I'm here...

No, I haven't crashed my tank of a van yet, and Hannah and I haven't pulled each other's hair out ... yet. Ha Ha! I keep thinking I need to update the blog, but when?! Nikki was in a Christmas concert at school tonight. It was really cute. Hopefully I'll have a chance to post the pictures of it tomorrow. I think I know the songs just as well as she does with how much she has been singing them around the house this past week.

Hannah is doing really well with the homeschooling. She works so hard and is just a wonderful girl. I love having this time with her, and Ryan does, too! All day long he asks, "What's Hannah doing?" It's really cute.

Okay, I'm ready for bed. Hopefully, I'll get some pictures up tomorrow, but in the meantime... things are going well.

Changes...

So, now that our third child is two years old, we are finally owners of a minivan. While having Ryan backhand Hannah in the face any time he thought she was encroaching on his space was a great motivator to make the upgrade, sad to say it wasn't the catalyst. A few weeks ago Nate was sitting at a stoplight and some guy slammed into the back of him. Nate thinks he was texting because his explanation of what happened didn't make any sense. Thankfully none of the kids were with him, as the impact was hard enough to deploy both airbags and give Nate a pretty sore neck for a few days. Nate is going to be traveling for quite a bit the next few months, so we were thinking we would just try it out as a one-car family for a while. But he found a really good deal on a used Honda Odyssey. He has been keeping tabs on what's on the market for a while because we knew this would be our next big purchase, and we thought we would wait until the spring to save up what we needed to pay for one. We were excited when this van checked out to be in fairly good condition. Anyway, we are really grateful that we could get it now, even though I feel like I'm driving a tank after driving a Honda Civic for so long!

The really big change will come next week. I'm going to start homeschooling Hannah for a variety of reasons. When the thought first crossed my mind that I could just homeschool Hannah and leave Nikki in school, I was pretty surprised by the idea. I tried to homeschool Hannah for a little bit in the first grade and failed miserably with it, so I know it is because of a lot of prayer and inspiration that I can honestly say I am excited about this. I think it will be so good for her, and I am looking forward to having some time to focus just on her. I ordered a book of art lessons and it came in the mail yesterday. I asked her if I could be a student along with her and go through the book, too. It looks like a lot of fun! My dad and my sister are great artists, and I've always wished I could be, too. I know you can't teach talent, but I can at least have fun trying. So, I'm sure I will lose my mind here over the next few months. What a ride this life is!

Nikki, Nikki, NIKKI!

We were heading out the door last night, and Hannah called out as she walked into the kitchen, "Umm, Mom, I don't think we can go to gymnastics tonight!" This was the lovely sight she saw. Clearly, Ryan doesn't have that much artistic talent yet - he even had earrings painted on. What is all over him? Fingernail polish. Yep. I only took a picture because one day I hope to be able to laugh at it, and it's really not so bad this morning as it was last night. On the upside, Nikki did admit to doing it the first time I asked about what happened. That's an improvement, maybe she has been listening a little bit to me. Also, it just so happened to be children's fingernail polish that wiped off of his body with just a warm washcloth. She is so lucky!! I'm not sure if the shirt can be salvaged, though, and it is one of Ryan's favorites. He loves the monkey on it. We'll see how it comes out in the laundry today, but I am no good with stains.

Nikki's Monster Story

This one made me laugh. I'll transcribe it for you....

by Nikki Robbins
If I took a monster to school... He would either do his homework quietly... or... eat the principle. And then I would take him home and .... Eat, sleep, play with my monster at home so he doesn't eat anyone. And what do you think he would do next.... Yep he'd play piano! So he would wake up my baby brother. And then mom would come and take that monster and put it in the trash can. But when Mom is sleeping I would sneak outside in to the dark at 10:00 pm. I would get my monster and tuck it under my bed just in time. I love my monster. the end

October in Review...

Well, we have been doing lots of fun things throughout October that I have been taking pictures of, I just haven't been posting them on the blog. So, instead of trying to find the time to give each activity its own post like I should have done, I'm just going to slap them up here in this post and be pleased that I did it before next Halloween.

 We started out October with a Spurting Spider. Only he didn't spurt at us because I didn't want it to leak before Nate got home from work and stuck it in the fridge. Well, a smart person would realize that the Jell-o inside the cake will harden if you do that, and therefore won't ooze out when you cut it. But I'm not that smart.

 

 This was a ghost party the girls decided they wanted to have. When I told Nikki that we didn't have any sheets that she could cut up to make ghost costumes out of, they just jumped into pillowcases. Then they turned out the lights and went crazy.

 

Painting pumpkins. Always a favorite.

 Carving pumpkins. Nate was out of town, so there was no question whose pumpkin was the best this year. Of course, I would have beat him anyway. :)

 Halloween lunch -- mummy faces and apple bites.

 Halloween sprinkles on cupcakes (well, it was really muffins with cool whip on top because I had already made muffins that day, and somehow I convinced the girls it was good enough)

 Jell-O Jigglers (and yes, my kitchen has been a wreck for most of the month -- I couldn't avoid showing it in most of these pictures)

 

 Haunted gingerbread houses

 Ryan had more fun cleaning up than decorating the graham crackers

Caramel apples

Decorated cookies

And Ryan got sick as we were helping set up for our party at church Saturday night. That didn't stop Hannah and Nikki from having fun at the Trunk-or-treat, though.

The nicest witch and prettiest devil around

Okay, I'm impressed if you made it this far!

Can we postpone Halloween?

 Poor baby. He wanted nothing to do with Halloween, except for the lollipops. Can we just get everyone to dress up next weekend so he can have some fun, too?

Cute baby

I have some more pictures that I'll try to get around to uploading sometime soon. This is just a video that I think is cute because, well, I think my baby is cute. It's a perfect example of how he yells when he says anything, and it has his cute little laugh when he's proud of himself at the end.

Mom

For some reason I was just really missing Mom this morning. Sometimes it just hits me that it would be really nice to pick up the phone and talk to her. Maybe it's because last Sunday was her birthday. Maybe because I was thinking about how Hannah's love for Halloween is much like hers. I really don't know what triggered it today. This picture was not even taken at Halloween, though. She would just do crazy things like that. Love you, Mom.

Hmm...

Nate's on a spending spree!

I got such a good laugh tonight, I just had to write it down. I know I've mentioned before how cheap frugal Nate is. Well, I think last night he was doing something in the kitchen and had a run-in with my broken whisk. It has a spoke that keeps popping out, and I just have been pushing it back in for quite some time. So, when he got home from work today, he gave me a set of 3 whisks that he bought for me today. So sweet! I was really happy that he would do that for me. Then, he said, "Well, I think they should last. I didn't get them at the Dollar Store at least. I'm learning not to be so cheap anymore."

Oh, well where did you get them?

"K-Mart!"