Costume Changes

How was Halloween already half a month ago? Conferences sorta took over my life these last two weeks. Getting ready for them is time consuming. Holding them takes time too. Meanwhile, my to do list has gotten outta hand and I find myself on Pinterest after the girls go to bed because I need something mindless to do. If you don't already know about Pinterest, don't go there. It's the coolest website where you can bookmark your favorites on the web. Things you love or want to make, but don't have time for.

Anyway, Halloween. The girls agreed they wanted to trick-or-treat as Elmo and Cookie Monster, since this will probably be the last year that those costumes fit. They had their own ideas, though, when it came to their parade at school. Libby chose to be a dancer and Peyton wore her favorite witch costume.

That's Libby tucked in front of Cinderella

Our little witch

Then, we trick-or-treated. I talked Shane into going as Cookie monster too. He was such a good sport. He was sick, but put on his eyeballs and trick-or-treated with us anyway.

Daddy puts Peyton's medicine on her chin. She looks great, and might not even have a mark by the time she's all healed up.

The girls watch Daddy power wash the walkway.

A Beach Weekend

Conferences were last week. It's an important time to connect with families about their kids, but it's also super energy-zapping, and I always LOVE when I can check that off my list.

We spent the weekend at the beach. It was three days of awesome with the Duck win on Saturday night being the cherry on top. I sat down to put up some pictures tonight and there are just too many. I got overwhelmed. I'll shoot for tomorrow, which might be a challenge because our girls have started gymnastics. That's awesome too. Tonight was spent locating leotards and perfecting ponytails.

Here are two of my favorite pics from our weekend. I bet you can guess why I love them......

Fallin' Two

The girls were at my mom's house last week. I thought I'd work a ton and get all caught up. Ha! and Ha ha! I did get a little ahead of where I was a week ago, but please...... When will I figure it out? This job doesn't end till June. I'll catch up in June. That sounds good in theory. What I did accomplish was a nap every day after work, something I did pre-invasion of the littles. Still, I'll happily give up my naps for the craziness that has become our life.

For the girls, the week ended with a walk up the Butte on Friday afternoon. I was teaching math in my classroom. My phone rang. I told my class to ignore it and keep working. It rang again. Huh. Weird. On the third ring I said, "Boys and girls, someone needs my attention." So I answered my phone. It was my sister, which was weird because I'd talked to her twenty minutes before. She said, "Hi. It's me. Don't panic." I later gave her a hard time about that opening line, because how do you NOT panic? In the end we decided it was better than, "Hey it's me. Her injuries are not life threatening." or "Hey, I need your insurance information." I couldn't come up with anything better. Suggestion box is open.....

Anyway, back to The Butte. The short story is that Peytie was walking with her hands in her pockets and fell forward, catching herself with her chin. She ended up with a pretty deep cut that required some stitches, so my mom and sister took her in and had her sewed up. She was a rock star. She's super proud of the fact that she got a shot and "didn't even cry" (though she was mostly numb already). And she thought the doctor was hysterical because he listened in all the wrong places to find her heartbeat. Silly doctors.

If I'd had to guess, I'd have put my money on Peyton to be the first to need stitches. But in fairness, when Libby bit her lip, she did require some glue. Those are our girls. We're raising 'em tough..... And you should also know that one minute before this happened my mom taught her how to put her hands up into her sleeves so in the event that she should fall, she'd be able to catch herself. But what would I write about then?

Up next......Halloween!

Fallin'

Wednesday afternoon the girls were dying to carve their pumpkins. They drew the faces and Daddy did the carving....

If you think this is scary....

.....check out this shot. hint: The neighborhood is worried we'll be giving out crack to trick-or-treaters this year.

Peyton's Masterpiece

This morning we went across the street to our neighbor Ava's second birthday party. It was a pajama party with coffee and homemade cinnamon roles. That's MY kind of party. Waiting for 8:30 to come, however, proved challenging for the littlest party goers in this house. Libby stood in front of the clock this way from 8:20 to 8:33, because I'm trying to teach her to be fashionably late.

