Halloween

 Our Halloween was a hectic day of school parades and parties followed by trick or treating with friends.  This new phase of motherhood is an adventure.  It is fun to see the girls' independence growing.  They have so many cute little friends and strong opinions on how their little lives should go. It is hard for me to want to let go, even a little bit but watching them grow up is my greatest pleasure. I love all of these holidays and traditions even when it makes things crazy and hectic.

New Baby

 A new baby to love! My sweet baby niece is here and we couldn't be more thrilled to meet this little sweetheart.

Bookclub Murder Mystery Party

 One of the best things about my life right now is the lovely group of women in my bookclub.  They are a group of intelligent, fun dynamic women and I really look forward to bookclub every month.  It is a bright spot and a respite from the craziness of every day life.  This month I suggested that we mix things up with a murder mystery party at my house.  I was running around like a crazy person trying to fit in the last minute details but the party was so fun. We laughed till we cried. Everyone got into their characters and made things a lot of fun. Murder mystery parties depend entirely on people embracing the fun.

*Also my baby niece was born during the party! Thing 2 spent the night with us.

Reflections 2014

Sweet little Red Fish won ribbons in five categories at this year's Reflections competition at her elementary school.  She won awards for sculpture. visual art, film, dance choreography and music composition.  She was disappointed that she didn't have time to enter the literature portion of the competition because apparently six entries didn't satisfy her need to create. This year I was at the assembly and it was fun to watch her get the awards.  She was thrilled but embarrassed that they kept calling her up to the front for every category. She worked so hard on her entries.  It will be fun to see how she does at the next level of competition.

Little Cousins

I'm pretty sure that nobody has ever loved their cousins (especially the little ones) more than this little girl. We are watching Thing 2 while her baby sister is being born!

After School Hugs

When Red Fish comes out of school, New Fish is waiting for her.  How cute is that?

Pumpkin Day

 We ran to the pumpkin patch today.  We usually try to make a bigger deal about the pumpkin selection and make more an event out of the activity.  This year, I have been too busy helping with the neighborhood Halloween party and the Primary Program and work and kids and everything else.  The kids only care about getting a pumpkin.  We went to the patch they requested and they both picked out their pumpkins. They didn't want them so big that it would take them all night to scrape out the guts.

 We decided to do our annual spooky dinner BOO-fet for family home evening tonight. The girls took over and made the food.  I just put the mummy dogs in the oven. Two Fish declared it the most edible spooky dinner we have had because it was more cute than gross.  We had mummy dogs, witches brooms (cheese and pretzels), monster mouths and monster mash (the potatoes with the eyes.)

 We carved the pumpkins after dinner.  I helped scrape the last bit of the insides but the girls insisted on doing all of their own carving.

 We finished the evening off with pumpkin cookie decorating.  The final countdown to Halloween is on!

Art At Our House

 We are trying to keep the art flowing around these parts. These are some little still life paintings the girls were working on today.

 The girls have been doing some monster drawing with drawing prompts from the Picklebums blog. We are trying to do a lot more drawing.

 The girls tried some tape resist skeletons inspired by The Artful Parent blog. They used tape to block out a skeleton shape and then covered the whole paper in black finger paint.  When it dried, they peeled off the tape and had an awesome skeleton.  I was surprised by how much I liked the final product.

Saturday

 The girls started off the day by attending a princess themed birthday party for a little friend. They wore the cloaks their MeMine recently made. While they attended the party, I went to help set up the ward Fall Festival (Halloween party.)

 I only had a few minutes to get myself ready and a tiny hand mirror to do my makeup- otherwise I think I could have done a much better job but it was still fun to dress up. I wore another costume my grandma made.

 The girls made a quick costume change and attended the party as the rainbow unicorn and Jem the rockstar.

 There were carnival games and a pie eating contest with no utensils or hands allowed.

Dinosaur Drawings

 These pictures are terribly blurry because the lighting at the dinosaur museum isn't terribly camera friendly and I only had my cell phone.  We went to the musuem to do some drawing in our sketch books and one of the paleontologist suggested the girls submit some drawings for a new exhibit they have.  The girls were thrilled. It made our drawing day even better.

A Horse Of A Different Color

Crazy Hair Day At School

 It is spirit week at Red Fish's school and today was crazy hair day.  Naturally, we attempted a unicorn mane.

Star Student Award

Red Fish got a star student award at school today for great participation in her French class.  I got to go to the assembly.  She was so excited and surprised.