What It Means To Be a Princess

Time spent on beauty preparation

Getting your nails done

Having fairy tales read to you

Meeting royalty and going for a real carriage ride

 

Enjoying yummy treats

Playing games with fellow princesses

Walking/running down the red carpet

Dancing to a live harpist playing Disney tunes

Enjoying a day with friends

Showing genuine smiles

(a big deal for this typically shy princess)

A Day To Celebrate Candy

Seriously, my kids get waaaaay too much candy at Halloween time.  Between the ward trunk-or-treat, trick-or-treating at Dad's office, and then the actually main event on Halloween night . . .  UGH!

I have to show this picture of Matty at his school costume parade first.  Since he wasn't allowed to wear the mask that went with his costume, I went out and spent $6 on face paint so my boy could feel more like Spiderman.  Now I have a lot of leftover paint (that I'm sure we'll use someday) and this one picture to show for it.

 

By the time Halloween night arrived, they each already had a gallon sized Ziploc bag full of candy.  For some silly reason they wanted to go out and get more anyway.  I love that they were able to wear sandles this year.  No studio shots.  Honestly, I totally forgot about it.  

I got lots of comments on our cute rooster.  I wanted to tell every one of them a rooster is a boy and chickens have combs on their heads too.  Our silly little chicken REFUSED to let us carry her pumpkin for her even when it got heavy because she had learned that once you give the pumpkin to Mom, she doesn't give you all the candy back whenever you want.  :)  Smart chickie. 

This is maybe a third of Lacey's loot.  She would bring us one piece to open, bite into it, then spit the rest on the floor and go for another.  Normally I'd see that as a huge waste of food, but really I just wanted the candy gone so whatever got her done with it faster was fine with me! 

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The kids spent the rest of the night passing out candy. 

Last year we gave them the option to keep 20 of their favorite pieces and trade in the rest for a prize, and we did the same offer this year.  Now Santa's elves have some extra for stockings, general bribery, etc.  :)

"Here, kids! Play with these knives!"

We're very fancy in this house.  Our idea of tromping through a pumpkin patch is visiting the local grocery store.  (Just because it's cheaper.  I'd rather go to the patch but my kids don't know any better.) 
I think the fact that I take my nice camera to the grocery store is what makes us fancy.

Or weird. 

Our brave little soilders were ready to report for pumpkin duty complete with Home Depot aprons and fancy dress and mismatching hat for Jossy (that she could not be talked out of.) 

 

Charging through!

She had to put her face right in it to see inside apparently.

 DONE!!

 Lacey's, Matty's, Jossy's, Mom's, and Dad's

A Fall Tradition

Rather than get mad at the kids for messing up a freshly raked pile of leaves on our lawn, we take them every year to a local park to play in the massive amount of leaves there.  We bring our own rakes and let them have the time of their lives.  We bribed them with this yearly experience to get the family pictures done at the same time.  It was getting kind of dark by the time they really had the chance to play, so some of these are rather blurry.

Almost looks like she knocked out some of his teeth!

Family Pictures 2012

Somehow time flies more quickly every year.  Or maybe it's just the older I get and more chaotic family life becomes the faster it slips away from me.  Either way, the last family pictures we had taken were when Lacey was just 2 months old and now she's a year and a half.  It was high time for new ones, so we went out on a Sunday and took a few.

Taking your own pictures is much more difficult than taking them for someone else if you didn't already know that.  I didn't take the time to do fancy hair or match everyone perfectly because I just wanted them done and I knew that was going to be one of our last nice weather days.  Lacey and Jossy didn't feel like smiling together on the same pictures which made finding a few good ones a real challenge.  But I didn't need perfection, just a couple new ones for the wall.  :)

 

We Made It!!! . . . Kinda.

We've been counting down for about 9 months til Lacey would be old enough for nursery and we FINALLY MADE IT!!!

Unfortunately, she's not doing well in there.  She doesn't stop crying for anything and they bring her to me in about 5 minutes.  So we've decided one of us has to be in there all the time with her until she gets more used to the environment.  That's okay.

And because everyone else gets jealous if Mom takes a picture of one kid . . .

Fall Break Fun

I really wanted the kids to have fun things to do for Fall Break since we're not able to travel every which way like some families.   So the first day of break Dan took the day off work and we surprised the kids with a trip to the zoo.

We enjoyed the new polar bear/sea lion exhibit, looking at the baby giraffe, and climbing on whatever statues allowed it. This was Lacey's first time being old enough to realize what she was looking at.  She loved pointing out the animals and laughing at each.

3 kids and a giraffe looking at the camera!  Score!

We witnessed some "unusual" behavior and noises from these giant turtles.  

Lacey now thinks that bizarre groaning is what turtles say.  (Horrible and hilarious at the same time.)

 

 
The next day we took them to the movie Brave.  That would have been significantly more fun without a 17-month-old climbing all over me, spilling water every where, and constantly spitting on me the parts of the popcorn she chose not to chew.  Still, family time.

Saturday we took them to Krispy Kreme to watch the donuts get made then over to the mall to play at the treehouse there with friends.

For the life of me, I can't remember what we did that Monday off and I'm too lazy to go look in the journal.  But it must have been fun.  :)