My little witch

Rylee had a birthday party to attend and it was a "costume Party" which pretty much meant, a Halloween party for the kids birthday after Halloween.  Which I find to be brilliant.

But I digress...

Rylee dressed up in her same costume she donned for candy-grabbing.  So I thought I ought to get some pictures so I could feel like a good mom.  And thus, I give you, Rylee in her witch costume:

Rylee's Baptism!

 Rylee turned 8 in September.  They like to do the baptisms monthly and the first Saturday of each month, our Branch has the building reserved for any kids who have turned 8.  Unfortunately, General Conference landed on the first Saturday of October, so that was a no go.  And I got caught up in other things and they reorganized the Primary Presidency and it kind of ended up being a little thrown together at the last minute.

Which was fine. The new Primary President was awesome and took care of all the details.  She printed up a beautiful program (which was waaay nicer than I was planning to print off) and coordinated getting the font filled and making sure we had a Branch Presidency member there, and a bunch of other little things.  All I had to do was make treats.  And Rylee wanted donuts so we stopped by Dunkin Donuts and pre-ordered 150 donut holes to be picked up Saturday morning.

On Friday Rylee said she wanted a photo shoot like Callie had. Ack!  I took some cute photos in the yard and ran to the 1 Hour Photo place and got them done. She was pleased. And adorable.  And looking so grown up!

Baptism day, things went beautifully.  I didn't expect a big turnout since we haven't made many friends who would feel obligated to come, and we didn't make a big deal about it.  We still had a few families and I was impressed that a sweet young couple with 2 small children showed up, mostly because I did not even know their name!

The program was perfect.  Dan's Mom gave her talk through the computer, Callie gave the other talk and both were wonderful and well received.  Josh was able to perform the baptism, which was pretty special.  He did have tp do it twice- by the time he got her hair all under, her feet were coming up. It was just perfect though.  Dan did the confirmation and we enjoyed delicious treats.

So it was a successful day!

Please enjoy the pictures from her impromptu photoshoot with my phone camera:

Posing with her photos.  And the recently released primary president did the framed photo for her.  Isn't that sweet?! 

My oldest and my youngest!  I love them so much! 

Feeling like this is a slightly inappropriate photo.  Dan took it as they were getting settled.

Halloween.... or.... proof I'm a bad mom

So Halloween happened and the weather was glorious.  Which is good, because two back-to-back weekends of typhoons tanked EVERY Halloween activity in the area.  So this was it.

I am a terrible mom.  I took exactly zero pictures of the night.  Delaney and Ryle decorated and did a nice job.  I carved a really cute witch pumpkin.  Callie dressed up with her black cloak and horse head to pass out candy and she was a hit.  Marian debated going out for candy but decided to stay in.  Dan took Delaney and Rylee around the neighborhood.  Here is the only photo.... and the neighbor took it!

Delaney is a Cereal Killer (see her knife and box of cereal?), and Rylee is a witch.

I don't know if their loot haul was good.  I didn't really want any of it.  And we had 2 large bags of candy left over.  I had gotten a lot, since I didn't know how many kids to expect.  So we have plenty of leftovers!

Rylee's loose tooth

 This kid kills me.  Every time she has a loose tooth she won't pull it, or really even wiggle it.  She says she DOES wiggle it, but she means only with her tongue, so it isn't actually getting much of a workout. Remember this past summer when we were at the Water Park and she had a dangling tooth she wouldn't pull out and she cried and whined and couldn't do anything?  Yeah, I forcefully pulled it and felt dreadful about it. So I had promised I would not do that again.

Which meant we were back in the same whining, crying position again with this tooth.  Darn thing was just dangling!  Which meant every time she closed her mouth it would clunk and she would cry.  So she couldn't eat anything.  She had a meltdown in the morning over breakfast she couldn't eat but I sent her off to school anyway.  She was fine.

But when she got home, it was all drama again.  She couldn't eat dinner, although she managed to suck 3 strands of spaghetti in through the other gap.  Dan said if she pulled it out he would take her to ice cream, and if she didn't, then he would take everyone else.  Of course, he ended up taking everyone, including Rylee.... with the tooth still dangling in her mouth!

And here she is.  Can't eat her ice cream with that tooth!

But everyone else can!

I thought for sure the tooth would fall out in the middle of the night.  I debated sneaking in to pull it while she was sleeping, but didn't.  The next morning it was more tears and complaints of how hungry she was.  I finally said that I was going to pull it out in 5 minutes. 

And I did.  She screamed and hollered and squalled like a baby bear, but I headlocked her and gave that silly tooth a tiny tug an out it popped.  She cried- mostly from relief, I expect, because she gave me a hug and said thank you. Then she ate a big breakfast and I drove her to school. 

 See, she was happy after it was gone! (Right front second tooth.)

Typhoon Saola came to visit

 A little baby typhoon came to see us!  We got a direct hit, with the eye of the storm passing right over us at lunchtime.  It was kind of crazy intense.  Not they eye of the the storm, but the rest of it!  We woke up to blasting wind and rains.  It blew towards the front of the house and was so forceful, it was shoving water through the bottom of the front door.  We had to keep towels there and change them every 2 hours or so.  It was crazy to watch it batter the banana tree outside the living room.

Of course, the girls had to go for a run outside to check it out.

 There was a lot of silly running around and checking out the flow of water. You can see that we live at the top of a hill, so we won't flood.

 My poor little banana tree.  It got blown this direction all morning.  And after they eye of the storm passed, the wind was blowing the opposite direction.  The poor tree lost about 3 of it's giant stalks.  It was sad.  And all the leaves are in tatters.  

The girls ran amok for a lot longer than I expected!  They were saturated, but smiling when they came back in.

Someone else was also saturated, but less thrilled about it.

Happier now! 

And the next morning all was clear and it was over! Our damage was limited to the banana tree.  Marian and Callie's closet had a leak that dripped water from the ceiling, but it was no big deal.  The wind was strong enough that despite being in the slightly protected porch area, our 4'x6' shed was pushed about a foot.  We didn't lose power or water, unlike some others.  So it was a good storm for us!