Merry Christmas!

Fun and Gore

Happy Halloween!! What a wonderful time of year for children of all ages. I know the BIG day is tomorrow but we have already had some fun and gruesome times this weekend. I wanted to share them with you before we are all shut down by sugar induced comas tomorrow.

So today after church we thought it would be good family time to carve our pumpkins. Ryan pulled out the camera and had everyone smile while continuing with their work.

That wasn't good enough for Makay though. She demanded another picture of her posing by her pumpkin.

This was the scene on our back porch. I love this picture because it looks like we actually have growing grass.

Parker, gutting her pumpkin (doesn't that sound so morbid and festive?).

Easton... up-side-down

Creed... not actually sitting on his pumpkin, but he really got into gutting it.

Beckham... not really sure what was going on but loving that he got his own pumpkin and scoop

A picture of the finished products will be coming soon.

Last night was our ward trunk-or-treat. It was pretty great. Here are the kids in their costumes... the cutest vampire ever (sorry Edward)

Beckhams vampire role model, very in character here, was Easton.

The funniest Harry Potter I've ever seen (Ryan and I laughed till our sides hurt over this picture, what a clown Creed is!)!

Miss Magic herself, Parker. She picked the costume and I made the accessories (necklace and hair feathers). Once I was done with her hair, makeup and she was all dressed I wanted to take it all away... way too beautiful! I'm not ready for that!!!

It's hard to tell from this picture that Makay has metallic makeup on her face. I mention it because it almost looks like dirt from where I'm sitting. She was the perfect little fairy though. We made her jewelry too and she was so excited that she got a necklace that had a crystal on it!!

So that was it for the fun that we had this weekend. As for the gore... Ryan video taped me removing Eastons stitches. It's such a hassle having to make an appointment just for 3 minutes of cutting stitches out so I took matters into my own hands. I went online and found step by step how to remove stitches; thank you internet! (and it only ended up taking me 10 minutes)

The start was a bit shaky, Eastons skin had grown over some of the stitches and I had to get in the right position but as you can see by the end, I'm a total pro! For those of you who are already feeling queezy, there is no blood, just a lot of screaming and crying (just kidding).

Never a Dull Moment

The weather here has been so beautiful lately! I love the fall in Cali. It's cool in the evenings and mornings and then perfect during the day to play outside and enjoy nature. Most people look forward to weather like this. If, on the other hand, you have five active children, it can bring a whole new element to enjoying the outdoors; danger!

Most kids have a certain amount of clumsiness. Being accident prone is part of being a kid. But, the more kids you have, the higher your chances are of those accidents actually happening.

Take for instance, a club house. It's just a bunch of branches that hang just right to make a little den, the kids have named it "7-up" (I have no idea why). The kids have been playing back in 7-up since we moved to this house 11 months ago. Then, all in one week, three of our kids slipped while climbing some branches and got some nasty scrapes. Beckhams' was definitely the worst and Parker asked to be removed from the picture (she's 9, do I need to explain any more?). (and I don't know why Beckham and Makay are wearing each others pillow cases)

This last Wednesday was a half day, as usual. Half days are fun because the kids can get their chores and homework done early and then have lots of time to play outside in the beautiful weather. Well, this Wednesday took a turn for the worse. Easton was playing with a friend in his yard and soon came home with a bloody tissue pressed to his leg.

Luckily there wasn't much pain with this gaping wound because it turned into quite the ordeal. Ryan had the car at work with him because they were running through disaster exercises all week. I called his work trying to get him to come home and he was out of the office doing a field exercise. The poor guy had to be tracked down with walkie talkies and told his son had to go to the hospital.

Ryan made it home, we all jumped in the car and took him back to work. Then I dropped the kids off at a friends house and Easton and I went to the nearest ER in Lompoc. I couldn't believe it was our first visit to the ER since we moved here. We were frequent flyers in Pittsburgh.

Anyway, Easton got 6 beautiful stitches and a frosty from Wendy's. (It has kind of become a tradition since Makay got one when she broke her clavical in Pittsburgh.) If things really do come in threes then I don't want to know what is coming next!

Along with our injuries have come some really good times and some pretty funny conversations. On our anniversery weekend we were heading home from church and Ryan asked the kids how they knew that mom and dad loved each other. Easton said he knew we loved each other because we are always hugging and kissing each other "in inappropriate places." !!!! What?!? Ryan asked him what he meant and he said, "Like how you always kiss in the kitchen and when you were kissing each other at the pool in front of other people. So gross!" Haha. We got a good laugh out of that one and our inappropriate kissing.

Here Makay got clever with a belt and made a "bunny pack"

For some reason, boxes are better then toys at our house. I thought the kids would have grown out of that stage once they were, um, 2 years old, but apparently not. Any new box, if not carefully protected by me, becomes subject to their imagination.

This one became a house that helped Makay sleep. She kept her head in it's house for three nights before it magically disappeared. She was very upset when she couldn't find it on the fourth night because "How am I supposed to sleep when my head doesn't have a house?"

How do you argue with that?

Pictures and Parties!

Each day when the kids get home from school we go through the same routine. . .
-park bikes in garage
-do chores
-eat snack
-get our pencil and homework
-give mom all papers from school and start homework

Maybe it's just me or just Crestview (our elementary school) but it seems like there are a ton of papers for me every single day. Okay, that was an exageration, on average there are 2 or 3 from each kid a day. To me, that seems like a lot. Especially for someone who is unorganized, like me.

Anyway, to finally get where I'm going, my kids brought home school picture order forms. If I was to get the cheapest packets it would have cost us $180 for pictures and there wouldn't have even been enough to send to all the grandparents! No thank you! So instead of forking over a ton of dough that I don't have we had a little photo shoot. It turned out pretty succesful considering the budget I had ($0).

