Halloween

 Can you tell I am trying to catch up on my pictures?  We haven't had a spare minute since Halloween . . . 

Eleni: A Black Kitty (changed later on Halloween to an angel), Lydia: Bumblebee, Gabe: Harry Potter, and Jacob: Voldemort.

 Evie: Herself.  

 Happy Birthday to Eleni!

Evie's Projects

Evie loves pulling the silverware out of the dishwasher, dirty or clean.  She loves to move it from one place to another and back again, and I usually end up about killing myself, skidding across the floor on spatulas and spoons.

Sweet Little Nightingale

This little girl is such a character.  She is definitely growing and learning, driving us crazy half the time and making us fall in love with her over and over again.  She is working on talking, and loves to sing things over and over again--like this song from the Piano Guys, the Curious George Theme song, the Harry Potter Theme Song, or this scene from Cinderella.

 This must have been a while ago in the summer, because she's pretty tan!!

 She loves her daddy like crazy!

 And she hates wearing headbands.  They look so cute on her, though--if she would only keep them in!!

Work Like an Egyptian

So the other night, Seth and Lydia and I were up until 2 in the morning working on her Egypt project for school.  We learned some pretty invaluable lessons:

1) Elementary School was awesome--we didn't appreciate how nice and easy it was!

2) We needed to teach Lydia some planning and time-management skills

3) Procrastination runs in the family.  The poor girl gets it from both sides . . .

Oh, and

4) Cleopatra actually wasn't Egyptian at all--she was Greek!  I had no idea.

Lydia's Congressional Elections project from a couple of months ago,

  and Eleni's "All About Me" page for her birthday.

  I love her comments: she wants to be a mom, she would wish for a cat if she could have anything in the world, her favorite food is petsae (pizza), and her favorite thing to do is "help set up Hallwen Stuf."  She wanted to do this one 100% on her own.

Screaming Banshees

Evie is definitely growing up and getting a mind of her own!  She and Gabe--when they are good, they are very very good, but when they are bad they are HORRID!  Evie has hated nursery until the last two weeks--she screamed the entire time for the first few months.  Today she screamed at me because I walked past nursery to drop Gabe off in Primary before taking her in . . . she knows what she wants!  And she is a powerful screamer.  I hope we can transfer all that screaming into some talking soon.

But she is stinkin' cute.

And Gabe--he's another piece of work!  He has such a fun, cute personality and almost grown-up sense of humor.  However, as you can see from this picture . . .

. . .  to this one, it doesn't take much to bring on the screaming from him too.  Between Gabe and Evie, there is never a quiet moment around our house.

But the older kids have learned to just plod on through the noise.

"Something there is that doesn't love a wall"--probably the cost.

 We love this new neighborhood!  People have been so kind, and we're hoping there's truth to the adage, "Good fences make good neigbors," because our most recent adventure has been the addition of a new, strong, very expensive wall.

With neighbors on all sides putting walls in, it was cheaper in the long run to build it now.  Although things are going to be super-tight for the next while, I'm really glad we have the wall.  It will be so nice to be able to get started on a backyard.  We love how big the yard is!  

The kids have spent hours watching the workers build various houses behind us.  Gabe has been asking me how old he has to be before he can be a worker and build walls.  We asked the workers themselves, and they just laughed and said, "Stay in school, kid--that's the best advice we can give you."  It was great motivation--I told Gabe he had to learn to read before he can be a worker, so he has grudgingly agreed to start reading lessons. :)

Evie has also enjoyed watching!

I'll put up a picture when the wall is finished--we've had a bit of a kerfuffle with the city permits, so the last little bit will be completed this week.  Can't wait!

Gabe is 4!!

 Gabe has been waiting all year for his birthday--and now that it's over, he's started asking me daily when it's going to be his birthday again. . . . 

 I am so grateful he has such sweet sisters who make holidays and birthdays fun.  I do like birthday's, don't get me wrong, but I don't have the desire or the know-how to make a big party or production of birthdays.  So Eleni came up with the whole thing--a surprise Harry Potter breakfast.  She decorated the house with these pictures from Harry potter--Clockwise from the top, they are *a scene from The Goblet of Fire, *Harry in his school robes, *Sirius Black as a dog, and *the Whomping Willow.

