A new look for Allie!

Allie didn't love her long hair.  We waited until Halloween was over so she could be Hermione, then we made an appointment to get it all chopped off.

 Before...

 After...

 She had enough hair to donate, so that's always a plus.

I think she looks great.  She loves that she can just wake up and go to school without the awful scene that it used to be.  She can even go days without combing her hair.

It's pretty fun for her and I think she looks pretty cute!

Rocking the Halls (2)

Allie got to rock the halls again this month.  Those Harry Potter books make for huge payoffs when your goal numbers are low.  The higher the grade you are in, the more points you have to earn to get the rewards.  I have told her that it won't be as easy to earn these rewards next year when she has higher goals and no Harry Potter books to rack up the points.  For now, she is just loving all the fun activities.  Great job Allie!

Conversation in the bathroom

The house was quiet...too quiet.  I had just put Jason in for a nap, so that explained the lack of noise coming from him.  But Nate was no where to be found.  I knew he was asking for a treat a little while ago, so I went looking for him in his usual "treat hiding places".  Not there...
I heard noises coming from my bathroom, so I went in to find him surrounded by a thousand pieces of a torn up styrofoam cup.

Me: What the?

Nate: (looking up guiltily) Mom...don't look at this huge mess.  I didn't want you to see this.

Me:  You didn't want me to see it?  What are you going to do about it then.

Nate:  I'll just clean it up and then you'll never know.

Me: (walking away) OK.  Make sure it's gone then.

He actually did a pretty good job of cleaning it all up.  He was right, he cleaned it up and if I hadn't seen it myself, I'd never know.

Now that it is so dark so early, we seem to have more time on our hands in the evenings.  Sometimes all the kids wrestling/playing in the living room drives me up the wall.  Allie usually needs to read her monotone reading assignment to me and like the bad mom that I am, sometimes I'll ask her to take Jason into his room and read her assignment to him.  It seems like the only time Jason sits down willingly and happily is when you read to him.  I love walking in and seeing the older kids reading to the younger ones.  I love that they all love books.

p.s. If you haven't checked out Mo Willems books from the library, or bought a few, you are really missing out.  We love them all.  Jake and Allie probably like the Piggie and Gerald books the best and the boys like the Pigeon ones, but really, we all just like all of them more than any other books we read.  It is so fun for me to eavesdrop on Allie or Jake reading those books because they try to change their voices to match the way I have read to them for years.  It's pretty cute.

p.s. (2)  Hearing Jason's little chuckle when he finds something funny in a book is pretty much one of the most magical sounds out there.  Sometimes I read the punch lines over and over just to hear it.

Fire

Allie and Lily asked if they could build a fire.  They try to build a fire every now and then and it never works out very well for them, so I said "sure".  I knew the wood was probably still pretty wet from the storms we had been having, but I thought it was a good way to kill some time for them.  You can imagine my surprise when I looked out the window a few minutes later to find this...

They had gotten all sorts of garbage out of the recycle bin and were burning anything and everything.  We had to have a little chat about not burning plastic and then I left them to enjoy their fire.  Wow.  I guess that shows me how silly I was to underestimate their fire building skills.

"Sa-weech"

Our busy morning routine consists of me asking Allie a million times to "hurry up!' as I try to keep Jason and Nate from making huge messes with the breakfast cereal and fending off pleading cries for more juice.  I make Jake and Allie's lunches and try to gather up all the things they need for the day at school.  When they are finally out the door (hopefully without missing the bus), I usually go get in the shower or sit down to check email.  I usually come back after a few minutes and clean up the mess that came from the morning chaos.  One day, I came in to find Jason making himself a "sa-weech". 

 I thought it was pretty cute, so I got out the camera.

I had to intervene when he started licking the knife.  I couldn't let him stick that knife back in the peanut butter. :)

First Frost

We have had a bit of snow since I took these pictures, but this was the first frost of the season and these boys were so excited to go out and play.  Nate waited for me to get his coat out, but Jason couldn't be bothered with clothes.  He got cold pretty fast and had to be rescued.  

