Trick or Treat

Happy Halloween, again! Here are the pictures of the kids. . .

Rachel was a cheerleader.
Ben was Luigi from the Mario games.
Steven was the Emperor, Darth Sidius, from Star Wars.And Sophie was a princess. Grandma Packer had made this cute outfit for Rachel, and Sophie's fallen in love with it! She was a little hesitant about trick or treating at first . . . until we got to the first door and they gave her candy! We had practiced saying "Trick or Treat," but of course when it came time to say it, she just ducked her head into my leg. But after each house, she said, "More house? That house!" and we'd go on. (We went to 6 houses!)I took this video with the camera after we got back and she was eating her candy. If you listen carefully to the video clip, you can hear her say "Trick or Treat." It's a little dark because we were in a room with low light, but she's still so cute. Her mouth was stuffed so full of M&M's at the beginning of the clip that she couldn't talk!

Happy Halloween!

Nerd Day

Today was "Nerd" Day at Steven's school. I haven't seen him this excited in, well, forever! He put this "costume" together by himself.

By the way, I learned there's a difference between a nerd and a geek. Steve (dad) prides himself in being a geek--a geek is a good thing. Steven is just as proud of his geekdom! He loves Star Wars, playing his trombone, reading Lord of the Rings, and playing video games--which is pretty much the definition of a geek. A nerd is something you don't want to be. Socially backward and alone in the world. In this picture, Steven is a nerd. . . When he wears his Star Wars shirts, he's a geek. (And proud of it!)

Happy Halloween Eve!

OK, so it's not Halloween, yet, but I wanted to get the pictures of the kids carving their pumpkins. This was the first year they carved them almost totally by themselves.

Steve sat back and watched. We propped Sophie in front of Dora because we didn't want to deal with the mess! The kids all came up with their own ideas for their pumpkins. Steven even designed his Kirby pumpkin all by himself. (His hair's parted down the middle as a result from "nerd day" at school. He looked awesome! I'll post the pictures tomorrow!)Ben chose Pikachu (we need to doctor it up a little tomorrow when we have more time.) Rachel carved a butterfly.
While we were waiting for the boys, Rachel and I made pumpkin seeds. (Kristy, I thought of you the entire time--yum! yum! She's about the same age you were when Sherry shared the laced pumpkin seeds with your class!)Have a Happy Halloween tomorrow!

Pretty Princess Pink

I got tired of looking at the last post-it was too creepy for my taste, so I have to replace it with something a little cuter. . .We took this picture of Sophie on her birthday. She's such a cutie!
Anyway, I just had to post a couple of cute Sophie-isms. We've been trying to teach her how to match the words for the various colors with the correct color. Most of the time when we ask, "Sophie, what color is this?" she replies, "Yellow." Today, I asked her what color her shirt was. She replied, "Yellow." I said, "No, it's pink." She said, "No, pretty princess pink!" What a girl!

On another topic, I was surprised to find her diaper dry when I got her out of bed this morning, so I asked her if she wanted to go on the potty chair. She was thrilled when she went potty and got candy. Hopefully, this is the beginning of the end of diapers!

Finally, the older kids have been playing hide and seek with Sophie, so she's heard them count. Last night when I asked her how many fingers she had, she counted them out loud, "One, two, four, five, six, eight, nine, ten, lebben." We practiced a little this morning, and she actually got from one to 10 all by herself without any mistakes! I can't believe my baby's growing up!

The Baby We Never Had

So, when we first got engaged, people always wondered what our kids would look like because Steve and I look so different from each other. After having four kids, I've sort of noticed a pattern. . .all of our kids start out with blonde hair and blue/hazel eyes (except for Ben who has brown eyes.)

I love each of our kids and their individuality. But I kind of thought with my dominant brown eyed/brown haired genes, that at least one of my babies would have been born with brown hair and brown eyes. Thanks to VW, I get to see what one of our babies would have looked like with brown hair/eyes without going through the pain of child birth! (The first time I tried it, the baby popped up with blonde hair/blue eyes. I resubmitted pictures, and this is the result.)

I'm glad I never had one with dark hair/eyes. This baby just doesn't look like one of ours!

If you want to make your own baby, here's the link:
http://www.vw.com/vwhype/babymaker/en/us/