Fall highlights

What can I say?  We love fall around here at the Ryerse's!  :)  Playing outside while we still can, raking up leaves and pineneedles (and then throwing them again), getting adjusted to school and schedules again.  Here are some other things we've been up to this fall!


Emma got her butterflies for her butterfly garden from her birthday!  They made it to Utah and then back.  The kids loved the catterpillars morph into chryssalis' and then into butterflies. They were beautiful!  Emma decided to let them all go into the wild. 

 

We went to Couer d'Alene one day when Emma and Dave both had the day off.  We went to the Grille from Ipanema Brazilian Steak House.  It was yummy, and a great deal!  $10 for us all to eat (plus a tip) $40 worth of food.  Then we went to the little mall, where we enjoyed the candy shop and drove around to look at the beach and ginormous houses and then went to the Moose Park and walked on the Boardwalk. 

As I said, playing in the backyard a lot lately!  The kids all wanted to wear Daddy's hoodies one day when they went out, cute!

Love fall family time!  Like wrestling together...

And making letters and cards for our troops!

Grandma sent us some money and told us to go out for Halloween dinner.  We didn't do that, so we used it a few weeks later at Golden Corrall.  The kids were in heaven with their chocolate fountains and cotton candy!

We had a neighborhood bike parade.  I grabbed random streamers, balloons, flowers, and other things and the kids went to work decorating their bikes and then we parade around the neighborhood.  The kids were so cute, we even threw candy!

We had our first snow here last week.  The kids were so happy, they went out immediately and started making snowballs to throw at me. 

Lucy seemed to like the snow, but she likes our fireplace even better!

Luce liked digging in the snow and taking her gloves off!  :0

Cal and snow don't mix well.  He plays outside for a few minutes and is done.   He likes hot chocolate, though!

We love reading books and getting warm and cozy by the fire on these days!

Emma could be outside all day, and she was on our first day of snow!  We made an Igloo (well, kind off), lots of snowballs and she made snowmen or her and Callahan. 

 

 We have had some family fun nights, making lots of fall crafts and snacks and watching quite a few movies lately and playing games.

 

I don't take many pics of me (and Dave for that matter), but I thought this one of us turned out well. I love this guy! :)

Emma's also been enjoying first grade!  She got her first grade pictures back (I think they should have pictures right when they get to school, obviously this one was after reccess), which were so cute.  Classic little Emma. 

Emma has been making lots of new friends this year.  Here she is with another little girl and they planned to dress the same one day!  Funny girls!

She's such a good helper with her siblings!  They love her so much!

We also had her first parent teacher conference.  Her teacher said she hates picking favorites, but how can she not love Emma?  She said she is so helpful and friendly in class and she's never heard an unkind word or arguing from her.  She said she's a hard worker and listens to directions and always does a quality job.  The reading level for 2nd grade should be a 16, and Emma's already a 14.  And she got top marks on her first round of tests and report cards for social and academic scores.  :)  Makes a momma happy to hear her child is doing well in school.  She really is the apple of my eye!

She still loves to dress up several times a day.  I don't know if she'll ever grow out of this phase!  She changes her outfits so much!

Cal has been enjoying preschool.  His favorite thing is probably playing outside in people's backyards and the trip to the fire station.  He also enjoys getting into trouble lately...like coloring all over the house with nail polish.  But what else is new?  He's my great training in patience.  We've also had success breaking him of his recent thumb sucking habit, thanks to Mavala Stop!  Lately he's been getting better at playing pretend.  His favorite thing to pretend like he is?  Kittys and Michael Jackson (?).  He is so tender and loves others.  We recently got to watch a friend's newborn baby.  Cal loved holding her (with my help of course) and snuggling with her, it was so sweet!  He also loves anything to do with technology - playing computer games and watching movies, taking pictures on our phones, etc.

 

Lucy has been talking up a storm lately!  She is sure a vocal one (I think she has to be to compete with her older brother and sister).  He favorite word?  "No", which she says to almost everything we say.  She also says quite a bit "baby", "here go" (for here you go), "sorry", "its okay", "i did it", "poo poo", "peese" (please), "Emma" and "Col" (Cal), "Gamma" (Grandma), "Gapa" (Grandpa) and more words that I can't think of right now.  She loves dragging her sheet around everywhere.  She also likes eating toothpaste and chapstick.

