Halloween

 All our kids are really into Jake and the Neverland Pirates right now. They will ask me if they can watch "a Jake" and because I am busy taking care of a baby they usually do get to watch a couple episodes a day on Netflix. Sometimes I try to get them to watch something else, but they won't have it (except Camden who now likes Go Diego Go a lot as well). Anyway, so near the end of September on one of the many times they were watching "Jake" it occurred to me that that would be a perfect theme for their Halloween costumes since it's one girl, two boys, and I think Micah and Camden even look like Jake and Cubby. And they all thought it was a great idea!

I "made" their costumes, meaning I bought clothes that look like their clothes (or found stuff that we already owned) and modified them in some cases. Mostly no sew except some buttons and Cubby's felt patch. Just cutting, gluing, and even some taping- the yellow border on Jake's vest is yellow duct tape ;) .

 Some of the things we did for Halloween weekend:

We went to a Halloween party that a real estate agent in our ward put on with her team. Camden came home and immediately lined up all his candy to check out his goods. Oh boy, that was just the beginning of the candy deluge.

Micah is just a sweet, happy boy, who loves cotton candy.

Camden was scared to ride in the train car so Dad got to ride on the back of the locomotive and hold him. Camden is a crazy three year old, but he always surprises me by how cautious he is.

 We also went to a Halloween carnival at Micah's gymnastics. Games, snacks, decorating cookies, but our kids mostly liked just running around the gym and bouncing around.

We carved our pumpkins with my family the night before Halloween.

Camden did not like the slimy texture of the pumpkin guts, but he was as willing scooper.

Micah and Julia did their own, then drew on their faces and Robert cut it out with his power tools. So much easier that way!

I went to Micah and Camden's preschool for their Halloween party. Lincoln dressed up too. We had originally thought of making him the parrot from Jake and TNP, but i decided not to put that much effort into a costume we probably wouldn't wear all that much. So we went with the cute, traditional first Halloween Winnie-the-Pooh

Micah and Camden both performed a dance to Thriller with their own classes. After a couple seconds of not dancing Micah started dancing along. Conversely, after a couple seconds of not dancing Camden shook his head and ran off the stage to me.

 He looks like he's dancing, but he's actually just really excited to see Lincoln.

Trick or Treating at Dad's work

Trick or Treating around the neighborhood

 All our Winnie the Poohs

First Day of School

Julia started 2nd grade this year.

 This was from Back to School Night the night before school started.

Morning of, a little nervous, but feeling confident with friends she knows in her class this year.

"Though she be little, she is fierce" Shakespeare. Julia got that as her back to school literary shirt this year, I thought it was fitting for her. She also got a kids version  A Midsummer's Night Dream in book form, which is where the quote is from. She read it in two days and loved it, she thought it was funny and she liked the fairies in it. She probably knows the story better than I do now.

Micah and Camden also started school. Micah in preschool 3 days a week, Camden in the 2 year old class 2 days a week. Same place, different classes. They really didn't know what to expect.

 Micah trying to look happy

 I'm going to preschool!?

I think they look adorable in their uniforms.

Lincoln didn't get to go to school, but he did get a back to school literary shirt and (board) book like the others did. Le Petit Prince.

Camden got Harry the Dirty Dog and Micah got Mike Mulligan's Steam Shovel, which I couldn't find a picture of him wearing, but he loves it. They did also get the books and we read them over and over again the first week.

Swimming Lessons

This year Julia and Micah took lessons from a swim instructor that was recommended to us who runs a swim school from her home pool with her daughter. Micah was in level 1, Julia was in level 2. By the end of their four weeks of lessons they both just had a couple more skills to pass of in order to advance to the next level, so they will be in the same level again next year. Julia is a lot more comfortable in the water than she used to be. Micah has always been comfortable in the water, he just needs to work on the actual skills. The day after they finished their last swimming lesson I went into labor and we had Lincoln the next day.

Gymnastics

Coming on here to post about Lincoln I didn't realize how far behind I was with blogging about our year. We have been busy, apparently too busy to blog! I have made quite a few Youtube videos though so I will try to post those all here.

Julia and Micah both did gymnastics for about half a year. I signed up Micah because he was going crazy at home in the middle of winter, and then Julia wanted to to it too. Micah loved it, Julia took a while to warm up to it (she wanted to quite but I made her see it through to the end of the session), but in the end she really loved it too and was sad when it ended. She is a perfectionist and had a hard time with not being able to do everything just right, I wanted her to see that if she kept trying she would get better.

Micah is a very active little boy and gymnastics was right up his ally. I worried at first that he would be shy and not want to go in, but he never had any problem and just enjoyed having fun.

Happy Easter/ Robert's Birthday!

Camden was terrified of the Easter bunny at the neighborhood Easter egg hunt. Camden kept a close eye out for wherever the Easter bunny was to avoid him.

Micah finds eggs at the neighborhood Easter egg hunt. It had snowed earlier that week and it was still pretty cold out, but thankfully no snow for the Easter egg hunt.

 Dying Easter eggs. Camden was really into it. Well, they were all really into it.

The kids all dressed up. Grandma Wheat made Julia's dress for her.

 Easter this year was also Robert's birthday so for our Easter dinner we had steak and a brownie trifle for desert as Robert's cake.

Mother's Day

This is what Julia gave me on Mother's Day. I'm guessing the muffins reference is from some box muffin mix we got at Costco a while again because I am not any good at baking!

 Me

Micah gave his first talk in Primary last month. He helped me write the talk, the crossed out part is what he wanted to change because I wrote down bad guys and he said he wanted to say robbers. When I went up to help him with the talk he said about two words and got scared of his voice in the microphone and I ended up just reading the whole talk with him occasionally mumbling out a word.

This week we made homemade Peanut Butter M&M ice cream. Micah started eating it and said, "there is something yellow in my ice cream." I told him it was candy, he could eat it. He replied, "I don't know about that." This is the look he gave me right after and he refused to eat the ice cream. The next day Robert was eating some and Micah told me he had thought there was a fly in his ice cream, but after seeing Robert eat the ice cream he asked for some and ate the whole thing now knowing that it really was just candy in his ice cream.