Happy Halloween...err, Thanksgiving...err, Christmas ALREADY?

I realize that's a long title. But it's very true! Maybe it's because there isn't any snow outside my window (at the moment. We have had two storms that melted quickly), it just doesn't seem like Christmas time. The smell of our freshly cut Christmas tree that we traipsed through two feet of snow in the Sawtooth's is definitely helping, though. Anyways, here is a quick trip back to Halloween because it didn't get done before!
Here's our family of pumpkins! The picture doesn't show it that great, but we each picked out a pumpkin when they were still ripening and scratched a face in it. Well, I did Seth's, Abby's and Farris', too. The pumpkins scabbed over in a couple of weeks and there you have a quick, easy and a lot less messy pumpkin carving (we did some carving and painting, too, though). Joseph carved his upside down, that's why his vine is coming out the bottom. It's kind of his personality though. You know, a little off kilter?

Sweet Abigail's first Halloween! My cousin gave us this bee costume for Seth, so it's a hand me down, but she looked awful cute in it. Babys dressed as bugs...strange as it sounds, it just works.

This is Seth dressed as a dinosaur. Oh, wait, that's right. He refused to wear the dinosaur costume because he said it belonged to Caleb. This of course happened on Halloween morning five minutes before we had to be at the school for the costume parade. More on that later.

Joseph wanted to be a ghost. He actually had that idea for weeks before and stuck with it until the night before Halloween, but at that point there's no going back. I found a bunch of fabric at the DI and spent about an hour cutting and sewing and then he added his own facial expressions to finish it off. That boy is too funny in front of a camera.

Caleb wanted to be a soccer player. And not just any soccer player, he wanted to be himself playing soccer. I just had to make sure his soccer uniform was washed. Who am I to deny that kid of his dearest wish? Especially when it didn't involve me sewing, gluing, or even duct taping anything together.

Felicity, for the second year in a row, wanted to be horse. And I, for the second year in a row, vetoed that idea. The only horse costume I can think of is from that Cinderella movie with Drew Barrymore (I can't think of the name...drat. Here comes 2:00 in the morning with me shouting it out...) where the step sister and the guy she likes both dress up as horses. Anyway, I can't think of how to do it without it looking dorky. So, this year she came as a cowgirl. Farris' mom years ago made him a cowboy outfit and we still have the chaps and vest. So I used them as a pattern on fabric that wouldn't need to be hemmed and hot glued the fringe on the edges. I do love my glue gun! We also painted my old dress boots pink. I was going to spray paint them...and never got around to buying spray paint, so we took what we had and I used acrylic paint. I don't really recommend it, it scratched off too easily, but in a pinch for an outfit she'll wear twice, it worked.

Here's the three on their way to school. Joseph is sooo scary ;)

So why was the day busy? Ha, let me tell you. After getting the kids out the door for school (costumes and picture taking done, too) we had a quick breakfast and then went over to the school for the Costume Parade at 9:00. It was actually more like 9:10 by the time I had thrown us all together, at least enough that everyone was fully clothed. This was the time that Seth declared he could not wear Caleb's dinosaur costume, so we just grabbed his Superhero cape. I figured I'd have enough time later in the day to find some kind of clothes that would go under the cape so it wouldn't be so... lame. My sister and parents had actually spent the night before at our house and they were gathering things together so they could leave right after the parade. Very cute parade, I love how this school still does things like this. When we left the school we came right back to the house and I started blowing up a couple packages of balloons and then decorated them like ghosts for Caleb's class party (the whole time I'm thinking, how come I didn't volunteer to just read a story?!?). We were going to play Ghostbusters. I taped a white napkin (until I ran out of white and then the rest of the ghosts were blue. Oops) on each balloon, and then drew a ghosty kind of face on it. We had just enough time to make some PB and J for the kids before we ran to the school. Still hadn't found any clothes to go with Seth's cape. For the game, we had a relay race where each of the kids got to "bust" a ghost by sitting on it. It got pretty loud and I was afraid the Principal would think we were under attack, but the kids loved it. Balloons and noise: always a winner. Abby wasn't real impressed with the party, she even slept through all the popping.
The older two kids came home pretty soon after we got home and we actually had our first trick or treater. It was 3:00 in the afternoon. I hadn't even found the candy/toys that we bought to hand out, so she left emptyhanded. I know, I'm the Scrooge of Halloween. I put some stuff in the crock pot for dinner and got everything ready for the Trunk or Treat at the church--including finding the little toys to give out, but I didn't find the candy until about two weeks later. Our ward had it early this year so it wouldn't interfere with FHE. Halloween on Monday is just weird. I still hadn't found anything for Seth to wear, so he happily went in his everyday clothes with his cape. But hey, he was happy, he got candy, I was happy, I took a mommy tax from his candy. Next year when he cares more I'll make a real costume for him. After the Trunk or Treat, it was our family's turn to clean the church. We just had to vacuum and wash windows and our little ghost, soccer player, cowgirl, and half way superhero jumped in to help, mostly because we told them if we got done fast enough we could still fit in some trick or treating. When we were finished we did a quick run around the neighborhood to those we didn't see at the Trunk or Treat and then the day was done. Whew. That was one of those days powered by snickers and peanut butter cups!

Abigail's blessing

Life has been moving fast again (always?) so I'm a little behind on my blogging. In playing catch-up I thought I'd start with Abby's blessing day.

Here's the little star herself!

I made her blessing dress out of leftover material from Felicity's baptism dress and with kind of the same idea, but I'll (hopefully!) do a post on that later.

It was a gorgeous day thankfully. With the crazy weather we've had this last year, I wasn't sure if it would sunny or snowing, but the weather was beautiful and everyone was able to be outside. Which was good, we had each of our brothers and sisters and their families, plus my Uncle Darryl, Aunt Ellen, and cousin Denece with her kids. The total was over 50 extra people, we had a packed house!

She was so good for the pictures, even though the petticoat with her

dress had been bugging her all day.

Sweet little thing!

At this point, our kids were feeling a little rowdy. They were surrounded by cousins and having a blast! They were pretty good for the pictures, but you have to expect a little peace sign action. Better than bunny ears!

Trying to get everything just right.

These next three pictures are Abigail with her grandparents. I love that my parents and mother in law are such great grandparents and are very supportive of their many grandkids. We love having all of them come visit and spend time spoiling the kids. Grandma Child getting a little love in.

Abigail is Grandpa Newey's 14th grandchild. He's always loved the grandkids but been a little cautious around the newborns, preferring to look instead of hold. We're slowly breaking him in and the last time we were visiting in Idaho he spent two mornings holding her while Farris and I slept in. And he loves it! Abby already has him wrapped around her finger.

Grandma Newey getting a chat in.

Abigail is growing so fast now, she's almost 3 months old and quickly outgrowing clothes (which makes me kind of sad, all those cute clothes!). She's getting chubbed out more (her cheeks delight everyone!) and her cooing makes me laugh everyday. She tries so hard to get in on the conversations with the kids. She loves her baths and getting her diaper changed, I think because my face is close to hers and I talk to her while I'm getting her cleaned up. She LOVES it when people talk to her. Felicity thinks that if Abby had been a boy, we could have named her Kickly because Abby is always exercising those chubby legs of hers. In church on Sunday we were sitting toward the front and our High Councilman noticed Joseph giving Abigail kiss after kiss after kiss and commented to Farris about it after Sacrament meeting. He sure does love his baby sister!