November

November was, thankfully, not too busy in our house. Kaitlyn learned all about the Roman empire, and needed to present a project on that subject.  The kids come home with a lot of things I don't know much about - I still don't know how to tune a violin, for example - but I was excited about this one.  I took four years of Latin in High School, and an intensive recap semester in college.  I learned a lot about the history along the way, but mostly, I learned about Latin.  So that's what her project became: learning some Latin.  I bought her a cute little book that taught her some basics, and then we came up with a short little conversation to tell her class. I decided we needed to put it big on a poster board so everyone could see it (and the translation), and the store only had blue poster board.  So then we ended up with this.

If anyone ever thinks that everything I do is Pinterest- worthy, I'll have to direct them to the serial killer poster, as we nicknamed it. Not my best work.  She loved the project, and I loved teaching her something that I love.  When we went to see her presentation, I was especially glad that we taught her Latin since about half of her class did a report on Pompeii and the eruption of Vesuvius.  At least it wasn't the 14th volcano!

On the Roman party day, they all got to wear a toga, play some Roman games, and eat Roman style food.  Plus Little Ceasar's Pizza, because the name qualified it.

We went to a few football and basketball games in November, too.

Of course, that was after watching the Cleveland Indians lose the World Series. Again.

I had forgotten how much we enjoyed following the Indians when I was growing up in Cleveland, and it was a lot of fun to root for them with my old friends from Ohio.  We're good at losing, though.

Jasmine's little preschool crew went to see a small dinosaur museum.  They are standing in front of an ancient sort of Alligator's head.  Dinosaurs are mind boggling.

This was the first year that Thanksgiving was held at my Mother-in-law's new condo.  She moved over the summer, and I felt bad that it happened right as we were in the midst of kitchen chaos and couldn't help much.  Thankfully, her new place held everyone without a hitch.  We had a funnier problem when we discovered a grease fire in the smoker with both Thanksgiving turkeys.  My husband managed to save them, but dinner was a bit delayed while he cleaned the smoker, rinsed off the burnt smoke layer, and got them cooking again.

Thanksgiving was saved.

(And, my husband had smoked a brisket, so we knew there was a backup.)

Halloween

Every year, I think that this will be the year I don't make costumes.  I just can't buy them, though.  They aren't as good, they cost a lot more, and they are made so cheaply that they will just fall apart.

Jasmine decided on her costume first.  She wanted to be Rapunzel.  I could have bought that anywhere, but she already owned this purple dress. Which she refused to wear.

It was homemade, but I didn't make it.  I got it at a garage sale for 50 cents.  I never knew what it was that she didn't like about this dress, but this little girl rejects clothing for bizarre reasons sometimes.  Since it was going to waste anyway, I decided that "Rapunzel-izing" the dress would be relatively fast.

It wasn't as easy as I hoped.  The overskirt needed to have a gap in the middle, so I just cut that section out.  Jasmine didn't like the awesome bead trim for some reason, so that came off.  I had to take the sleeves off to add the pink stripes, and that was the worst part.  The previous person wasn't very good at gathering, and she made up for it with tiny zigzags to make it really secure.  The vest was the fun, engineering part.  Jasmine's favorite part was the "criss-cross" part in front. You can't quite see my favorite part- Pascal, the chameleon, plays hide and seek with Rapunzel in the movie.  So I embroidered a little Pascal to hide under the overskirt.  You can almost see his green feet.

Total cost = 50 cents for dress.  I owned everything else and got the embroidery pattern for free.

While I was working on that, Kaitlyn decided that she wanted to be Pikachu.  That one is much harder to find.  There was one on Amazon that looked like a hoodie and skirt.  We both liked the look of that one, but the reviews said it was made out of that awful costume fabric that snags and rips instantly.  So we bought a yellow hoodie.  I couldn't find one in her size, so we started with one my size.

Kaitlyn's was the easiest and fastest. I think it was less than one day.  I put a Pikachu face on the hood  with my embroidery machine, along with the stripes on her back.  I shortened the sleeves, making them narrower in the process, and made a casing on the inside for elastic to gather a waist.  Oh, and we had to get rid of the kangaroo pocket, too, since it hung at her knees.  The only tricky part was making a tail.

