Walking Our Puppy

 When Nathan is your little brother, he is a handful. One day, he was so upset about his role in walking the dog, that we told Emma to walk Nathan. Nathan immediately loved the idea and got his old monkey pack out to be walked.

 Ready to go and all strapped in

Who cares if the neighbors think we are even more weird?

I guess Nathan also pretended to pee and poop on the whole walk..sigh...

But he also likes to moon everyone in our front yard while waiting for carpool to pick him up for school. I have no idea what we are in for.

Halloween! (in November)

On;y because I am so late posting this, it is almost closer to Thanksgiving than Halloween. But here are the Octoberfest highlights.

 Nathan as a Nascar driver with his typical Nathan face

 Pocahontas

 The Ninja! Now that he is older this was a put together at the last minute costume.

 Yeah, our costumes were super last minute too. But when you have a mullet wig in your house why not, right?

 Grandma and Boppa came to our neighborhood to trick or treat with the kids

 The first few doors were a bust but once we got going, the candy was flowing faster than liquids in the land of milk and honey

 Addison LOVED her dress and gloves.

 Cute curly Kate

 Out roaming the neighborhood.

 They thought trick or treating was awesome

This was the slowest Nathan moved all night and it was forced. He was a maniac running through the neighborhood at full speed. I didn't know he would take his costume so literally.

Earlier that day, the kids dressed up for Cultural Day at school. Bailey had to be someone from Ancient Egypt, Emma an Innovator and Nathan a Community Helper.

 Ready for school

 Nathan, Mr Fireman

 Bailey as the Ancient Egyptian god, Thoth

 Emma as Jane Goodall

We have gotten so much use out of the monkey pack (as can be seen from the other post I am about to do)

Celebration for Confusing Everyone!

Now that the Lincoln Bypass is done, I think everyone gets lost coming to our house!  To celebrate this new road, Lincoln had a big event downtown last Saturday. I meant to take more pictures than I did, so these are kind of boring:)

A ring toss for candy at one of the booths. Candy was at almost all the booths, so the kids loved this event. Notice tough looking Daddy in the background. He was keeping an eye out for scoundrels or something haha. 

We enjoyed our visit to Lincoln Chinese afterward with our neighbors across the street. If you have made your way to Lincoln without visiting Lincoln Chinese,  I suggest you remedy that. All ten of us ate lunch for $35! Six of those were kids, but that's still pretty good. And the orange chicken....mmmmm....Now to just not think about their health report...

In not related news, we had to bluff a phone call to one of Kate's favorite people. Kayla is a high schooler who goes to Church with us. She's only babysat twice but the twins see her every week at Church or activities and love to follow her around.  Kate insisted that the following outfit looked good and that Kalya would love it.

I told her it wasn't the best choice and tried to convince her to wear something else. I "called" Kayla on my cell phone and asked her which one she liked. It wasn't this one:) Kate went to Church in a different outfit and bad fashion crisis averted.

Peace, Love and Ice Cream Sandwiches

Sunday, Emma came home sad because one of the girls in her class at Church was being mean to her. I wish I recorded Emma's conversations about girl drama because it is quite humorous at times (or it will be to her many years from now).

To sum up, Emma had told this girl to go home once when she was playing over here. This girl can be a more difficult personality and we had always told Emma if things got too bad to just ask her to leave. Well, Emma can't really do that without a little attitude. This resulted in the girl getting mad, making fun of her almost every Sunday and even inviting everyone else in her primary class except Emma to her party. This was heartbreak for even me when I heard this. We are always working with Emma on being nice to people even when they aren't to you. She struggles with this, as do most people. This last Sunday she was more upset than ever. 

We talked about it as a family over dinner and Emma decided to make her a card and bring her a treat. All we had ready was ice cream sandwiches, so that's what we took!  Emma made a cute card that said she hopes they can be friends and have a great day, etc...

I got a text from the girl's mom that this girl couldn't stop grinning and was so excited to get such a nice surprise. I know it was hard for Emma, but she felt so much better after she did it. Girl drama is destined to be a constant in our home with three (four if you count me!) girls. I'm not really looking forward to that at all. It helps Emma that I am going through a similar situation and we can talk about it. Although it doesn't make her very optimistic that these problems ever go away. I think we might need to stock up on ice cream sandwiches:) If they don't help people be nice to us, at least we can pig out on them.

Punkin' Patch

Nathan's class went to Bishop's Pumpkin Patch last Tuesday and the twins and I tagged along. I attempted this once when they were about 9 months old and Nathan was almost 3. Why I did that, I have no idea. I don't think I was making sound deisions at that stage of life...

But thank goodness we are all past the crazy (well for the most part). The twins have been looking forward to this field trip for a long time, as has Nathan. 

