Sleepovers

The kids had another "sleepover" this weekend.  They love the idea of sleepovers, but we don't actually ever let them sleep at friends' houses.  Occaisionally they can go over to Papa's house for the night.  So they have invented "sibling sleepovers".  They will all change beds and go to other rooms for the night.  For example, Grace usually ends up in Joey's bed, Andrew sleeps on the floor, and Joey sleeps wherever he lands.

We re-arranged Grace and Matt's room so there is now room for a tent.  That's where Grace slept Friday night.  She absolutely loved it, and slept soundly through the night.  The next night, the tent was moved to Andrew's room, and he slept in it, with Grace and Joey in the bunks.  I've decided it doesn't take much to make my kids happy.  That's something I'm really thankful for, especially on Symphony weekends.

Getting Ready for Bed

Weird things happen at bedtime around here.  I'm not sure exactly what my kids are thinking when they do things like this:

They do them all the time.  But really, people, why?  Why color all over yourselves with marker, or all over the wall, toilet, or table?  Why dip the toilet paper in lotion and leave it hanging from the roll?  Why stick your hand down your diaper when there is poop in there?  Why pull out all the clothes in your drawer for no apparant reason?  Someday, I'd just like to know.

Also, it gets really crowded in the bathroom at bedtime.  We have three bathrooms, so why this happens, I'll never know.

2010 Family Pictures

Today we took advantage of the last reminants of good weather around here for awhile.  We went over to the Zoo for some family pictures.  It was an interesting morning, keeping everybody clean until we were done.  They didn't turn out half bad!

Halloween

We had oh-so-much fun for Halloween!  Grace got to wear a costume to Preschool, and she chose to be a red Power Ranger, of course.  All the other girls were something female.  But that's okay.  I like her just the way she is.  For the Trunk-or-Treat at church and for Halloween, she chose to be a crayon (one of my childhood costumes!).  Matt was an M&M the first day, then decided to be a puppy -- except he was in a lion outfit.  Whatever.

The boys were Clone Troopers the first day, and then Joey decided to be Obi Wan on Sunday.  He's going to look good in a real beard someday.

We reserved Sunday for Trick or Treating only at Grandmas and Grandpas houses.  It was quite a lot of fun, including our trip to Momma Harris'.  Katie was not available (she was making herself beautiful for the following school day), but Matt survived.

We hope you all had a great Halloween!

Pumpkin Carving

This was the first Halloween ever that we had to carve pumpkins without Daddy.  He's away for the week on business (we have only seen him for 5 minutes for the last week and a half when we passed on the highway - we were coming back from UT and he was going on his business trip and we met at a gas station to get a quick Daddy fix).  Hopefully, we won't have to do that again.  But, all things considered, they still turned out pretty well.

I decided it was time to let the kids do their own carving.  I'm a big believer in letting them do things themselves.  How else will they learn?  It makes a little bigger mess, but it's worth it.  They turned out great.  And we didn't even have to go to the Emergency Room.

Painting pumpkins is fun for the little ones.  Matt's is all paint, and Grace carved hers and painted it.  We sprayed polyurethane on it when we were done so the rain doesn't wipe it all away.

Utah Trip Pictures

Although we're still recovering from our trip last week, and Ben's been gone for a week and a half, and I'm having a great big fun party tomorrow, I've decided it's time to stop procrastinating and get back to my blog.  So, please enjoy our pictures from the trip:

This was our hotel room in Layton.  It was actually called a "suite", I think.  It was awesome to have two separate bedrooms, a kitchen, and a living room.  The kids wished we could live there.  Emma thought it was too small.

This is out of order, but I can't figure out how to move it.  This is at a gas station in Ashton, ID.  We had to get out to use the bathroom and rearrange ourselves.  Matt thought this wildflower looked like a dandelion, so he tried to blow it.  It didn't work.

Our first activity was the zoo.  It was pretty much deserted on a rainy, Thursday morning.  We rode the train first, then made our rounds to see the animals.  My favorite was the baby elephant.

This picture requires some explanation.  There is this big statue of an African Elephant.  The kids all jumped on the trunk to get a picture, with Joey right in front of the trunk.  The elephant makes noises, but what we didn't know was that he is getting ready to sneeze.  All of the sudden, he sneezed a huge puff of air and water right onto Joey.  I wish I would have snapped this picture 5 seconds earlier, because you would have seen a face on Joey that I've never seen before.  That kid can jump fast!  After his heart rate slowed down, he laughed about it.  We were already laughing.  His jacket got a little wet from the sneeze, but it dried.  So funny.

I thought it was so cute that the girls held hands all weekend.  These next pictures are from the Dinosaur Park in Ogden.  Joey loved the animatronic dinosaurs.  We had to visit them twice.

The next day, we rode the train into SLC to go to the Children's Museum and do some shopping.  The kids were excited to ride a real train.  It was nice because it was cheap, and we didn't have to worry about parking or traffic.  But public transportation is, well, public.  And sometimes the public is, well, gross.  And kind of scary.  But we made it, and the Children's Museum was the best!  I wish we had one like that here.  We spent a good 1 1/2 to 2 hours there, and we could have stayed longer.  It was awesome.

 (Matt refused to wear his orange admittance band.  So he tore it off and I wore two.)

Zach has never liked Matt.  He always cries when Matt gets close.  But by the end of this trip (the last night, of course) they finally tolerated each other.  This was their first hug ever.

We got a visit from my fun aunt Jill, who was on her way to a costume party.  It was great to get and sit and visit.  Can't wait to see all you Utahrds again soon!