 After adding a few articles of clothing, he was back out there, checking it all out.

They had a great time and I didn't worry too much because it was so cold, they couldn't stay out long...or run away to the neighbor's house for treats.  They stayed where I could see them.  Good boys for sure.

An Awkward Phase

Allie is going through a bit of an awkward teeth phase...

Things were fine until she lost those two teeth on the sides of her two front teeth...

I know it's not forever, so I think it's funny to take pictures like these.  Love you Allie!

Dinosaur Jammies

I was putting away the too small clothes and getting out the winter pants a little while ago, and I tossed Nate's dinosaur jammies into the pile of clothes for Jason to grow into.  Nate saw them in that pile and got really upset.  They are his favorites and they are "not Jason's yet!".  I tried to tell him that he was too big for them and he said that he just isn't.  So, they are back in the drawer to wear over and over.  I wasn't sure if I had written about them, so here's the post in case I haven't.   These are "dinosaur jams"...

Nate and Jason both got a pair for Christmas last year and it's been fun to dress them both up in them at night.  Nate really took a liking to his and wore them every single night that he could.  It even got to the point that I was washing them in a load just for him so he could have them each night.  He wouldn't wear anything else.  I tried to buy more, but by the time I realized he wouldn't wear anything else, the soft fleecy ones were out of the stores and summer jammies were in.  I bought some light weight footy pj's, but he'd cry and fight his way out of them begging for his dinosaur ones instead.  So, they just got more and more worn out until one day, his toes popped right out.  He was super sad about it.  I cut the feet things off and it was still pretty sad for him.  I guess he decided that dinosaur jammies without feet were still better than the brand new ones in the drawer, so he made peace with the footless jammies.

When summer was drawing to a close (after he had sweltered the hot summer nights away in his dinosaur jammies), we were shopping at Sam's club and saw the fleece pj's with perfectly new footy parts and we were both so excited.  We bought a few pair, and even one for Jason so he could match.  Then we got home and he put them on and had a fit.  They were "too crunchy!"  He didn't want to wear the new ones because they were too new!
I washed them a few times and still...nope.  Then I told him that the new jammies were faster because the non slip traction thing on the bottom was brand new and would help him run fast on the wood floor.  That did it for him and now he'll wear all the new jammies, plus the light weight ones we bought in the summer.  He still picks out dinosaur jammies whenever they are clean, but at least we don't have to wash them special for him.  He loves them, and now that the feet are off, they'll probably fit him for a year or so.  I might have to cut them apart and sew the fabric into a blanket for him or something.  He loves them that much :)
Cute boy.

St. George part 2

A trip to St. George isn't complete unless you go swimming.  So we did.  The place we were staying didn't have a pool, but they had passes to go to this indoor water park type place.  The girls loved it. 

 It was actually quite nice that they were all good in the water.  They are little fishes and we had to drag them out to go eat dinner.

 After swimming, we had a spa night.  The girls painted each other's nails and did ours too.  Some of us turned out better than others.  :)

 Allie got to hold Bo too.  She loves babies.

We had to take off after the salon party.  We drove home late in the night so we could be there to rescue dad from all the stinky boys at home.  I started to get sleepy when we got to Brigham City.  I rolled down the windows so I could get some cold air on my face and it woke up Allie.  She said "Mom, make sure you don't drive drowsy" and then fell back to sleep.  "drowsy"?  It made me laugh.  We had a great time though and I was glad to have some time with just Allie.  She's a great girl and I am lucky to have her.  Thanks for the great trip Mom!  We have some fun memories.

St. George

I just realized that I never wrote about our St. George trip.  It's the fourth year that we have loaded up all the girls in the family and had a weekend together in St. George.  Jake got to go for a few years because he's the only boy in that age group of grand kids, but this year it was just girls.  My cute nephew Bo was there, but he doesn't count because he's just a cute little baby.  In fact, that was one of the highlights of the trip for me.  I got to hold Bo whenever I wanted.  All the times I've seen him before, I had to go off to chase Nate or Jason and didn't get enough time.  It was really fun to be able to hold a sweet baby who doesn't try to wriggle away as soon as you get him.  Oh, he's a cutie.  But, on to the trip...

