A Milestone

Sareny has her first loose tooth, and she is pretty excited. When I was little, my mom made me a special pillow with a pocket in it to put my tooth in, which the tooth fairy exchanged for money. That makes way more sense to me than sticking your tooth underneath your pillow, where it would surely get lost. Last night I made Sareny her very own little tooth pillow so we will be ready when the moment arrives.

Random Cuteness

The three of them piled onto the rocking horse the other day, and I thought it was pretty silly.

Sareny's school invited families to join them for a Thanksgiving lunch. The food was pretty nasty, but the kids were so cute! I had no idea the kindergartners would all be dressed up and I didn't bring my camera, so I had to get some pictures of my little pilgrim later on at home.

I wonder if the Mayflower pilgrims had some similar moves?

Finley is always poking her little tongue out. I love it!

For Comedic Relief...

Who says she doesn't have hair??

A fun day

One day last week, I took Isaac and Finley to Chick Fil-a for lunch and to play around in the play area. They were having so much fun, we ended up staying there for almost 2 hours!

There was a little boy there who asked Isaac if he would be his friend, and Isaac said, "Yes!" They played together and had a lot of fun. I love how kids can be instant best friends--I think it's one of the ways we need to try and be more like them.

When we got home, the kids rode bikes for a while.

Isaac is getting so good at doing the pedals!

I love when they play well together.

Isn't she just the sweetest? Her dimple makes me happy.

I hope when my kids are older they will remember that they had a mom who took time from her busy schedule to do fun things with them. I remember my own mom taking us on picnics to the park, and swimming at the Overton pool. Too often, I'm afraid, I do find myself saying, "Not right now, Mommy's busy." I know there are things that need to get done; I just want them to remember the good times too!

Halloween

We had a great Halloween this year! Grammy Jo and Bampa came to visit, and we had a lot of fun with them. We carved pumpkins.

Finley loved wearing the tiara Grammy Jo had brought for them to wear. She would squank if you tried to take it off of her.

I made the headless horseman pumpkin. Apparently we didn't get any finished pictures of the pumpkins.

We took our little princesses and knight to the trunk or treat at the church. They looked so cute! Grammy brought real tiaras that the prom queen at their high school will wear for Sareny and Finley to wear with their costumes.

Sareny plays with a little girl named Lisa every day at school, and we invited her family to come to the trunk or treat. I was glad they decided to come!

Sareny was a beautiful princess.

Isaac was a dashing knight.

I named Finley "Princess Grumpy-pants," because we took them to get their pictures taken, and she would not smile for anything. She was adorable anyway though.

Every year, I work so hard on elaborate costumes that only get worn once for a few hours, so this year I got smart and took them to get their pictures taken earlier on Saturday at JC Penney. Those pictures turned out really cute, and I'm glad we did that. Unfortunately, I can't post the pictures from that photo shoot here, but if you want to look at them, go to https://www.smilesbywire.com/home.asp?AC=LTPP0040108400JCP and enter customer name Hillari Fallstrom.

Preschool fieldtrip to the Farm!

Last week we went to Tolmachoff farms for Isaac's preschool fieldtrip. He is in the same class Sareny was in last year, and it has been fun seeing him learning and doing the same things she did just a year ago. We had a lot of fun at the farm. Isaac enjoyed grinding corn and feeding it to the chickens.

Finley and Isaac both loved digging around in the corn sandbox.

If it involves climbing and clambering, Finley will head for it, so of course she loved the slide.

Isaac really liked the corn maze. It was a mini-maze that only took about 5 minutes, and when we came out he asked if we could do it again, so we did. He was so cute!

We had a great time, and best of all, Isaac didn't get lost this year.

Here is his class with a couple of younger siblings thrown in. There is only one other little boy in his class, and Carter didn't make it to the fieldtrip, so he is surrounded by girls. He doesn't seem to notice or care, but I guess he's pretty used to it around our house. :)

What happens when...

You let a 15 month old feed themself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich??

