Pictures by Bubbe

It's fun whenever Bubbe comes to visit because she always brings her camera!  I love having nice pictures of the kids.  It was really cold this day and the kids were really great sports.

Papa was on smile duty and was great!

Lots of random happenings

I don't know where they got the idea, but Benny and Andy wanted to fly and made some suits for it.

Needed: haircut

Our timer shot to get a picture for Grandma's and Grandpa's Christmas card.

This turned out pretty well, but we ended up getting a nice one later.

Our Thanksgiving "Thankful Tree."

Our flax...

I had left our open 50 pound bag of flax up on my chair.  I think I knew this would happen.

A school worksheet of Andy's.

Our scavenger.

A growing Thankful Tree.

Andy's turkey from art class.

We finally got to visit with our good friends the Clarks who live in Ohio!  We are so grateful they were able to come and spend a long afternoon and evening with us.  It had been years since we had seen each other in Provo and it is fun to be close enough for visits like this.  I didn't get any pictures of the kids, but they played so well together.  Just like old times!  This is a picture of Chris and Laura pointing to a note Laura had written on our white board in Provo after a dinner we had with friends.  We kept it this long, I think we have to keep it forever now.

Disguises:

Lilia disguised as Benny.

I am not sure who this is!

Anne disguised as Andy.

Halloween

For the first time, ever, I think, I put more work into my costume than anybody else's.  A couple of days before Halloween I decided I could whip up a Wonder Woman costume pretty quickly.  It came together really well, but there was quite a bit of work involved.

I couldn't find a red t-shirt, so I decided to make one.  I am really happy with how it turned out and I have plans to make more t-shirts for myself since I wear them all the time!  I found the graphic online and tried my hand at a freezer paper stencil.  Amazing, I tell you.  Everything else came together without any trouble.  I am really happy with how it turned out.

Spencer went to work on Halloween dressed as The Doctor.  I don't think there was anyone who got the reference.  Especially because there is a doctor who used to work at the hospital who always wore bow ties.  Everybody kept asking if that is who he was.  Still fun.

Lilia is the only one I got pictures of!  She ended up with a few different costumes.  All of them very low maintenance.

I have to mention Anne's witch on the door.  Every time I saw her I laughed.  There is something about the mouth that makes me think of a piranha and paired with the pink eyes, just perfect.

Some neighbors took a group picture, which was so nice.  Spencer pulled out his zoot suit, which all the kids loved.  Benny was Anakin Skywalker, Andy was Optimus Prime (turned Jedi when some neighbors gave us a lightsaber!), Lilia started out as a cow girl, Anne was Rapunzel (wearing her sleeping hat), and Jane finished us off as the monkey.

It was really cold that night.  Janie, I think, was dressed the most appropriately.

Around this time Jane also started pulling herself to standing!

Fall Break: the Pumpkinliner

The rest of the week we stayed pretty close to home, but by Friday I was thinking I should take the kids  on a day trip or something.  I asked on our ward facebook page if anyone had any ideas for something simple.  A sister in the ward messaged me about the train that goes from Connersville to Metamora in Eastern Indiana.  I looked it up and saw they were running their "Pumpkinliner" on Saturday!  It is a fifteen minute train ride and a short hay ride to the pumpkin patch and all the kids get to pick a pumpkin.  It was quite cold (in retrospect, it couldn't have been that bad.  We were outside with skin exposed and survived.  We have since been much, much colder), but we all had a great time.

We started and ended the train in Connersville and decided to drive down to Metamora to see some of their sites and get some lunch.  It was a very fun-filled day.

Janie fell asleep in between.

The grist mill is typically powered by the canal but there was a part broken so they were using the secondary power source.

On the way home we drove through Andersonville and had to stop for a picture!

Another wipeout.

Fall Break: The Children's Museum

The next day (Tuesday, 22 Oct) Spencer got done with work early so we decided to go to The Children's Museum.  That is always a favorite!

digging for fossils

climbing in playscape

Anne actually got scared up there, which is not typical.  She has been more monkey than any of the kids!  I had to climb up and help her down.  It is a lot tighter squeeze than it looks!

the carousel is always a favorite