Llamas. Yup.

Yes,  llamas, but before we get to that...

 When the kids had their fall break from school we weren't able to do any big trips, but Farris did get Friday off work.  In the afternoon we decided to hike up the back of Timpanogas just as far as the waterfall.  So very pretty, but a little chilly. This was the first time I'd been on this hike and I really liked it.  When my feet heal up Farris and I want to climb the whole thing together.

 There's the waterfall, isn't it beautiful?  And doesn't that picture just look cold?

 Joseph kept telling me, "Mom!  Take my picture here!" I could have had twenty different pictures of him, my funny kid.

 Made it to the waterfall!

 Abigail made it, too.  Lucky girl gets packed everywhere.  But she's the one who really got cold.  Farris hurried down the trail so he could get her back to the van quickly.

 My Caleb, such a sweetie.

 Another view, I love the fall colors mixed with the wispiness of winter.

 Felicity picked leaves to press the whole way. 

 

Goofiness.

 More pictures of my photo hog.

 Sethy.

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 Saturday was the BYU Homecoming parade.  We like to watch it next to the duck pond so the kids can play before it starts.  And those ducks, especially the baby ducks, are well loved.

 Abigail was excited and was running all over.  Thank you Felicity for being responsible enough to watch her while I set up for the parade!

 Farris couldn't help because he was running the 10K (He did great, 1st in his age group).  

 Part way through the parade the kids started chanting with the crowd "Go, BYU!  Go BYU!"  So Abby had to get in on it and of course it was really cute.  She was really saying "Go Bye U! Go Bye U!"  but she was loud and persistant and when a car went by with a couple who had won a service award the woman was impressed and threw her blue pom pom to Abby.  She knows how to work that cuteness angle really well.

 And the Llamas!  Farris is the advisor for the student council in his college and instead of making a float they decided to rent llamas. That's a meeting to sit in on.  Just tossing around ideas and someone randomly says "Hey!  Llamas!"  If you want to rent llamas for any function, the Krishna temple rents them along with a trailer to haul them in.  So Farris borrowed our neighbors truck and picked them up.  They were a hit and were the slowest in the parade because so many people wanted them to stop so they could take pictures with them.  We waited until we were loading the trailer to take pictures.

 The little ones enjoyed sitting on the llamas.

 We decided Caleb and Felicity were too heavy for the llamas.  But I don't know if Caleb would have gotten on one anyway, I love how he's as far away as possible from it.

 And then when we were driving home with the trailer Farris decided to stop by our house to see if any of the neighborhood kids wanted to meet a llama.  When you got'em for the rest of the day, share'em.  So we had our Random Llama Day and many kids were happy.

And now I want to go watch The Emperor's New Groove, 'cause it's just funny.

End of September and Beginning of October AND Seth's birthday!

September means fall soccer here, which means manic time if you have more than one playing.  Last year we had three and it was insane.  This year it was just Caleb, so two games a week, plus practice on Monday (which we only remembered twice. Hehh.).  His coach this year was the dad of his best friend, plus his friend was on his team so he had a lot of fun.  He mostly played defender which he really really likes and he'll chase the ball all over.  Well, except the one night when he wasn't chasing and when we watched closer, we could tell he was limping.  After the game we talked to him and he said his thigh had been hurting since he played basketball that day.  Poor kid, pulled a muscle and didn't want to miss his game so he didn't tell us.  He healed pretty fast, we kept him from the game two days later but then he was back in the next week. 

Yay!  We scored a goal!

 Pinterest has lots of fun ideas for hair, so we tried a new one on Abby one Sunday, you make her hair into a hair bow.  It's really pretty simple, but we only achieve it half the times that we attempt it.  It's all up to Abigail's mood. This is after church and nap, so it's a little frizzed out, but you get the idea.  Here's the link to the instructions: http://www.simplysadiejane.com/2013/07/toddler-hair-bows-tutorial.html

 During Spirit Week at school, they had a Crazy Fashion Day.  We braided Felicity's hair with pipe cleaners and were going to bend them into Cat's Ears, but she had to leave early for Choir so we just tied balloons on the ends of her hair.  It was pretty cute.

 Caleb and Joseph's outfits.  Joseph  was so funny, he wanted to be crazy, but not toooo crazy. They both wore different socks and Caleb wore two different shoes, but Joseph didn't want to do that.  I drew mustaches on them, too, which they liked.

 And after the kids left for school, Seth and Abigail had to have their own mustaches.

 I was able to go to the Clark Planetarium with Felicity's class for a field trip.  Those sixth graders are loud on a bus.  But we had fun, and the planetarium is pretty cool.  This was a scale that would tell you how much you weigh on different planets.  Thank you, but I don't need to add to my anxiety.

 Waiting for the star show to start.  Once the lecturer started tilting the stars around I was about done.  I don't get motion sick very often, but that was not very fun.  Then he did this thing called a Space Rollercoaster.  I was dizzy for about half an hour after.  The kids loved it and jumped up right after.  Us chaperons moved a little slower. 

 Then we went to the moon...

 Clark Planetarium has the biggest ball run I've ever seen, it was about three stories high with knobs you could pull or twist to make the balls go different directions.  Very cool.  Felicity could have spent a lot more time just watching the balls and sending them in all kinds of directions.

