Little House on the Lane...

and, fortunately not on the praire.

Aubrey is in love with this little dress and it has been her dress of choice lately. She ditched her Halloween duds at the boys party last Friday evening and put on this dress. Mike said it reminded him of Little House on the Prairie. Now if only I could have her running down a hillside. I have to admit, she's pretty darn cute in it.

It had to be washed after the party and still hasn't been ironed but she caught sight of it in her closet this morning and just had to put it on.

classic Aubrey look

admiring her dress

Connor's skeleton creation

Now before you jump to any conclusions,

Connor explained that the skeleton's third leg is a rocket booster!

Happy Halloween!

The force is with us...

It's Jedi Knights for Halloween this year...

This picture is my guide for the boys costumes. I found this awesome website called http://www.padawanguide.com/ that has some great advice and instruction for jedi costumes. I'm going to try following Simplicity 5840 for the tunics. I'm using fake leather to do boot coverings and the belt. We'll see how it turns out. My one concern is the costumes being too warm so I'm trying to make it as breathable as possible. Trying to stick with cottons can be a challenge but I think I'm going to cheat on the inner tunic and just make a dickey or something. Any advice from my talented cousins? Have you made these for your boys in the past? I'm so excited and can't wait to post final pictures. I'm going to enter the boys in the costume contest at Legoland on the 24th. Wish us luck!

I have finally mod-podged something!

I signed up for three sets of these Christmas countdown blocks for our Super Saturday. They were way fun but took quite a bit of time. Sanding, painting, drying, sanding, mod-podging, drying, numbering, mod-podging, and sealing was all it took! I already had SU!'s holiday paper on hand from a few years ago that I'm ashamed to say I never put to use. But now I'm glad I didn't use it because I love how it turned out on the blocks! My other super Saturday project is an ABC letter book for Aubrey that I need to finish up but I think I'm going to work on it after Halloween.

The kids meet their great grandfather

My dad came down to Rubidoux, CA this past weekend for his high school reunion and mentioned that he was going out to visit his dad on Sunday. I was eager to meet up with them and have the chance to visit with my dad's father. We've pretty much been estranged from our grandfather for our entire lives. I met him about 10 years ago when Aaron was just an infant. Since then, I've sent them christmas cards each year but we've never had the chance to meet up with him again until now. We drove out to Riverside after church. It's a little over one hour to get there. The kids did great. My grandfather and his wife Gerri are nearing their 90th year. Leonard has recently had some serious health problems, heart surgery, back surgery, and he's in a weakened condition. Gerri is quite hard of hearing and kept apologizing for herself. She kept saying, "I'm so old. I'm sorry I'm such a pill." I felt so bad for her. She just seemed so sad. They were very glad that we came to see them. It was really sweet. They expressed their appreciation for our christmas cards over the years. You just never know how the smallest things affect people. The kids warmed up to both of them real quick and I was really proud of Connor for keeping control of himself. The subject of death and dying has been a very sensitive subject around our house lately especially for Aaron. He's been driven to tears about the subject on several occasions so I was a little nervous when he came in and observed how old his great grandparents were. But overall, we had a really nice visit and I came away feeling like we should definitely make another visit soon. Dad and Elke are coming to visit with us on Friday. We're looking forward to it.