She now wears this almost every day as her jacket for recess.

Total cost: $13 for hoodie, $5 for embroidery design.

Tyler, on the other hand, was tricky this year.  When I asked him what he wanted to be, he said "Alex from Minecraft.  I was Steve last time, so now I should be Alex."  The only catch is that Alex is the girl character.

"Tyler, did you know that Alex is a girl?"
"Yeah," he said very matter-of-factly.  "I don't care so much."

Of the girl characters he could ask to be, this was not some sparkling princess, to be sure.  She just had a ponytail and a Minecraft, blocky body.  And the more I thought about it, why not?  We tell our kids they can be anything they want to be for Halloween, so I should have lived up to it.

The bigger problem is that we just made a Minecraft, boxy costume last year, and I gotta say I really didn't want to make one again.  So I offered a few other ideas to him until one stuck.  Emmet from The Lego Movie.  He already owned the shirt, so he just needed some pants and a bit more to fill it out.

I looked all over Pinterest, and lots of people made various levels of costume.  Some just wore the clothes, and some spent countless hours on boxes and carving foam into the hair.  I decided to use the concrete form that everyone else was using for the head, and start from there.  After I got the piece cut, Kaitlyn looked at me strangely.  "Why don't you use the fabric Lego head?"

"What fabric Lego head?"

So she ran up to her costume box and produced a foam-like fabric head shaped like a Lego head.  It was white and only had eye holes, but it was a much better start than what I had.

I tried dyeing the head yellow, but it didn't take, so I just made a yellow fabric version that I sewed onto the head.  Simple enough.  I ran out of time to do anything else before the neighborhood block party, but we did get him a Piece of Resistance to wear on his back, at least.

Total cost: $3 for yellow fabric.  And $15 wasted on a concrete form and plastic tubes for hands that I didn't end up using. Grr.

All ready for the party!

The spent the most time at the cake walk.  Favorite for all of them!

My favorite is the table the high school science teacher sets up.  He had things like "zombie brains" and "ghost eyeballs", and a ghost balloon craft for them to make.

Two other friends dressed as Pokemon Trainers, who apparently run around trying to catch Pikachu.  Or something.  I'm not up on my Pokemon stuff, but I loved that we could get a group picture.

I thought that after this, I would add hair and hands to Tyler's costume.  But I just couldn't figure out how to make three dimensional hair on a weak, flimsy head.  And I realized that making him Lego hands just meant he wouldn't be able to use his hands to pick up candy.  So we skipped that.  Instead, I made Jasmine a satchel and Kaitlyn a Pokeball purse to hold their candy.

For the first time, I had a great day going to the costume parades.  My memories from previous years were of waiting in cramped hallways with tons of other parents, trying to keep the baby/toddler happy and still while we watched tons of strangers walk by in costume.  This year, Jasmine was over the moon.  She was excited about just the toddlers walking in with their moms before the parade started.  "Mom, LOOK! Elsa!" Every single costume was amazing, all day long.

After school, we carved some pumpkins as quick as we could.  Jasmine even did hers all by herself.

I loved Halloween this year!  I even dressed up, too.  I found this costume on a garage sale group on facebook a few days earlier, and bought it solely because I own the white boots in the picture from high school flag team.

Convincing my hair to make two buns was not easy, but I think I got the idea across. What a fun day!

Pumpkin Patch and Daddy's birthday

Jasmine's preschool group organized a trip to a pumpkin patch a few cities away.  There is one very close to us, but they charge a lot more, and this one was great!

This is Avery, Jasmine's very favorite friend.  I love watching them play together!

I'd never seen a corn pit that big before!

Jasmine had so much fun that we took the rest of the family back a week later.

Kaitlyn was madly in love with the kangaroo they had in their petting area.  Her fur was amazingly soft, and Kaitlyn wanted to spend the entire night petting her.  She found that if she tickled her on the chest, the kangaroo would try to nibble and nuzzle at her sleeve.

Hay ride selfie!

For Christopher's birthday, he bought himself an adult sized scooter.  So naturally, we had to go to Classic Skating and test it out to celebrate.

Then it was time to get way more ice cream than anyone can eat in one sitting.  The boys came really close.

