Halloween.

Elna hung her Belle dress up here at the beginning of October in anticipation for Halloween.

The week before Halloween I was busy cutting out and making these props for a Halloween photo booth for the ward Halloween party Friday night.

Friday afternoon (the 30th) we met friends down at the Troutdale outlet mall and trick-or-treated from store to store.

Kylie, Harriet, Chase, Chad, Brooklyn, ?, Elna, Georgia, and William.

Brian met us down there on his way home from work.  We were so exited to see him!

Hattie and Chase made the cutest little bumblebees!  Look at their blue blue eyes!

That night we went to a ward Halloween party.  Brian and I were pretty busy with our callings that night.  I was in charge of the photo booth and Brian was in charge of the haunted house.  Elna had a great time and was pretty independent, running off with her buddies.  Now that she’s in preschool with friends it was kind of fun to watch her feeling so comfortable doing her own thing. 

To get into the haunted house you had to pass through the photo booth room.  Elna loved going through the haunted house, so she kept coming through the photo booth room and wanted a picture every time.  It made my mama heart happy!

Silly friends—Elanor,Elna, Sydney, Cade, and Harriet up front.

Angie took the picture above and below of the kids after the Halloween party while we were cleaning up.

Between trick-or-treating at the outlets and the ward party Friday night, our girls didn’t know that Saturday was actually Halloween.  Are we awful to let them think Friday was Halloween?  There was a wild storm Saturday and we were really glad to not be in it!  But we did have a fun family day carving pumpkins…

I took this picture above on the day we actually bought the pumpkins (several weeks before Halloween)

Dad helping the girls carve the pumpkin.

drinking hot chocolate…

and fixing a plugged up drain that was causing flooding in our front yard.  There was so much rain on Halloween day—sheets of rain came down so hard and so fast that there was lots of flooding—we even watched on the news one of the MAX trains completely flooded.  Brian had to rent a roto rooter to unclog the drain so that our garage didn’t flood.

Hattie (with her baby doll packed underneath)

Needless to say, we were glad our girls were young enough to not know it was Halloween, because it wouldn’t have been very fun to go out for very long in this rain!

Happy Halloween!

October little things.

I took this picture of the girls with their postcards from Papa because they came about 5 days later than they usually do, so every day they went out to see if they had come, and this day they finally did.  They were also thrilled with the stickers on the back!

These pictures represent my reality more than almost any picture can in my life right now.  My life is just filled with these sweet little helping hands, and I couldn’t be more blessed!

I don’t tell them to do this kind of stuff.  They’re just sweet! (at least sometimes…)

A nice day calls for lunch outside.

Kris (a friend from my mission) and her children came through Portland and we visited the gorge with her.

A caterpillar.

Their dresses for Jared’s wedding came in the mail, so they had to try them on.

These girls make my world go round!  I had to keep both of these pictures because of Elna’s sweet faces in each.

 

Ignore my natural, still-in-my-robe state, and please focus on my little koala.  Her sweet little hiding hand and her foot in my pocket.  Oh, I could eat her up, I love her so.

I took this picture to send to a friend who gave Elna the dress (a hand-me-down) she is wearing.

I love when they create like this.

Note the back of the neck roll.  She’s had that neck roll since she day he was born and was as tiny as could be.

Socks on hands.

Georgia had a rough sad week where she needed a lot of snuggling.  No complaining from me!  Brian took this picture of me and Georgia asleep when he got home from work.  She took a lot of naps on me.

The girls like to watch Brian leave for work every morning, and they watch him until his car is out of sight.  He started waving at the very end of the street, and when he started doing this, Hattie ran in and said, “Mom, he did this!” and waved her hand like this.  I took this picture to send to Brian so he knew how excited the girls were about the wave.

Doing what she loves most.

We went to our babysitter’s water polo game.  They won!

Waving Dad off to work picture—such fancy girls!

Elna slept like this all night.

Asleep.

This one’s for their wedding slideshow, because can’t you just see these two in 20 years riding off like this on a Harley?  Ha!  It’ll never happen I’m afraid, since they’re too good of friends.

Always pretending.  I’m pretty sure she’s pretending to be me here—a baby, a purse, and a camera phone.  “Say cheese!”

Painting pumpkins!  I’d rather paint pumpkins any day, than carve them!

While I was nursing…she’s perched on my leg chatting with me.

 

I think I’ve figured out this girl’s love language—quantity…uh, I mean quality time.  She is up every 2 hours during the night all night long right now and takes about three 15 minute cat naps during the day.  This is us watching the last season of Call The Midwives while I tried to work on a project for primary—during what should have been her 2 hour nap today.  Nice to be needed!

Tired girl on the left.

I feel you, Georgia.  I’m tired too.  Had to capture this sweet girl who finally gave in to the exhaustion.