 So while we were waiting for his class to arrive, I let the kids play on this fun little stand near the entrance. Anything that keeps them occupied, right? They were climbing on it, putting their hands all over it and just having the best time. Then a staff member comes walking up slowly to them with a funny look on her face and says "Excuse me..." I was bracing myself for her to tell them they can't play on it. She then puts her finished cigarette butt in a little hole in the top. ACK! ICK! I looked down and then realized that was it's intended purpose. I pulled the kids off of it and we stood somewhere else. FYI these pictures were taken before I knew my kids were playing with a giant ash tray.

On the train ride. Nathan was insistent we all four sit on the same bench. He is really social at school but seemed more content hanging with his sisters and me.

More train fun. Is it just me or does the dad behind me look a little scared to be on the train?

They loved picking their own pumpkins. 

We had lunch and then got ready to pick up some fudge for Daddy on the way out. I told the three of them they could get a little basket for taffy and pick three or four pieces each from the barrels. I wasn't surprised when Nathan and Kate came back with about six pieces. But the real shock was Addison filling the basket three quarters of the way full with multiple types of taffy from just about every barrel. It would have taken me 20 minutes just to put each piece back where it came from. I wasn't about to leave it there and say oops sorry I am the lame mom not watching my kid in a candy store while I drool over fudge. So we came home with 9 dollars worth of taffy. Luckily Emma was in charge of treats for Activity days so we bagged it up and sent it with her.

Happy October!

So this picture is lame and doesn't fully showcase our cute little Halloween entrance over the front door. It looks better at night in person, so feel free to stop by and admire the awesomeness. 

Speaking of awesome, I must include this fun find. It's a t-shirt that I don't think I would actually buy and wear, but I love it just the same.

This last few months have been, well...interesting in challenges I've faced. So I combat that by working out at the gym with a 25 pound pack on my back. Really the challenges are completely unrelated to the fitness but who wouldn't feel awesome....I guess just being awesome*. 

*Please note blog author's assurance of her own awesome-ness is only in effort to combat the thoughts of others who thinks she sucks is less than awesome*

And yes, I know this blog post is reminiscent of those on Facebook who slyly allude to problems and then ignore comments as to explain further. However, being my blog I guess I can be weird if I want:)

 This was my fortune today from Raley's Hot Wok. I laughed. the kids thought it was funny because according to Emma I cry a lot. 

And now for something not so depressing!

Nathan awoke last Friday morning, looked in the fridge and saw beyond our mortal eyes as he stared at the half full milk jug. "This is no milk jug!"he cried.

This was a Bee. But, to become that bee, the lonely jug must be emptied of it's nutritional nectar. It was divided among four cups (which came out of a dishwasher that had not been cleaned) and lined up neatly on the counter. (I put them all in the fridge later to save it)

Nathan found his magic green scissors, a marker and some glorious tape in order to create...

THE BEE

And of course Addison needed her picture taken as well because sometimes you just need a random picture with no story.

Kate found this classic on our last library trip. I loved this book as a kid and read it a ton.

There once was a boy named Pierre who only would say, "I don't care!" Read his story, my friend, for you'll find at the end that a suitable moral lies there. 

Because he gets eaten by a lion. Sorry, SPOILER ALERT.

I still love this book though.

No Title

Some of my blog posts I really can't think of a good title for. This always annoys me just a bit because that is half the fun of posting. But, I need to get these pictures in (and it's probably almost time for another printing of the blog...)

I had thought nap time was long gone for these two. But the last few months (well probably longer than that even) they have been falling asleep almost every day. I'm almost thinking that I could start instituting a regular nap time for them that wasn't in the car or on their beds...hmmm.....

We spent last Friday at the mall with Nana. She brought their birthday/Christmas dresses and the girls convinced me to let them try them on in the car before we left. These dresses will be reappearing in pictures soon for the primary program! I wish I could get video of the twins singing in the back of the car while listening to the CD of music for the program. They belt out every note. 

So this has been Addison a lot lately. Screaming, crying, throwing fits.  I think she's about to make another development breakthrough (I hope at least!) because she is super sensitive lately. That has usually been her pattern. She gets crazy and almost to the point of unmanageable and then BOOM she can crochet a scarf or something crazy like that. We shall see...

Emma won a gift certificate to Simple Pleasures, a local restaurant here in Lincoln. The problem is that they are only open from 6 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday-Friday. So, what else could I do but pull her out of school during her lunch time:) They have great food and kids eat for $1-2 each, depending on what they order. Seriously that is the correct price and it includes a drink. 

I think it's funny to see pictures of Emma and I together. It only shows how much she doesn't look like me at all. Although she does give me a good excuse to get some serious blond highlights and go to a tanning booth...just so I can look more like her of course.