Time is Flying.

Not only is there less than a month until Thanksgiving and less than two to Christmas, but Lucas just turned 7 months old. More than half a year. I miss the newborn him.

But really, we're loving our Lukie. The other kids have the ability to make him SO happy.


And considering that he's probably not yet 13 pounds (sigh!!), he doesn't have all that lame chub holding him down.



And so, we have crawling. He started about 2 weeks ago. Children should not be mobile at 6 months old. So wrong.

He's also got something else to show you:


Yes, both bottom teeth. It's really unfair the way he's growing up all at once. RUDE.

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The Big Reveal.

I know that alot of people get started on their Halloween costumes way early. But with Anna's birthday being so close to Halloween, I try not to think about anything Halloween related before we celebrate her birthday. It keeps me organized and focused on one thing at a time.

So, we finalized our Halloween Costume decisions about 10 days ago. Which put me into a frantic search for all the right parts and pieces. I have to admit that I'm pretty darn proud of myself. I made Miles's costume completely from scratch... no pattern. (A big shout-out to my Mom who walked me through the pants.) And everyone came out looking fairly well like what they were supposed to.

A rundown. With picture reference because I'm sure quite a few of you will have no idea who our obscure costumes are supposed to be... we like it that way.

First up:
Anna - She waivered back and forth so wildly until finally settling on "cowgirl." I couldn't have been happier. We had most everything to pull that off, but I didn't want her feeling slighted by not having any special mom-touches. So. I added some white felt fringe to the bottom of the skirt she picked out. I made her a pink lasso out of braided yarn, and I glued ribbon onto her cowboy, er... girl hat.


As you can see, she wasn't really pleased during this picture. It's because she wanted me to take this picture first:


And a fun close-up of the boots/lasso/fringe.


Next up was Miles. He insisted for the longest time that he wanted to be a "bad guy from StarWarstheCloneWars." Yes, that's how he says it. Considering that he's never seen it, or any of the other Star Wars franchised movies, etc we were a bit baffled. Good job Lucasfilm marketing geniuses. We managed to sway him to dress as something more interesting, albeit obscure.

Enter Totoro:

(He's the HUGE grey dude.)

And well, here's what you get.

And you'll never believe it, but he did actually get recognized a couple of times. But only at Matt's work (aka Nerd Kingdom).


A better shot of the hat, which slayed me.

Next up: Abbie.
Do you watch PBS? Or your kids? If you do, you might know Word Girl.

And yes. She loves words.


You will not believe how hard I tried to find maroon gloves for kids. (That didn't have to be shipped to me.)



She really loved her costume. And again, a rather obscure costume, but she was actually recognized several times. But never by adults. Other kids LOVED her.

And you may not know this, but Word Girl has a sidekick.

Cue Lukie:




Freaking riot, I tell you. Not a single person knew who he was, but that was fine with us. He was making us giggle ALL NIGHT LONG. Especially with that ridiculous antenna, which I couldn't quite make look like an antenna, and not a horn.



But seriously. Hilarious.
And finally, Matt & I.








Just kidding. We don't do that.

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You misundestimated me.

Well, most oh you. Name that TV show?

121. The number of pages in that stack.

Congratulations to Carlee who actually has a brand spanking new baby boy.

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Finally!

After pestering and bugging Matt for several months, he finally relented.

I bought it.

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Make a guess. Win a prize.

So, as some of you know, I'm an avid scrapbooker. LOVE IT. Though, I'm not as into it as I once was. Did you know that once upon a time, I had a page that I created published in a scrapbooking magazine? Crazy, I know.

Well, I've gotten lazy in my filing of pages. I do the same thing with laundry. I wash it, I dry it, I fold it and then just. can't. seem. to. put. it. away. I know some of you suffer from this same syndrome. So, I have this rather large pile of pages sitting around. They're waiting for me to put them into a page protector and into an album.



Here is where you come in. Make a guess. How many pages are sitting there? The person closest to the right answer without going over (I'm channeling Bob Barker) wins a tie appliqued onesie in size 3-6 mos (I'm lazy and that's the size I have on hand).

Contest closes Saturday, November 1st.

By request, you can view a very small sampling of the pages here.

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On voting.

I will admit to be extremely undecided as to who I'm voting for in this election year. On any given day, my opinions can vary wildly. I even took one of those "Who Should I Vote For?" Quizzes. It wasn't definitive one way or the other. I answered 7 questions in favor of one candidate and 6 in favor of the other, and I'm sorry, but that's just not a wide enough margin.

Abbie, however, has her mind made up. They had a mock-election today at school. All the kids got to cast their ballot for either of the two candidates. I don't know if they told them at all what the candidates represented or not, but I'd bet that 6 year old children don't generally understand politics.

Abbie voted for Barack Obama. Which surprised me just a bit. I haven't voiced any biases one way or another at home, so I asked her why she voted for him.

"Well, I like his name. It's funny. Barack Obama. I like it. Also, he has nice brown skin. It looks good on him."



In my opinion, that's as good of a reason as any other. And better than the reasons that some people are voting for their candidates.

And just in case Abbie's school is a litmus test for the nation... John McCain won by two votes.

P.S. Miles stated that he was voting for President Monson. And really, isn't that a better option?

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Five.

Anna celebrated her 5th birthday on Thursday through Saturday. First, her preschool class had cupcakes in her honor on Thursday, then on Friday (her actual birthday) we took her out for a birthday lunch and then Matt took her Chuck E Cheese's for dinner and some games. On Saturday we had her "Friend Birthday."

You see, I have 4 kids. I'm not throwing 4 friend birthday parties/year. And I don't throw parties at party places. We don't have the money. Period. So, our kids are allowed to have friend birthday parties on their 5th, 8th, 12th and 16th birthdays. We keep it small and simple.

And while Anna's way into girlie princess goblety-gook, I'm not. So, I had seen this book on someone's blog way back in June and decided to make this cake (though I didn't buy the book.) I mean, how hard could it be? I've made some pretty fabulous cakes! And I was right! Check it out:

Yeah, I'm pretty proud of myself.


And so a 5th Rainbow Birthday Party it was!
The kids played Hullabaloo (if you don't own this game and have Preschoolers (3-5 years old), you've got to get it), painted on a huge sheet of paper, and had a treasure hunt.

I think it was one of my more successful kid parties!

And only one kid sat in paint!

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