The Fort

Everyday Stuff, Fall Edition

You're never too young to start reading the Wall Street Journal... upside down. 

We went to this playground on a whim one morning when I realized we had a little time before we needed to eat lunch.  Eliza climbed all the way up to the top of the slide, but wouldn't go down.  I sent Jack up there to go down with her and he did it - it was so sweet!

Aren't they cute together?

Eliza has become particularly uncooperative when I take pictures of her at home or out on an adventure.
But when I decided to pull out my phone and take a quick picture of all of the kids sitting on the steps in the Church gym during playgroup, she gave me a million dollar smile.

Our neighborhood grocery store has mini carts.  This was Jack's first time being allowed to use one, and he absolutely loved it.  He even helped me choose produce and bag it, and he wanted everything to go in his cart.  Pretty cute.

Jack isn't formally "potty training," but he does use the potty occasionally.  One morning a few weeks ago he informed me that he wanted to wear big boy underwear.  Great!  The only problem was that he had an upset stomach, and though I was willing to risk some bodily fluids making messes, I was not willing to risk having to clean up diarrhea.  That's where I draw the line.  So I pulled out these great plastic-covered potty training underpants that my friend gave me, and had him wear those.  He didn't like them, so the pottying didn't last very long that day.  But Eliza really wanted to wear some.  She kept hers on for quite a while... and I liked that it gave me something to laugh about on Jack's sick day.  :-)

Look!  It's me!  Thanks for documenting my existence, Jack!

One Saturday morning the kids wanted to color something big, so I taped together 2 poster -sized pieces of paper and made outlines of the images the kids wanted.  Cat wanted a castle, and Jack wanted a dragon and a train.  My drawing is horrible, but I loved that Cat was still super impressed!  They had fun coloring for a little while, until certain people kept coloring on other people's coloring spaces.  Oh well.  They're siblings.  That's what they do, right?

I took my kids and one of Cat's friends to the library for story time one day when Cat was out of school.  At first, Cat and her friend weren't interested in checking out any books to bring home, but within just a few minutes we ended up with a huge haul of books.  I had them each choose a few to leave at the library, then we checked out the rest.  18 in all.  And guess who got to carry them up the stairs and to the car, while holding a toddler?  :-)  But I didn't complain, because, hello, it's books.  I love that Cat likes reading enough now that she reads new books on her own, brings them in the car, and even reads to her brother and sister.  I think the day she discovers the joys of a good chapter book will be the true turning point, though.

Apparently, Eliza was looking to repeat this incident from a year ago.  She didn't need any help coloring on her head this time, though.  She did it all on her own. 

Oh, and she got both legs, too.  Eliza and a marker is a dangerous combination...

Love my Jack-Jack!

You might want to back up, there, Eliza.  This could get dangerous...

One night when Ben was out of town, the kids and I invited another family (who's Dad is also in the MBA program and was on the same trip as Ben) to join us for FHE.  Right when we finished our lesson, we started seeing lightning out of the living room window.  Or, we thought it was lightning.  It was actually our 7-year-old neighbor taking pictures of us from the front yard.  So funny!  So we all went outside and the kids posed on the front step for a couple of pictures.  The outside boy on the left and the outside girl on the right are brother and sister and they live next-door to us.  The other two children you don't know belong to the other MBA family in the ward.  They live across the street from us, and we've spent a lot of time with them.  It's so nice to have them so nearby!  We have a great neighborhood and a great ward.  (Really, that's pretty redundant, since our ward is literally comprised of 2 blocks, but still...)

Everyone but Cat was sick at some point last week, which was a shame, since we had pretty good weather.  I knew it  wouldn't last, so by Friday when we'd had enough of being cooped up in the house and I knew we needed some outside play time.  We were all feeling better so we decided to hang out at the park after school.  Cat's two friends joined us and we loved running around and playing in the leaves.  I kept trying to get a good picture of them throwing the leaves in the air, but couldn't time it right using my phone.  Oh well!