After Ava's party we headed to the fabric store to put the finishing touches on these little gems. There's no way we'll be trick-or-treating in them because the girls can't really see where they're going. But, we did have some fun with them this afternoon. Libby was thinking she might want a monster party for her fifth birthday, so this was a trial run. Now, she says she wants to go to Build-a-Bear. Of course she does.

There is a medical clinic near our house that gets covered in a blanket of yellow every fall. The girls saw the leaves on the ground today and begged to play in them. Yes, yes and yes. But first I had to go home to get my camera.

I have to clarify one thing. I love taking pictures of my family and I aim to one day actually know something about photography. I don't, by the way. Anyway, my friend Amber commented on this picture last week and asked if it was a spontaneous display of affection by my girls. I'm nothing if not honest. I replied, "Ha! No." Most great shots I get happen by bribing, or threatening my children. But then, the shots are so sweet and love-filled it works as a counter balance to the orders I barked in the photo session. I've also heard that the secret to great photos is to take a million of them. That, I do. But I just wanted to come clean. Most shots I take look like this.....

.....and I'm thinking of making this our Christmas card.

Pumpkins!

Yesterday's after school activity + dinner after = The Perfect Day.

Look at Peytie's face.

Little Load

Picking Sunflowers

Ghosties

The Beach

Last weekend we headed to the beach and ended up hitting the best day of the week weather-wise. On Saturday morning I woke up, laid in my bed listening to my mom talking to the girls at the other end of our trailer. Then my mom said, "Well, it's eight o'clock. Should we get moving?" My momma looooooves to play at the beach. We started at the North Jetty. It was warm, no wind and we had a great time walking in the sand collecting sand dollars.

Writer

The lasso is actually Grunden's leash, but maybe it would work on kids too?

Love.

Wordy.

We left the jetty and stopped at a lookout for a better view.

Then, we headed for the dunes.

We can find fun anywhere.

The sand was wet, so our sleds only worked with man power.

Lunch at Mo's and a stroll along the water front.

Then, we got ice cream at BJ's and rode over to the boat ramp to watch the action from the fisherman. Just after we got there, Shane pulled up to the dock with his customers after a long, but slow day. They'd caught a grand total of two fish. We met him and went out to make a couple of passes at some Coho salmon. Within minutes my rod went down. I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but I do remember that things got a little crazy at that point. Shane yelled at me to keep the fish out from under the boat. It was already under the boat, and it had wrapped itself around the prop a few time. Oops. He yelled at my mom to reel up, and she did, but not before tangling her line around the eight rods sitting in the back of the boat. Oops. Miraculously, I managed not to lose the fish and Shane netted it. We untangled the mess in the boat, killed a fish and comforted the girls who were standing wide-eyed at the horror unfolding before them. And by we, I mean Shane did all of that while rolling his eyes at the rest of us. Then we headed back up river for another pass......

Within five minutes, my rod went down again and this time my mom reeled in her fish. I offered to net it, and Shane replied emphatically, "NO! I'll do it!" Huh. Ye of little faith. When the fish was safely on the floor of the boat, my mom and I high fived each other and said, "We are SO good at this!" More eye-rolling from our guide. I reminded him that he'd been "out here all day and caught two fish. We got it done in about ten minutes." He told me I had a hot spinner. Please. I know.

Anyway, we had a great time, and having some fish in our freezer is a total bonus. Maybe I should learn to hunt. Kidding. I do love the reaction I get when I suggest such things to my guide though.

A scenic stop on the way home.

This was E week at school. Elmo Eats an Egg. Get it? And she brought an Empty box. We live by the alphabet these days.....

The littlest guide in the family helps her dad.

Ooh. I forgot to mention. We lost another fish in between the two that we caught because the spinner broke. Puh-leas. An equipment malfunction? I guess you get what you pay for.