Photo Shoot

Once there was a budding young artist with creativity to spare. Somehow she got hold of her mother's camera. Somehow she got her sister to pose for her.

Are you looking at me?

The extreme closeup.

I only look sweet. You should see me at bedtime.

There's a good chance I might explode.



Grumpy face. I actually heard Anna ask for this one.

Rescue Mission

We had a tragedy on our hands this weekend. Anna is absolutely attached to her little duck blanket (probably any of you who know her know which blanket I am talking about). This ragged little blanket has been a part of our family since before Anna could walk, and she continues to use it for comfort and protection. Not only does she sleep with it at night, but she always makes sure she has it when she goes to time out to console herself. It's actually kind of nice that there is an object that she can turn to when she's feeling sad.
Except when we lose the duck blanket. Then there's no consoling her, no comfort, no protection against the dangers of the night. We couldn't find it last night before bed, and though she was sad, she tried to be brave and use a different blanket. That lasted until 10:00 when she woke up in tears because she missed her blanket. I got her to go back to bed, but she was up several times during the night looking for it.
So today we had a Rescue Mission for the blanket. (Anna is into Diego right now). We combed over and cleaned every single room in our house, but could not find it. In a way, it was good because I went through boxes of clothes and toys that haven't been touched for a while and washed all the linens in our house (if you have to take the bed apart to look for something, you might as well wash the sheets, right?). But still, no blanket. Travis spent more than two hours lookingin cupboards, the cars, even the crawl space. Nothing.
Finally, just before bed, he re-checked under the cover on our couch. Magically, the duck blanket appeared. Anna was ecstatic and so were we. Here's hoping for a good night's rest tonight!

Have you heard of this?

I'm basically going to copy this verbatim from my friend Kristi's blog. If you haven't heard of or used ebates.com, you really should.

It's an especially wise idea today because you would get $10 just for signing up and I would get $15, and that would make me like you even more than I already do.Also it is an EXTRA good idea today because www.restaurant.com is having an 80% off sale, with the coupon code "surprise". And if you click on restuarant.com from ebates you get 15% cash back (not to mention the $10 for signing up). So really you can get a $25 gift cirtificate today for $2 with the coupon code, plus you are getting 15% back, so that is $ 0.30, so really it's only $1.70. Hello Christmas shopping. Then if you count the free $10, then it is like they are paying YOU $8.30. Tis the season folks. Tis the season.


So, if you log onto ebates.com and look up restaurants.com, you can find a link to restaurant gift certificates. With the "surprise" code, I got $100 of gift certificates to a fancy Italian restaurant in SLC (Tuscany) for $8. You just can't beat that. Guess what the inlaws are getting for Christmas....

And, if you sign up with ebates and use me as your referring friend, we'll both benefit. You get $10 and i get $15. It's a sweet setup. Use my email laurielarsen2000@yahoo.com.
Happy shopping!

A good point

While trimming Anna's fingernails last night, she made this observation:
"Mom, when you cut my fingernails short it makes it really hard to pick my nose."

Consequences, consequences.

Halloween

Two princesses:Aurora and Belle. Neither would let me do anything fancy with their hair.... so here we are. And who taught these girls how to smile for the camera anyway?

Halloween lasted for an entire week in our family. Our ward did a trunk or treat on the 24th, where I sadly ran out of candy after about 5 minutes. Who knew that one bag is not enough?

The next Monday we decorated pumpkins for FHE. As usual, the adults were a little more into it than the kids, but we all had fun. Anna painted hers pink (of course), Kate painted hers green and called it a planet, I painted mine to look like Cookie Monster, but when that didn't work out I just called it a Monster, and Trav carved his. I had considered being a Halloween grinch and not doing pumpkins this year, but it actually was really fun to do and the kids loved showing their pumpkins off to the neighbors.

Anna had her preschool Halloween party on the 30th. Kate was so sad she didn't get to go too, so she dressed up at home. I was in charge of providing sugar cookies for the preschool party. Let me just tell you that there is nothing messier than 2 kids "helping" with sugar cookies! Anna had a great time at her preschool party, then all the kids loved jumping in the big pile of leaves outside preschool and getting costumes totally dirty.

Friday was actual Halloween. We went trick-or-treating on Provo Center St. with some old friends in the afternoon, then up to Trav's mom's house for the family Halloween party. Let me just tell you, the adult costumes beat the kids this year. Trav's sisters were Catwoman (with pleather pants), Madonna, and Athena. Our new brother in law, Rhett, was Nacho Libre-- complete with blue stretchy pants, red women's underwear, the cape, and the mask. If only my camera hadn't died. It was incredible. The kids also looked great, but they always do.

Anna with her cousins Bailee and Gates

Where did October go?

My main project for October was putting together a little scrapbook for my mom, so most of my free time was filled with that. On top of that, I accidentally left my camera at my mother-in-law's house for 2 weeks which was terrible. So much happens the last part of October!!

Here are some of the pictures from Anna's birthday party, not in order because Blogger is having struggles.

This is how real princesses eat birthday cake!

All the princesses: Kaitlyn, Kate, Paige, Raia, Kyla (Anna's best friend at preschool), Anna, and Callie (Kate's best friend. Anna told her she could invite one little girl to play with at the party. Unfortunately, Kate was kind of sick and ended up taking a nap for most of the party.)

Princess Anna
My mom came down and helped do makeup, paint fingernails, etc. for all the little girls.
I don't know what the deal is, but my kids cannot open their eyes for pictures.