Brian, Lindsay, Van, Brielle, & Mason: October

October was a very busy and fun month for us. I know I have said it before but I am so glad we requested afternoon kindergarten for Van. He and Brielle play and play all morning and it has been so fun to watch their sibling relationship blossom. As I type this he is making her toast:)

There has been a lot of coloring/drawing going on at our house lately. It is very rewarding to watch Van's interest grow in this area since he resisted it so much until this year.

He drew a picture of houses. One for him and one for "mak" (mike from monster's inc)

One morning I was folding laundry and I heard little voice yelling "help us mommy!". I investigated and found these two crazies had shut themselves in the closet:)

They thought they were SO funny! We repeated this game about 50 times:)

We swapped out summer clothes for fall for the princess.

I am not kidding when I say she has more clothes them me. This is just her closet...

This little girl is my favorite little sidekick. She's never far away from me for very long.

I really really love her.

My friend Heidi wrote a book, Hook's Revenge, and I got to go to her book signing in Salt Lake. She was our sort of neighbor (a few blocks away) in Oregon. I am so proud of her!

Van had is last soccer game for fall. He gets to play on the same team for spring soccer which I think is awesome. We are so proud of Van. He had never played soccer before this year and he did really well. He had the best throw ins and was usually the fastest kid on the field. We can't wait to watch him again next spring.

My little diva all ready for the park.

Brian turned 33 on the 7th and of course the kids were super excited to help with all the birthday prep:)

I took him on a little date to celebrate. I am so lucky, this guy is the best!

They have "student led" conferences at Van's school so we got to go in and have Van show us his classroom and what he has been working on so far this year. No surprise, he is doing great! He tested through the 3rd grade for reading and is in the advanced math group. We are so proud of our little smarty pants

We try to make the punishment fit the crime around here. Van dumped out this entire planter onto the grass so he got to clean it up:)

I couldn't help but be impressed with how hard he was working. He actually did a very good job.

Between conference sessions we went over to Brian and Van's school to run and play.

This picture cracks me up. It pretty much sums things up for poor little Brielle. She is always trying to keep up with everyone else in the family. She usually does a pretty good job:)

We actually spent most of the time with Brian and I playing one on one soccer while the kids played on the equipment.

She was not too happy to have to come home from the park. She is so darn cute, maybe even more so when she is mad:)

This stud insisted on this hair style one day for school. Love him!

We drove the Alpine loop again. It's so beautiful, I love that we live 3 minutes from this:)

Pumpkin patch! We really miss the real farm experience of Oregon but this little place was free and pretty fun.

The sun made it really hard to get a good sibling pic. I think they are precious anyway:)

Navigating the ''big" hay maze. She found the way out....eventually:)

This little one was much easier for her:)

We flew to California for a quick visit over fall break. This little girl was so into the whole process of flying.

We sat behind these creepers on the plane:)

Jason and Amy met us there. It was SO good to see them. This little girl really bonded with Uncle Jason and asked him to hold her all the time. So precious.

We had a little problem on the trip home. We lost our car. To be fair it wasn't really our fault. They are doing construction on the parking lots and there were 3 stops labeled "stop 1" which is where we parked. It took us almost 2 hours, a parking attendant, and a police officer to find it. During that time the kids were amazing! I mostly stayed in the shelter with them while Brian worker on finding the car. It was the end of a very long day, they hadn't had dinner, it was past bedtime, and it was getting cold but they never complained.

Waiting....

Van loaned his sister his extra warm jammie shirt since her only sweatshirt was dirty. So sweet:)

We were really happy to finally get home! The next day I was working on unpacking and this little ragamuffin entertained herself for about an hour this way.

It's been getting colder and colder. The kids have taken to laying in the sun spots on the floor for warmth (it's plenty warm in our house they are just silly:). They often just lay there and make each other giggle, I love it!

Park date with the Harris'. We are so glad they moved to Utah!

Van is loving math (no surprise there:). He often makes up math problems for fun. He made this page one morning while he was waiting for his breakfast. I had to laugh when I saw what he was doing. I used to do the same thing:) I can remember making up and solving multi variable equations for fun during slow times at work in high school. Nerd power!

She found this baby mobile in her closet and carried it around for several days. She loved the "lilons" on it.

This little monkey got to go to Jude's 6th birthday party in his costume. He was very excited about it!

Seriously, these two play really well together lately (except when they are fighting of course:). One morning Van climbed into her crib with her and they played in there for almost 2 hours while I cleaned.