Boo!

Beware...The Candy Corn Vampire!

I love Halloween!

Just look at these cute little monsters.

The 2 Gorillas &...

The Wicked Witch and her 3 Little Cats.

A Birthday Tribute

This is our Aunt Coco.

(She's our Mom's sister.)

She's really fun and she likes to take us places.

Today is her 30th Birthday!

She likes to be silly with us and she's not afraid to

get down on the ground and wrestle!

Kids love to wrestle, ya know?!

We love you so much Aunt Coco!

And we hope you have a very Happy 30th Birthday!!

Baby Coco

Isn't she cute!

You must have been a beautiful baby!

I love ya sis!

Happy Birthday

Let's do lunch next week.

Love,

Gail

One

Hi! My name is Moriah, but around here they like to call me Mo, Mosey, Mo-Mo and Mosey Pie. This is my first birthday. In our family we have a tradition, it's called the "Birthday Rock."

Every time a family member has a birthday, they take a seat on this rock and get their picture taken.

Is all this attention really for me?!

Birthday dinner...Yummy!

Time for presents...Now what do I do with these things again?

Is that for me?

Yep! That's for me!!

Now it's time for a birthday bath, time to wash off all this cake!

The 10th Commandment

Our household received a visit from Mr. Stomach Bug earlier this week. Mr. Bug is one of those visitors. You know the type:

- Casual acquaintance

- Doesn't check schedules, but rather just "drops in"

- Demands constant attention

- Virtually takes over your entire life

- Refuses to clean up after himself

- Won't take a hint when he's overstayed his welcome

- Never sends a thank you note



How rude! This time around he decided to visit everyone except for Rebekah. (She had a separate play date with Mr. Chest Cold.) True to form, the children were bouncing off the walls within 24 hours of Mr. Bug's visit while Mom and Dad were just trying to stay upright. Gail asked Emma how on earth she felt well enough to jump around. In a perfectly innocent inquisition, Emma countered, "What? Are you jealous?"



Yes, Emma. We're jealous, perhaps even covetous. There's one more thing to add to my self-improvement list, but it's going to have to wait for a bit. First I must wallow in the mire of my aging physical body, one which doesn't bounce back quite like it used to.

What's For Dinner?

Spaghetti!

Mosey loves spaghetti & just like with the other kids

we break out the camera every time they do this

because I just can't resist capturing

the orange-stained face, tummy & hands on film.

Now it's off to the tub!

Pick Your Pumpkin

Time to pick our pumpkins! I love this time of year and pumpkin picking with our family is no exception. Load up the kids...let's go find 'em!

Mosey is our "little pumpkin"! Being born so close to Halloween, I'm afraid she's doomed to have that knick-name for the rest of her life - at least we'll remind her of it during October. She just loved being outdoors with the family on another Autumn Outing. And I do think she derives a lot of joy from just watching the other 3 create their special brand of commotion where ever we go.

I Love this little baby, my little pumpkin!

Emma was on a mission: To find the Perfect Pumpkin!

She looks so beautiful in this picture

& she's growing up so fast!

Aaron wanted to show off his strength,

"No Dad that's okay...I got it...I think."

I love my little guy, he too has grown up so much in the last year.

(Knock it off kids!)

Rebekah, or "Kippy" as we refer to her, loves pumpkin picking.

She pranced around the pumpkin patch and

inspected each pumpkin until she found

the one that was right for her.

I love her sweet smile!

Hand-Me-Downs Never Looked So Good!

(Rebekah in the dress Emma wore about 3 years ago for a family picture.)

I love seeing these cute clothes get a second and third life,

at least the ones that weren't stained too badly.

Mommy!!!

Is it just me or do any of you Moms out there get tired of hearing MOM!!! all day? Many of you know I use my blog to post adorable pictures, capture funny stories and to--wait for it...vent frustrations, (I'm sure that was not a surprise). Mostly motherhood frustrations. A blog is not the place to vent marital frustrations...we save that for the shrink :)

I'm kidding.

Well, I'm about to vent a little motherhood frustration, so here's my disclaimer, I'm about to complain...putting a humorous spin on motherhood helps me cope, BUT I'm still about to complain so if it bugs you proceed to the next blog immediately!

I think if I had to guess, I hear Mommy!!! at least 10 times an hour from 6am to 9pm. I'm definitely counting Mo's crying as calling for Mommy). So if I've done my Math right, (and I usually don't) that's about 150 Mommy!!!s a day. If it was just "Mommy" I could handle that all day, but it's this version:

"MOMMY!!!"

"Mom, she's being mean to me! Mom, she hit me! Mom, she took my toy! Mom, he's sticking his tongue out at me! Mom, I want to play with a friend!" And my personal, absolute least favorite...

"Mom, where are my shoes?"


I have a basket right by the front door and all of the kids have shoe keepers in their room.

Do you feel my pain?

Quotable Kids Part...(Um, I lose count)

Tonight I handed Aaron the mail and told him to take it downstairs to Dad. Aaron then yelled down to Emma to move her stuff off the stairs because he didn't want to hurt himself...

Aaron: "Emma come and move this stuff, I'm carrying a lot and don't want to hurt myself...Plus some of this stuff is sharp."

Mom: "Aaron, you're not carrying anything sharp, it's just the mail!"

Aaron: "Ya Mom, it's paper - it might give me a paper cut!"





He's got me there. Emma get your stuff off the stairs!

Conference Half-Time

I'm distraught...this week has been one of the worst weeks of my life. Without going into the details of my major struggles, I'll focus on one of the little ones that has me laughing already.

I LOVE General Conference! But now that I have four noisy children I have found it is almost impossible to really enjoy conference, invite the Spirit or to even hear it over the tantrums and complaining sometimes. Usually I resort to bingo and other such games and yes some of those games even involved candy... (shocking I know).

Today I only had Rebekah (3) and Moriah (11mo.) for the morning session, Mike took the older kids up to his Dad's to help with a big project. During the first hour Bekah watched a Strawberry Shortcake while I busied myself with my own projects and listened to it on the radio. When the Berry-Sweet-Gag-Me show ended I thought, okay here's a perfect opportunity to turn off Bekah's show and now begin watching conference with both the girls on my lap.


That didn't work out so well.

Apparently Bekah didn't want to watch conference...she had another idea...Chip 'n Dale. Oh boy.
Well I decided I was going to stick to my guns, here's how it played out:

Bekah: "Mom, I don't want to watch this....

WHAAA, Sniff, Pout, Cry...

you know the drill...

Mom: No Bekah, you watched your show and now it's Mommy's turn. We are going to watch conference, this is where the prophets speak to us--

--rudely cut-off by the ever demanding 3 year old--(I hate that)

Bekah: (Through BIG tears and a little RED face)

But conference is borrrring! It's an adult show, I want to watch

Chip 'n Dale!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ughhh.

All of this was during Pres. Uchdorf's talk. I love his talks!
Thanks goodness for DVR.