The kids and their creations

We did pumpkin carving for Family Home Evening this week and used pumpkins we grew in our own backyard this year. Michael still won't reach into the pumpkin and touch "the brains". He has had a clean hand fetish since he was young. Rachel carved her's all by herself, and Megan designed hers by herself now.

 

 

 

 

Halloween Costumes

We had our ward "trunk or treat" last Saturday so the kids got dressed up. Daddy made Michaels costome out of paper mache and duct tape - He is Marcus Fenix from "Gears of War" (his favorite video game). Rachel and he friend are "sleepover Zombies" (which she has been some sort of Zombie for the past 3 years now - she was a Zombie bride last year). Megan is a transformer (she always picks Michaels costume from the year before).

 

 

 

Megans "new thing"

The other day when I was working in the office and watching Megan at the same time I decided to show her something "really cool" called "tracing pictures". When Megan gets into something she really gets into it, and once I showed her how to hold a picture up against the window and put a piece of paper over it so she could trace it, I saw the little lights in her eyes twinkle. What was really a diversionary tactic to keep her busy turned into "Daddy, print me a Spongebob picture, Daddy print me another picture, ETC". The diversion obviously backfired. Our great room window became covered with all sorts of pictures for her to trace.

 

 

 

Megan learns to ride a bike

Michael and Rachel both got new bikes so Megan inherited Michaels old bike. I put the training wheels back on and Megan hesitantly tried it out and in a few minutes was whizzing around. She even wanted to go on a family bike ride, until she hit her first hill and yelled "this is so frustrating!!"

Fall Family pictures

Busy day, and once Candice gets the camera warmed up she's in the zone, which is usually good for about 200 pictures. These are some of the family pictures we took by the lake as well as the massive leaf piles that are forming in our front yard.

Family Halloween pictures

Candice wanted to take a "ghost family picture" this year after something she saw in a scrapbooking magazine. I thought that was awesome. I had visions of zombies and other cool things but Candice wanted us to be "just a nice family of ghosts in the 1950s". Right. So after numerous tries with Megan screaming in the pictures "because that's what ghosts do Daddy" and Michael contorting to look like a zombie, these are the end products. Pretty scary. Megan's comment in the cemetery was "this is where all the zombies live under the ground?"

Michaels Baptism

Hard to believe Michael turned 8 already. His baptism was great today. Daddy got to baptize and confirm him. He actually got baptized on his 8th birthday to the day which is kind of unique. He also got baptized on the same day as one of the cute girls in his class so we had to get a picture of the two of them together. He's making his "forced smile standing next to a girl face".