Halloween pictures

Our Halloween this year is actually over before it technically even started! (I guess that's going to be true for most everyone reading this, though.) We had our ward trunk-or-treat on Thursday night. The kids had a blast of course. I wasn't too happy about it starting at 7:00 on a school night, though. (Remember that Natalie catches the bus at 6:50 am.) But despite the tired kids, it was fun to get them dressed up.



Natalie was Belle this year, thanks to my mother-in-law's amazing sewing skills. She had recently made Belle's dress for the town production of Beauty and the Beast. She made this miniature version with the leftover fabric. A lot of people were amazed at the dress. It was fun to see their reactions when I told them that Natalie's grandma made it and that we didn't buy it from the store--or from the Disney store. (I've seen Disney store dresses, and I have to say that this one is better.) One lady even asked if I made it. Bless her. :)

I put gold eyeshaddow and mascara on Natalie. I had to put this picture on so you could see her eyelashes. The camera didnt' quite capture it. They looked so beautiful!

And Kelton was a stubborn monkey, I mean, a monkey. Oh, this little boy. Does he seem to be missing something in the picture? We had a very hard time getting him to put his costume on. He wanted nothing to do with it. But he wanted to trick-or-treat. He was crying/screaming in the car when we got to the church. Finally we said, "if you want to trick-or-treat, you have to be a monkey." After getting the top part on, we didn't even try for the pants. Sometimes with an almost-three-year-old, good enough has to be good enough. And he does have shorts on, in case you are wondering...

We have a picture similar to this from when Natalie wore this costume. It's the "monkey looking at the candy picture." It cracks me up every time.

Here we are at the trunk-or-treat. Damon is a banana, in case you can't tell.

Nate passing out candy while the kids dig into their own. I was surprised by how many empty wrappers were in their buckets by the time we got home.

And here is Kelton after getting his bucket taken away because "no you can't take a giant bucket of candy to bed with you." You can't even imagine how mad he was. Well, if you know Kelton, then maybe you can. Me taking pictures of him didn't help matters any.

Funny story: A couple of years ago, I think when Natalie was two and a half, she had the same type of tantrum at bedtime. But I was adamant that she was not taking her bucket to bed. After a lot of crying, Nate finally figured out that it wasn't the candy she wanted, just the bucket itself. So we dumped out the candy into a plastic bag and gave her back the pumpkin bucket. After that she was perfectly happy. Yeah, not so much with Kelton. He wanted the candy.

The next day, Friday, Natalie got to wear her Belle dress to school. She had a lot of fun at their class Halloween party and came home with lots of fun Halloween craft stuff, and yes, more candy.

So now we enter the phase of "how much of this candy does a good parent let their small children eat?" When we just had Natalie, I think I only let her choose one peice a day. It lasted forever, which was a bit annoying. (And the sugarholic in me just can't throw good candy away. Plus, I would have been devastated if my mom had ever thrown my Halloween candy away. ) So over the years I have evolved to more of a "get it over with" attitude. As long at they eat their meals, I let them have (almost) as much of it as they want when they are done. That way it only lasts a week or two and then we don't have to deal with it anymore. And if they get sick, they will learn a good lesson--too much junk food is a bad thing. I think that's one of those things you can only learn the hard way. Anyway, I'm curious to know what everyone else does with their kids' Halloween candy...

Oh, Natalie

A little background to the story...

A while ago, when Nate was in law school, Natalie asked why he was going to school. We told her, so that daddy can be a lawyer. She then asked, "why?" So we explained how all of the stuff we get from the store that we need and all of the stuff we have costs money, so daddy is going to school so he can be a lawyer so he can make money, so we can have the things we need. Made sense. I could tell that she understood. Natalie has been really excited for her dad to become a lawyer. She was excited when he graduated and didn't have to go to school anymore. She knew he had a big test he had to take and he couldn't be a lawyer if he didn't do a good job on it. She was excited when he passed the bar. And yesterday, Nate got his letter from the AZ Supreme Court stating that he had passed his character and fitness report (its a huge background check you have to pass, along with passing the bar to become an attorney) and was eligible to be admitted to the Bar and practice law in the state of Arizona. (after paying yet another fee. Aparently there is an annual fee (like $500!) to be part of the AZ Bar. My goodness, I never knew.)

So...

Nate went in to tell Natalie the good news. He told her he passed all of his stuff so he can be a lawyer now. She got really excited, smiled real big, and gave him a hug. Then she said, "Now, I have some toys I want." Nate came out and said, "And so it all starts..."

It was pretty funny. I guess we need to now explain that he has to get a job as a lawyer to be making enough money to go get some toys. And even then, I have a list. She's going to have to get in line.

Children's museum

Be prepared, there are a lot of pictures coming... Today we went to the Children's Museum with Rob and Tina and their kids. (I have to admit, I've lived here for over 8 years and I didn't know we even had a children's museum.) We had a great time.

Here's all the kids. Damon is even waving to you. :)
This is zoomed in from one of the shots of the group picture. What on earth are my kids doing?

Firefighter Natalie.

Kelton could not be bothered with the fireman attire. He just wanted to drive the truck.

Christian's turn. Very cute, but in the true fashion of a 1 1/2 year old, it only lasted a few seconds.

Once again, Kelton has to drive.

So this room was really fun and I think it was actually Natalie's favorite part. They had this thing you put stuffed frogs with velcro on the back onto and then used a rope pulley thing to lift them up to the ceiling where they were then hit by a fan which knocked them off and they went flying through the air, landing on whoever was nearby. Tina and I couldn't get over it. I think we thought it was way cooler than any of the kids did. Then, like in this picture, they had these block things that you could build a pyramid with--because that is definitely what any child is going to do with these stuffed, overly large blocks.