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And then it was Seth's birthday!  He's so nonchalant about his birthday, I'm used to kids (well, mostly Felicity) planning their birthdays down to the last detail months in advance, but Seth was pretty calm about it.  One detail was that he wanted a pig on his cake.  He has decided that he loves pigs.  And he didn't want a pig cake, no, he wanted a pig on a cake.  And it had to be a chocolate cake (whew, that's what I like!) and he wanted plain chocolate ice cream.  I asked him what he wanted for his birthday dinner.  He said "Cake and ice cream."  I said "No, Seth, what do you want for dinner?"  He said "Oh. Cheese."  So I said,  "NO, what do you want for dinner, you can have something like pizza or spaghetti, or enchiladas..." and I'm spitting out all kinds of ideas and he's just looking at me like he's trying to figure out what I mean.  He had spent the day at a friends house and they had corn dogs for lunch, so the next thing out of my mouth was "or corn dogs..." which I instantly regretted and came back to the pizza idea, which was what I was hoping he'd want (yes, I manipulate my children).  But he heard corn dogs, and that's what he wanted.  A Birthday Menu by a Five Year Old Boy:  Chocolate Ice Cream, Chocolate Cake, Cheese, and Corn Dogs.  I don't think he meant to have the alliteration.  We changed it a little bit, and came home with corn dogs, french fries, and chicken nuggets.  Plus the cake and ice cream, of course.

I had baked the round cake when I still thought I was making a pig face, but then he insisted on a pig on the cake, so Nicki and I ran to the dollar store to see what we could find.  We combed the store, found nothing, almost came home with a bag of plastic bugs because we figured that he does like bugs and he would like a gross creepy crawly cake, but then we found a box of piggy banks!  Whew!  Thank you Dollar Tree.

Happily opening presents...

He loved the hat and gloves from Melissa and Nicki and I appreciate having more gloves and hats because it's always difficult to fully winter cloth everyone.  Extras are always welcome.

Mom and Dad found some trucks at IKEA that are stackable and switchable, he can make his own truck/tractor creations.  He loved that.

And then the cake came out!

Happy birthday Seth!  You are my sweet kisses giver and first class snuggler.  You are eternally in a fight against the Bad Guys and have an amazing imagination that makes me smile.  You are a great big brother to Abby and play so well with her (well, mostly) and you love your big brothers and sister and want to be just like them.  You're learning so fast right now and growing and maturing, but you still have that mischievous smile with the crazy long eyelashes that melt hearts left and right.  I love you Sethy!

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And we can't have a post without another mischievous little thing.  I rarely leave anything out like this that she can get into, I have experience in the mothering after all!  But she watches and waits and then attacks when we least expect it...like when we're eating dinner.  At least it was flour and not baking soda.  Although she might have stopped sooner if she tasted that.

Birthday Party and the Pinewood Derby and other fun

Finally we were able to have Felicity's birthday party and she was ready!  She had been planning this for months and after sickness had gone through the house we figured now it was safe.

After the fun we had at the family reunion earlier in the summer, we decided to play minute to win it games.  We played a lot of games, and now I can't remember them all, but the girls had fun and there was lots of giggling.  Totally made up for the being sick on the birthday thing.

 The prizes for winning the games were candy and cookies to eat with the ice cream later.

 One thing Felicity really wanted was an ice cream bar.  So we bought a big thing of Napoleon ice cream and then lots of toppings, including some of the candy they won playing the games. Those girls can eat a lot!

 Now that she's getting older a good part of the time at parties is spent just talking and hanging around.  Which makes my job easier.  Whew.

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 We got a bunch of new letters for our magnet wall and Caleb, Joseph, and I had fun spelling out everyone's names. We had to get a little creative by the end, but it was all good.

 Seth and Abby missed the kids while they were at school.  Seth asked me three times that first day when were the kids getting back.  But all in all, they've settled in to their new routine and they have a lot of fun playing with each other.  They're not great at hide and seek, though.  If this was a video, you could hear them giggling in their hiding spot.  Too cute.  I'm glad Seth has one more year before kindergarten because of his late birthday.  I think he needs that year, and he's having fun in the neighborhood joy school me and some of the other mothers are doing.  It's been really good for him.

 Here we are mom!

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 Caleb loves going to cub scouts.  Here he is presented with his Wolf, I know it's a terrible picture.  Church gyms are not meant for taking pictures.

 Explaining the rules for the excited scouts.  And their dads.

 Caleb was in the first race, how fun is it to see these kids so eager to see how their cars do!

 Anticipation!

(I blurred out last names in this picture)

 Caleb ended up being in 5th place, not too bad considering the gorilla glue that Farris used to fix the front end grew and went over the axle, so he had to do emergency surgery 10 minutes before the race. Caleb designed his car with only a little help from me, then Farris cut it out, he sanded it, he painted it (including the flames on the side and top, he liked the flames idea) and Farris helped him put the axle and tires and weights into place.  When the axle was going in, the front end broke, so Farris fixed it right before we rushed it to the weigh in a few days before the race. Caleb was pretty proud of his car and we learned a lot this first go round.  By the time Seth gets into cubs, we're going to have it down pat.

Caleb was voted for the Racer's Choice award, which means all the other cub scouts chose his for their favorite design.  He was happy about that! 

And last of all I have to share this video of Seth singing the Lumineers song, "Hey Ho" Or his version of it any way, I love how he starts making up lyrics at the end.  It's one of my favorite songs right now, along with Imagine Dragons "On Top of the World."   I like songs that have a fun energy to them, because that's what I need sometimes to get through the day!