Our "Sweet" Girls--Halloween Style

We had lots of fun with the costumes for the girls this year. Todd's sister was gracious to lend us a red M&M costume (appropriate for Emma this year since she had an M&M birthday party), and from there, we thought of the Hershey's kiss for Abri and Sweet Tooth for Kayla to make them a coordinating trio that even fits the candy-giving tradition of the holiday.

Kayla was the funniest baby-almost-toddler I think I've ever seen trick or treating. On the 30th, we went to our ward Trunk or Treat. At the first car she didn't know what to do, but two cars later she was a pro: reaching out her hand for a treat and placing her precious cargo delicately into her ghost bag. The trick was convincing her to move to the next car because she would just want to stand there and keep getting a treat to put in her bag over and over again. I'm not sure you can be proud of a child who becomes so quickly experienced at acquiring candy, but it was definitely amusing.

Pumpkin Patch

Thursday we took our annual trip to the Pumpkin Patch, a common fall tradition around this area. (We don't have trees that reflect the season's colors so we have to pretend we can enjoy the fall colors in other ways.) It's definitely not something for the faint of heart parent.

Imagine 100 sets of parents with cameras around their necks and 200 kids running around, the air accentuated with calls of "Look at Mommy!" "Smile" "Stand right here" "No, don't move!" or "Don't eat the pumpkin!" (In our case with Kayla.) The scrapbooker in me was cringing at the thought of all the cute shots I wasn't getting after my painstaking efforts to match the girls so that my scrapbook layout colors would work out. All that to have almost no pics that I really wanted to scrapbook. For example, it took at least 10 trys to get Abri to stand for a "This Fall I am this Tall" pic, and when I finally did there was a kid that walked by in the photo. *Sigh*

The funniest and most stressful part of the day was when I was there alone with the girls and needed to take Abri to the port-o-potty. She didn't want to go (a usual experience during out last 3 months of potty training) but hadn't in a long while, so I picked her up to carry her myself. I passed Kayla off to Emma and prayed the two of them would be ok while I tried to convince Abri to cooperate, knowing the portlet wouldn't be big enough for them anyways.

When I returned back to Kayla and Emma where I had left them 15 yards away, some pumpkins were out of their orderly rows. Instead of their normal distance of 2 ft apart, Emma had surrounded Kayla with about 8 huge pumpkins in a circle, with the simple explanation: "Kayla would crawl away if I didn't put the pumpkins around her." I was impressed at her problem solving. (I had given up on getting photos by this time and Todd had put the camera in the car when he left much earlier, so I missed yet another opportunity. Incidentally, a former stake President of ours, Pres Riding, was also at the pumpkin patch that day with his family and I had spoken with him earlier in the afternoon. He mentioned to me later before I left the patch that he noticed when I left Kayla and Emma and kept an eye on them while I was gone, and Emma did a good job of being responsible and not an abandoned child to arouse attention.)

All in all, part of me wants to try again before the season is over, but not sure I'm actually up for it, even for the sake of scrapbook pages. Some things are better not remembered.

Abrianna: A book lover after Leanne's heart

I love books, always have, always will. I loved working at a bookstore, and would love to buy books all the time, but the realization that they take up too much space keeps me going to the library regularly instead. So, its such a fun thing to see at least one of my daughters enjoying them almost as much as me.

It's not uncommon that on some afternoons I'll be downstairs and realize that I haven't heard or seen Abrianna in too long. With worried thoughts of more Crayola masterpieces on the walls, I'll find her up in her bedroom--sitting in front of the bookcase. She'll have a stack of 5 or 6 books that she's already looked at beside her, just flipping pages and looking at the pictures. "Hi Mommy, " she says so sweetly while I then feel guilty that I suspected the worst when she's actually constructively busy.

In addition, Abrianna has a habit each night of getting a book off their bookshelf and taking it to bed with her before we do bedtime routine. Last night she got was still looking at it as we tried to turn out lights and say goodnight.

Todd: Abrianna, it's time to go to bed. You need to lay down.
Abrianna (with an exasperated sigh): But then I can't see the book.

Chances are she'll be like me in later years: holed up reading late at night in her closet with the door closed, or reading by flashlight under the sheets. I can only hope, right?

Kayla: Following Emma's music lead

I love listening and watching her when we sing. She joins in with her soft "ba, da" sounds. For instance, a month ago during the Young Womens' combined lesson, the teacher played a song about Honesty on a CD to get the class's attention. Accompanying the song was Kayla's voice, "ba-daing" along. A number of heads had turned back to look at us where we sat at the back of the room. I felt a bit uncomfortable at the attention since the focus was supposed to be on the words of the song, and instead Kayla had diverted it to her version of the song. Nevertheless, it was the sweetest thing hearing her voice singing along.

This morning we went to a restaurant with a beach theme. Picture Kayla, sitting in a wicker patio chair, bopping along to the Beach Boys: "Baby, why don't we go, down to Florida Keys."

She sings. She dances. Here we come Baby Idol. (Perish the thought.)

Abrianna--already feeling affects of middle child syndrome

I realized the other day that I've had a number of entries focused on Kayla and Emma, excluding Abrianna to some extent. I'm hardly being fair. I asked myself why that would be. My conclusion: Her temper tantrums stretch my patience to an extent that it leaves limited room for amusement, or brain cells to remember the amusement at least. (She's one of those kids where the terrible twos has gone right on into the threes.) So, I tried to make a concerted effort to try and take note of her funnyisms.


Some one liners I appreciated:
I want brown hot dog, not black. (i.e. don't get those grilled hot dogs anywhere near my plate again.)
I'm Hi Ho. Call me Hi Ho (and she hadn't even seen Snow White recently).

Emma's Chorister skills: I am a Child of God

Each night we sing a Primary song and say a prayer at bedtime. The other night we chose "I am a Child of God." Emma wanted to conduct. (Her method of conducting is swinging her both arms in the 180 degree arc, together, then apart, back and forth.) I decided to sing in French, and a few words into it, Emma grimaced at me (since she hates when we speak anything but English), but continued conducting.

After about 5 measures, Todd began singing in Spanish. Emma made the cutoff motion with her hands, closing her fists and stopping the arcs. She did this 4 times, before she indignantly cried, "In English!! Why didn't you watch my conducting??"

I Love You this much

Sometimes at bedtime saying goodnight Emma will tell me how much she loves me so I can tell her back. Tonight she told me she loved me "all the way there and back, to Walmart, and back, etc." [Honestly, this time I couldn't tell exactly where she was saying.]
Me: I love you all the way to China and back.
Emma: That's a long way. But mine's longer.
Me: Actually, mine is. China is on the other side of the world and back.
Emma: Wow, that is longer than mine. [Then with that tone of realization. . .] We wouldn't ever move to China because we don't speak their language. We wouldn't have any friends!