and then this one had a birthday

Our Brooklyn turned 6! This girl was so excited by all her presents. Which is good, because she really had no idea what she wanted. Brooklyn is more of a follower, and will go along with whatever someone else is playing. She's the first to come to me with the "I'm bored!" routine. She does love to draw, and uses the art table more than anyone.
I think she's finally decided to stop sucking her thumb, which I'm happy about. She wears a mitten on her hand some night, but most of all just reminds herself that she doesn't want to do it anymore. Yay! We've been trying to knock that habit for at least a year.

Brooklyn is my snuggly girl and loves to have her back scratched. She loves to help me or James with chores, and is a great friend to Brighton and the boys. We love that girl!

and then we got some candy

This is before I went through it and threw away the most obnoxious candy, especially the bubble gum. And the next day I offered them a nickel for each piece of candy. Not a lot of takers, but some. I let the candy linger for about a week and then it was gone. We have to detox before holiday treats!
Brooklyn was Cinderella, and wore the dress I made her last Christmas. I made a few accessories, like the headband and choker. Brighton was a waitress, and I found her cute costume idea at family fun. It was a big hit. Logan wanted to be a cowboy, and we had some things in the dress-up bin so he wore that. Same thing for Spencer. Cute kids!

The pumpkins!

James got out his dremel and carved this impressive dragon. This has been my favorite so far, he did a really good job on it. It took about four hours! All in all, I think we had a successful Halloween. The kids went to three separate trick-or-treating events, and then we had a Halloween homeschool party with some friends.

Moving on to the next holiday!

in which we did some stuff.

Riding the overpriced train at the zoo. Fun!

Playing with some watercolors that Grandpa Bliss sent. My kids love to paint. And draw, cut, color and glue. Which is why this is the art table, a small table in the kitchen dedicated just for projects. They have all their supplies close at hand. We go through a lot of paper and markers in this house, for sure.