 

Dave recently applied for and had interviews for some Health Administration fellowships across the country. He applied for about 12, which was a lot of work putting the packets together, filling out applications, writing essays, getting transcripts and letters of recommendations.  He got phone interviews with Mercy Health Care, the Mayo Clinic, the University of Utah Hospitals and Clinics, Mercy Children's, and Henry Ford Health Care.  He got in person interviews with Mercy and Henry Ford.  Unfortunately, those interviews were at the same time, so he just went with Mercy Health Care in Springfield, Missouri.  They flew him out in November, and he went out to dinner with some of the directors and the current fellow.  The next day, he interviewed with 8 people, each interview lasting between 30 - 60 minutes.  So it was a jam packed day.  He was very impressed by the health care system and facility, by Mercy's mission and how they stick to it, he really thought all of the people he interviewed with were amazing, and he likes the area, since he served his mission right by there.  We will find out soon if he made the cut!  Dave's also been working hard watching football!  :)  His favorite game was the Apple cup, with WSU against Washington.  WSU has lost almost every game this year, but they played an awesome game and won the Huskees, which comes with lots of bragging rights, as this is a huge rivalry.  Daddy was cheering and clapping and so excited, the kids and I were all laughing so hard we were crying! 

I've been busy keeping track of the 3 kids, cooking, cleaning, laundry, playing, etc.  I've also been crafting a bit, making some fun little things for the kids.  I'm trying to catch up on scrapbooks (I finally finished 2010 and now about a quarter through 2012), and now I'm just going to do digital scrapbooks.  So I'm more than halfway done with 2012 and think I'll be able to keep up on that easier.  I love helping out in Em's class on Mondays.  It's fun, I've made bulletin boards, got homework packets together, cut out things, laminated things, wrapped presents, and best of all, helped the children read or do other things.  

A Happy, Despicable Halloween!

We have had so much fun this Halloween, like every Halloween!  But it seems like each one just gets better and better!  The magic starts on October 1st when we get out our decorations.  The kids had a good time getting them out and putting them around the house.  I love hearing them say "Oh, I remember this one!" and having fond memories making them together or where we got them.

 

Emma asked me to make her a witch skirt and so I did with some scrap fabric.  Where's the witch hiding? 

 



 

There she is!

We've been dressing up a lot (we do year-round) this month.  Cal used bubble wrap one day to make a costume!  Love it! 

 

He also pulled the foam stickers off a little pumpkin Lucy made and put them on himself.  He's always making me laugh!!

 
Little Lucy is also getting ready for Halloween and kind of starting to understand it.  Her favorite things are singing Halloween songs ("3 Little Pumpkins", "Halloween" & "I'm a Mean Old Witch with a Hat", songs I used to sing with my family as a girl) and pumpkins which she loves and says "pumpkin" over and over!

 

 

We've also enjoyed making some fun Halloween things.  We made some hot, sticky messes together!  Emma and Cal even helped (mostly by snitching the candy, he he)!

We decided to make picture frames to display all of our fun Halloween costumes.  I thought they turned out fun (thanks Pinterest for inspiration on a couple of them)!

 One night for family night, we painted sugar cookies.  This is another tradition I grew up doing and we love it!  I finally found Halloween sugar cookie cutters with designs inside of them so I had to get them. 

Since we've lived away from family, we have started sending out Halloween cards.  This is what we did this year...

Also was able to do lots of sewing...mostly Halloween costumes!  Which is my favorite! 

The kiddos  enjoy having extra candy around this time of year.  Lucy loves chocolate (that's probably in the top 10 food names she learned first) and Cal got a jaw breaker one day. 

Look who found some chocolate...

Jawbreaker!

I'm also in charge of our church ward's playgroup.  We had a Halloewen party which was so much fun for the kids!  We read Halloween books, did coloring sheets, played "Boo"-ling, made sugar cookies, played "Bats"sketball, played Eyeball golf, and a spider web game.  Cal and his little friends loved it and I had fun getting things together for it!

It just couldn't be Halloween without a trip to the pumpkin patch!  We went up to Green Bluff to visit Hidden Acres.  It was COLD the day we went, but we had fun just the same.  By the time we made it the pumpkins were pretty picked over, but the kids found ones that suited them perfectly!  It's a fun place up there.

Then it was time to carve/paint our pumpkins!  One of our unspoken rules in our family is that we don't use stencils. We have to eyeball our patterns and make them ourselves.  The kids did great, but get sick of scooping out the guts and seeds after about 10 minutes, so I end up scooping out pumpkin innards for a long time!

The final products:

Dave made a minion pumpkin, oooohhhh ahhhh!

I made (per Cal's request) a CTR (Choose the Right) pumpkin

Emma did a kitty & moon pumpkin and did a great job carving it out!  She did it mostly on her own!  Daddy helped her outline the picture (she said "Daddy is a great artist, Mom!") but she carved it pretty much by herself.

We also did a few more jack-o-lanterns later on.  Here's Cal on the porch with them all!

 

We also have fun turning our food spooky during Halloween.  We have had apple/almond witch's mouths, orange cheese and black grape kabobs, pumpkin seeds, peachy pumpkins, and some healthy opions.  And then we have had frog eyeball popsicles (smashed kiwis and limeade), lots of pumpkin stuff, oreo spiders, warewolf pudding, caramel apples, and lots more. 

