Michael becomes a Bear scout

After Michael turned 10 he graduated from Wolf Scouts to Bear Scouts and for the first time actually got to pin his award on Mommy.  Somehow he missed that the previous two times.  Candice is shown with one of her "older" hair do's here :)

Michaels soccer season

This season was Michaels "break out" season in soccer.  He has always liked defence because he thought he was really good and it, and didn't like to run as much as a forward.  But this year ended up playing forwards a few times and really liked it.  He has always had a strong kick as a defender, and now got to use it as a forward, scoring 3 goals in an early game this year, one of them being at center field.  Being how 10 year old kids are impressed easily he got the mantra of "best player on the team" after that and really enjoyed playing soccer as forward.  Below is his picture and team picture I made since I was one of the coaches again this season.

Michael turns 10

So this one is really late, but I am wanting to use videos more often now and that just seems to take longer.  However, after Rachel becoming a teenager a week earlier, Michael decided to keep the trend going and become the 2nd double digit in age child.  We had a family party at home for him where he got to have us come to school for lunch during the day and then he gets to pick dinner and activity at night.  Below is a short video of him actually "turning 10".

A few days later we had his birthday party with his friends over where he played soccer in the backyard, followed by a rousing round of "guns", then a game called "5-10" which is like hide and seek in the dark.  A little earlier he wanted to do some target practice with shooting his bb gun at soda cans and also using the bow and arrow to shoot some cardboard deer with his friends.  It was a really fun time, but parties are really hard to plan now we are finding out!  After the outside festivities we came inside for some bobbing for apples and some Halloween inspired treats.




The surpise of the party was how quickly Megan took to the bow and arrow.  She basically picked it up and started shooting better than the boys at Michaels party!  A total tom-boy.




 

Candice's new new new hairdo

If you've lost count so have we :).  But they all look awesome.  Here she is as the new brunette again.

October Halloween party

This is one of our favorite parties of the year.  Candice goes all out and makes all kinds of scary treats and we eat too much of it.  This year we planned right and had one of our friends host it at their house :).

Here are the zombie brownies, rats on a stick and chocolate covered cookie dough balls.

Candice went as a cow girl and had fun with a wig of long brown hair.

Megan couldn't make up her mind.  She wanted to be a character from a zombie video game, so she chose to be a scary chainsaw guy (what little girl doesn't want to be?).

Michael wanted to be a skeleton that pumped blood through his body.



Rachel wasn't a zombie for the first time in years, even though I called her a zombie cat.



I was Indiana Jones.



Candice and Friends practiced the Michael Jackson "Thriller" dance and peformed it for us.



We have a teenager!! Rachel turns 13!!

Rachel has officially become a teenager!  After all the time slowing, convincing and begging, she finally decided to not listen to us and turn thirteen away :).  She already had her party earlier in the year at the amusement park so we just had her family part this time.  She already looks older somehow magically...

Fall Family picture

The leaves were changing, beautiful weather, everyone looked nice - It was a perfect day for a picture...  But it's amazing how hard it is to find a good place to take pictures, and then having to deal with the sun in your eyes, and then even using a self timer....  However it turned out pretty good.