Halloween

Hopefully no one is really observant and interested enough to notice that Micah was a lion for Halloween last year (but a different lion), and that Ammon was a bat last year....the very same bat. The thing is, I started to try and gently give other suggestions when Ammon was insisting to get out his bat costume to wear...and then I thought "what in the world am I doing?!" This is so easy and he is so excited about it. I have such a love/hate attitude about Halloween sometimes. It really is fun, and I love seeing the kids all dressed up, but it always seems so overwhelming and overstimulating getting them all ready, and taking them to all the related activities (usually by myself)--and it almost always seems to be accompanied by tantrums and crying and whining much more than the normal doses. This year, we had Grandma and Grandpa Passey visiting so that made it funner than the usual even. Any holiday shared with family is fun. Travis decided to do something different one of the pumpkins this year. I kind of wondered about it but it was all made clear to me when I found out at the ward trunk or treat there was going to be a "competition". And guess who won? ...Rrrraaaar

Noah dressed as Noah...at teh last minute he decided he did not want to wear the beard or even dress up at all. I told him that was fine, but he would have to pay for anything I had gotten for his costume that HE had asked for, and for my time in making the robe (I got out the sewing machine for the first time in 4 years!). I only asked for $10, but he has been trying and trying to save for a pet, so he decided he would like to dress up after all. I think he was glad because he got all kinds of comments saying how awesome he looked. Some people did call him Moses or a shephard, and one even said he was Santa Claus, but most of them knew right away...

My batty boy--Ammon wore this costume every day for 2 weeks leading up to Halloween to get his fill. He really gets attached to things.

I love this picture.

My cute little pumpkin--I felt a little guilty not dressing her up in something completely girly and using the costume Ammon had used his first Halloween, but my friend Tinah helped me to girl it up and we won't confuse their pictures... This little girl is SO much fun. We seriously cannont get enough of her. She is so cute and happy and smiley and good natured. I love how babies bring out tenderness and goodness in everyone. That's a great reason to try to have one around at all times, right?

October

My big girl sitting to tall and strong--this was the beginning of October. She started sitting at 6 months, and at 7 months started the cute inch worm, army crawl, scooting. It was kind of nice at first because if you sat her up, she was stuck there--she didn't know how to get don't and go somewhere. Then she figured out how to just make herself fall, and just the past couple of weeks (so at 7 1/2 months) has figured out how to go more smoothly from sitting to crawling to sitting again. I could watch her and her little bum wiggle all day long. She is so cute! Noah is still bringing her down every morning with exclamations of how cute she is and how much he loves her. I will be so sad the day her brothers start getting annoyed with her and not thinking she is their favorite person in the world any more. But maybe that will never happen?...For now, we all soak her in as much as we can.

Ammon with his pumpkin from his field trip to the pumpkin patch.

I love just running into things like this as I am putting kids to bed. This seems like just a simple tower, but on further inspection I was realizing the thought and dynamics that actually made it work. He had to use certain books for each level and adjust them perfectly for the perfect balance. Around here books are good for many many reasons.

Ammon is so creative. I am able to keep and preserve most of Kaden's good drawings and art work, but with Ammon's creations they never get recorded. I need to just start taking pictures of some of the things he does. He loves to just build things, usually with paper and tape (and sticks). A couple of months ago he got his brothers involved and the built a bunch of dragons that were really impressive. I never got those recorded...sad. And Travis found this apple tree up in his room the other day. If he wishes for a certain toy, he usually just decided to make that thing himself. I love it. When his paper and tape frenzy started a couple of years ago, Travis told me it was awesome and it was okay if we were going through a roll of tap a day and a lot of paper. Then after awhile we both grew weary of little scraps of cut up paper ALL OVER the floors, and tape plastered on the table and floors and bench. So we stopped buying tape for awhile, and now Ammon is just starting back up and trying to be a little more conscious of his messes, but it really is amazing to see him work out how to build things that never would have occurred to me.

