Sweet Ellie - at 10 months!

I keep forgetting to take pictures of Ellie at her exact monthly dates, but these are some cute pictures of her around the beginning of November while my parents were visiting. She turned 10 months while they were here.

She was enjoying cruising along the furniture at that point.

Still crawling on all fours most of the time.

We just love her to pieces and are glad she's in our family. The kids still fight over her.

Veterans Day

In November, my parents (who recently finished their mission) were able to drive out and visit us. It was so wonderful to have them here. They got here just in time for a Veterans Day program put on by all the third graders at Reili's school. Since Tom was off that day too, we all went together.

All ready to perform!

Elizabeth all excited for the program (can you tell).

The two Veterans, Wesley, and Grandma.

How we entertained Wesley before the program started...by taking some pictures of his great faces. A camera is always provides loads of entertainment for our kids.

Raaaaar!

Rrrrrrrr!

Daddy and Daughter after the performance. Thanks Dad and Grandpa for all you've done!

A short rest from all the noise of 4 kids, watching the BYU game.

All about October

October started and ended with a race of sorts. I ran another Half Marathon with two friends of mine, Hannah and Kari. We ran the Roots n' Blues n' BBQ Half in Columbia, MO on October 2. Kari drove out from West Virginia for the week and stayed at our place. It was super fun to have her here. This was Hannah's first half and it was so awesome to be able to train with her and run it together. It is always such an emotional moment to finish a race. Kari PRed and was able to catch our picture at the end since she finished first.

I just love the looks on our faces here. 13.1 miles done!

Way to go girls!

I just thought this was such a cute, everyday shot of Wes and Ellie. He still wants to hold her at least once a day even though she is almost as big as he is. She is 9 months now and into everything she can get her hands on, and it usually goes in her mouth!

The month ended with the "race" of Halloween. I admitted to some of my friends here that I am the Halloween Grinch. It would be so nice to be a makeup artist or costume designer at this time of year and actually love getting the costumes put together and the make up on the kids. Unfortunately, I detest that part. Then to top that off "doling" out all the candy so your kids aren't on an endless sugar high (or low) isn't my cup of tea either. So I would be up for skipping Halloween every year, but the kids love it. I try to humor them and not be a real "witch" on Halloween. It doesn't always work out that way. I am always at least the "mean mom". Since Halloween was on Sunday this year, we just counted Halloween as Friday when the kids dressed up for school and we had Trunk or Treat at the church that night. It was great to get it over with early.

Our resident Vampire. YIKES!

A cute "vampire" bat.

The witch....I mean Wizard!

All the kids (including our neighbors Princess Leah (Brooke) and MU Chearleader (Maggie)) right before we left for Trunk or Treat.

Ellie wasn't too excited to get a picture in her costume...this was the best I could do. (Try to block out the baskets of clean laundry in the background). What a cute Little Bee though!

The Wizard plays the bean bag toss at the carnival before Trunk or Treat.

A Halloween kiss for Little Bee! (She gets all the kisses around here.)

The weather has finally turned cool here and I got out the winter clothes and put the summer ones away (a chore I rather dislike (sorry about all the negativity in this post). I thought all the kids looked so cute in their church finery that I had to take a picture on Halloween right before we got in the van to head for church.

Peace out!

Why the Sour Face?

This is Tom... Anyone who knows me knows I like to get reactions out of people (it drives Jane nuts sometimes:)

I got a hold of some "extreme sour" candy and decided to give some to my kids and record their reactions... Oh, and I got Jane for good measure. Call me cruel, but at least it's entertaining!

First Day of School

School started here....4 weeks ago now. Even though I am late getting it posted, I did take pictures and I don't want to miss Amberly's important first day of Kindergarten. She was so excited to start school and go to the big school with Reili. However, when I went to drop her off at her classroom her shyness/anxiety got the better of her a little bit. She wouldn't let me take her picture with Mrs. Sandquist, her teacher, and finally I ended up just having to leave. Since then she seems to be loving school and rushes straight in the house and gets out all the fun things she has worked on during the day to show me.

Reili is already in 3rd grade and doing really well so far. Mrs. Light is her teacher. She has always done well in school, but this year is even better. She is really into reading and science, but on top of that math seems to be clicking now too. It's great to see how much she learns and grows each year. Hopefully this will be a great school year for them both.