Pecan Festival

Before we get to the Pecan festival, a few pictures of cuties that discovered the winter hats:

 Megan wouldn't touch the Olaf hat last year when I got it as an option for Halloween. She loves it these days.

 Ryan wanted a dog nose for some reason this day. He loves any and all hats and gloves and mittens. He doesn't have a clue about "boy" colors vs. "girl" colors. :)

We helped Grandma replace her mat that had torn, and put up a new screen. It was tougher than it had to be, but thankfully she discovered the correct way to use the tool to stretch the springs.

 The kids are happy with the extra bouncy new trampoline mat.

Last Saturday Grandma Knight ran in an 8 mile race down at the Pecan Festival. We decided to go down and join in the fun (not the running, since that doesn't count as fun, just the festival part). They had some cool things that we got to before it got too busy. The kids liked the tractors they had to look at. There were a lot. And a few small ones they could climb on.

 All the kids except Megan made their own rope, which they thought was pretty cool.

 We also got free homemade ice cream. All the activities were free, with the different groups accepting donations. We gave donations where the kids got stuff, but it was nice to not have to pay for anything.

We all tried our hands at roping cows with varying degrees of success.

 After that we headed towards the kids' area where we were going to meet up with Grandma when she was done running, and Justin and McKenzie and Peyton. We found a face painter on the way who was doing super intricate stuff, so it took a while for our turn even though we were 3rd in line. But when we got to the kid area there was a huge long line for face painting, so we were glad we got in where we did.

Megan got a gingerbread man, but was very wiggly, so he was very fat and misshapen.

  Ryan got a snowman.

 Rachel got a smiley face on one side, star on the other.

 And Annie got a butterfly face.

 We made it to the kid area and the kids did an obstacle course, then headed over to the rock wall and the pony rides.

 There were some bunnies and chickens to pet. We had some lunch and waited forever for each of the kids to get their own balloon animal before we were done and headed home. For a free festival, it was fun. The kids had a good time and we more than got our money's worth. :) And Grandma Knight won first place in her division in the race! Way to go!

Annie turns 6

Annie has reached the ripe old age of 6! She wanted a monster birthday, and since we decided to wait until after Halloween for her party, she got to celebrate twice, once on her birthday, and once a week later.

We had a family dinner with Grandma and Grandpa and her cousins and uncle that live in town. She helped me decorate the cake.

 Of course presents were the exciting part of it all.

 Grandpa brought some entertainment. His iPad has a magical ability to call to every kid in the house as soon as it gets turned on.

 Annie seen those mermaid blankets that are crocheted and wanted one, but "not knitted." She wanted soft fabric, so I made this for her. It was actually pretty darn easy. She recently developed a love for Shopkins (I guess she heard about them at school?) so she got some from Grandma Knight. She also got a gummy maker that she can use to make her own gummy worms and gummy bears.

 Besides the small molds, it included one big mold for a HUGE gummy bear. She was in heaven.

 A week later we had a few friends come over for a Monster Bash. I had a fun time practicing some cake decorating with various tips. Annie loved the "hairy" monsters.

 Annie also helped make this piñata.

 The kids made their own monster masks and monster bags.

 Then they played Pin the Eye on the Monster.

 We headed outside to play a few more monster games, including 3-legged races, eyeball race, and walking on stilts.

 Then we got to what everyone was waiting for: the piñata. Because we were almost free of Halloween candy I did not relish the thought of them all replenishing their candy supply all over again, so I just put in a little bit of candy, and a few non-candy prizes. Everyone got enough that they were happy, but few enough that my kids' candy was gone by the end of the day for the most part. Win-win.

After the piñata we went in for cupcakes and presents, then let the kids run wild until their parents came (about 10 minutes later).

We had fun celebrating Annie. We are happy to have her in our family. She is enjoying kindergarten, though it is super lame in my opinion, and doesn't challenge her at all. I talked to the teacher about giving her different work sometimes, since she can already read level 3 and 4 readers (pre-chapter books) and they spend their time learning two new letters a week, and working on counting, where she can already add and subtract up to 10 or more. There hasn't been much change except for the one day when I was volunteering and instead of having Annie do the letter sheet, she listed as many words as she could starting with that letter, which is good step. If only she would have that every day. But I guess kindergarten is more for learning about how school works and getting along with friends, and she's doing ok there. When you're a smarty-pants like Annie you just have to deal with doing stuff you already know how to do sometimes. (Unless we were to homeschool, which, while it would go over a lot better with Annie than with Rachel because of their different personalities, would make me crazy--I can't imagine fitting in something that big into my schedule everyday with how busy I've been feeling lately.)
Annie is more shy among groups she doesn't know that well than I would have ever guessed. She's a leader (aka bossy) when she's around her cousins that live here, and is very loud and crazy with friends she knows from church, but at school she's a totally different person who is quiet and shy and docile. It's a little crazy to me to see the transformation. :)
She is very much a gift person and loves giving and getting gifts. She'll take a cool rock to give to a friend or make a little craft or picture for her teacher at church sometimes. She also loves one-on-one time with me or Jacob. She has an hour when she gets home from school twice a week when Ryan is at school and Megan is napping when she gets my undivided attention and she looks forward to it so much. She's always excited to choose what we get to do together for our alone time. Often it is cooking, or playing board games, two of her favorite pastimes.
Annie is excited to be growing up, losing teeth, and getting to stay up an extra 5 minutes now that she's 6. It's the little things. :)

