Halloween is CANCELLED!

Our school district had some unexpected budget cuts towards the end of the last school year, and as a result have cut about a weeks worth of school days from this year. In an effort to make the most of the days that they have they've cut certain activities from the schools calendar.
Halloween happened to be one of the casualties.
It's not all that big of a deal, but it does make me a little bit sad for the kids because that's such a classic memory from my school days. Halloween, the party and the parade - such a highlight of the year!
(Although there was some relief that she wouldn't get to wear her costume to school and mess it up before the big day. I worked hard on that sucker! Said sucker being the costume, not LaRue.)
So in lieu of a costume we sent LaRue to school in a Halloweenish shirt. They can take away our Halloween parade, but they can't take away our Halloween spirit!I actually made this felt skull last year and wore it on my shirt, cuz that's how I roll.
I should probably point out that I totally copied the design from the amazing Princess Lasertron, I'm too lazy to link to the actual skull posting, but you should take a gander at the bouquets that she makes - INCREDIBLE.
Happy Halloween weekend!
We're excited to show off our costumes!
Soon... very soon.

A Blustery Day For Pumpkins

I think this picture pretty much says it all...

We picked a very rainy and windy day for our little foray to the pumpkin patch this year. Although the past few days the weather has been very changeable, so while LaRue and her sad umbrella might have almost blown away as we were getting out of the car, about ten minutes later things had let up quite a bit, and there was even some sun shining as we rode the little train out to the pumpkins.


I love this crew.

We climbed on hay.

Very gray, very wet.

We fell in puddles (mostly that was just Adelaide).
And we picked out pumpkins.

We saw a double rainbow.
Though, we didn't find it quite as moving as some do.

Then we were ready to head back and get out of the C-C-C-COLD!

Blustery or not, it was a fun little adventure.

We Can Put On a Play, or a Puppet Show!

I made the girls some puppets ages ago -they have an awesome puppet theater courtesy of an awesome Auntie Julie- and lately LaRue has been putting on quite a few puppet shows for us.
This show was put on from behind our couch which reminds me of when I was little and me and my sisters would put on puppet shows from behind our couch using felt puppets. Ah, memories...

Here LaRue is during a performance of a little show she likes to call Redarella.

I'm pretty sure this is going to be one of my favorite pictures for years to come. I've been telling and telling LaRue to keep her eyes open when I take her picture lately, and this time she really took that advice to heart.

Right after I finished taking the picture she asked, "Did I keep them open?"
I was laughing too hard to answer her right away.

Halloweenish Craftiness

I'm not a very good mom.
You probably don't even have to read between the lines to figure that one out.
Don't get me wrong, I LOOOOOVE my girls like CRAZY!
But.
I'm so lazy, and I like doing the things that I like doing.
So I don't often get all crafty with the girls.
I'm trying to work on that.
So this is mostly to prove to them one day that every once in a while we did something fun(ish).

Wearing aprons and painting, and smiling with our eyes closed.

The finished result: Paper Bowl Pumpkins!

My favorite part about this picture is that if you look really closely at one of LaRues pumpkins you will see the huge glob of glue she used to glue it's mouth on, which to me looks like he just finished brushing his teeth and has toothpaste foam all around his mouth. Although, he's the one without any teeth so... something doesn't quite add up here.

Pumpkin P.J.s

With Halloween just around the corner I decided to whip up some "matching" pumpkiney pajamas for the girls.

I've seen about a hundred tutorials online showing how they're the easiest things to make and you don't even need a pattern - what!? - so I decided to just go for it. Which of course means that I underestimated the amount of fabric I would need and when I went back for more the initial fabric was all gone, hence Tillies witch pants. That's okay though, I'm alright with how they turned out, and they really were quick and easy. I have since made myself a pair out of some old sheets. I love them and wear them pretty much every other day... cuz I'm lazy classy like that.

Taking these pictures was fun though, LaRue wanted to model, Matilda was feeling a little bit wild, and Adelaide was having none of it.
Good times.

Things That Make Me Laugh

Consequences.

Tillie keeps doing something that she knows she is not supposed to, and every time she does this thing I tell her that she doesn't get dessert the next evening.
But.
I kept forgetting this when the next evening came around.
So I made this handy reminder.
The naughtiness on Tillies part doesn't make me laugh.
at all.
(It has to do with being potty trained at night, and pull ups, and being awake, but too lazy to use the potty, and bad smells.)
BUT.
This sign is at the top center of the big bulletin board that has our calendars and schedules and other things of great import and seeing it there just makes me laugh for some reason.

When I checked on the girls after they were asleep last night I saw that LaRue had written this note on her MagnaDoodle and I thought "This is a pretty cute LaRue that we have."

Was anybody able to view the video clips from yesterdays post? I've re-uploaded them about seven times and I can't get them to play on my computer, so I was just wondering.

It's Still Saturday, Right?

I just wanted to post these little clips from the girls games on Saturday.

Not that anything amazing happens in any of them or anything, just that I realized I haven't been getting nearly enough video of my girls, and they're growing up so crazy fast!
So this is mainly for my benefit...


Ruesie kicking the ball in, you can hardly see her at first, but that's what's happening.
She was very distracted with chewing on the sleeves of her sweater during this game which I believe we also get a glimpse of in this clip. Good times.



Here's a clip of Tillie during warm up.

And here's one of her during the game. I don't think she actually kicks the ball in this video, but I found it amusing because she wasn't really paying attention and then is running to catch up, and something about the way all of the kids are running in this clip reminds me of that part in Jurassic park where they're watching the Gallimimus run in a big herd. If you don't remember that part don't feel bad. I used to have an inexplicable crush on Jeff Goldblum in my teenage years, so I may have seen this movie more than most.





