Tempting Toothpaste

November 1: Caroline was quiet and playing nicely, or so I thought. I went with Lauren in the bathroom (maybe to paint her nails?), and this is what we saw--Caroline chowing down on toothpaste. Yummy!


She was squeezing it out like Gogurt. Then pouring toothpaste drool from the tube into the lid. Oh, how delicious. So good, she went on to eat more.

(Until mean Mommy spoiled all her fun and took the toothpaste away...)

Caroline is the only one of our kids to eat toothpaste. And chapstick. She loves that too, and all the tubes had to be put up, because she'd suck it out of them. Silly girl!

Bee Keeps Buzzing and Kid Updates

Caroline was so enthralled with her bee costume, that she wore it many more times during the week after Halloween. She found pretty dress-up shoes to complement the costume. And was busy reading stories while in her costume. Notice the costume had to go on before her pajamas came off! These were taken Nov. 2.


Also Nov. 2: Lauren was pretty into wearing her fire hat she got from the school carnival. She wore it many times the following week, too!

1st picture: busy doing math homework with her hat on. 2nd picture: she was so excited about finishing her Awana book and earning her ribbon. :) She got a new review book she's working in now.

The T&T Awana Grand Prix was Nov. 2 as well. This was Julia's 3rd year entering, and she was not into painting/designing her car. She wanted to enter, but was only too happy to let Brian do all the work he did. She had to sand it, and complained when that took too long. Then complained when we told her to touch up the paint to make it look neater. I told Brian she might as well not enter next year, with that attitude. Goodness!

Once the car was finished, Julia was pretty pleased with it. It was supposed to look like a bottle of nail polish, and she named it Berry Speedy, with her birthday number, 27. She was even more pleased with her car when it won 1st place in the race! The cars get judged for design, then race to see which is fastest. The 1st - 3rd place cars get trophies, in both categories. Julia's car was so fast, that it was the fastest car of the night, even including the boys' cars. Her car also set the track record for the night. I believe its speed was 204 mph.! Brian did a good job engineering the car. Julia told him, "Thank you for building me a fast car, Daddy..."

Nov. 5, Caroline was shopping in her bee costume. She's telling me, "No!" in the 2nd picture.

Austin saw a Star Wars Lego set he wanted at Target, and decided to count his money to see if he had enough to buy it. After all his counting, he stuffed all his bills in his wallet, just waiting for someone to take him to Target. Poor guy, the Target trip still hasn't happened. Maybe the set will be a good Christmas present??? ;)

Halloween

On Halloween, we went to church in the morning, then back that night for a carnival. Caroline wore our bee costume that every one of our kids have worn. She was so pleased with her costume and wore it the next several days around the house, and our walks to school in the mornings!


Austin was Anakin Skywalker, and Lauren was Rosetta the garden fairy, Tinkerbell's friend.

Rosetta has kind of reddish brown hair, so I sprayed Lauren's hair red with glitter. It turned out reeeeeeally red! She was pretty tickled with it.

Julia was a Southern belle. When she dressed up for school she said she was Elizabeth, Felicity's friend from the American Girl books. One shot of the whole group together before we left for the carnival. They were not to patient for pictures. They wanted to hurry up and get to the games and candy!

Caroline didn't want to cooperate at all. She was much more interested in anything besides pictures.

I think she was overwhelmed at the carnival. She had fun playing a few games, but did not understand she couldn't eat her candy right then and there. There was quite a bit of crying. The big kids all had a good time. We ate dinner there, and they played all the games. Julia won a cake in the cakewalk. They bounced a lot in the bounce house. Brian had a shift watching the bounce house, and the kids bounced the whole time he was there! They all got a ton of candy and had to sort it all out the next day, to see what they got. :)

Random Fall

I set up our scarecrow scene on the front porch in October. We have a courtyard wall, so hardly anyone sees it. :( Oh well. I bought the two big scarecrows this year, for $6.00 for both!! They were like 87% off or something. I couldn't pass them up. Caroline used to be afraid of them, as well as any scarecrows we saw at stores, like Walmart. She'd cower and kind of hide from them, as best she could! Then one day, I talked about them being friendly scarecrows, and ever since, she calls them "fweindwy scawecwows" and says about them, "Dat's my fwe-eind!" Cute!

Here are the little girls with their "friends". Caroline was giving George a kiss, all her own idea. Ha ha! George was our first scarecrow. I bought him several years ago. Bailey likes to sleep on his lap at night, on the porch, and I had to get lots of cat hairs off him!!


