I gave Mackenzie a new hair cut to try to give her hair more of a "style". What do you think?

I cut it shorter and layered it a little so it would flip up. I also decided that blow dryers are her friend since she has straight hair and "mousse and go" doesn't work for her like it does for Sadie and I.


She wouldn't give me a good smile because she didn't want to take her picture.

I frequently get asked if her hair is different from Sadie's at this age so I thought I would take a look at old pictures to see how different they are. I was actually surprised at how alike they look, but Sadie's hair is definitely curlier at this age.


Here she is in the same shirt as Mackenzie in the above pictures. She was a little bit younger here though (about 14 months)


Here she is at 17 months (same age as Mackenzie right now)


Best hair shot I could find.

Speaking of hair, my sister found a website with some cute hair-do's for little girls:

http://shedoeshair.blogspot.com/

Latest iphone Picture Highlights

I am not feeling the typing tonight but here are some pictures... maybe I will write more later.

Kids playing football

The boys got really into it

And Sadie apparently....

Trying to get all the kids to look at the same time...



Still trying...

Kira and "Mini-Kira" Mackenzie with Melanie and Vernie

Braden and Mackenzie

Nap time

Fishing on the Delta

Braden's great hair-do after tubing

Can you break the code?

Sadie loves to write. She loves letters. She loves words. Only problem is she does not know how to spell yet and she hasn't learned all the rules of the English language. So I find all these notes around the house that are sentences and paragraphs of words with no spaces and wrong spelling. It is really tricky to read. She also loves to put frilly ends on her letters and sometimes gets them backwards. I love it. I love that she is learning to communicate through writing and that she loves to learn. I also think it is kind of fun to figure out the "code" she writes. Its not as fun when its not her writing but can you tell what Sadie is asking for in this letter to Santa?:

TOSANUCLOZ
FrumSadie
FrumBradian
IWOTARELCLOZITIZMAJIC
IWOTARELPUPPE

Sadie's Thanksgiving Dinner Menu:

Macntess
Putatos
An Grave
Pie
icetoclilinpenubudr
freeky
fregr
grapjoos
apljoos


Anyone want to take a guess at what this says on a paper I found today:

wedotwotinebooestocomin

Halloween Festivities

The Pumpkin Patch

Braden's Preschool had a trip to the Pumpkin Patch and I decided to bring all my kids along for the fun. It had been cancelled because of the heavy rain a few weeks ago (it would have been too muddy, cold and wet for the kids) and the day that it was rescheduled for ended up being super cold and windy (What luck!) We still had fun and enjoyed looking at the animals, going through the straw bail mazes, singing songs in the barn, wagon rides and pumpkin hunting.

Me and the kids waiting for our wagon to take us to the patch.





Braden at the straw bail maze




Sadie on the wagon ride





Mackenzie searching for our pumpkin.



Of course, as soon as the pumpkins were picked the kids were DIEING to carve them!




Sadie got right in scooping out the guts, while Braden was too grossed out. He gagged and gagged and actually even threw up!





But Mackenzie wasn't afraid. I think she is the bravest of the the 3 of them at this age. Nothing seemed to bother her, even the lit Jack-O-Lanterns in the the dark didn't scare her!





Jason helped Braden carve one and I helped Sadie and Mackenzie.





Sadie drew the face on her pumpkin for me to cut it out for her.




She wanted a happy one with bows on the sides, Braden wanted a scary one with a mean face.
They were so proud of their pumpkins!


Parties



Unfortunately I didn't get to take many pictures at the kids school parties since Sadie was sick during Braden's and I had to stay with her instead of help at his school, and then I volunteered to help at Sadie's school party and had a booth that I was running the whole time. Braden and Mackenzie also went to Sadie's Halloween party. Sadie and Braden were gone checking out all the booths the whole time while Mackenzie "helped" me at my booth. I know they had a good time though, they were worn out and had so much fun and that they all fell asleep on the way home!

