Halloween

 I messed up this morning, I didn't have Kelly send the girl's Halloween costumes up for fear they would wear them all day and get them dirty.  The girls were very upset so I put some makeup on them and painted their nails and they dressed up in a couple of old outfits to go trick-or-treating.  They were feeling pretty special...and they were ready to go by 8:30 a.m.  Waiting until 9:30 when Aunt Cathy said they could come down was hard but worth it, and they got to play for a little while, too.  Next they stopped at Alan and Vera's where Alan came out with a clown wig on, the looks on their faces were priceless!  Laury and David were home, too, so they got some good practice for trick-or-treating later.  When we got back to our house they tried to trick-or-treat Papa but he was in the shop, so I went inside and they knocked again so they could get their candy.

 Our first trick-or-treater of the night was Rielee in her cute kitty costume.

 Our next and youngest was Tor, who wouldn't smile for a picture but smiled lots before they left.

 Bridget and Jillian just ran right in and made themselves at home playing with the toys. 

We have such darling trick-or-treaters in this family!

Morning dance parties

Since Papa bought them a kids Christmas CD a couple weeks ago, the girls have had a dance party every morning before school.  This CD is a lot more up tempo than the Elvis Christmas music they used to listen to. 

Eye shadow

 Ava was cute today, she wrote a menu, 2 long lines of random letters and brought it to Alan and I, she even had her pen behind her ear.  Then she asked each of us to look at it and tell her what we wanted to order.  Harper offered to help her cook but Ava wanted to run the restaurant all by herself.

They went to Rielee's tonight and played dress up, Rielee did their make-up(they loved their eye shadow) and hair-a braid for Ava, pigtails for Harper.  Then they all put on a show singing 2 songs each. 

Tonight was their first night of sleeping in their beds, it went pretty well.  Papa read them books first, then they giggled and talked, got up a half dozen times to ask if they still had to stay in there, once to report that "the door wiggled", once to tell me they really wanted to watch a cooking show, and the last time Ava came out crying a little.  When that didn't work, they both conked out.   It only took 2 hours, and for as wound up as they were, that was great and I was happy.

Pumpkin Patch field trip

The pre-school went on a field trip this morning to a pumpkin patch in Willow Grove, Dad, Papa and I went along, too.  Ava didn't want to be in the group picture.  She was unhappy because when they got off the bus she wanted to hold hands with Boden, but he chose to hold his Mom's hand.

 

They went on a hayride around the farm and then to the pumpkin patch.  Ava and Harper wanted tiny pumpkins, it took them a long time to find just the right ones. 

 

 Singing a song before their snack prayer.

 So sweet. 
Silly Harper, she wouldn't eat the granola bar because it had chocolate chips in it (her teacher said she picked those hoping Harper might eat them) and they had apple juice which she doesn't like either. 

They decorated their pumpkins as soon as we got home.

Firewood helpers

 Papa's enthusiastic firewood helpers!

Harper went out to get firewood with Papa by herself yesterday and learned about woodpecker holes in some of the wood.  She showed Ava some holes today and told her all about them.

Barbie house

The twins came in this morning like gang busters, telling me it was Grandma Barb's birthday and they had to make cards for her!  They worked very hard on them.  Ava showed me how she has learned to draw fingers as she drew a picture of her Grandma on her card.

 Playing with Papa's new magnifier, they got lots of laughs out of how big their eyes looked.

Listening to these two play Barbies is so entertaining, especially when Harper talks for the Ken doll or the "honey" as they call him.   She tries to deepen her voice and it sounds so funny.  We found a different Barbie house at a garage sale and they played with it before school with Rielee and after school, too.

Weekend

 Saturday we went to Rielee's soccer game, they won,  and then to Applebee's for lunch.  We had heard that Macee's picture was on the back wall there and wanted to see it for ourselves.  It's a nice picture taken at the state tournament.

This morning Papa thought he better have Rielee over to brush up on her ukulele skills since they had not played since early summer.  He quickly realized, after she played 2 songs without looking at her music while he was still looking for his, that he was the one who needed to brush up.   

 In the afternoon we went to Kelso and watched Parker's football team, they won 16-6. 

Ava's pink puppy

Ava was thrilled this morning that she had found her pink puppy to take for Show and Tell.  As she was telling me about it, she noticed the picture frame with Rielee in a pink puppy costume and screamed "look, they match!"  She still can't fathom that it's actually Rielee in the picture, of course.  Harper took her little brown puppy "Lando".   We got to the school a few minutes early, and they said "hi" and waved to some of  their classmates as they got out of their cars:  Boden, Seth, Chris, Alysha and Shayla.   Then they took off running for the door, Harper always gets there first and holds the door for the rest of us.  They brought home dinosaur habitats they made this week, Harper pointed out that she had a green dinosaur in hers.