Superman Swinging

Murphy's Law and a Big Big Girl

Don't you just love it when Murphy gets a good laugh at your expense?  That happened in our family several weeks ago.  You see, I get the kids ready every morning.  I usually get to choose Cat's clothes for the day, but she doesn't let me do her hair except for Sunday now (alas, 6 year olds have wills of their own).  But she does a pretty good job on her hair, so she's mostly presentable when she leaves the house.  Of course, she's come up with a few interesting styles...

Don't get me wrong.  I love that Cat likes to do her hair, and I love that she experiments with different styles.  What I'm trying to show here is that when Cat occasionally breaks out of her low-ponytail habit, it's because she decides to do something pretty dramatic.  She likes to make a statement.  I don't even have pictures of the more dramatic styles she's come up with - you'll just have to trust me.

Now, back to Murphy and his ever-present Law.  As I said, I get the kids ready in the morning.  That is, almost every morning.  There was a morning a while back when I couldn't be here to help Cat get ready for school.  Why not, you may ask?  Well, because I had to have Jack at the surgery center for his hernia surgery at 6am.  Usually that wouldn't be a big deal, because I could lay Cat's clothes out and she could do her hair and Ben could get her to school.  But, thanks to Murphy, it ended up being Cat's school picture day.  Yep.

So I gave Cat and Ben very specific directions the night before.  Cat is to wear the shirt I laid out for her.  No other shirt.  Cat is not allowed to do her hair.  Ben must spray her hair with water, part it on the side, and brush it straight.  Nothing else.  Of course, since we're sharing a car these days and I had to take Jack way down to the surgery center early in the morning, Ben and Cat were going to have to ride bikes to school, so Cat would have helmet-head by the time she arrived.  All the better.

The school pictures came home a few weeks later and I was actually quite pleased with the hair, I have to say.  Pretty good, huh?  Not that I would have done anything fancy.... maybe just straightened it, done a little braid, and given it some hairspray.  Oh, and driven her to school.  But still.  Considering the circumstances, they did well.

But somehow I forgot to ask Cat not to wear the neon multi-colored plastic beaded necklace she'd been wearing for the last several days.

Oh well.  It only clashes a little.  And, hey, it shows off a little bit of Cat's personality and interests this year.  (She's been wearing similar necklaces since the beginning of the school year this year.)  And she still looks totally cute, if you ask me.

As if doing her own hair doesn't make her way too big, she said something the other day that showed me all over again how much she's grown up.  She'd spent a few hours at a friend's house playing, and when she got back home our neighbor asked if she could go to her house to play.  I said she could, but that we would be eating dinner soon, at 6:00, and that she needed to be home for dinner.  As she excitedly ran off to her friend's house, she yelled at me over her shoulder, "I know what time that is!  That's when the big hand is on the twelve and the little hand is on the six!"  She's been working on telling time for a while now, so I'm not sure why that struck me the way it did, but it was kind of a sign for me.  Maybe the combination of being old and responsible enough to be at various friend's houses after completing her homework for the day, and also telling time well enough to come home when she's supposed to just made a strong statement: she's way too big.  

Halloween Festivities

We had a very busy week leading up to Halloween with many opportunities for the kids to get dressed up (and subsequently make messes on their costumes, but let's not talk about that now).  The first event was a party for the Primary (age 18 months - 12 years) children at Church.

Jack was pretty psyched before we got in the car.

But he'd lost some of his steam by the time we arrived at the party.

The key to success with a beanbag toss: stand 18 inches from your target.

And I'll take my prize, thankyouverymuch.

I think it's funny to compare Cat's and Jack's differing approaches to the doughnut-on-a-string competition.
Cat was able to fully obey the rules and NOT touch the doughnut, easily fitting the entire thing in her mouth.
Jack broke all the rules, held the doughnut, and still took several minutes to eat his doughnut, even after I helped him out a little.

Jack was first to win a cookie during the Pumpkin Walk, so of course Cat is pushing him along here, thinking that might help her chances of winning her cookie next.

