Trick or Treat!

Whew! What a weekend! Not only was I in charge of planning our branch Halloween party, but we also had our Sacrament Meeting program today. It was a very stressful week, and I am glad it is over. Here's a few highlights though...

Maggie's new favorite thing is this green skirt my friend gave me. Every morning when she wakes up and I go into her room she has it on. Most of the time she has dumped out her laundry basket to get it, but doggonit she wants to wear it. If I don't put it on her after I get her dressed she will go back upstairs and put it on again anyway, over her pants. It is really pretty funny. The boys have also been dressing up in different costumes lately and Maggie found one of their cowboy hats. Here is a typical idea of what Maggie looks like during the day....
Since Halloween was on a Sunday this year, Fort Irwin held trick-or-treating on Friday night. It is a small, isolated community so it is easy to do that and I think it is great! Now my kids get to go trick-or-treating! So Friday we had some friends come over for pizza and the kids all went out together. Here's my kids.... doesn't Maggie look so cute? That costume suits her 100%.
Jacob was Indiana Jones. I can't tell you how nervous I get when the boys try to crack that whip!
Tyler was a skeleton (obviously). We carved pumpkins a couple days ago. Our first year here we made the mistake of carving them a week in advance. Well, it is still warm here so the pumpkins were so rotted out a few days later they were thrown out well before Halloween night. This year we carved them on Thursday, and trick-or-treating was Friday. Perfect, because now it is Sunday and they are already going bad.
Maggie was obsessed with her pumpkin (or "punk" as she calls it). She carries it around and won't let the boys touch it. Hers is the little one of course. "My punk! I wan my punk!"
As I said it was a crazy busy week particularly Friday, Saturday and today. Nonstop, literally. I don't think I sat down yesterday until 8:30 at night. So Maggie has missed her naps and gotten to bed late each night. Needless to say she is very tired. I notice it was peculiarly quiet in the house after church today (church ends at 4 p.m.....this was around 5:00). I looked around and saw this....
I walked over to see what she was doing, thinking she was playing around, but no...she was DEAD ASLEEP! Is that some form of child abuse, denying your child sleep until they are so tired they sleep standing up, still holding their half eaten sucker in their hand? Guess I am guilty.
Poor little thing. Don't worry, she got to bed on time tonight. Let's hope this week is a slow one!

A Day in the Woods

Well, we were getting a bit stir crazy at home (by "we" I mean me) so we spent a Saturday up at Big Bear and had a weenie roast. The big kids played, hiked a bit, built a fort, and had fun. Joey did this...Actually he wanted to be held most of the time. Maggie enjoying her lunch (that she only ate the chips, oreos and soda of...).
Who's that stud cookin' the dogs over that totally awesome (and illegal up here right now) propane stove?
Yes, we read online that fires are a no go right now so we brought the stove. Everything online and signs along the road on the way out to the site said propane stoves were okay, but we get there and there is a sign stapled to the table that said that actually right now propane stoves are not allowed either. Well, why they wait until you drive all the way in there to tell you is beyond me...and we didn't just drive 2 1/2 hours to eat raw hot dogs, so we went on the wild side and quickly cooked the dogs anyway. Wefigured we could pull the army card if any rangers caught us ("Oh, gosh sir. We didn't realize. You see my husband is in the army, gone a lot. We just came out to have some family time..."). Luckily no one caught us so I didn't have to whip out my feminine wiles. And to make it more authentic we at least roasted the dogs on sticks.
The boys worked on a fort (in fact, Eric and Tyler came up to this same camp site like 2 years ago and built a fort---it was STILL THERE!) and went scouring for logs. Jake found not a log, but a fallen tree and thought it was perfect for the fort. Here he is dragging it down the hill...
Not to be outdone, Tyler went and found himself a monster stick and proceeded to add that to the fort as well.
Although Maggie wasn't much of an outdoors-woman (every time her hands got dirty she's get upset, "Eeeeeww! Ka Ka!") and managed to trip on rocks and sticks every other step, she did enjoy the fort for a minute.
And here is Tyler with his masterpiece...
Eric tried to get a cute shot of Jake, this is the best we could come up with......typical Jake anyway.
A few days ago it decided to rain out here at Fort Irwin. Quite the novelty for us! And it was a downpour! Short lasted but exciting anyway. The kids instantly ran outside. I love the look of sheer joy on Jake's face...you'd think he had found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
The boys were having so much fun....and yes, Tyler was outside in the rain with no shoes or socks on. Don't judge! If I'd made him put his shoes on first he'd have missed the rain--not only because it didn't rain too long, but because that kids is slow as molasses when it comes to putting his shoes and socks on.
Maggie (who probably has never seen real rain) wouldn't venture out from under the porch and kept asking me, "Whas it doo-een?" (Translation, "what's it doing?" Ha ha. Isn't that sad!?! She finally mustered up the nerve to go out in it once it had all but stopped except for a light mist. She still thought she was so cool to be out with her brothers though.
I will try to take more pics of Joey. If only I had an extra arm I could accomplish so much more!

Happy Halloween

Well, you could only put 5 people on so I let Daddy be the witch instead of mom. Ha ha!

More pictures...

Mostly Joseph still sleeps a lot, and when he isn't sleeping he is making funny looking expressions. The boys are still doting on him...One of his funny expressions...
Maggie is her usual self--she has claimed all of Joey's things as her own. She does share with him though. How kind of her. She climbed into his swing all by herself.
I walked in and saw this yesterday...
He wasn't squishing him, even though it looks a little like he was. But he was reading a book to him and it was so cute.

A random picture of Maggie.
And this is what Joseph does a lot of still, although he is waking up more and more.

See? Awake!
Well, I know the commentary lately has been lame, but I usually only have a couple minutes to try to post anything and during that time the kids are pestering me the whole time. So for now I guess the pictures will have to suffice.

Id, Ego and Superego

Jacob suffers from no lack of confidence. Just now I told him he was a good big brother. He looked at me and informed me that, "I am also a good drawer, a good climber, I am a good cleaner upper, and I am good at listening all the time. And I am good at everything....and I am Daddy's best buddy!" Good job Jake. I don't think we'll have a problem with middle child syndrome with him.

Last night he also drew me a picture of a smiley face and gave it to me. He went over to Eric and said, "You don't get one, only mom gets one, because moms are special." Smart boy.