I suppose it's time for another Update

Life has been pretty normal feeling since I've been back from Key West.  (More and more I'm convinced I actually went.  I have tickets to prove it and everything.)  Life here is SO not a day at the beach, but that's a good thing, I guess.  Too much of nothing is ... a song by Peter, Paul, and Mary.

Soccer

Soccer is over.  Hurray!  It was so draining on our family.  I don't know how my parents did it with 8 of us playing nearly year round.  I was wiped out after 2 months.  Here are their official pictures.  It's probably illegal to scan them in, but whatever.  It's not like I'm re-selling them for profit.

 

 

 

 Miciah's coach and her daughter forgot about the pictures and hence missed them.  So I look like the awesome Head Coach in this picture.  One of the moms took a picture of all of us at a later game.

(Oh.  The team that was letting Miciah practice with them on Thursdays is going to State.  They've only lost 1 game, during the season.  Wouldn't surprise me at all if they came home State Champs.)

Miciah's Sleepover Party

Miciah had her 8th Birthday Party the day before Halloween.  I don't know how this came about, but Miciah somehow believed we'd told her that for her 8th birthday she could have 8 people sleep over.  I recall no such promise, but I figured it would be fine.  And it was.  There were 10 girls who came, but only 4 slept over.  Their moms were all apologizing for them not being able to stay, but I told them, "Trust me, it's OKAY."  :)  4 girls sleeping over is much more manageable than 10.

Miciah got lots of gifts, including lots of crafty things to do.  One of those was a gift called Bendaroos.  I wasn't even aware Bendaroos existed, but the girls had a blast with them.  For instance:

Rob also loved the party atmosphere.  He was the life of the party and directed them through several games.  I'm sure they all went away thinking he was the coolest dad ever.  Part way through the night Rob said, "Tamra, you're missing it."  And I said, "Exactly."  I'm not really a party person (I'm sure this is shocking news), so I was happy to make myself scarce.  I even attended my soccer game that night (we had Corene come as a woman stand-in, just so Rob wouldn't be alone with 10 girls.  I didn't want there to be any room for suspicion, even if I personally think Rob is above suspicion).  How's that for priorities?

Halloween

We kept things simple for Halloween.  Our October had been full of so many celebrations that I was pretty Halloween-ed out by the time the day actually came.  No annual festive meal in a pumpkin, no pumpkin carving, no elaborate anything.  Course, it shouldn't surprise anyone that I wasn't super festive.  We did put up a cool spider web on our front porch.  This made Elijah happy cause he'd told me that he "hated our house" without decorations up.  That's pretty intense.  He'll probably make his house uber-festive when he grows up, as a reaction to my anti-festive spirit.

Elijah, pretending to be "caught" in the web:

And Rob and the kids standing proudly inside the web.

Can you tell what Miciah was?  Rapunzel.  She came up with the outfit herself.  I tried to talk her out of it, or at least talk her into making it more, um, elaborate.  Her long hair, which you can't really see in the picture, was an ace bandage.  You know, the kind you'd wrap an ankle with.  She was CONVINCED it looked just like real hair.  She tied it into her hair and it flowed all the way to the ground.  Pretty cute.

Elijah's costume made me especially happy.  This is the costume my little brother Chad wore when he was a kid.  Behold the picture:

It's Ruben in green, me in pink, Justin in blue, and Chad in red.

We have the blue crayon costume, too.  So next year he could be a crayon again, if he wanted.

And yes, my Mom made those.  Pretty sweet, huh?  My Mom is good.

Teancom was Super Man, which meant he wore his Super Man pajamas and we added the cape.  He wore the cape for several more days, including to church.  It was awesome to see him all dressed up and wearing a cape.  At church I took him to the bathroom and he looked at himself in the mirror for several minutes.  He furrowed his brow, looking as serious as possible, and stood with legs apart and arms folded.  I wish I had a video of it.

Here's all the kids right before Trick-or-Treating.  We went with friends:

Chad

Our family took a short day trip to Columbus to see my brother Chad who came in town to visit a friend.  Yes, Columbus is "in town," cause he normally lives in CA.  The kids jumped all over him, demanded his attention, and said, "Uncle Chad!" about once every 30 seconds.  I think Chad liked it at first, but you could see the glazed-over look in his eyes after a while, and we partially convinced the kids to stop mauling him.

Though Elijah kept calling him Uncle Keith, even after we told him repeatedly that he was Uncle Chad.  I think Elijah might have a memory issue.

Temple

The next weekend (this last one) we went to the temple in Columbus.  We went through a session with the adult members of Rob's family and then went out to eat with them.  It was a very enjoyable way to spend a Saturday.

Holidays

And it should be Thanksgiving already!  I can never get into the holiday season until mid-November, even with the Christmas decorations up in all the stores pre-Halloween.  We will be spending Thanksgiving with Rob's family up in Toledo.  We're excited about that.  And then Rob will go back up to Toledo the weekend after to sing in a Nativity program with his sisters.

And that's it for now.  I have more stuff to share, like always, and I'll get to it eventually.  Much love to everyone!