Cat's Halloween Costume Parade:

I took Jack and Eliza to Cat's school to watch the costume parade.  I was sure I would get some cute pictures, but Cat was much more interested in dancing with her friend Lily than in posing for pictures.  Ahh, princesses and gypsies... will opposites ever cease to attract?

After the costume parade, Jack the Dragon did some hanging around on the playground.

Trick-Or-Treating:

All ready to go!  Yes, Eliza started on the candy early.  She saw Ben pull out lollipops to hand to some early trick-or-treaters and would NOT be pacified until she had one of her own.

First stop: the sweet couple next door.  We really lucked out in the neighbor department!

Jack and Eliza checking out their stash when we got back home.  (Cat ended up doing most of her trick-or-treating with our neighbors, Grace and George, so she got home a little later than we did.)

So, Jack, how many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?

Other festivities from the last week not pictured above: MBA Spouse Association Halloween Party and a couple of wear-your-costume-to-______ activities.  It was a hectic but fun week and now I can't believe it's time to get ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Yikes!  Where has the year gone??

The Hogle Zoo

Ben and Cat both had a break from school last week, so we headed up to SLC to go to the zoo with my cousins and their children.  The weather was awesome and we all had a great time checking out the animals.  Definitely a day well spent!

Impersonating the monkeys in the monkey house.

More monkeys! 

Two adult females and two toddlers.
(Eliza and the elephant.)

Seeing the "elfewents" was Jack's favorite part of the day.

Gorillas.

Apparently we have a few female gorillas and some juveniles in the family.

Cat said that the peacock was her favorite.

Camels!

This giraffe got up close and personal with Ben.

And what trip to the zoo would be complete without some time on the playground?

Thanks for meeting us, Steph and Alicia!  We are missing our families back east even more than we thought we would, but having cousins and other family members out here definitely eases the pain.  We love getting to hang out with you guys!

Halloween Preparations

Decorating!  I love Cat's contributions - pumpkins, bats, and ghouls on the banister, and a bunch of bats trying to escape out of the front door.  The top left picture is of a pair of pumpkins Jack painted using the cups from a cardboard egg carton.  He did such a good job, even though they were small and I'd planned for Cat to do the painting.

Hoot Owl Cookies.  These ones turned out much better than the ones we made a couple of years ago.  (This is the recipe we used this year - supposedly it's the original.)  And I love looking at the finished cookies and reflecting on the number of eyes each owl has, and finding which ones look like they are recovering from a bad fall out of a tree.

I really tried to do costumes on the cheap this year, but didn't want to make anything.  So that meant looking at the thrift store, online, etc.  I found the too small dragon costume for Jack from someone selling it online for a good price.  Then the next week I found the too big one at a thrift store.  Hmm.... which is better, too small, or too big?  (In the end, Jack said he liked the smaller one better, so that's the one we went with.  Thankfully we were able to return the bigger one to the thrift store.  Yeah!)

I suddenly wanted to make sugar cookies one Sunday afternoon, and the kids were my busy little helpers.  After assigning herself the job of using the spatula to place the cut cookies onto the pan, Cat referred to herself as "the spatulist."  I like that.

Because I hadn't planned on making sugar cookies, I wasn't really prepared with anything to decorate them with.  After a quick search online, though, I found out how to make your own colored sugar.  Here, Cat is demonstrating.  (If you are curious about the process, check out my other post here.)

Frosting the cookies, or, in some cases, eating the cookies.

The FHE Jack-O-Lantern:

1. Scoop out the guts.  This requires teamwork.

2. Place the pumpkin on your head to determine whether all of the guts are out.

3. Draw the face.  It might take you a few tries.

4. Cut out the face.  Best left to Daddy.

5. Admire the face, then scoop out remaining guts that are showing through the face holes.

6. Place Jack-O-Lantern on your front porch, alongside one that simply has stickers on it and only took seconds to create.

This week is pretty full with various Halloween events, which is so fun!  Thank goodness all of this prep work is out of the way, so we can just enjoy the festivities.