Halloween Night

Tonight went much better than this morning. It felt so good outside -- the weather was perfect. I was perfectly comfortable in a T-shirt and shorts! Janika made cute capri-sun trick-or-treating bags for all of the kids.

I took ALL of the kids trick- or-treating on our street (with two strollers) and then all of us went to the neighborhood in our ward where all of the really big houses are. Rick had the baby at this time and so we ditched the strollers and it was so much easier to get around. This was the perfect neighborhood for trick-or-treating because unlike our street, it is well-lit, there are sidewalks wherever you need to walk, and most of the houses are completely decked out with decorations, spooky music, and the works. Of course the kids like the fact that they give out the big candy bars!

Rick doesn't really get into trick-or-treating and would just as soon stay home. I enjoy the fun atmosphere and exercise and so I like to take the kids. They did so great and there was NO whining at all! Janelle is very easily spooked and so she refused to go up to any house that looked too scary. Josh got a little scared at a couple of the houses but handled things surprisingly well. Baby Jennalee slept soundly through the entire thing. It was fun (and the kids saved me their Recess Peanut Butter Cups because they know they are my favorite!!)

Halloween Morning

It was a rough morning trying to get everyone ready and out the door with all of my stubborn kids! Jani was fine -- she was out the door before I got up. Jase said he wasn't going to dress up this year. I said that if he was too old to dress up then he was too old to go trick-or-treating and he could stay home and pass out candy. So he conceded by saying he would be a Hobo. So this morning he put on some old cut up jeans and a T-shirt. I never thought I would say this but I said, "Okay, now go get your shirt dirty!" Believe me, no problem there! He always comes home from school with a dirty shirt! Then I put some brown eye-shadow on him to look like a mustache and beard. He freaked over that one... "What? Make-up?? I am NOT wearing make-up!!" He then went and washed it all off. I explained that you use make-up for most Halloween things -- beards, scars, blood..." I even showed him some pictures from the Internet. He finally went and smeared some eye-shadow back on his face. Then I asked why he was wearing his blue and gold cub scout socks and he said, "Because I don't have any clean socks." Like that has ever stopped him before. A hobo doesn't have clean socks anyway, but not wanting him to smell as bad as he looked I told him to go look through the six loads of clean laundry that was dumped all over my bedroom floor and never put away.

Then there was Jared. He had found a Santa hat a couple of weeks ago which he has been wearing all of the time. He said he wanted to be Santa for Halloween. Well, of course we don't have a Santa Costume. We do have a red devil costume though and so he wore that and took the attached cape and turned it around to the front instead of the back, tying it behind his neck in order to cover up the big black pitch fork on the front of the costumes. I found a perfect big black belt but he refused to wear it saying it was a girls' belt (it was). So he wore his brown church belt instead. Then he was crying because he didn't know how he would get out of the costume in order to go to the bathroom during school. He wore his black church shoes and white socks. I tried to get him to wear black socks to at least give the allusion of black boots but he stuck with white gym socks. He looked more like an elf than Santa. He makes a cute elf though.

Janelle wanted to be a rock star. I told her I could do her hair really wild but she said, "No -- I want it straight down with a head-band." I gave her some black sun-glasses, but she insisted on the purple ones. Jaiden wanted to be a fairy. At least I was able to get a few curls in her hair since she was too engrossed in "Clifford" on TV to care what I was doing. Josh was the dog from "Blues Clues," and Jenna was a little bear. After Jaiden went to pre-school, I took the two youngest to the school parade of costumes. It was so crowded that we had to park several blocks away. I brought my video-camera, but not wanting to waste the battery, I kept it off until I could spot my kids. But then it took so long to actually turn on that by that time the only thing I could get was the back of their heads. Oh well!

Carving Pumpkins

Tonight we invited Brother and Sister Perkins over for dinner, home-teaching, and carving/painting pumpkins. It was fun to visit with them. The kids got to practice a little sign language with the Perkins and had fun with their pumpkins. The three oldest carved their pumpkins and the next three painted theirs. Janelle painted a happy face on one side of her pumpkin and a sad face on the other.

Voting

Well I went and voted early. I can't help but wonder how the results of this election will affect the lives of these little ones in the future..
(Sigh)

Jared -- Jenna's biggest fan!

Jared is going to make such a good Daddy someday!

Time For Church

The first week after Jennalee was born, I kept her home from church. Janelle was worried and said, "How is she going to learn about Jesus?" I told her that since she just came from Heaven I was sure she knew a lot about Jesus already. In fact she could probably teach us about Him if she could talk. The next week I brought the baby to church in a cute little outfit. However my little girls were still concerned because I didn't have her in a dress. So this week I put Jenna in a frilly little dress with a poofy slip. Now she was all was dressed up and could learn about Jesus. Janelle was finally satisfied -- whew!

Primary Letters

Today was the primary program. The kids all did a great job and all of the kids from the Deaf Branch (including our kids) signed all of the songs in ASL. For the closing song all of the kids lined up in a "U" shape around the congregation and sang "I Am a Child of God." It was really touching -- I cried!

