Happy Halloween!

 Claire

This past week was fairly normal for us with having Sage over to play and going through our days together playing, learning, and having fun. I think I'm going to practice having her sitting still longer doing "school time" to practice handwriting, phonics reading, and other skills we are trying to teach her. She is very all over the place and wiggly which makes it hard for her to concentrate on the things we are doing and she is very focused on what she would rather be doing. She is more of a creative soul and loves play dough, playing with blocks or 'help' daddy outside with the leaves, and its fun to see her drawing things. I found things nail thing I had years ago that are stamps of pictures and they LOVED it so much, Claire chose a heart and Shay a flower and I was a rose for Belle.

Shay

I expect her to be very wiggly too because she is a year and a half younger than Claire, but she is always more interested in the things I'm teaching. Shay has been attaching herself to our legs if we stand around too long and loves when daddy walks around with her hanging on. Claire will join sometimes with daddy but mommy isn't as much fun and I tickle them instead or wait until she loosens her grip and escape. She is still taking weird naps some days and fell asleep on our way to the halloween party but was only asleep of 5 minuntes so it didn't make her too grumpy. She started a dance party while we were there so I'd say she had a good time!

Halloween

We were able to go to our ward Halloween party even though Chris was working so the girls and I got a ride and enjoyed our time. We got there early to bring food and help set up, found some toys in the building before the food was ready, ate mostly treats and a few bites of tacos before the fun started. There was a costume parade for anyone who wanted to be judged and win something and we won the best coordinated/family costume because I was Belle, Claire was Beast, and Shay was Mrs. Potts. It all started because Claire likes to dress as the lion that we had bought for Chris to be the beast two years ago and I went with it. There was some music that they danced to and then we went from trunk to trunk to collect their treats. We were lucky enough for Chris to get off work early and did some trick or treating tonight too! It has been a long weekend.

Drenched

Pumpkins

We decorated our pumpkins this week! Claire saw Chris planning his carving by drawing his face on his pumpkin which inspired her to paint many different faces on her pumpkin. Shay still just put all the colors on her pumpkin while Chris and I did carvings that took a lot longer than the girls so we were working on it after they went to bed. They were so excited to see them in the morning and called daddy's scary and mom's a pretty princess. I've had people mistake mine for Mulan and Jasmine but it is supposed to be Belle, I don't mind the others since they are also princesses from the same time period I guess.

Claire

Claire has had a fun week practicing the songs and lines for the primary program we have in a few weeks. She remembers a surprising amount of the 8 songs and sings with me each night to earn a sticker to go on her PJs for the night. She is also getting good at saying the line "It shouldn't be hard to sit very still" where the first time shouldn't sounded really bad and she still says really instead of very. I personally have loved our singing time and how excited she gets to say her lines, she is the sweetest little spirit and is so friendly and welcoming to others.  The weekend has been so rainy and the girls liked playing with the umbrellas when we had to get them out to pick up the toys outside after waking up to a wet world!

Shay

It is not fair that she is growing up and getting more independent, she didn't even cry and miss us when we went to the temple this week and had Nana Kathy come play with them. She was so excited to show off her toys and playroom that she let us leave without crying or whining, luckily she was excited when we got home! As soon as I thought she was a big girl, she had a hard time saying goodbye in the nursery and when daddy went to work. At least they are both still cuddly at times and Shay loves to cuddle to fall asleep which is most often on the couch together. There was even one day that we were all napping together as a family Chris on the couch with the girls and mommy in the comfy bed. 

Picking Pumpkins!

 Pumpkin Patch

This month was looking like it was going to be a little sad because we found out that Chris works every Saturday this month! We had been planning to go to a pumpkin patch and maybe a straw maze as our season's activities, but since I watch three kids every weekday and Chris's Saturdays were now busy, it was looking sad. We had a random day off this week and took the chance to go to a pumpkin patch only 15 minutes away and found a wonderful time! It wasn't very busy because it was a weekday (lucky!) and we rode a hayride out to the fields where we all found the perfect pumpkins. There was a play area with a hay maze for the girls and a hill, some picture areas, and a few other kids they made friends with.  