Milestones

Well it's been a big month for T, eating her first solid and learning to sit up. She was 15 lbs 2 oz at her 6mth appointment. The doctor was a little worried that she has gone from 95th to 50th to 25th percentile and wants us to come back at 8 months for a weight check. I have always had very sturdy and solid babes, but when I had friend with little ones and doctors would say something, I always roll my eyes and tell them how obviously fine they are. Yet I start to think about it and get a little worried, now that it's me. But not really. She's such a good little girl. Happy and content and cute. And I love how tiny she looked in this highchair when we first put her in it.She can barely see over the tray...

I also discovered she does still like the swing sometimes. We were just forgetting to use it.

First big girl foods.

Look at this big girl sitting up by herself!

Reconnecting with old friends

Our next door neighbors from Mountain Home moved to Pennsylvania about a year ago. They kept saying they were going to come this way for a family vacation and wanted to visit and I just never believed they actually would make it. Well, this month was the month--They came last Saturday and stayed 3 nights with us, went to church with us on Sunday, and let me watch their wee one while they went to Williamsburg on Monday. I was so happy that all the kids seemed to get along so well. You never know what you are going to get with these Passey boys sometimes. Noah is not the most social and animated person, but he was so excited to see a childhood friend. They got along great and even planned a piano recital together which they invited our neighbors to and performed for us all on Monday night. Hmmm I need to get my friends' pictures from her, because she took a lot more...

There was lots of baby playing and fort building...

We met up with them again at Jamestown on Thursday to say goodbye and spend a couple of more hours with them.

These two were just little 2 year olds the last time they were together!

All the kiddos

Somebody outgrew Noah...

Ammon's Beach Party

I saw the sand pail birthday cake picture online and loved how fun (and EASYmostly) it looked. Ammon was all over it when I planted the seed and we decided to do a true beach birthday party. It's so nice to be at a place that the kids are going to have a blast no matter how disorganized and scatterbrained the party organizer may or may not be. I had all sorts of things planned that just didn't happen because #1: I am a scatterbrain, and #2: the kids were having too much fun and didn't even want the cupcakes until we forced them.

These cakes were SO yummy! I would like to say I did a healthy cake recipe like I have done in the past, but it was so much easier to just use a mix if I was going to be planning party stuff, too. It's fun how I start with thinking we will invite just two friends of choice, and then it blossoms. Mostly people would think it was not many but with 6 friends and all of their families, and then siblings, we had like 30 people. The weather was so nice to us!

Here is my 6 year old Birthday boy. What a fun and handsome kid.

School has begun

Noah--4th grade! Mr Babcock's class

Ammon--kindergarten--Mrs Williamson's class (yeah!--I LOVE her)

Kaden 2nd grade--Mrs True's class

Of course the kindergarteners need their special alert necklaces to make sure everyone will go out of their way to help them end up in the right places...

It was so strange putting 3 kids on the bus. It seems like we just moved here to VA and put Noah on the bus at this corner. But that was in the middle of his first grade year. Somehow time decided to go turbo on me at that moment and suddenly there are 3...I don't know quite what to think of that...

Small World

Our Stake always has a temple day on Labor Day--we actually hadn't intended on going this year with school starting the next day, and with Taryn still being little-ish, but we decided on Sunday night that we would make a day trip of it and go. Their was a meeting on the 7th floor that we decided I would go to, and then Travis would do a session or do initiatories. He ended up doing initiatories because he just missed the last session. It's funny to see the hand of the Lord in all the little things we do and decide--as he was finishing the initiatory he went to shake the hand of the gentlemen helping, and looked up into the face of his Mission President from the Dallas TX mission. President and Sister Hanks are serving in the Washington D.C. mission and we had no idea. We met them outside the temple when Sister Hanks was done with her session, just for a few minutes to visit. I love how small the world becomes, especially as a member of the church. It's fun being in the military, because that makes it become even smaller. Anyway, I see this as our special blessing for deciding to go to the temple when it seemed so much easier to stay home and clean and prepare things for the week. How fun!