Halloween 2013

We celebrated Halloween in California this year.  Everyone coordinated and made sure we could get all of the cousins together to go trick or treating that night.  Leading up to Halloween, Betsy decided that she wanted to dress up as Annie.  She's a big fan of the movie and thinks she equals Annie because of the curls.  So I found her a red Annie dress online and had it mailed to my mom's house.  Tristan could not make up his mind on what he wanted to be, but I figured if we took him to the costume store in CA, he would quickly settle on something. 

The Saturday before Halloween we helped Papa and Nama get all of the scary decorations out and decorated the house a little.  Papa BBQ'd hot dogs all day long for the ward Halloween party that evening.

  

Below, Annie and Superman are excited for the ward party and trunk or treating.  This is the only picture I got with Annie and her red wig.  She hated that thing!  Maybe because it was an adult size clown wig.  It didn't want to stay on her head.

Hot dogs, nachos, and chili were served that night.  The kids immediately ran over and waited in line for cotton candy.

It was sort of a sad night for Betsy.  Every single little girl at the party wore a pretty princess dress.  It's that age!  They are all obsessed with princesses!  I watched her as she admired all of the princesses around her, and it broke my heart a little.  At one point, she came over to me and said that she wasn't pretty like the other princesses.  WHAT?!  I'm hoping that she just meant that her dress wasn't sparkly like the others.  She's too young to think like that.  Anyways, I felt really sad for her and tried to build her up and talk about how great and kind Annie was and how she was always the one to help her friends in the orphanage.  She was a leader, and that she carried that pretty necklace charm around her neck.  It kind of worked a little, enough to get her thru the night and excited about trunk or treating. 

So I caved.  Rapunzel it was!  Her all time favorite.  It was worth it to see her this happy.  My sweet bear.

Halloween night was crazy!  We had all 7 cousins at my parents house for dinner and trick or treating.  7 kids under the age of 7 = madness.  But I know that they all had a blast.  

These two loved staying in character.  The scared and helpless princess gets rescued by her brave super hero.  

London, the rock star pirate.

Von, the police officer.  Apparently his costume was chosen because he likes to follow rules.  Tristan, the Superman.  Addison, the super hero.  Milo and Joaquin dressed as Mike from Monsters Inc.  London, the rock star pirate, was not thrilled to be in this picture.  Leo, is Gus Gus from Cinderella.  And Betsy bear, looked stunning in her sparkly purple dress.  

Tristan plays soccer

Tristan was more than excited to start soccer this year.  It's funny because he's never really been exposed to soccer but he thought that he knew everything about it already.  We practiced a little beforehand but he was so confident and ready to get started.  One size fits all shorts?  We had to roll them 2 or 3 times, and the drawstring barely did the job! 

For this age group, we don't have practice during the weeks (oh joy!).  We just meet on Saturdays and the coach runs a few drills with the kids and then splits them into teams to play a game.  Wonderful idea!  Tristan's buddy, Nale, signed up as well.  

Tristan's biggest cheerleader!  At one point during the game, we wondered where Betsy went...we looked up and saw that she was playing in one of the goals, just as the ball was making it's way to her.  Parent fail.  

 

Practicing drills with dad:

Nale and Tristan with their dads.  It explains why Nale, who is only 2 months older than Tristan, is almost a foot taller:

Tristan and Nale got split up and had to play against each other.  Bummers!

Tristan chasing after Nale as he goes for the goal!

Nice form T! :)

Tristan competing with this annoying ball hogger who was on his own team.  Super annoying.

Every time he came in for a water break, he would ask me, "Mom, are you cheering for me?"  He was so proud to be out there.  This game was so funny to watch!  This is a group who does not remember which goal is theirs, or understand when they are out of bounds, or who is on their team.  They just keep on going and are so happy!

Co-op Preschool, Round Two

We started another year of preschool and I'm excited about our group of kids and the awesome moms I will be teaching with this year.  All the of kids get a long so well and I'm happy to work with little four year olds this time who are even more excited about learning. Tristan absolutely loves preschool days.  

The kids were at my house last week.  A couple highlights were frosting our Cakes with 3 Candles (Shaving cream and glue.  It dries all fun and puffy!), popsicle patterns, dance dice (it's a MUST to get those wiggles out), and one day we learned about Pharaohs and pyramids.  I look forward to working more with these little guys.  

Life on film

Recent pictures from Holga camera:

Potty training fun and more...

This little girl is potty trained now!  We did the 3-day challenge where we start with the Bye Bye Diapers ceremony and throw her diapers away in the trash (I secretly fished them out later because I felt bad throwing diapers away).  We never leave the house and I have to be by her side every second of the day.  And I have to bug her by saying, "Tell me when you have to go shee shee!"...over and over and over again.  And there's a lot of mess to clean up around the house, and a lot of laundry.  Potty training is pretty much every mom's nightmare!  But after those 3 days a miracle happens; She is 100% potty trained!  No more diapers, no pull ups, nothing.  Just undies! 

We are seriously so impressed with how well Betsy did.  Since day one she has not had one accident at night.  She wakes up every morning with a dry bed!  I never have to bring extra undies on our outings because she has never had an accident.  She always tells me when she has to go.     

Some activities that kept us busy; baking, board games, dance parties, movies, reading...yes, a lot of Betsy time!

 

Below is the one picture that kind of sums up my birthday this year.  The day was pretty uneventful and the kids chose this day to make my job a little harder.  Mid-morning, Betsy decided to put flubber in her hair!  I was panicking a little because it wasn't coming out.  But then Christian googled it at work and found out that vinegar takes it right out, and it did!  It turned the flubber back into liquid and washed right out.  Happy birthday mama!  

Tristan the gansta:

The kids spend many afternoons outside playing tea party and cooling down with the hose.  

Chuns of fun

Christian and I were just talking about how much fun we have at the beach with these kids now.  It's nice because we can both be out in the water on boards with them, or we can sit back and watch while they play in the shore break (more Tristan, not so much Betsy, yet).  I love that they both love the water so much, and that they can last as long as we can at the beach.  This past Labor Day we decided to go to Chuns on the North Shore.  It's always got a little something to surf on a longboard.  We left early to beat the crowd and it ended being a really, really fun day.  Tristan had been practicing surfing in town and can now stand up with a little help from dad.  It was time to test his skills out on the other side of the island. 

B and I walked over to get a closer look at the boys surfing.

After Tristan paddled in, this poor girl thought that it was her turn to go out.  She didn't like it when dad told her he wanted to rest for a minute:

She stormed off and wanted us to know that she was upset:

 

Which led to really sad tears that broke her dad's heart:

So dad took her out for a swim and she was thrilled.  See matching sunshine eyes:

Just so happy:

Throughout the day, the tide was rising and the waves started creating this little pool to play in.

This ended up providing another little while of play time with the kids.  Tristan has gotten SO much more comfortable on boards lately, it's amazing.  When the pool of water would dry up, Christian would take him down to pull him along the shore break.  Even when he wipes out now, he loves it and wants more.  A milestone reached by Tristan when they paddled out for a second surf: He ditched his floaties.  This day will go down in the books...