I blame Pinterest. Seriously.
It might be slightly sad how much I think about my house. Maybe even 75% of the time. Could that be right?!? I'm not very good at decorating or coming up with ideas of how to move things around, but that's where Pinterest comes in handy. And I'm slowly figuring out what my style is. I've decorated with freebies and hand-me-downs for so long, that I really didn't know. And when I got in this house I just decorated the way I always have, and then wondered why I didn't like it and it didn't feel like "me". It was because it wasn't! And the house is so fun to think about, and we feel so blessed to have it. We have the most awesome backyard and we love having so much space. Even if we have to do some creative budgeting to make it all work.
This time of year is a busy one for me, because in addition to holidays I also have 3 birthdays thrown in the mix. And add in there a new baby. And I usually hand make several gifts for Christmas/Birthdays, so I'm trying to get that all done now while I still have the energy. Right now I'm feeling pretty productive! I sew for about an hour a night, otherwise I'm stripping paint off of cabinets.
Baby is growing, kids are growing, and life is good! We just got family pictures taken by a good friend who managed to make it look like we are just a super cute happy family that she just happened to follow around and take pictures of one day. (see pic above) Love!
I am homeschooling, and that makes my morning super busy. Brighton goes to public school for the specials, which is gym, music and art. She loves it, and I love that I can see her school from my driveway and she walks to and from by herself. She's gone for about 45 minutes a day, except for when she manages to sneak into the library and I have to go and fetch her. I'm glad that she likes it and is getting to know people. Brooklyn is officially in Kindergarten this year, which is not that different from what we did last year. Logan and Spencer always join in and work on something when we're doing school, or for the most part play with cars or balls. Those two are such boys. :)
Sometimes I feel like a homebody because I spend so much time with my family, but you know what, I love it! A bubble isn't bad, is it? I have the church and my family, and the occasional outside things. I just organized a block party for my neighborhood, (which turned out awesome, I am the coolest person on the block. :) And we have nice neighbors!) And I'm also teaching MJ Thriller to a few ladies in our ward to perform at the Trunk or Treat. Crazy fun!
Sorry, this is a sort of a christmas card type catch up! I promise to just post pictures next time and not journal at all! :)
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. 
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!
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. 
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.
We started the school year learning about animal classifications: Reptiles, Amphibians, and so on. This is one of our craft projects for Fish week. I got the idea from here, and the kids have LOVED it! All week they've been adding more and more fish. We ran out of paper plates, but the kids figured out that they can just make a circle from a paper and use that. 