Apparently just walking outside gets Beckham completely dirty. So just this short venture to our fence left Beckhams face all mucked up, I have no idea how it happened. It's a good thing he's even cute when he's dirty.

Beckham decided that he wanted to go all out so he started posing and improvising all on his own. It was pretty funny.

He was even saying cheese here.

Parker is too cute for her own good if you ask me. I can't believe she's in third grade!!

The only way I could get Easton to pose for the camera was to let him have goofy pictures throughout. This is his impression of smashing into a glass door.

Having adult size teeth in these little kids mouths really changes their looks. Yeah it's a little goofy but it's like getting a glimps of their teenage years and it scares the heck out of me!

Poor Creed has no idea how to "smile naturally." Plus he has allergies so being out in the brush really made it hard to get a normal picture of him. I have more pictures of him with his eyes closed or making a weird face then I have of decent ones. The funny thing is that most of the goofy ones are truer to who he really is.

Makay loves being in front of the camera! The only hard part about her shoot was picking which picture to use.

Ryan and I just finished reading "The Hunger Games" (thanks Melinda!). One night while I was reading to Ryan, Meatball came in and wanted some attention from Ryan. Once he figured out that that wasn't going to happen he made himself comfortable at the foot of our bed. I thought it was adorable but I had to hurry and take the picture before Ryan kicked him off the bed (literally). Our little Meatball is a funny character but may not be with us for too much longer. I love the little guy but why do pets insist on being so needy? Can't they figure out that they have to be low maintenence or they'll get the boot? We shall see.

The kids ran in and asked if they could go inside our neighbors house to play with their friends. I said no, we only play outside with our friends. This is how they thought outside the box. I walked outside and found them watching a movie with their friends not inside their house.

Parker had her 9th birthday party on the 24th! It was a butterfly theme, very girly and fun. She had five friends over so of course we turned them all into butterflys.

Thanks to Orientel Trader we had butterfly things coming out of our ears! Heaven for Parker.

I found face painting things at Michaels so a few days before the party I did some practicing. The kids loved it and want it every day now. I would but by the end of the day it's a pretty big mess, yikes!

Beckham takes his super heroing very seriously.

Makay was born to be a butterfly

Creed got all the way into character and had his cape on

Easton later added his cape as well (thank you grandma button for providing super hero attire)

Parker was pretty excited about her transformation. She said she really did want to take Meatball for a walk (she usually complains) and had him out walking around the neighborhood for almost 40 minutes.

One of the guys that works with Ryan was transferred on Monday so we had a little going away party for him the week after Parkers party. We played some minute to win it games and it turned out really fun!

This is Master Sargent Knight and civilian Amy playing the "chocolate unicorn" minute to win it game.

This game was my favorite just because I can actually do it. You have to stack three chap sticks on top of each other using only chop sticks to touch them. Ryan and I stayed up the night before trying out the games and seeing if they were possible to play without prior practice. I had some very strange muscles that were sore the next day.

This is Chris, the one who's moving to Colorado to be with his new wife and soon-to-be born baby. It was really fun getting together with everyone that Ryan works with. He talks about them when he gets home but I hardly ever get to see them myself.

Overall, September was a pretty big party month for us, yee-haw!!

Summer in a flash

This summer has been great. Of course there is never time to blog about all of it. So, instead of feeling guilty all the time I'm going to give you our simmer in fast forward, but because of the strange loading of pictures, it will be in no particular order.

For some strange reason the kids were feeling very united this night. They all gathered together and demanded I take their picture. As always, their wish is my command.

This is our new dog "Meatball". No we didn't name him, his previous owner did, but I would totally take the credit for it. This is when he was super shaggy. I have cut his hair since then and he looks so much cuter!

Creed and Lincoln in Lehi Utah. My mom and I took the kids to the library one morning so the other adults could finish a work project. Personally, I think we ended up doing more work then they did, hehehe.

Maizi (sorry guys, I don't know how to spell her name!) and Beckham being as cute as can be!

Creed with his birthday cake. It's supposed to be a bike rider at the top of a big muddy hill at the finish line. It kind of turned into a big chocolaty mess, but it tasted great!

Grandma Button is the maker of super heroes. Now all the boys race around the house rescuing us from daily peril.

Our girl bonding time. I love hair dye! If I can't do it to my own hair then I'm going to do it to my daughters hair (with their permission of course!).

Poor Beckham got a Costco cake, but he loved picking it out and honestly, he won't remember this birthday anyway. I'm good for another year, then I'll have to make his too.

We dog sat for some people that Ryan works with. Our dog is a Yorkshire Terrier. This dog was a Rat Terrier. Sadly the dogs didn't get along so we had to keep them seperated for four days, YIKES!

We had fun at a Vandenberg AFB celebration. The kids got to go on the bouncy obstacle course, play tug-a-war, win prizes, all kinds of good stuff.

The younger kids got to play on a bouncy house. Makay jumped right in and never came out again. Beckham tried it but had a lot more fun playing on the little entrance slide. Oh how different they are!

This is meatball when we first got him. He's a little smaller here. He's up to about five or six pounds now.

This is some of the summer fun we had in our back yard.

The water never even had to get warmed by the sun, it was perfect.

Easton wanted his own pool so people wouldn't splash him: this is what he got. Then of course, all the kids faught over the little pool. Ugh!

Now that school is back in we should get back on track with blogging too (the important word in that sentence is "should"). It was so great to see most of our family this summer, it was a total blast even though we ended up driving almost 6,000 miles by the end of summer!!!