Pumpkins on parade...

Tonight we took the pumpkins that we got from the pumpkin patch(I'll post those pics later) down to my parents house to carve our pumpkins. We had so much fun. I purchased little kits with plastic faces so the little ones wouldn't get bored. Here's what we came up with...

Brooklyn and Deacon

Elijah and Grandpa

Mindy, Steven, Reedy, and Grandma...who's hair is still green from making witches brew at the kid's school.

The pumpkins! (Brooklyns, Reeds, Eli's and Deacon's)

More pumpkins! (Stevens...the guts are for the effect, Saren and a Molly/Brookie collaboration)

Pumpkins in action...HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Time for Halloween Fun!!!

Here's what we made for FHE! Thanks Rach for the idea. That's the fun of having creative friends, I get to mooch off of thier cleverness...









They are ghosts made out of paper towels. The kids each decorated one and when we turn the fan on they spin around! We have to keep it on the low setting, so the fan's not exactly useful as an actual fan, but if we turned on on full blast, I'm afraid the ghosts wouldn't survive.









We've been decorating the house, too. I've held on to the fun things that the kids have made over the years, and I pull them back out and use them to decorate my kitchen. Here's some work from Eli and Brooklyn...it's pretty obvious that they both had the same teacher...




Here are some other decorations around the house...

My entry way

The towels are a few years old and a little stained...but I love them!

My lastest late night project. You can't see it very well, but it's on a halloween place mat.

I just love seasonal decorations!!!

Saionara!

We had to say good bye to Sa yesterday. He's off to Japan for 2-3 weeks. I'm not sure exactly what he'll be doing, but he said something about re-imaging 3000 computers for the army. The kids and I were SO sad. You would think that after 4 years of college ball and all his road trips, we would be used to it! It's all my kids have ever known is daddy traveling, but it's still so hard on them. They cried almost the entire hour long ride home. We can't call him on this trip since his cell phone doesn't work over there, so I think it will be harder on them than the last trip.

Saying good bye to Eli and Reed

Poor thing, you can see Brooklyns tears...

Luckily Deacon slept right through it all. He has the hardest time of all when Sa leaves.

I'm hoping that he will post on the blog while he's over there so that the kids can see what he's up to.

A day at the beach

Friday was such a wonderful day! The kids were out of school, my dad and Sa took of from work, and my brother Matt and brother in law Steve are here. What better way to spend the day then at the beach! We all went down to Kahana Bay equipped with kayaks, surf boards and body boards.

Here's my Dad, Matt, Sa and Brooklyn

Stephen (My sister Mindy's son) and Reedy Boy

Sa thowing Reed into the waves

Brooklyn swimming
Elijah showing off his muscles

Deacon enjoying the water

Me, Matt and my pregnant belly...(only because it was requested...)

The newest member of our family!

Introducing "Mister Yoshi"!!! After years and years of the kids begging, and years and years of us promising "We'll get one when we move out of student housing," we finally did it! We got the kids a dog. We weren't planning on getting a dog, and we definetly weren't planning on getting one a week after our(grandma's) precious Lamb Chop died, but one look at Mister Yoshi and we were hooked. He's a maltese, just like Lamby, which is perfect for me because, let's face it, I'm already cleaning up after 4 little ones and I can't throw dog hair in to the mix. This dog is a saint, too. He will let the kids, especially Elijah (who tends to be our craziest), do ANYTHING to him. They carry him upside down, lay on him, put him in a head lock, fling him over thier shoulder...I better stop there in case any of you are with PETA...but you get the picture. We all love him and hopefully he will be with us for a long time!

*by the way, sorry it's taken me so long to post. The only time I can get on the computer is at my folks house. Imagine that, I'm married to a computer guy and yet we don't have a working one of our own!!!