Halloween

Halloween happened. Not much to say about it except that I felt like I had to dress my kids up multiple times for so many different Halloween events. What's up with that? What happened to just dressing up on Halloween night. Anyway, the kids had a blast and Ruby was so hilarious to watch. She couldn't believe that we would let her walk around with a bucket of candy. She got a dum-dum sucker from next door and had opened it and finished it by the time we made it back to our driveway. That was pretty much how it went for the rest of the night. At our ward party I found her more than once at the sucker tree game where all she had to do was pull a sucker off of the tree and it was hers. I dare say that she has a favorite holiday now.

Ruby was a last minute flower. She was going to be a ballerina, but the weather was cooler than anticipated. Thankfully she is still young enough to not care.


Lyda decided a while ago that she wanted to be Snow White because of her short hair. I thought that was great because we already had the dress.


Kode always has to pick something a little bit different each year. Something that not everybody will recognize. This year it was Astro Boy (not my favorite movie). He originally wanted to be Rusty the boy robot, but I sort of discouraged that because other than us, nobody would know who he was. Regardless what he chooses, I always find myself trying to throw together a costume. Fortunately Astro Boy didn't take much work.




Trick or Treating at Grandma & Grandpa Crandell's house.


One thing that I learned from this Halloween, is that in the future if I need to choose between spraying a whole head with black hair spray or buying a wig, I will go with the wig. That stuff is so messy.

Kode is 5 . . . I mean 4!

Well three days after Ruby's birthday celebration, it was Kode's turn. Oh how excited he was to have his birthday. I wonder if he still thinks he might catch up to Lyda. All day people asked him how old he was and he would start to tell them and then realize he couldn't remember, so he'd turn to me and quietly ask how old he was, and then he would turn back to the person asking and excitedly tell them he was 4. As the day went on he was getting the hang of handling the question himself, and then for some reason kept confusing 4 with 5. So for a majority of the day he told people he was 5. I'm happy to report that a month later he knows, without asking, that he is 4 years old. So we planned a little birthday party this year for Kode. We went to Jump and Shout which is made up of inflatables and tubes to climb through. It was a blast. The party may have been an hour too long, but the kids really did have a great time. And for the most part it was an ideal setting. Kode was in absolute heaven and that was the best part of the day. My friend Jessica was so great to take so many pictures of the event for me. Happy birthday Kode-Man. We love you so much and all of the extra testosterone that you bring into our home. You are boy through and through!

Ruby's Birthday!

Ruby turned 2 this last month. I can't believe she's 2 already! We kept her celebration pretty low key since she really doesn't play with friends at this point anyway. I happened to be babysitting the Jones kids on her birthday so we had cupcakes and opened presents with them. It was perfect for a 2 year old. This year she actually understood that the day was all about her. She loved opening presents and when they were gone she would randomly check gift bags to make sure she hadn't missed one. She asked for more presents for days after her birthday. And when Kode's turn came three days later, we had to convince her that they were for him and not her. My favorite part of her birthday was listening to her sing happy birthday to herself all day. She would say, "Happy to shoo me." Which translates into "happy to you, me" which still doesn't quite makes sense, but she always forgets to sing birthday for some reason. Anyway, it was pretty darn cute.

She was so excited to have balloons tied to her chair. Especially a princess one. I think Steve's antennae are awesome in this picture.


Loving her cake and ice cream. More the ice cream than the cake.


Fun to have some friends over.


We bought her this little dance outfit to match Lyda's. She looks pretty sweet in it. We also bought her this little baby doll potty hoping to get her excited about using the real potty. Apparently she prefers the baby potty.


Man we love this girl. She is so sweet, naughty and fun all bundled up in one package. She has opinions these days and is cracking us up all the time. We love you so much Ruby doo!