Spooky-ooky Dinner

To help everybody get into the Halloween spirit, we decided to have a Spooky-ooky dinner. The kids had heard me mention this back at the very beginning of October and started pestering me about it every day, wondering when it was time for our "Pooky-pooky" dinner, as Isaac called it. So, we had it a little early. On the menu:
Bones and Blood

Monster Eyeballs
Monster Toes
Dirt cups with worms And everyone's favorite, Witches Brew

Sareny and Isaac got to add the secret last ingredient to the brew, eyeballs.
The kids totally thought it was the best thing ever, so we pretty much repeated the menu last weekend when we were hosting the babysitting club at our house. Everybody had to have a turn stirring the witches brew and cackling, "Boil, boil!" We also decorated Halloween sugar cookies, and made these really cool "Witch's Finger" pens. I'll have to post some pictures from the cool Halloween crafts we have been keeping busy with lately.

A Family Hike

I mentioned in an earlier post how we are trying to help our children (and ourselves) be more active. Two weekends ago, we took the kids on a little family hike out at Estrella Mountain. It wasn't super long, but was a good distance for our family.

Isaac said he was tired about 100 yards into the hike, and I was a little concerned, but that was actually the last he mentioned it until we were almost back at the van. I was so proud! He wanted to hold my hand the entire time. And apparently, while I took a ton of adorable pictures of Finley, I didn't get any of just him. Guess it's part of the whole middle child thing. :(

Finley really enjoyed the hike, and was happy to be able to walk. I think it was partly she was excited about her new shoes, and partly just being together outdoors.
She walked probably half of the hike, which tells you a) it really wasn't that long of a hike and b) it was mostly pretty easy terrain. She spent the other half of the hike like this.

Sareny had to make sure she was the leader. If anyone started to pass her, she would race ahead so she could make sure to still be the leader (an oldest kid thing?) She also had a great time and asked when we could go back.

We really had such a nice time, we are going to start going on hikes more often. I think I've been assuming the kids weren't able to do things like that, and they went and proved me wrong and had a great time doing it.

We built a bear

Okay, so clear back at the beginning of August, we met my sister Lexi at my mom and dad's house with the sole purpose of going to Build-a-Bear together in Las Vegas. As a side benefit, it was nice to see everyone, of course, but really, the trip was planned around the bears. You may be thinking how sweet that we wanted to take the kids to make bears, but let's be real here. I wanted to make a bear. So did Lexi. I decided the kids had enough unused Birthday and Christmas money to make bears too, so they got to tag along. :)
Choosing the bear was harder for some than others. Isaac saw the Panda bear and immediately grabbed it. Decision over. Sareny tried to pick the Hello Kitty with a humungous head, but mean parent that I am, I vetoed it. She considered a unicorn, but finally settled on the limited edition Hannah Montana bear.

Lexi and I were the slowest to choose our bears. These important decisions take time. I chose curly bear, because it was so cute and soft, and Lexi chose Read Bear, which was also cute. Then you help fill your bear with fluff.

Putting the heart in your bear is an essential and long-revered experience. They have a whole process you have to go through, like kissing the heart, rubbing it on your tummy, jumping up and down with it, and they make adults do it too. Fortunately, they can't also force adults to post pictures of themselves doing these things on their blogs though.

Then you have to carefully bathe your bear.

And finally, it's time to choose your bear's outfit and accessories, a process that can take hours. Unless you're Isaac, and knew before you even got there that you wanted the batman costume. He also opted for the tighty-whitey underclothing instead of the camo boxers.

Sareny picked the flamboyant gold lame dress first thing for her bear, although she ended up changing her accessories before the afternoon was through. Oh, all right, probably before I had even selected any part of my bear's outfit. I'm telling you, it was difficult to choose!

Somehow, despite all odds and predictions made by Keith, we did actually choose outfits and accessories for our new furry friends.

Even though she did not get a bear, Finley was pretty happy. I had carefully explained to her beforehand that she simply had not saved up enough allowance money for this excursion, and perhaps next time when she wants to spend her hard-earned money on junk, she'll think twice. I think it did the trick.

The final step is choosing a name for your bear that they print out on an adoption sheet for you.

Below is me with Mitchie, Lexi with Primrose Hannah Montana, Isaac with Bruce Wayne, and Sareny with Selena Gomez. We had a great time!