October 2014, still blogging!

I'm officially a year behind in updating my blog on our family activities. Sigh. With instagram and facebook, is a blog a bit redundant? Maybe. However I like the archive aspects of it and making a family book out of it at some point as a family record. So I'm going to keep plugging away at it for now. But moving, working, homeschooling and having babies really makes the blog a low priority. I should be doing something else right now in fact. Anyway... on to October 2014.

First lost tooth!

We had a first lost tooth for Princess and many school projects of course. Dinoguy went to a merit badge fair for scouting and earned First Aid.

Building graham cracker houses for a school project.

Checking the family first aid kit

Mentos coke experiment for school project

He can make his own sandwich!

Newly 4

Brothers!

Happy dancing baby

 October is still sports season and we had two sets of soccer games each Saturday to attend. Trainboy and Princess loved playing soccer and had a lot of fun. Dinoguy chose to do wrestling this year and so only had practices in October. It was nice to not have meets yet for him honestly.

Princess is in Orange on the far left

Watching his little sister play

One of my favorite pictures of him all year

As part of soccer, Trainboy, Dinoguy and I attended a women's soccer game at A&M. Trainboy helped escort the players on the field at the start of the game, earning us free tickets. The boys enjoyed seeing the game, it was fun to watch people who know what they are doing play the game. However during the game I realized both boys needed updated glasses prescriptions as neither could see the scoreboard.

My little guy had his 4th birthday. He is growing up way too fast and I don't think I'm cherishing it enough. He's pretty wonderful. It is hard not to compare him to his older brothers though. He has a similar temperament to my second boy which is endearing most of the time. He spends a lot of time asking if he's big enough for things the older boys do though. Since he has older siblings his childhood is very different from theirs. I am a different mom too. I'd like to say its all improvements because I'm more patient and loving but I also believe I probably don't spend quite as much time with him as I did them at this age. We do preschool activities and play games but I have so much else going on...well he plays well independently and with his sister at least. I find comfort in the fact that kids left to their own play are doing important work and developing creativity.

Breakfast in bed

Great candid photo of him!

Cupcakes on his birthday

His official birthday cake two weeks later

My oldest boy turned 12. His birthday was on trunk or treat day so we did cupcakes on his birthday and a cake two weeks later after we all came out of our sugar comas. This birthday was equal parts exciting and terrifying to me. He gets to go to youth group at church now instead of children's classes! He gets to go on more camp-outs and do more with the scouting program! He is getting so old though! He is growing nicely overall and I am really lucky to have him around, he is a huge help to me in so many ways. How do you have lots of kids? You have older kids to help with younger kids, that's how.

Every kid got to paint a pumpkin this year.

Two kids to a pumpkin this year. They were still happy!

Traditional pumpkin face and Lord Business from Lego movie.

Halloween was a lot of fun this year. We did our first (and probably only year ever) themed family costumes from Despicable Me 2. Fixitman was on board because it meant shaving his head to be Gru. I was Lucy, and we had two good little yellow minions and one awesome little purple minion. The older two boys chose literature themed costumes that I didn't really know much about, but made them happier than being minions! Dinoguy was a dark elf named Drizzt and Trainboy was Cadderly from the Cleric quintet. We went to a costume contest at Fixtman's work and won 2nd prize. Fixitman took the older 4 trick or treating for a little bit and they collected plenty of candy, in addition to all they received at the trunk or treat at church.

A co-worker was Dr. Nefario being carried by a minion. Natural grouping!

Minion family!

Halloween (Oct 2013)

For Halloween, Princess knew she wanted to be a knight. Right up until it was time to put on costumes, Little Guy declared he wanted to be a knight also. Then he wanted to wear his viking helmet and carry a pirate hook. So he was a viking-pirate-knight. Dinoguy originally wanted to be some alien creature from the book Ender's Game. We discussed how difficult it would be since masks weren't allowed and he finally settled on being a soldier. Trainboy also was planning to be a soldier. While these seemed like simple costumes to me, I procrastinated putting them together until the last moment. Fixitman made a bazooka and an RPG launcher for the boys to carry with their costumes and made a knights shield and a helmet for Princess. He would have made them for Little Guy but he didn't want them, preferring his Viking helmet and shield. They had a great time at our church Trunk or Treat and then several days later when we took them trick or treating as well. Little Guy and I walked slowly around one big block circle while Princess ran with her brothers and father to several more blocks.

 

There were more details we wanted to do - make Princess' helmet more elaborate, get the boys army boots or other shoes, find the camouflage handkerchief for Dinoguy's head instead of the blue one...but it was enough. Little Guy was happy running around getting candy and scaring people, while there was a lot of fake firing of the cardboard bazooka and RPG launcher.

Despite the use of the Switch Witch last year, this year they each ate almost all their candy. (Some was donated to Mom and Dad.) We'd already been sick the week before and gotten well, I guess everyone was happy to eat lots of sugar this year.