 These pictures are *Harry on his broomstick, *Harry fighting the Basilisk, and a birthday sign designed by Eleni.

 We set up breakfast upstairs and enjoyed a morning of watching the Harry Potter of his choice (I forget which one).

 He couldn't wait to open presents, though--thanks to Grandmas for making his birthday special!

 His one request was a Harry Potter cake.  I don't do cakes, you can ask my kids--we're hot a huge cake family, usually preferring cookies or brownies.  And cake decorating--it's not my forte.  But I decided to give it a try, so we used toys from around the house to create the scene from Harry Potter #4, where he fights the dragon.

 Notice the stunning detail and incredible icing job.

We love you, Gabe!

School at Last!

Yes, I'm a bit tardy on posting my First Day of School pictures . . .

Eleni has officially started Kindergarten!  She loves it.  Her teacher looks just like her, which she thinks is pretty great, and she can hardly wait until after lunch to go each day.

Jacob started 1st grade, and his only complaint: "I just wish I had more homework like Lydia!  I just want a challenge." I need to write that down and remind him in a few years--"you wanted a challenge, buddy!"  I am glad we kept him back a year, but at the same time, I know he'd be just fine in 2nd.  I just need to find more stuff for him to do to keep him busy.

Lydia is now in middle school and loving it, although it has been a much busier schedule.  I am proud of her, though--she has gotten really organized and keeps good track of her assignments and homework.  She gets herself up and ready at 6 am every morning--what a good girl!

  Eleni & Jacob and our two cute neighbor friends we carpool with. So that has changed my life--I MISS HAVING A BUS STOP!!!  I spent the entire first 2 weeks of school driving the kids to and from, sometimes five times a day.  We have finally worked out carpools, and life is much better now.

  I have three kids in school!  It's hard for me to wrap my head around--I went from having 4 kids home part-day last year to having only 2--and one of them napping.  You'd think I'd be able to get more done, but since these two are the ones home . . .

 There is truly never a dull moment.  Gabe and Evie are finally friends, though, which makes me happy.  But they are happy when their older siblings get home.

 This kid has really enjoyed some "Mommy-Gabey" time.

 And don't worry--I put them all to work when they are around.  They are now my official floor-moppers. :)

The Wand Chooses the Wizard

This is from clear back in July--I can't believe it's been that long since I've posted!

One thing I have passed on (sometimes by force) to my kids is my love of good movies.  We especially love watching shows the whole family can enjoy, so every summer we have a movie marathon of some kind in the evenings--it gives all of us something to look forward to, and we get to plan on hanging out together in the evenings.  This year it was Harry Potter, and it took us pretty much the entire summer to cover the series (don't worry--we skipped some of the scarier scenes :).  These kids are now huge fans of the series, the spells, the costumes, the Lego Harry Potter app--you name it.  Lydia re-read the whole series this summer, and Jacob is on book 3.  Eleni even started book 1, but fizzled out after a while (I asked her what part she was on, and she said, "I don't know.  I can't understand a lot of the words . . .").

Seth, who can make/fix anything, got the idea to make Harry Potter wands out of dowels and wood stain.  I think he was sick of finding chopsticks around the house and seeing the kids almost take each other's eyes out with them.

It was a great idea, and the kids had a good time sanding their wands.

Evie enjoyed watching from the truck.

 A couple of days later, we decided to take our new wands out for a trial run.  We drove up the mountain behind our new house, all of us piled in the back of the truck . . .

 . . . and found the perfect battleground for a wizard duel.

 Seth and the kids hiked up a ways and pretended to battle while Evie did her best to fall off rocks.

 Beautiful views and sunsets around here!

 Expelliarmus!

 Some tired witches & wizards . . .

Here's Gabe showing off his lightning scar wand.  Three guesses what he's going to be for Halloween . . .