And just so Adelaide doesn't feel left out, let's enjoy this picture of her making a crazy face and showing us lots of tooths.

Cuteness Alert!

In my roaming through blogland yesterday I happened upon this adorable font (wingding? webding? it's official name is MTF Sweet Halloween Dings, so I don't know what exactly to call it).

So cute right?
And totally free!

AND, there are many, many adorable free fonts on her site Miss Tina Fonts. I don't know who Miss Tina is, but melikes cute, wuvable fonts, and melikes free, so I'm thinking she's my kind of girl.

And since I'm on the topic of free fonts and am starting every sentence in the post with the word and, I thought I'd point out Fonts For Peas. SO many cute fonts and doodles/dings whatever they're called. All free. And make full use of the download all button while you're there. Save yourself a little time.

And if you still don't have enough cute fonts when you're finished there, head on over to her other website that is chock full of free scrapbook fonts, where there is much cuteness to be found.

I'm sure you've all been long acquainted with these sites, but I was so excited to find Miss Tinas yesterday that I had to share, just in case. Happy free fonting!

Soccer!

Today we kicked off the fall soccer season, and this time around Matilda gets to play too, yay!
They're in different age divisions so even though their team shirts are the same color (go maroon!) they're on different teams.

Here Tillie participates in the team warm up.


And here she is, all smiles while we wait for the big game to start.
She has been so excited this whole week, waiting for her game today. Naturally, when the big moment came, she was very shy, and very hesitant to play.
Especially since I couldn't come out and play too.


Neither could Adelaide, and she was not happy about that.


Later in the day it was LaRues turn.
Go get it, Ruesie!


It started raining about halfway through LaRues game, and she wasn't such a big fan of that, but I think she did a good job and had a good time!

I think we're in for a fun, cute, and rainy season.

Baby Business

Doo da dee da dooooo...... Hey, what?

Moooom, I'm a little busy here...

What does a baby have to do to get a little privacy?

That's better.

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1.03.01

First Day in the First Grade

Look at that pretty little first grader.
Yep, her first day was last week.
I'm pretty behind, but better late than never, right? I thought so.
About a week in and she is loving every minute of it!

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1.03.01

Is This Thing On?

So, it's been a little while, huh?

Weelllll, Jordans school and work schedule got pretty crazy there towards the end of last semester so the girls and I vamoosed to Mom and Dads in Washington... for about four weeks.
We're pretty lucky to have parents/grandparents that are willing to take us in for that amount of time, cuz lemme tell you, we can be a lot to take.
SO, I thought I'd give a little rundown of what in the world we were up to all those weeks. Buckle up, it's pretty wild...

We rode bikes whilst wearing sunglasses.
It was SUNNY while we were up there, I think it might have rained, lightly, once.

LaRue actually learned to ride her bike with no training wheels while we were up there. She picked it up SO fast. I guess she might be a little older than most kids, but we've never had a great driveway, or lived on a great street for bike riding, and my mom and dads street/driveway were PERFECT! And yes, in this picture her helmet is on backwards.

We ate toast!
And Adelaide injured herself almost every other day.


I finished up this little guy for my sweet nephew Tyler for his birthday.

I also made a little friend for my sweet nephew Quintens birthday, but can you believe I didn't get a picture?

The two older girls and I went on a picnic.
LaRue pointed out that we'd never actually gone on an honest to goodness picnic before, happy first picnic ladies!

We went on a carousel ride, ALL of us, even Grandma...

And even me and Auntie Kirsten!

If you read my moms blog you know that I kept busy by doing boatloads of puzzles, but I also passed some of the time by reading these - SO GOOD! Have you read them? If not, I'm inclined to say that you must. Thank you so much Michelle for giving them to me for my birthday, I don't get to read book three until next week, and I'm SO excited!

The girls did their best to drive me insane by insisting that they wanted to swim and slip n' slide.

We'd go through the whole production of getting them suited up,

And slathered in sunscreen,

And five minutes later, they were all done and ready to come back inside. Sheesh.
Be sure to take note of Matildas face in this picture, we do not have a great backyard and my parents do, so I did my darnedest to get them to make the most of it, but this was a very common scene.

As was this...

Oh, and while we're looking at Adelaide in a diaper, look at these wasp stings!
Wasps are the worst!
Adelaide got four stings all in one go!
And a week or two later Tillie got one too!
Harrumph!

The girls played all the Wii Fit they could squeeze in during Adelaides naps.
(Neither of them are good at the skateboarding game.
They are both, in fact, really, really bad at it.)

To finish things up, when Jordan came back into town to pick us up we went out to dinner and Matilda entertained me by eating a lemon.

Still with me?
I just thought I'd put it all out there and maybe I can start blogging again in the present.
Maybe.
Thanks for everything Mom and Dad!

Roller Rink

Last weekend Guptills from near and far gathered in Oregon City to celebrate my Grandma Valdines 84th birthday, reunion style. It was so so much fun, and SO good to see everyone.
We kicked things off with some roller skating, sounds fun, right?
It totally was!
Even if I did look like a complete fool, who cares?

Here is LaRue, recovering from a little spill...

Tillie demonstrates the tenacious wall holding technique...

Cousins! One of the best things about the whole reunion was that the girls got to see and play with so many of their wonderful cousins!

Since it was a private party we were even allowed to let little Adelaide in on the action (the stroller actually turned out to be pretty handy for keeping you upright).

By the end even Grandma couldn't resist the siren call of the roller skates and she gave it a bit of a go too.
I think our family is fun and wacky and terrific.