our schedule (and the other parents') were so full, that we decided not to have one. Austin didn't have one his first season, either.

I did make purple cupcakes, and frosted them with purple icing. Of course Lauren wanted sprinkles on them. :) Austin got his trophy at his team party; it's the same as Lauren's. 2nd pic: Julia taking Caroline on a walk around the fields. They did this almost every game!

Both Austin and Lauren say they want to play again next year. :)