Finally, the time had come to get to wear our costumes!  We are always so excited to dress up for Halloween!  This year wasn't very difficult fingind everything.  A lot of stuff we had already (my shoes and the jacket I was wearing I had, but dyed it to make it the right color, Emma's leggings, Cal's boots and gloves, the glasses from the dress-up box we spray painted and Dave's jacket had a logo from his old job on it but we put the scarf over it, Lucy's overalls and her shirt that was perfect we found at a quarter sale).  I found lots of the other stuff at local thrift stores.  I sewed Cal's yellow Minion shirt (it was fleece so it was nice and warm) and then attached black pipe cleaners to the head and sewed the overalls, attaching the symbol on the front pocket.  And then I sewed around Dave's scarf.  And the only other thing I really made was Emma's hat that I crocheted.  Oh, and the freeze ray.  I used an old squirt gun and attached a random piece of an old hair dryer plastic toy Emma had, and used toilet paper tubes and duct taped them to make cone shapes to attach and then spray painted it. I love making things as close to the original as I can.  I even got a small red flower patch to attach to Lucy's overalls.  Small final touches like that are so much fun! 

Our first appearance as Margo, Edith, Minion (he said he was the minion Dave), Gru & Agnes from Despicable Me was at the school carnival!

It was a fun day!  The theme was the Big Top this year and so it was a circus feel!  The kids loved playing all of the games and the cotton candy and treats!  Those who knew who we were loved our costumes.  It's fun feeling like a celeb on Halloween, like when people want to take your picture, it's kind of fun!

Then we had our Ward Halloween party.  First they had a carnival and in each room had a different activity for the kids (and adults in some cases) to do that the Young Men/Young Women ran.  Dave's class of young men ran the Musical chairs room.  We really liked that they had a photo booth!  Here are the pictures from that...

Cake walk - Cal won!

Lucy had fun playing with her pumpkin friend!

Emma liked coloring and dancing and running around with her Primary friends!

 

Last, there was a dance, and it was great music!  The kids grooved until they were too tired to move!

 

Halloween morning, we woke up to pumpkin chocolate chip pancakes and banana ghosts.  We always have to have those on Halloween!

I tried to take a picture in their Halloween clothes, but as you can see, we're not all morning people in this family.  :)

The silly face aproach worked better this morning!  Happy Halloween from our bat and ghouls!

For dinner, I made some witch's broomstick breadsticks, salad, pasta, we had green, orange and white Italian sodas, and minion cupcakes for dessert. 

Then it was off to trick-or-treat!  We went with Lindsay, Josh, Lucy & Olive to the South Hill.  The kids were so excited!  We had fun telling jokes in the car (Q: "Guess why?" A: "Pumpkin pie!", "Q: "Guess who?" A: "Pumpkin BOOO!" Q: "Guess what?" A: "Pumpkin butt", etc.)  Of course that last one really got them going. 

Cal and Em loved trick or treating!  It was really so pretty on the South Hill!

Some asked to take our pictures.  I asked this lady to take one on our camera as well!  :)

Josh & Linds' family were the Avengers, but they didn't really wear full costume this night, just wigs and stuff.  But Lucy was the cutest little Captain America around!

The kids got about 5 or 6 full-sized candy bars!  I was lucky if I got one growing up.  At the doors, it was hilarious because Cal was telling everyone "I can't eat peanuts!"  I didn't even tell him to say that, but he did. 

Check out these ginormous pumpkins at this house!  They were bigger than the kids!  And the houses were ginormous, too!

We had a happy, Despicable Halloween!

 

We love candy!

 

After that, we went to what we thought was John Stockton's house.  We've driven by before (people have told us where they think he lives).  I think it was his house.  There was a basketball jack-o-lantern (along with some others) on the porch.  A teenager answered the door.  But it looked like one of the Stockton kids (granted, I haven't seen any pictures of any of them for years, except for those that played with Gonzaga more recently).  So I hope it was, because it made my night anways!

 

We got home and realized Lucy's pumpkin full of candy was no where to be found!  We think we must have left it when we were getting in the car on the sidewalk somewhere.  We checked everywhere.  Luckily, it was Lucy's since she doesn't really know the difference, but she asked "Where's my pumpkin?".  And the kids offered to share some of their candy with her, which was sweet.  Emma felt so bad for Lucy she started crying.  I told Em we would get Lucy a new pumpkin.  Then she was better.  Then the kids sorted out their candy and traded (one of the best parts).  Emma's favorite is the Butterfinger this year and Cal's is Sour Punch Straws.  Lucy likes anything! 

 

Happy Halloween!!