Puppy birthday

Monday after school, Rielee and I went to Ross to buy some new play food for the kitchen.  One of the sets she picked out included a birthday cake with candles, plates and utensils.  It was cute, just as soon as she saw that cake Tuesday morning,  Ava announced that it was her Puppy's birthday and it was time for a party.  The only problem with the new food, over 100 new pieces, was that Rielee couldn't bear to put away any of the old food, saying that they need it all for their restaurant.

Monopoly and reading

 Rielee LOVES Monopoly, she and I spent almost 4 hours playing one game Sunday, lots of laughs.  That night we went to Battleground where Parker's post-season football team, it's made up of Coweeman and Huntington kids, played a Pop Warner team and lost.  Parker played center and said he liked it.

This morning was interesting, getting the 4 kids to 3 schools with different start times, but we managed pretty well somehow.  "Synchronized chaos" is how Papa described it.  After school, Rielee had to finish reading her book (one she was supposed to finish last night but we got home too late) so she can take an AR test on it tomorrow. 

Auna last 8th grade match

This morning we split up, I took Parker to football practice and Papa took the twins back.  From there, he and Rielee went to watch Auna's team play in an end of the season tournament in Woodland.  The Pirates won their first match so Parker and I had time to make it down there to watch their second one.  They won that one, too, ending their season on a high note!  Auna played so well.  Afterwards, Parker jumped up to get a picture with her and teammate Trinity.  He tried to tell them the only reason they won was because he came to watch but they weren't buying that.

 

 

Braids

Since there was no school today,  Rielee finally had time to braid Ava and Harper's hair, she did a good job and the girls loved it.  We took Rielee to an open house at Gymnastics 4 U this afternoon.  She was surprised by the amount of time they had to run and stretch to warm up, but enjoyed trying out all the equipment and wants to take lessons.  When we got home it was time for her to feed the chickens so she brought out a couple of the chicks to show the twins.  Ava had checked for eggs and found one, she was holding it

carefully but kept picking at it when oops, it cracked right open, she felt so bad!  Rielee told her it was okay and we had her toss it in the brush. 

Ava and Harper's first bus field trip

 Today the pre-school went on a field trip to the Fire Station.  The girls were excited to be riding on a school bus for the first time.  Harper was partnered with Alysha, one of the other twins, and Ava was with her friend Boden.  They were very well behaved the whole time.  Once we got to the Fire Station, however, the teacher took them from their partners and let them hold hands with Charb and I.  Suddenly, both girls regressed and they were afraid of everything, Smokey the Bear, the Dalmation and the firefighters, too.  They were clinging to our legs or asking to be held, we actually had to force them over to their teacher so they could be in the group picture.  They didn't pay much attention during the tour but at the end, when all the kids (except them, they wouldn't have anything) were enjoying a snack, an emergency call suddenly came in and the red light flashed, we could hear their radios going off, and one of the fire fighters ran out, jumped on the truck with some others and took off !  That was exciting and Ava got to wave at them when they drove out of the station.  She may have smiled, not sure.

 Once they were back on the bus, however, they were happy again, Harper sat with Dad and Ava wanted to sit with Teagan.   If you ask them about the trip now they say "it was fun and I cried".  So true, loved the bus ride but not the fire station.

 They were all smiles on the way home and loved their hats!

Harper the pincher

 

After school, we gave the girls dry erase boards and Harper sat down to show Alan, who was visiting, how she could write her name the correct way, "pinching" the marker, instead of her old way of holding it between her index and ring finger.   This morning she wrote her name perfectly on a picture for her teacher and it was high fives all around, Ava was just as happy and proud of Harper as we were and as she was of herself.  They both love school so much and are eager to please their teacher.

They learned about fire in school today and how they should get out and stay out of the house and not go back for their toys and also learned to stop, drop and roll.  They learned sign language for "stop" and "roll".  Harper was  questioning leaving her toys, she said she loves her stuff and didn't want it in the fire,  Ava said "no, we leave it and then we can buy new toys!"  

Rielee soccer/Auna & Rielee overnight

 Rielee had an early game this morning, she played hard and scored a goal and the team won 10-0.

Auna was staying with us while Laury and David went to Bellingham to watch Emmy play.  We went to see the movie Gravity, it was really good.  When we got home Rielee came over and decided to spend the night, too.  She and Auna worked on a couple Halloween kits with over 300 pieces, they got tired before they finished the second one and set up the little table to relax and color instead. 

Hats

 We went to garage sales while the twins were in pre-school this morning and found several old hats for them to play with.  Ava picked a hydrangea to pose with.

 Another garage sale find, some egg beaters for them to make bubbles with, they kept coming in and getting more dish soap, later I realized what they did with it when I noticed  that our fountain was surrounded by bubbles a foot high. 

Ava's first drawing of a kitty, she was so proud of herself!

Sisters

We went to Union tonight to watch Lexi's team play Heritage, Charb's school.  It was fun to see Lexi playing on her home court and they won easily in 3.