Fun Photos

I realized that I didn't put up any pictures from Halloween itself.  The children refused to all pose together and Delaney refused to get out of the stroller, so here's what I have...

The more cooperative older children.  Joshua is "Desert Indy".  I would not pay the $30 at Target for an Indiana Jones costume, so we put this together and I braided him his whip.  Marian is a cow girl and Callie is the unicorn.

Joshua was thrilled with the idea of having a hairy chest.  You can't see it so well, but I used my eyeliner pen to make scruff on his chin and hair on his chest.  He's showing it off here. 

We went to the park on Tuesday, since there was no school again.  We took a picnic lunch and met my friend Sherrie there with her kids.  They really love this park.  Its all the fabulous sand there that makes it great. 

Marian refuses to smile for pictures!  She's not thrilled to get it taken most of the time either.

Rylee got her thumb in her mouth and I had to get a shot.  She's been slurping on her fists and fingers like crazy.  I am at debating point:  should I encourage the thumb, or try to get her onto a pacifier?  I LOVE that Delaney sucked her thumb and was able to self soothe as a baby, but now she's 2 1/2 and still pops it in her mouth.  The pacifier is good, but they can't put it in their mouth for a few more months.

Joshua built a fantastic castle with walls and everything.   The sand was still damp from several days rain, so it was perfect!

Delaney was quite creative.  She lined up all the cars under the monkey bars and then went across the monkey bars all by herself.  Unfortunately, she reached this point and that's where I had to hustle over to help her to the end! Such a brave and smart kid!

It was a bit chilly, and Callie started the day in long pants.  She went down a wet slide and got her jeans all wet, so she had to change into the spare pair of clothes in the van.  Callie loves to picnic more than the others.  Although, I will say, it was a fairly sandy meal!

 
My cute boy is a good brother. He actually does a pretty good job holding her and has been really helpful.  He was so sweet with her here that I had to get a picture.

I want to mention something totally unrelated now.  In Primary on Sunday all the kids were given a calendar for the month of November and a stack of stickers.  There was also a note saying that they were encouraged to do service and when they served someone, they got to put a sticker on for that day.  I thought this was such a great idea!  Not only do the kids try to be nicer, but us parents start looking for better behavior.  It has been a good motivator in our home.  Marian has been asking for ways to get stickers on her chart.  For a kid who doesn't naturally want to serve, it has been a good tool.  And it has been good for me to look for kind acts from them.  I don't always see the good stuff, but now that I'm looking for it more, it puts me in a different frame of mind and I like it.