So here's my grumpy story. We got in trouble in this room. Everyone was having a lot of fun. The kids weren't being crazy--just playing, having fun. Then a musuem nazi, I mean employee, came in and informed us that we were all being too rowdy, and that this room is only for children under 4 years old. I must admit, I was pretty mad. Okay, I'm still mad about it. Nate thinks I should write a letter. It was obvious that this guy was mad at us. First of all, there was nothing about the look of this room that would designate it as a place only for small children. Usually in parks, museums, etc. that have special places only for little kids, they stand out as being such. This place was made to look like a rainforest. And really, how is a 2 year old supposed to stack those giant blocks into a pyramid? And, as we were getting kicked out, little Christian headed toward the blocks and proceeded to climb up them. Then I noticed the sign on the wall that read, "no climbing." As I watched Christian, I thought, "what else is a little kid going to do with these?" No, nothing about this room designated it as a spot only for little kids. And I guess what really makes me upset is that all these kids got in trouble for being kids in a children's museum. They were playing and having fun, and making noise--which, I'm sure, is what drew our friendly museum man in. It's frusterating that everywhere in public I go, I feel like I have to keep my kids quiet and on their best behavior and basically keep them from being what they are--little kids-- so that they won't upset people. But to have to feel that way in a place meant for kids?! That I paid to get into! Okay. (deep breath) I'm done now. Rant finished. Soapbox put away for another time. :)

This cool little floor area had some kind of projection on it. The kids are trying to squash the bugs running across the floor. (the flash messed up the effect)

Rock wall. This was right after we got kicked out of the other room. I wanted to find someone to ask if it was really okay if we could touch it and climb it, or if that would get us in trouble. Wait... I forgot. Rant finished. Sorry.

So this room had a bunch of giant paper mache-like dinosaurs in it. I feel bad now, because after looking at the pictures, I realize that Kelton was scared. I don't know if the picture is too small, but you can see it on his little face. He is concerned. I don't blame him. That dinosaur was painted a bit like Darth Mal.

This should have been my dead giveaway. He has his fists clenched and is growling at the dinosaurs. Kelton will growl at "beast-type" things that scare him. We caught him growling at a large spider at our house a while back. It's really quite cute. He's scared but it's like he's trying to show the other creature to back off because he's scary too. But.... in this case, I just thought, oh look how cute. He's growling like a dinosaur. Sorry, Kelton. I get it now.

Damon and Aunt Tina.

Drawing a picture.

They had this center where kids (and hungry mothers) could get a bag of gumdrops and a bunch of toothpicks and make whatever they could come up with. Natalie's first attempt was a "shooter," but it didn't work out. (like a nerf type shooter gun. we always just call them shooters) This is her with her caterpillar.

Kelton and his house. I'd like to say he's a mastermind builder for a 2 year old, but he had help from his cousin Hannah.

And for anyone still with me at this point... Here's a Damon update. He is sleeping better. Still not quite what I want, but much better. For the last 3 nights he has slept from about 7:30 to between 4:00 or 5:00. Then I give him his pacifier and he goes back to sleep until around 6:00 or 6:30. I'll take it. We're still going to work on it, but for now, I'll take it. Here he is before his dinner tonight. He's such a happy little thing. It is just not hard at all to make him smile.

Tonight was also his first night drinking... soy formula. So he got this little spotty red rash thing--all over his body. I just thought it was really bad dry skin. I remember Kelton having something similar. Anyway, he had a checkup with the pediatrician and the doctor didn't like the look of it. So he got us some 1% hydrocortisone cream to put on it and said he thinks Damon might be sensitive to cow's milk. I'm a little unclear because I don't know if that means he won't be able to drink milk later on... I'm not entirely convinced that the milk is what caused it. But the doctor wants us to switch to soy formula. I'm not too excited about it. I'm not quite sure why though. Maybe it's just because it makes me feel like a hippy. What's next? Organic baby food? Cloth diapers?! (ha! yeah right.) Anyway, Damon got his soy bottle before bed tonight and he didn't seem to mind at all.

I'm married to a...

LAWYER!!!

Nate passed the bar! We are excited, relieved, proud, relieved, happy and very relieved.

He's okay

After the really sad picture from the last post, I just wanted to show everyone that Damon really is okay. :) Natalie took this picture this afternoon.

VCUG

This morning I took Damon in to the hospital to have a renal ultrasound and VCUG. This is all followup for the UTI he had a little while ago. They needed to check to see if the infection was caused by something like urinary reflux. We won't find out the results until we meet with the urologist in a few weeks. But doesn't this look like so much fun? Poor baby.

Something different

Can you tell what's different?

Natalie didn't have school today, so we decided to play around. She has never let me do this before, but today she agreed to let me straighten her hair. After seeing her for the last 5 1/2 years with nothing but curly hair, it was definitely different! She thought it was pretty fun too.

Protected

So, if anyone tries to break into our house at night, Kelton's got it covered.


This kid is so funny. Without his sister around all the time, he is turning into more of a boy.

And while we are talking about Kelton, here are some funny things he said to me yesterday. I was putting on my shoes and Kelton came up to me and said, "whatcha doin' dude?" It cracked me up. I don't think any of us use the word "dude" so I don't even know where that came from. Then later when we were coming home from being out, I was putting the stoller in the car and I told Kelton to sit down. He had an incredibly stinky diaper so I said, "sit down stinky pants." He then looked at me and said, "What are you talking about?!" You need the little Kelton voice and emphasis to get the full effect. It was just funny because I felt like I was talking to a teenager all day.