Catherine's pictures

These are the pictures that I entered in a program called Reflections. It got a honarable mention. All the pictures except the one of the waterfall and the river were taken in my neighborhood.

Outings with Dad

Thanks to Amy for posting these photos so I can finally get around to writing about our outings. One recent Sat. I thought it would be the last nice Sat. of the fall, so we made time to go up the canyon. You can see the leaves were already down but it was nice and warm! The kids reminded me of our tradition of going to "the rock in the river."

Now David is too big to tell him that he can't get on it, too. Catherine took some really cool pictures of the river from the rock that you'll be seeing soon. At the playground by the campsite there was brand new wood chips! All the better for burying your brother and dumping on your dad's head.

On Oct. 25 the three older kids had their turn to go to a BYU football game. I picked UNLV because I thought it would be a blowout and essentially over at halftime so it wouldn't matter that we had to leave. Except it came down to the final play. But Emma and Spencer had it after the first drive. They remembered that LAST YEAR I had told them we could get hot chocolate. But in keeping with the nice warm weekends this fall, it was about 70 (I had to put sunscreen on them) so there was no one selling hot chocolate. That wasn't a good enough excuse for them, though. We left after watching the band at halftime. BYU won.


Catherine is really starting to understand the rules and likes to watch. She took this picture of us. She got to go to a game with just me earlier in the season - I'll post those photos when I get them off my phone.

Also, Spencer didn't get lost this time :)
Since I was wearing a hat, everyone decided they had to have a hat as part of their "gear," too. Even though the only one Emma could find was red

Piano Recital

The girls had first piano recital of the year. This time they were preparing for their ensemble (duet) festival. This was Emma's first recital and she played with her teacher. We were really proud of both of the girls. They did really well in their festival too.
This guy, on the other hand, was another story.

Adendum

A few more of Spencer's gems that we forgot in the last post:

Why does school teach us about the earth and letters?

How did Heavenly Father make us?

Why did Heavenly Father make 2 moons for Mars and only 1 for us?

Why is there such thing as girls underwear in this world?


And to go with this post. Another night-time discovery of Spencer. When I walked in the room I really didn't know where he was. :) Notice the pile of discarded pajamas. Also notice a Richard Scary book - they are his favorites.

Enquiring mind wants to know

Spencer has been full of questions lately. Just suddenly he'll ask some random question - half of which I have no answer for. But it's so funny to see the wheels turning in his head. So I finally started writing some of them down. Here's a few:

Why do dinosaurs always live by volcanoes? Oh, is it because they eat lava?

Why does Heavenly Father make thunder when it's raining?

How does water get clean?

How does a shoemaker make shoes?

How does Heavenly Father make vitamins in food?

Is there a vitamin that can make me run faster than Catherine?

How do you make water?

How do you make milk?

Do cows have machines in their stomachs?

Why is it called 'gray'?

Why do they have to bring the mom some food after they have a baby? (Like Jenni in the hospital.)

Why do people store food for the winter?

How old are Dads? (michael: "34") Why?

Does Jesus celebrate Christmas?

How do people make legos?

Why do ninjas (he says injas) wear masks?

How do Chinese people cut-up their food?

Do Chinese people wash their hands?

Why do they say "Happy Halloween"? Is it because they don't want to say "Mad Halloween?"



And one more recent quote: "Mom, did you know 'peeps' (our word for #1) are like ghosts because they both go through things . . . like my pants.

Halloween was fabulous

Halloween was really fun this year. I have to say that pleasant weather, makes it so much more fun. Plus, the kids are at fun ages. Poor David was pretty petrified by the scary guys -especially at the Halloween parade at the school. One helpful kid in Emma's class who was wearing a particularly gross mask came up to David's face making scary noises. That totally cemented his fear. But it also made him snuggly and I liked that part.

We went with a European motif for our Halloween costumes this year. (More by coincidence than original plan) and everyone looked cute, if I do say so myself. Emma wore her famous matador costume and looked as cute as ever. Dad was the bull she fought, but mercifully didn't kill.

Catherine wore a dirndl my parents bought in Austria about 20 years ago and went as Heidi.

Spencer's was the costume I was having the hardest time with. After a neighbor gave us this green dragon costume for David to wear, I decided Spencer should be a knight to go with the dragon. (This was the only costume I made this year.) And in honor of our trip to England this year, he is St. George - the patron saint of England - who fought the lengendary green dragon. Frankly, I didn't expect anyone but an anglofile-Humanities-major to get this one, so we just told everyone he was a knight. Spencer asked if he was "The Dark Knight." Since he's only heard his friend talking about that and really has no idea what it means, I just told him, "sure. What ever makes you want to wear your costume." :)
This was another cute costume. Catherine's teacher this year is Mrs. Merryweather. So she was Merryweather from Sleeping Beauty for Halloween. Loved it.

Our search for the Great Pumpkin

Every year, one of our favorite October traditions is to go to our authentic pumpkin patch in American Fork. A real farm that grows pumpkins. Well this year the farm decided to just go comercial and sell the pumpkins from a parking lot. Since the highlight for us is tromping through the patch and actually picking our pumpkins off the vine we drove around trying to find another patch. We found one that was part of a big halloween activity place that included a corn maze, petting zoo, bouncy castle, hayrides,etc., but since it cost $5.00 a person to get in and by the time we got there we only had about a half an hour left, we didn't want to pay $30 just to pick some pumpkins. We did get to walk past part of the petting zoo on the way in and out, so we felt like we got some of the flavor of a pumpkin patch. Then we caved and went to the parking lot.

Emma and the witch.

We did get to talk to the nice farmer, so that made it feel a little more authentic.
The cute bunny-village at the petting zoo.
Next year we're going to have to find another patch. Or finally grow some big pumpkins ourselves!

The day before we also got to have a fun outing at Thanksgiving Point with our friends the Kapps! Yea for Fall. Yea for UEA weekend.