Dax, the Letter Writer

Dax has become obsessed with writing letters. It all started because we have lots of people in our family on missions. I try to encourage my children to write to them every once in awhile. Soon it became Dax writing them letters every other day. I figured it was good for the missionaries to get mail. I also like that Dax is practicing his writing because he keeps making his little a's wrong and it drives me crazy, so I'm hoping I can get him to fix it.

Anyway, he has recently switched to some other people in our family. Dax will come up to the table with a stack of papers and announce who he is going to write his letters to each day. Then I help him spell their name and he does the rest. He usually draws a picture and writes Love, Dax--that he can spell himself. The other day he wanted to write a joke to his cousin...that took awhile because I had to spell out every word.

I scanned in a few of the more recent letters because I find them so endearing. Dax is truly a sweet little boy and I love that he is sharing some sweetness around.

Dax has a little trouble with the letter S. I
I love the size of him and Seth in his picture.

That is his uncle Bob fishing...so cute!

The joke letter--it's his favorite joke.

I thought Dax's people were exceptional in this letter.
I especially liked the ears.

Seth's Haircut

Seth got a real haircut! He looks so grown-up. Everyone comments on how different he looks. So here are the before and after pictures.

By the way: Seth hardly cried for his haircut. Our other children have screamed and I've had to hold them still, but not Seth. He sat really well until the end when I think he was just tired of sitting and holding still. I was glad it was so easy.

Here are a few more pictures...

Cheesy smile...but you can see his long hair needs to go.

Right after the haircut!

Loves his hair!

Happy Halloween!

Blurry, but cute!

Okay, I'm going to confess right now that I really don't like Halloween. Ask my family...I am grouchy all day. I hate dressing up, trying to scare our little kids, the enormous amount of candy (even though I eat my fair share), and the pointlessness of the whole holiday.

Now that I have that out of the way, I do try and make the best of it because my children love Halloween. And it is definitely more fun to celebrate with my kids. So to start Halloween on the right foot, I made some pumpkin pancakes. These pancakes weren't pumpkin flavored, they were just regular pancakes dyed orange. Randy said they were the best pancakes ever, Mark ate only one, Dax wouldn't even touch a pancake, and Seth nibbled on his. So they weren't a huge success, but I thought they were cute.

We usually have letter pancakes, but I made the pumpkins for Halloween.

Later that morning, we went to Mark's school for the Halloween parade. It is so CRAZY. The school has too many kids and the halls were packed, but both Dax and Seth were excited when Mark came parading by.

Mark with Dax's hand pointing at him!

A few hours later we picked Dax up from preschool and his class did a little Halloween parade down the street. I'm so glad it was a nice day for Halloween.

Dax is Spiderman!

Then after dinner, we hit the neighborhoods in Highland for trick-or-treating. We like to go trick-or-treat all the people we know from teaching up there (plus it's a high-income area with really great treats!) Seth loved trick-or-treating. He ran from house to house, and kept trying to go right in when they opened the door. He held onto his most recent piece of candy, so when they held out the bowl, he'd drop one in and take one out. I guess he thought he needed to trade.

I think the boys would have gone all night, but I got cold, and it was getting late. We ran into something unique while we were trick-or-treating--the headless horseman. Someone was riding their horse dressed in all black with no head and throwing candy to people. We saw him while it was still light so our kids weren't even scared. I didn't get a picture, but Randy and I were impressed with the costume. It really was a Happy Halloween!

Mark's Captain America Pose

Dax's Spiderman Pose

Seth was a cute elephant.

Seth loves trick or treating!

Seth was so proud of this sucker.
He showed it to everyone we passed!

Carving Pumpkins

Spooky!

Both Randy and I dread carving pumpkins. It is our least favorite activity at Halloween time, but our kids love it SO much that I feel a tiny bit guilty about disliking it. So every year we suck it up and let them carve pumpkins. Dax has seriously been asking to carve pumpkins since we turned the calendar to October.

