Halloween

So I'm really behind in blogging. I had good intentions of keeping up but my life just kind of got in the way. It's December - there's a million things to do but I'm going to try and catch up while I'm up with the youngest and the other two are sleeping.

The kids loved carving pumpkins for Halloween. Coye absolutely loved digging through the pumpkin innards - he's such boy. :) The girls had fun drawing their faces and then carving them out (with a little help).

Costumes this year were so easy. The girls wanted to be princesses so all we had to do was get out dress-up clothes. Coye was a farmer - we borrowed the sweatshirt and hat so all I had to buy was the boots. They were so cute!

Mom and Dad came down one Sunday to help us carve some more pumpkins. We used stencils this time which was much harder. I'm so glad they were here to help!

We went trick or treating with my nieces and nephew. It's so nice that the kids are older and can go up to the houses on their own now. They had so much fun!

Lately . . .

Just a few pictures to update you on what's been going on in our lives for the past month:

Coye helping Daddy make breakfast

And watching a little TV too

Chloe and Coye reading books together

Waiting for their toenails and fingernails to dry after Aunt Dani painted them

He's such a climber!

Having a snack outside while we work on staining the deck

Riding in the combine with Daddy

Getting ready to get down

My little hauling buddy - he was so tired!

Snack while mommy cleans upstairs

Taking a silent reading break - she has really gotten into chapter books, especially Junie B. Jones

We got pigs again to butcher. They're pretty cute right now.

He loves going down the slide now - he can do it all by himself and does it over and over again.

Painting watercolor for the first time

He did really good- didn't try to eat the paint or anything.

My friend Vanessa had a baby so we went and visited.

Playing the piano together

Shed

Calvin also spent time this summer putting tin on the shed next to the pool. It's amazing how it's an instant transformation once it's done. It went from looking kind of dumpy to looking like a new building. We just have to decide what we are doing to the front - I think the latest plan is a garage door and a walk door - and then it will be finished. It will be so nice to be able to put all of the pool stuff in there rather than in the garage.

North side of the building

North and east sides of the building

The front that's not done quite yet

Visit with Gabe

Hannah, David, and Gabe came and visited us over Labor Day weekend. The boys were so funny together. Coye loves to give hugs and wrestle, so he of course did that with Gabe too. They had fun playing together and we loved having them here.

Playing with the girls' hamper

Wrestling

Aubrey's playdoh pretzel

The boys in the tub

Coye and his shark towel

Playing ball before bed

Pool Deck

Ever since we put the pool up three years ago, we knew we wanted to build some kind of deck. We just hadn't been able to decide exactly what we wanted. I wanted one that went all the way around so we wouldn't have to chase balls and rafts when they blew out of the pool, but Calvin wasn't so sure - it meant more work and more money. After months of looking at plans and trying to figure out what we wanted to do, he finally found a couple of plans that he really liked. (At this point, I really didn't care what we had, I just wanted a deck around the pool.) He worked a month and a half this summer building it mostly by himself, although his brother did help a few days. It turned out awesome! Once it was built though, it had to be stained to protect it this winter. I had to sand all of the stamps that were on the wood from the lumber yard (talk about a major pain) and then wait for them to yellow so they would take stain the same color as the rest of the wood. I made plans with mom and dad to come up over Labor Day weekend and help me stain it. Kathy and Eileen were also going to come over and Jenna was going to babysit the kids. Of course, that weekend it rained, so we weren't able to work on it. We spent the next three weekends and a few other random days working on it. Thank goodness mom, dad, Eileen, and Kathy helped or it never would've been finished! I love it though and love how it turned out. Now I just need to find some patio furniture on sale.

Chore Chart

One of my goals this summer was to find and make a chore chart for the girls. They each had a magnetic responsibility chart in their rooms, but most of the time, we just didn't take the time to do them - it was all the way upstairs, they didn't have a visual reminder of what to do, and their jobs change daily so what they have to do one day, they might not need to do the next. I searched on Pinterest and found this idea to make individual cards (that I then laminated) that I could switch daily. I bought a couple cheap frames from Walmart and then some command hooks and put them together. It has turned out amazingly well. I absolutely love it and I don't have to spend time yelling at them to get things done or tell them what they need to do for the day. They just have to look at their charts to know. They usually have a set of morning chores and a set of afternoon/evening chores that vary by what needs to be done for the day. When they've finished a chore, they simply flip it over, which lets them and me know that it's been done. If they get all their chores done for the day, they get to put a sticker on their reward chart. Once they've received six stickers, they get $1.00. I wasn't sure I wanted to start giving them an allowance, but Calvin and I both thought this would be good motivation and give the girls a chance to learn about saving and spending their own money. I love the reward chart too, because if the girls tell me they don't want to do a certain chore, then I will tell them fine but they won't get a sticker for the day, which usually makes them quit complaining and get it done. I knew I wanted to put their names above their frames, but didn't want to paint or anything crazy like that, so I borrowed my sister-in-law's Cricut and some letter cartridges and cut the letters out of regular black Contact paper (which I had to order online because I couldn't find any in the stores). I love how it turned out!

Aubrey's First Loose Tooth

Aubrey has been waiting for her teeth to get loose for forever! Several of her classmates when she was in four year old preschool and in kindergarten lost teeth and she kept wigging her teeth hoping to make them loose. She would tell us that her tooth was loose, but when we tried to wiggle it, there was no sign of anything being loose. We would just tell her to keep wiggling. So when she told me on the first day of school that she had a loose tooth, I really didn't believe her. . . . until I felt it. It really was wiggly! She was so excited and spent the next two weeks wiggling away. Two weeks ago (September 14th) we ate supper and then her tooth started bleeding a lot. I felt it and was surprised that it hadn't already fallen out - it was that loose. I told her to just pull it out, but she couldn't. So I said I would do it. I tried to pull it, but I couldn't get it, so I started pushing it back and forth and out it came. She was so excited! She wrote the tooth fairy a note (her idea) and then put it in the tooth pillow that I had just finished making for her a couple of weeks ago. She woke Chloe and I up early the next morning to show us the certificate and money that the tooth fairy had left for her. She was thrilled!

Her loose tooth - just waiting to fall out!

After it came out

She loves sticking a straw through it!

Her tooth is in the bag - I was afraid she'd lose it before we got it in her tooth pillow

The note she wrote and her tooth

Her tooth pillow

Tooth and note in the pillow just waiting for the tooth fairy

The certificate and money she got from the tooth fairy the next morning 

Exactly two weeks later (September 28th), she lost another tooth. This time Daddy pulled it out. She was excited to have lost another one and again wrote the tooth fairy a note. She got a note in return and some more money.