Claire

I cannot believe how cute she looks in a sweater! I wish I got a better picture before they got covered in hay, but it is what it is and we set up our pumpkins on the counter so the girls would stop playing with them and asking to decorate because that is for next weekend. She looks cute in so many things but some of the outfits are just too cute to handle and it is so fun to dress my girls to match. I've gotten more people asking if they are twins this week, and it's not going to stop me because matching is too much fun. I'm working on her reading skills and they seem to be forming nicely because she will start to sound out the letters then is quiet for a second then tells me what it is! She likes the flashcards we use because they have the picture of the word she is reading that I uncover when she gets it right and then she pretends to be the bus or cat or bug. She spotted our first tomato from our plant this past week and either it grew really fast or we didn't notice it for a few days!

Shay

Even though she is becoming a picky eater and gained an annoying habit of putting too much food in her mouth then has to work at chewing it up and swallowing. She does it with almost everything but likes to show me and then show me that she has swallowed afterward too. I think she likes when I get excited for her because she will do that when she is drawing a picture and has done one more line than the last time she showed me. As much fun as it is to have her learn and grow, she is outgrowing the good cuddling that she used to do! Way too wiggly now, which reminds me, they have fun doing the wiggle dance before prayer times that was started a couple weeks ago!

Awesome Autumn

 Claire

She is learning about coloring inside lines with a little coloring book we have had for a while and just refound in our bookshelf. As she is drawing she doesn't want me to see it until it is done and if I try to look at show excitement she says "don't look!" I think she likes the reveal of when it is complete and she has picked the right colors for the things she is drawing, so I sneak my pictures! We get to go to the park on the weekends because it is a little easier to leave the house and went both Saturday and Sunday even though daddy was working both days. I matched the girls in cute outfits and had a lot of fun biking to the bigger park and playing for a good long time because they keep finding new friends and the weather is great. 

Shay

She has a great attitude as she follows her sister's lead in so many things, but she creates her own reality in some of her own way. She is so silly as we try to take pictures together and I have to tell her to smile instead of stick her tongue out at me. Claire is like daddy and likes sleeping in but Shay is my morning girl just like me and gets up before her sister to bug her by turning on the light. She will run around the room going crazy until they are ready to get out and have breakfast with me. Shay still loves to go on walks and Claire joined us around the block today after we got home from the park because we didn't want to get out of the beautiful weather!

Simply starting October

 Claire

There has been some fun times this past week with how she is starting to want to teach her sister and friend, she spent some of the reading time sitting and reading Sage books. She did several books and has a good enough memory that can remember what the books say for the most part, and it was so cute. Some of the things that she comes up with is just hilarious and the Buzz Lightyear toy was put in jail because he was a bad boy, not really sure what actually happened but I walked up when he was already in jail. Which reminds me that she has changed her idea on boys in general and whenever I say that dad is a stinker butt she says "no I love him" in his defense. 

Shay

This little cutie is just an angel and always comes and helps when I am doing chores which makes Claire and Sage come help too. I can barely keep up with them! There was a birthday party for Sage that was a costume party so I asked Claire what she wanted to be which was a witch because of the hat we found in my decoration box. For Shay, she never told me what she wanted so I thought it would be cool to be all white since Claire was all black and gave her a little halo. Didn't last very long being clean because the first thing she ate was an Oreo and that was very dark compared to her shirt. Hopefully it comes out easily because it is a cute shirt!

Parents

Chris started up with his next quarter and it is a week of class work before the rotations start so he has an idea of the stuff he has to do on top of shadowing. The studying is starting and he has organized what he will be studying over the next year to be ready for his rotation tests and the national ones too. We had a wonderful time with conference since the girls were understanding whenever we told them that mom and dad were listening and they needed to go find some toys to play with. It is always nice to have such wonderfully spiritually filled weekends and learn how to better ourselves.