All 3 down at the same time in the middle of the day??!!



Trick-Or-Treat!

We had a very busy Halloween Day. We had my niece Madison's baptism early in the day, then Sadie and I went to a Sleeping Beauty play by some kids in our community (we knew a couple of them from church), we had friends come over for trick-or-treating around our neighborhood, and then we stopped by a friend's Halloween Party later that night. Good thing for Daylight savings and gaining another hour that night!

The Roberts, McMullen, Hunt and Carter kids pose for a quick picture

Braden, Sarah, Maile, Sadie, Ethan, Miles in the front. Kira, Mason and Caden at the top.
Muscle Man, Witch, Wendy, Flower Fairy, Spiderman, Pirate, Tinkerbell, Peter Pan, and the Hulk!

One more with Mackenzie the Lady Bug in it this time. :)

After examining the loot, they decide it was successful. They couldn't wait to try out all the different candies. Look at spiderman all sprawled out on the stairs, pleased with his sugar stash! :)

Turtle Farewell - a REAL post with pictures (Melanie and Paty!)

Flash Back... WAY back... Uncle Nathan and Aunt Betty gave Sadie 2 aquatic baby turtles on her birthday in May. They were tiny, just born, about 2 inches big. The kids loved the turtles, Mackenzie would point and talk baby talk every time she saw them on the window at the kitchen sink. It was really cute. I felt bad for the turtles though because they didn't really like the attention they got from the kids, they would always hide from them, and they needed lots more space to move around and swim than what I could give them on my kitchen windowsill. They were even sharing some of that space with a little guppy! Oh, and it turns out when those tiny turtles get hungry their little stomach actually can hold a guppy. I never would have thought they would be fast enough or even able to fit a mouth around it since it takes a lot of work for them to eat their tiny pellets we fed them every day. Well, except when we went on vacation. One poor turtle couldn't handle fasting during all our summer outings and passed away during one of them. It was sooooo sad. The turtles sad little eyes were still open looking at me and it broke my heart. I had to have mercy on the other turtle and let it have a chance to live out in the "wild" so Braden and Mackenzie helped me take it to a new home in the Delta. Sadie was at school, she said her goodbyes to the turtle before she left. Here are pictures from the beginning of September...

I let Braden have the honors of "releasing" it into the "wild".

I kinda thought he would put it into the water and then let go so we could watch it swim away, but he chucked it instead and it fell like a rock to the bottom.

I wonder if it was too deep for it there, or if it did ok. We didn't see it come back up at all.

"Goodbye, turtle"

I also learned something new about Mackenzie on this day. She is EXTREMELY afraid of heights. I let her down so she could walk on this little bridge over the water and she would NOT move. She was afraid of the cracks because she could see down to the water 10 feet or so below.

Mackenzie, frozen and terrified of the cracks. Poor thing. :(

P.S. Mackenzie IS wearing shorts with this shirt, although it doesn't look like it in these pictures for some reason...

Speaking of Disney...

We were driving in the city (SF) the other day on our way to the California Academy of Science and I happened to notice a sign about a new museum that opened Oct. 1st. It was called Walt Disney Family Museum. Has anyone been here? Looks like under 6 is free, over 6 is 12.50 and adults are $20. Wondering if it is any good?

It's a sign.

So, the other day Jason lit some candles that were on our fireplace mantle. One of them had decorative twine around it and when the candle melted down to where the twine was around the candle and it started a 3 or 4 inch flame which caused the smoke alarms to go off. It took a while to figure out why they were going off since I was cooking dinner and I always make them go off while I am cooking since I never turn on the fan. Anyway, so I finally realize what is going on so smother the flame with wax from another candle. In the process I got red wax on my nice white mantle. Which I was bummed out about. But as I looked at it again, I think it is actually a sign... I mean how can it be a coincidence it dropped into perfect little....

Mickey Mouse Ears? That's it, we need another Disney trip! :)