This was definitely our best year. Both Mark and Dax carved their own pumpkins with just a little bit of assistance. Dax had two to carve because he got one on a field trip. Randy took care of Seth's pumpkin and his own, while I carved mine.

The boys cleaned their own pumpkins out.

Loved every minute of it!

Randy worked hard on two pumpkins.

I'm not sure what made this year so easy. Maybe it was that the older two boys were so independent. Maybe it was that we kept the faces very simple. Or maybe it was our attitude. Whatever it was, I hope it holds up for years to come. We are very proud of our pumpkins.

Dax carved the one on the right all by himself.

Mark's vampire pumpkin.

Seth loved his pumpkin. He laughed at it and still
runs outside to check on it every day.

Randy...very creative as always.

I figured since I had a white pumpkin I'd better make a snowman.

Seth's Kitchen

Seth, like most toddlers, loves to empty cupboard in our kitchen. He is especially fond of the pots and pans. Whenever I spend time in the kitchen baking or cooking dinner, Seth starts pulling out the pans. It is a huge mess, but I just let him do it because he is happier and I can get some stuff done. It bothers Randy a lot more-- he is in the kitchen picking up pots and pans every 10 minutes. But I think it is cute when he puts play food in, or puts the lid on, or stirs with his spoons--Seth is really trying to cook like mom.

See! He is SO happy!

We have a small kitchen that we brought upstairs in hopes of encouraging more playing at the toy kitchen, and less unloading the pan cupboard. It hasn't really helped--he just plays with both and makes twice the mess. But apparently Seth has been using his kitchen as a food storage area. A few nights ago I had given him a cookie to eat as we were cleaning up dinner. We had made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and he loved them. I saw him walking around eating his cookie while I loaded the dishwasher. A few minutes later I saw him without the cookie and just assumed he had eaten it up. I didn't think about it until the next morning when I saw Seth walk over to his kitchen, open the microwave, pull out a pumpkin chocolate chip cookie, take a bite, and put it back in the microwave. I found it very amusing, and went over to check it out. Well, inside I found some goldfish, smarties, and the cookie.

I have to keep a close eye on him because Seth has put lots of things in his microwave, including a half eaten banana. I'm slightly proud of him for his ingenious use of his toy, and slightly annoyed that I have to check the toy microwave every night to make sure there isn't any rotting food stored inside.

I took a picture of the banana because
I want to remember how funny Seth is!

A Jello Slide!? Really?!

Randy pulled one of his fellow teachers down the slide.

About this time of year, Highland Elementary is celebrating their huge Hawk Walk (a walk-a-thon that raises money for the school). And every year, there is something crazy for the principal to do as a reward to the students for reaching their goal. I have seen him kiss a snake, wrestle a pig, spend a day on the roof of the school, get slimed, and much more. And sometimes, the teachers get involved in the crazy antics as well.

For those of you who read our blog frequently, you'll remember Randy sumo wrestling his principal one year, and getting dunked in the dunk tank. Well, this year was a jello slide. A slide on the grassy hill covered in jello, shaving cream, baby shampoo, and applesauce. It was quite the mess! There were about 10 teachers who went down the jello slide, and Randy was definitely one of them. So here you go: Life as a 4th grade teacher in action!

We love hanging out with our crazy dad!

The things we do for soccer

Last weekend, it snowed. I know it's only October, but in Utah that means snow can show up any time. So we woke up the first Saturday in October to a little bit of snow. I knew it would melt before the day got too far along, but unfortunately we had to head to a soccer game. This is what the game looked like...

We were all bundled up in our chairs. Seth thought it was amazing!

The snow is gone, but it was still COLD!

Dax took his coat off after the first quarter but kept his hat and gloves on.

Luckily, Mark's soccer game was at 1:00 and it had warmed up quite a bit. I even took my scarf and winter coat off about half way through his game. Let's hope we can avoid snow for the last two weeks of soccer.