He really is my favorite person ever.  :)

Cabin trips

Our poor cabin got abandoned this year.  We went up in April, and then didn't make it back until late July.  It was still winterized at that point, and the knee high grass was fully yellow and dead.  Thankfully, the grass has enjoyed the fall temperatures and rain, and we have been able to go a bit more lately.

A nice day to check out the wildlife and trees . . . or decide what the clouds look like.

We even managed to have friends come and join us a couple of times.

Kaitlyn was very possessive about her trash can.  I was thrilled she was excited to help out with raking the leaves, but I had to laugh when she climbed on in.

That night, everyone was playing on Daddy's iPad (Monopoly is the new favorite) . . .

 . . . but Jasmine once again knew her limits and found a comfy place to crash.

Lots of little things

August was a busy month.  We were still in recovery mode from the kitchen.  We did take the kids to the annual BYU Kickoff.  They love it- especially the face painting.

Kaitlyn's favorite was the gymnastics mat.  She must have run up and flipped a dozen times.

We took another quick trip with our camping trailer to Lake Palisade.  My husband's favorite part of that trip is that he spotted a sign for a 5K every Saturday morning at the campground.  He was the only person that showed up, so he just followed the arrows and had a good morning run.  As a joke, he popped his head into the front office to say "what did I win?" at the end.  They told him that if he had paid $5 and signed up in advance, the winner gets a free canoe rental for the day.  "Well, sign me up!"

And that is how we got a free canoe rental for the day.

The only sad part is that I didn't bring a camera on that trip.  So you'll have to take my word for it.

Tyler's favorite part was a swim dock that was floating a bit from shore.  He loves to horse around with Daddy as they throw each other in the water . .  . and with his lack of social boundaries, he decided that everyone on the swim deck was a friend he could try and push in.  I'm so glad everyone was good about it, but it was a bit embarrassing. Kaitlyn spent most of the day fishing with Daddy.

Christopher's brother in law had a company party that we got to come to.   I hadn't been to 7 Peaks in years.  The kids had a lot of fun swimming, but once again, facepaint makes it awesome.

Before I knew it, it was time for a new school year.  Kaitlyn started one week, Tyler the next week, and Jasmine a couple of weeks later.  So I have a few "first day of school" pictures.

One . . .

Then two . . .

Then all three.

I was nervous about Tyler's new teacher, since Mr. Josh is a first year teacher that also happens to be the Principal's son.  Did he want this job and know what he is doing, or did Mom just need to hire another teacher?  Luckily, it has been great so far.  In fact, he read a book to the class in the first week that Tyler was so excited about, that when I happened to coincidentally buy the same book at the thrift store for him, he refused to put it down.  It was the first time I have ever seen Tyler pick up a book and read voluntarily, with no one forcing him to read every sentence.  Victory!

I was worried about him settling back into working hard at school after a summer of computer time while Mommy and Daddy disassembled a kitchen, but he is doing well.  At least, if our morning reading time is any indication.  Just like last year, we arrive to his school too early for him to go inside.  I'm actually really grateful, because we use that extra 20 minutes as our reading time every day.  He is improving a LOT in his reading.  He loves Fly Guy books right now, and can read one of them with very little help.

Kaitlyn likes her new teacher a lot, too.  Jasmine is going to a friend's house for preschool twice a week, and I feel really lucky that we have the opportunity.  She is loving it!

By the beginning of September, we had recovered enough to make more progress on the kitchen.  A backsplash!

Outlets and a vent hood quickly followed, and then we were finally done with the kitchen part of the renovation.  The only thing left is the baseboard, and that waits until we get up the energy to rip out the carpet in the front room and put the same new flooring in there, too.

Another trip planned long ago was to Yuba Lake.  Christopher wanted to run the triathlon they have there every fall.  A couple of our friends even came, too.

He wasn't as ready as he hoped to be, due to our busy summer, but he still loves running triathlons anyway.

Oh, and Christopher took his little buddy to one of the BYU football games.  Tyler stays up late every night, so he didn't have any problem with the 8:15 kickoff.  And since he has his Dad wrapped around his finger, he got a cherished "Cougar Tail" donut to eat all night.

The rest of September disappeared in a quick blur, it seems.  I was sick for most of it, and Christopher had an overwhelming project at work that didn't clear up until early October.