We had a fun Halloween. It was Talley's first, of course, and she had a great time. At first she seemed wary of people being dressed up, but once she realized that she could get candy for simply saying "Trick-or-Treat" at our neighbors' homes she was all over that. She was running as much as possible (despite the fact that she had her first immunizations that day and had super sore legs prior to trick-or-treating) and didn't want anyone to hold her or touch her pumpkin bucket. It was cute to watch her check inside the bucket throughout the evening and say, "Talley's candy?"
Talley's English has been exploding lately. It surprises me much of the time. She is putting together sentences (most of her sentences start with "Can I ...") and trying out new words and phrases all of the time. It has been fun to witness. She is such a spunky little girl. All of her blood work came back with good news. Except it appears that she either had a Hep A vaccine or actual Hep A at some point. I am waiting for more info from the doctor on that one. She is overall super healthy.
I've finished painting my sewing/craft room. I love the color. It is so bright and fresh. Hopefully I will get more creative now. Or at least learn how to sew a straight line. ;-) I have started to paint the half bath on our main level. I am using the same yellow as the school room (the laundry room will also be that yellow as I bought 5 gallons of it before realizing what a ridiculous amount of paint that was--luckily I really love this color). I was hoping to have it finished today, but since my days never go as planned, it got put on the back burner.
Soccer is finished for the season. Yahoo on that! We'll start up again in April and our Saturdays will be swamped again. I like the winter months for taking it easy and cozying up by a fire with a good book and a cup of hot cocoa.
I can't remember if I mentioned here that Tim is now on the stake high counsel? When we moved into our new house, he was released as the second counselor in our old ward's bishopric, and the same night he got his new calling as a high counselor (we moved within our stake). We were both pretty shocked about it and not really expecting him to get a new calling the same night he was released from the bishopric. He likes his new calling a lot, though. He has his first big "High Councilman Sunday" talk this Sunday. He says he will try and hold up with tradition and give a dry, boring talk. ;-) He is very nervous. I'm just thankful it's not me speaking.
Miss Claire turns FIVE in two weeks. Five! My little baby. I have noticed lately that Claire is starting to change and mature a bit. She has been saying the funniest things and just seems to be getting wittier and smarter. The other day she was walking around the house looking for Tim saying, "Daddy? Daddy, where are you?" Tim was in our closet and said in a deep voice, "I'm in your dreams. I'm in your nightmares." Claire laughed and said, "You is! You is in my nightmares. How did you know?" And the other day Talley was in timeout and peed her pants. I was a bit miffed and was lecturing Talley about it (telling her she is not allowed to pee her pants and that if she has to go to the bathroom when she is in time-out she needs to tell me). She started to cry. I wasn't very sympathetic to her tears at the moment. Claire sat down by her and wiped the tears off of Talley's face. Then she looked at me and said, "Well it's your fault! You should have got her out of time-out faster." I was both shocked at her rudeness to me and proud of her defending her little sister.
Beth and Sahara are doing so well in middle school. I miss them so much and sometimes wish they were still being homeschooled. But they are having a great time in public school and excelling. It has been interesting to watch their personalities blossom. My guess for how they would each act in public school was right on the money. They are so different and yet also very similar. It has been interesting to watch them navigate making new friends and finding out who are true friends versus whom are not. We have discussions about their various classmates every single day. And boys. Ugh! I guess it is normal, but I wish they still had the viewpoint that boys have cooties. At least they are both such good girls. I know I can trust them to make the right choices and not to "date" yet (despite having a friend who encouraged Sahara to "go out" with a boy behind our backs--Sahara told her no and said, "I don't lie to my parents"). They both love to read, listen to music, talk about boys, and watch movies. I am so proud of my girls.
Ryland and Kenyon are busy with school work and just being boys. Right now they are both heavily focusing on math in home school. It is funny how they go in spurts. (Sometimes they want to read a lot, and other times they might want to focus on History or Science.) They are both reading a lot, too. Ryland is currently reading Redwall and Kenyon is reading Eragon. They have both recently finished reading Gentle Ben & Robin Hood. And for our personal records, here are few of the books that Ryland (10 yrs old/5th grade) has recently read: Theras and His Town, The Borrowers, King Arthur and His Knights, and The Prince and the Pauper. And some of the books that Kenyon (8 yrs old/3rd grade) has recently read are: Mr. Popper's Penguins, Tales of the Fourth Grade Nothing, and Mary Pope Osborne's Tales from the Odyssey Books 1-4. The five younger kids and I are currently reading On the Far Side of the Mountain, by Jean Craighead George and as a family we are reading The Twits, by Roald Dahl. The boys are both loving scouts, origami, playing with super hero action figures and riding their bikes all over our huge new neighborhood (we live near a pond and they love going to it).
The three littles (Claire, Ezra & Talley) are into hide-and-seek, playing "house", puzzles, view masters, cutting & pasting, coloring, playing with plastic animals, K'Nex, dancing to loud music, trying to help me cook (at the same time), fighting with each other, playing on our back deck, looking at books, building forts and teasing the cats.
Tim and I? We just keep putting one foot in front of the other and try to stay awake! ;-) And we read whenever we can. Right now we're both wondering why we didn't move to California when we had the chance. It is COLD here. ;-)
OK, enough of the wordy update and on to the pictures.
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