October

It's a bit sad to me to be doing these catch-up posts since I'm basically only posting about the few pictures I managed to take each month, yet I'm sure I had lots of other blog-worthy things I could have posted about but now don't actually remember. I guess this is better than nothing.

As I mentioned in the last post, soccer started up in Sept. and went all the way through Oct. and into the first week in Nov. I don't love fall soccer as much as the spring kind, mostly because in the fall every game just gets colder and colder until by the end we have to defrost for hours after we get home just to feel semi-normal again! However, the kids enjoy it regardless of the weather.

Spencer is getting better and better. Still a bit goofy at times and I think he'd prefer that they have 3 minute quarters instead of the 8-10 min. ones they've been doing. But he actually got into it a bit and scored a few goals this season!

Lynnsey continues to improve too and really is getting to love the sport. She is so graceful and fun to watch out there. (She's number 3 and yes, this was the best shot I took of her the entire season...)

As it turned out, Kendall would have been allowed to play another season at this level because they didn't get enough sign-ups on the older kids team and ended up either giving their money back or allowing them to play on the younger team again. But by the time we realized that, Kendall had managed to break his collarbone on the playground at recess one day (that made two kids with broken collarbones within just a few months of each other, in case you are counting.) So he opted to be Kalen's assistant coach instead. He said it was fun, but he would have much preferred to play--I could tell by the way he watched the other kids out there that he was just dying to join them. Oh well. We'll have to see what happens in the spring. Maybe he'll get one more chance yet...

This Halloween we had a couple of different "themes" going on. No one could agree on one theme so we just let the kids do what they wanted.

Lynnsey went as Little Bo Peep and Kaya was one of her sheep. They made SUCH a cute pair.

Kendall and Spencer, the soccer fanatics, both went as their favorite soccer players. Kendall was Leo Messi from Argentina and Spencer was Landon Donovan from the U.S. team.

The group.

Taylor made a pretty impressive Albert Einstein. Every year we think he may give up the dressing up idea, but this year he wanted to participate in the costume contest at the math and science center so he went ahead and wore it to the Trunk or Treat too.

Our city opted to do trick-or-treating on Saturday this year which I thought was fine until we realized that the branch Trunk or Treat was the same day. The kids were pretty bummed but still managed to get quite a haul of junk from just the branch activity. I just felt bad to have missed our neighbors who love to have the kids come and show off their costumes every year.

Kendall made this cute kitty cat pumpkin for the jack-o-lantern contest.

Here's some of the competition. Kendall's didn't win, but was definitely one of my favorites. The kid who won actually confessed that his mom had carved his for him. Oh well.

Spencer thought the mummy wrapping race was great fun.

Kaya did pretty well with the pumkin bowling too. Spencer actually won first place in his age category, but I didn't get a picture of him for some reason. I took first place in the crock pot cook-off with my delicious Crock Pot Chili (I couldn't find your recipe Susannah--you'll have to send it again) and Kendall and Spencer both won awards in the coloring contest.

It was a really fun time for everyone! The kids are already discussing options for costumes next year...