Cute smile

The kids get two official holiday parties at school during the year. However, some of the teachers allow them to have kind of "mini" parties, or extra-long snack time, to celebrate holidays that don't get an official party. ;) Julia made these brownies to bring to her class on Oct. 30, and I frosted them. She wanted purple and green frosting, and those pumpkin candies.

October 30 the kids could wear costumes to school, as long as they weren't scary, and they were supposed to be a character from a book. So pretty much anything. ;) LOL Austin didn't bring his light saber. No weapons allowed, of course. Picture 1: Here are my kids w/ the girls that used to come w/ us in the mornings. Their mom is done student-teaching, but I said they can still come when she subs now. Things are going much, much better with Lauren and Emily!

That night Julia's 4-H club had a Halloween party. I took Austin and Lauren too, and they had a good time. The kids made placemats to give to a rest home, for their community service project. They made crafts too, like the pumpkin in Julia's hands. They played the limbo and musical chairs...just lots of simple fun things. There was a ton of food and treats, which they loved!

October 31: Lauren and Caroline so cute in their fall dresses.

Sweet smile and a little pout.

Our mantle decorated for Fall--most of the mini gourds and pumpkins I bought when I went to Lauren's class field trip.

Fall Carnival

The kids' school had its Fall Carnival October 30. I stayed home with Caroline, since it was during nap time. Austin stayed home too, because he didn't want to go. ??? What's up with that? He also skipped the Sparks outing that same week. He often likes to just stay home and play with his Legos. Brian took Julia and Lauren. He bought tickets so they could play the games and get treats.


They got popcorn and candy apples. But Julia ended up eating most of the apple, as Lauren didn't like it!


There was a fire truck for the kids to climb in.


Both girls came home with bags the fire dept. gave them, filled with fire safety pamphlets, papers to plan fire escape routes, and lots of trinkets and candy they won from playing games. They had a good time! It's kind of hard to see in the pictures, but Julia got a rainbow painted on her face, and Lauren had a green butterfly.

Happy Pumpkins

We've learned over the years, not to carve our pumpkins too early. There have been a couple years where they rotted before Halloween! It's still warm in the middle of the day here, and the carved pumpkins don't last long in the heat. This year, we carved them Oct. 30.

It had rained all night, during the night, and soccer was cancelled. The sky was clear, the sun shining, but the fields were too wet for the kids to play. It was also the day Lauren's team was supposed to volunteer to work the snack bar, so that didn't happen either. Brian and another Dad showed up as scheduled, at 7:30 and the snack bar was nowhere to be seen! LOL They didn't let him know there would be no games before he left home.

I made the kids clean up clutter--messes, toys, clothes, papers, backpacks, shoes, etc. before we got started making yet another mess with the pumpkins. Austin and Julia cut the faces in their pumpkins by themselves this year. I think Austin kind of liked working with the knife... Brian made Caroline's pumpkin face, and she was so proud of it! She was all excited to have her own "happy face pumpkin".


I roasted the seeds. We got a lot, and they are sooo good!

We had fun making the jack-o-lanters. That night we went out to dinner at California Pizza Kitchen so Austin could get his free birthday meal and dessert. He picked a giant fudge brownie. And shared with everyone. :) I took the picture of the kids with the pumpkins when we got back home. They didn't mind staying outside in the dark for a few minutes instead of going in to have baths! ;)

The happy pumpkins: Caroline's, Julia's, Austin's, and Lauren's. She picked her design from a template book that came with our carving kit. I carved most of it.

Sparks Outing

October 24, Sunday afternoon, Austin and Lauren had a Sparks outing for Awana. Austin decided he wanted to stay home, so Brian took Lauren. She was very excited to go and had no intention of skipping the trip! The outing was at Windmill Farms.

First the kids fed the animals.


They got to plant a broccoli seedling. I'm happy to report that Lauren's is still alive! She really needs to plant it in the dirt though--it's just sitting in it's paper cup on the patio. Lucky for the plant, we've had several days with rain. It even rained during their outing--see the kid with the umbrella? ;) Our friend Shirley works at Windmill Farms and is the one helping Lauren with her plant.


All the Sparkies got to choose a pumpkin. I love the stem on Lauren's! Brian told me Shirley had said the same thing! :) The second picture I took after church (and lunch at Chili's), before Lauren got ready for the outing.


Since it was such a wet, dreary, cold day, Brian and Lauren surprised all the rest of us with Starbucks drinks they picked up on their way home: a pumpkin spice latte for me, a toffee mocha for Brian, and hot chocolates for all the big kids. I love those pumpkin spice lattes. Mmmm!!! And now the eggnong lattes are out, love those too!