Allie and I picked up Kim and her girls at the airport on our way down to Grandma's house.  Allie was so excited to see those cousins and they chattered in the back seat the whole drive to Orem.
Then we slept (through the night for the first time in weeks!) and left first thing in the morning.

I drove the car with Lori and 6 happy girls in the back.  They sure do love each other and have a great time talking about whatever little girls talk about.

We couldn't check into the rental house until later in the afternoon, so we went to the St. George Temple to walk around a bit and kill some time.  It sure is a beautiful temple.

 My mom has 7 grand-daughters and the rest are stinky boys (12).  I am so glad that this girl is mine.  I may only have one girl, but she is the best girl in the whole world.

 I love that Nicole still loves her babies and takes care of them everywhere she goes.

We went to the Tuacahn theater that night to watch The Little Mermaid.

Allie is being the Little Mermaid :).

It was a good production and the girls giggled and gasped and loved the whole thing.

Then we crashed for the night.  I got up with Alana and Kim to go to the temple that morning and had a neat experience there.  It's so cool to see some of the hand crafted work that the early saints did showing their love and dedication to the gospel and to Heavenly Father.  I loved it.

When everyone else was up and ready for the day, we went to Snow Canyon.  It's been years since I was there and they have made it into a really nice State park.  It has changed a lot, but I could still pick out the places where I tried rock climbing for the first time.  I have some really fun memories of Snow Canyon.  Now, I have some more.

We went on the Lava Flow hike.  It had some cool lava flow tunnels that we could climb down into.  The girls tested their courage and found themselves to be pretty brave and strong.  It was cool.

I thought this was a Sego Lily.  Now, I'm not so sure, but Allie wanted to take the picture for her friend Lily.

There is a lot of hair styling when you are in a group of girls.  Allie's hair was done in several different styles on the trip.

Here they are going into the cave.  Some of them were pretty scared, but they all thought it was worth it in the end.

There's cute Bo...such a good baby!  He reminds me of Jake when he was a baby.  Jake paved the way for there to be more little Schwabbies.  If we had Jason or Nate first, we might have stopped.  :)  Steve and Alana are so nice though, it's hard to believe they could ever have a child that isn't sweet and good and smiling all the time.

Grandma even made her way down into the caves.

I almost forgot to tell the craziest part of the hike.  Allie is pretty scared of rattlesnakes.  We have some living up the canyon and on hot days, when we go up on the wheeler, I can barely get her off the wheeler when we are looking for caterpillars.  At the beginning of the hike, she asked me if there would be rattlesnakes on the trail and I told her that they were probably out there, but we wouldn't see any.  I should have just lied and told her no...
Anyway, a little while into the hike, all the girls were up front and us moms were hanging back and chatting along the way.  Next thing we know there are 7 girls yelling and screaming as they clawed their way to the front of the pack...running back to us.  All we heard was "(screaming) snake! (more screaming) rattlesnake!"  We all stayed calm and told them they were just imagining things.  As we walked, they all fought to tell their story of seeing a huge snake in the path.  I finally believed that they did probably see a snake, but we denied that it could have been a rattlesnake.  We walked down the path and they pointed out the snake.  Jenny and I saw the snake slithering away and sure enough...it was a rattlesnake.  The biggest one I have ever seen.  Jenny got a picture with her cell phone, but all I got was sagebrush with my nice camera.  Anyway, it had 9 rattles and as big around as Allie's arm.  No wonder the girls were screaming and running away.  It's an adventure for sure.  Allie was stuck like glue to me the rest of the hike.  She is not a fan...
It was a beautiful hike, but they were all pooped when we got back to the car.
 

We went back for lunch and to cool off a bit.  I'll have to continue the adventure in another post...