Halloween

Ryan was Buzz Lightyear for Halloween this year. So was his buddy Jimmy. They thought it was pretty cool when they saw each other at the ward Halloween party. Apparently Jimmy later told his mom that he was the good Buzz, and Ryan was the bad Buzz from Toy Story 2. :)

 These two are about 5 months apart in age, but have a huge height difference. Ryan is small for his age, and Jimmy is tall for his age, so they look like they're 2 years different in age if you look at just their height. :)

The kids had a good time at our ward Halloween party, doing a little square dancing, then we headed outside for the long awaited trunk or treat. Annie was happy to be allowed to go around with her friend Laura instead of having to stick close to Mom this year. She reveled in her freedom and went around a couple of times, stocking up on candy. Rachel probably made it around 3 times. Even Ryan and Megan who just went around once got a pretty good haul and were happy with all the candy people gave them so willingly.

Monday I went in to Annie's classroom to help with some pumpkin exploration. They measured pumpkins, saw how many pumpkins tall they were, then measured how many pumpkins tall I was (along with other activities).

Annie didn't want to dress up to go to school on Halloween because she didn't want to ruin her costume, so she went as an engineer, like Jacob, because he can just wear his regular clothes to work. Next year she'll have a badge to wear if she wants to go as an engineer again. One of the 3 Rainbow Dashes in her class said to her, "You forgot it was Halloween!" She replied very matter-of-fact, "I'm an engineer." It made me chuckle.

That night, though Annie was happy to dress up. And she made an awesome pirate, especially with the newly missing tooth that had just fallen out that day.

 Rachel was a ninja at the trunk or treat and at school, but then at her class party at school she won a cat-ears headband, so she decided to be a black cat for Halloween night. Luckily we still had the black tail from her costume last year.

 Peyton and McKenzie came to trick or treat with us. We had Reindeer Peyton, Doggy Megan, Pirate Annie, Kitty Rachel, Bunny McKenzie, and Buzz Lightyear Ryan.

And when it was all over we all celebrated because Halloween was over (so not my favorite holiday), and it is now time for the real holiday season to begin! :)
Rachel even began decorating for Christmas when Peyton left behind part of her costume:

General happenings

After fall break we were all happy to get back into our regular routine, though it seemed that our schedule has been busier than normal lately. But routine is good, even if it gets thrown off with more places to be than we are used to. 

Brush and bulky week (when people can put out extra big junk out for garbage pick up) sometimes yields great rewards. Like this time. Our neighbor around the corner put out her old playhouse. Whenever we would go to their house, Megan would spend most of the time playing in the playhouse. Her kids had outgrown it, and one man's trash is another man's treasure, so we hauled home this treasure, sprayed off the spiderwebs and killed a couple spiders. The kids have been thoroughly enjoying their new toy.

Jacob is good at playing with the kids. The kids especially like playing Sleeping Monster (where he pretends like he's asleep, then when they wake him up he gets them and tickles them), and building forts with him, and being tickled by him (he likes to hunt for Gnomes in their Knees). He came up with another fun game they like: fishing. He moves the couch to make a lake or ocean, then gets a string with a fork at the end where he puts the bait (apple slices) and tries to catch the fish in the lake. The kids love it. He's such a good daddy. :)

The kindergartners had a Community Helpers Parade that we got to come watch. Annie dressed up as a vet.

It also happened to be the day before Annie's birthday, so we brought one of Annie's favorite books to read to her class and some pretzels and a couple toys to pass out to her friends at school. Annie loves when I get to come to school. And Ryan and Megan were super excited to be able to go inside Annie's classroom for a little while.

Jacob got a negative converter for his birthday so he can digitize all the old negatives he has. Megan wanted to get in on the fun, and helped out for a little while.

Ryan loves playing Don't Eat Pete and set up this game for me one day. He put a bonus grape out, too. One of his favorite things in the world is numbers (he counts to 100 several times over the course of each day), so combining writing numbers with a yummy treat was a real win-win.

Ryan and Annie were having a rough time getting along one day. I finally sent them to their own rooms for a little quiet time and to get away from each other. When I went upstairs later I found Annie had left Ryan a note.

"Deer Ryan, you or (are) the scum beetwen (between) my toows (toes) You mac (make) me vomit. Loove Annie"
I'm not sure if this was in jest, quoting Little Rascals, or if she meant this sincerely. Never can tell with those two. They love playing together for hours some days, and can't sit in the same room for 5 minutes without fighting other days. Or sometimes on the same day.

After months of her top teeth being loose, Annie lost them both within a week of each other. The first one came out just in time to complete her pirate costume for Halloween.

On Friday Jacob's work held a rare open house where we got to go inside his work and see his office. Generally no one without proper security clearance is allowed in, so we have never been inside. There wasn't all that much to see, but the kids loved writing on his white board, seeing the great view from his high up office, and seeing where he worked. The next day they made themselves laptops out of cardboard, and set up their own offices just like dad's. They even put on the awesome badges that the company had made up for each of them, complete with their own picture just like Dad's work badge.