In primary the kids wrote letters to their parents. It is always fun getting letters like these! Although Janelle still won't do her jobs (at least not willingly). I am not sure what Jaiden was trying to write but she could hardly contain her excitement when it was time for me to discover the "surprise" on my pillow!

I Wanna Hold The Baby!

Josh loves his new baby sister. This morning he was watching "Superwhy" about Wyatt's baby sister and Josh got all excited and said, "I have a baby sister!" Josh follows me around saying, "I wanna hold the baby! I wanna hold the baby!" I will put her in his arms for a couple of seconds and he always giggles.

Jared is our other "baby holder." this morning he said, "I don't want to go to school -- I just want to stay home and hold my baby!" As soon as Jenna wakes up in the morning Jared rushes to her side to hold her. The same thing happens as soon as he gets home from school.It is precious -- I really need to get some pictures. Jared is a big help since Jennalee LOVES to be held!

Jaiden Cuts Her Own Bangs -- Oops!

I thought we might avoid this particular pitfall of parenting but it finally happened. I came into the kitchen this morning to find a guilty looking girl with a big chunk of her bangs cut off. This is actually the FIRST time this has happened with any of our kids (and hopefully the last!) I guess it was partially my fault. I had cut Janelle's bangs last night and left the scissors right there on the snack bar. It must have been all too tempting to try them out. At least it is her bangs and not another part of her hair -- these won't take as long to grow out. We were planning on taking headshots of the kids soon but that may just have to wait for this little one!

The Bus

Well, this is a our new mode of transportation. Rick is thrilled -- he has wanted a 15 passenger van for a few years now. The kids are excited about it too. I had been adamantly against purchasing one, but with seven kids you start to run out of options and so I finally gave in. The van is bi-fuel (CNG and regular gas) and so we will save money by using natural gas as our main source of fuel. The license plate is quite fitting -- and we didn't even request it -- honest.

We have FOUR car-seats inside (including booster seats) and so it takes at least ten minutes just to get everyone buckled in. (I'll post some pictures of that next time we get the whole family in the van).

I have driven it a few times and so far so good -- as long as I don't have to park in a parking lot that actually has other cars in it.

There are pros and cons to having a bus. First of all it won't fit into our garage. I also really miss having an automatic door that slides open and having a door on both sides (both features of our current mini-van). These doors swing out like a car and so it can be difficult getting in and out. And of course parking, U-turns, and anything else requiring a tight space will certainly not be easy!

But of course I do like the fact that the kids are not all on top of each other and don't have to climb over the seats to get in and out. I like that we can all travel together as a family and I especially like the storage space. We pulled the back seat out and so there is plenty of room to throw in strollers, bikes, and everything else! We also have room for more kids if anyone wants to take their friends on an outing. Rick also wanted one so that he could transport his caroling group at Christmas time. But since we aren't doing the carolers this year, that really isn't an issue. Well, it's time to go pick up Jaiden from pre-school and so I'd better start that long buckling up process!

Janika's Haircut

Janika has wanted to get her haircut for quite awhile now but had to wait for Tuacahn to be finished (they wanted long hair for her part). Well, tomorrow night is closing night and so she went ahead and got it chopped off. She saved the pony-tail in order to donate it to Locks of Love. She then went to the Tuacahn cast party where they gave out awards to different cast members. The funny thing is Janika received the "Rapunzel" award for her long hair (which she no longer has)!!

Happy Birthday Janelle!

Today was Janelle's sixth birthday!! She was so excited! Janika did such a good job planning Janelle's birthday party last year that I put her in charge of it again this year. Janelle had a Birthday Halloween costume party with her closest neighborhood friends. They had a dance party to Halloween music, played "pin the bone on the skeleton," "pass the present," had witches brew (rootbeer, dry ice, and plastic bugs), opened presents and had cake and ice-cream. Janelle is already starting to say, "I'm almost seven now!" Why are kids so anxious to grow up?

Jennalee Nine Days Old

I've received word from our family up North that we need to update Jennalee's pictures. So here are a few taken today. Everyone always jokes how their first born gets tons of pictures taken of him or her and then it gets less and less with each baby until they are hard pressed to find a decent picture of their last born. Well, since this will be my first baby born since I started blogging, I am sure she will get plenty of photo coverage!! I am happy to report that feeding and sleeping schedules have improved greatly over the past few days. Jenna finally started sleeping in her bassinet a couple of nights ago (rather than next to me) and slept her longest stretch so far last night (six hours) -- Yeah! She has also started to take longer and more consistent naps during the day. Aaaah....sleep!!

Gerilyn (Rick's sister) arrived last night and will be here to help out for a few days. We didn't know if she would be able to come because she was in a car accident last week which left her beat up and bruised. Her arm is in a splint and sling but she is a trooper and came anyway! We are grateful for such a wonderful family!!