Halloween 2014

When I was a kid, Halloween was a one day event.  But I've noticed for my kids it is always a multiple day thing.  The good news - you get some use out of the costumes you bought/made and when you forget to take photos on actual Halloween, you have some of the other days.  The bad news is - more candy than you could ever need.

The first up was on Oct 16th Leah's school had trunk or treat.  Since we can't volunteer to do too much more at the school, I volunteered us to put our car in.  There obviously wasn't space for everyone to do it.  Probably 25 cars for 300+ kids.  Of course we took 3 so . . . 

Here is Oliver practicing in his costume before we left.  He has worn a cowboy hat multiple times for Halloween so he tried it on.  He didn't wear it when we actually went though.

This is what Oliver actually looks like - a cute, sweet, little boy.

 This is what Oliver thinks he looks like - a strong super hero cowboy!  Excuse my unmade bed.

 For some reason he really wanted to put his hat on a stick.  So here he is by my laundry table with  my meter stick.

 On the way out the door. Trying to get a picture is murderous - hence why we had a professional take our family photos.  Getting all 3 to look . . .geez.

 Then Leah and Oliver kept saying boo instead of cheese.  This is after Levin got mad about that so Leah is not happy and Oliver is smirking.

The Minnie Mouse costume is a little big on Autumn, but she really wanted it.  We even made a special trip to buy ears for her.  She only wore them that night.

 The PTO sold hot dogs and chips before trunk or treat started.  I still have straw in the back of my car thanks to his event and the fall festival at church.

 Sweet Tiger.  Our 3rd baby to be a tiger their first Halloween.

 I had to post one of hi in the actual costume.

 This is during the phase of no real camera andmy iPhone flash isn't so great so . . . you can see it was dark by the time we were actually going around to cars.  One car had a super scary spider that made me scream and startled Oliver so much it made him cry a little.  He cheered up quickly though and we had a good rest of our time.

 The library the Saturday before Halloween had a fun little story time.  The sun was so bright the kids couldn't really look at me.

 Inside this is the best I could get.  Autumn went back to her old Princess Sophia costume for this day.  Levin put on the Burger King crown that was in the car and I declared her, "Princess Sophia Burger."  If you say it in an accent it makes her sound very official. :)

 Here are the kids for the story.  Getting their on Levin Flake time ensured my kids got a good seat.  I don't know how it even worked out this way, them having tons of space by them, because by the door there were tons and tons of people crowded trying to get in.

 They had a few stations to do crafts, play a game, etc.  Here they are just coloring a picture.

 Autumn got a little short-changed on candy at both events and it made me mad.  Just because she's little doesn't mean she doesn't notice you only gave her one and her siblings two.  Sometimes she'd juts keep holding up her bucket waiting for the 2nd one and I had to just shuttle her along.  Luckily, she's an easy going kid and just moved along with me.

For Halloween we went trick or treating in a friend's sister's neighborhood in Lexington Park.  It was a nice neighborhood with houses close together - not like ours, and not scary like some other neighborhoods in the county.
Autumn was Sophia again and was such an amazing little walker carrying her bucket and keeping up with everyone.  She held my hand the whole time (amazing compared to my other kids who were always so demanding to be independent at this age) and chanted Princess, Princess.  I started calling her princess just as a nick name, but I think she's decided it is real because she refers to herself as princess.  Hopefully this won't have long lasting effects of acting spoiled.  But for now, she is still a generally really well behaved little kid.  If she skips too many naps she can turn monster like, but with naps . . . I couldn't ask for a better 2 year old.

Portraits

In October my friend Stephanie took or family pictures.  Obviously we couldn't put them all on our wall, but I'm posting them all here.  In some, some people look better than others and then vice versa.  This first one I just love Lance in it, but not so much Oliver.

 So we hung this one on the wall.

 I wore my hair fluffy trying to hide the fact that it is all falling out!  Post baby hair loss, but with the others the hair I gained in pregnancy made up for the loss after so I was thicker afterwards.  This one . .. not so much.  And it hasn't stopped.  I can feel the top by where a bang would be just pull out when I wash my hair and after putting gel in I come out with fingers full of hair.  I hope it stops soon or these may be the last pictures you see me in.

 We printed this one . . .

 even though this one is probably a greater representation of the true Oliver.

 She doesn't have bangs.  But the night before I washed her hair and put her to bed with wet hair.  You should have seen her hair that morning!  I couldn't get it to do anything right.  Luckily, I had the head band to disguise the craziness a little bit at least.

 Lance is my giggliest baby, but not that day.  Serious!

Leah's Kindergarten School Picture

If you only knew what a hassle I had scanning this. :)

She was so cute when she came home from picture day she told me that she was the first one to go in her class because she had been so quiet.

I asked if she sat on a stool or what and she said, no we just stood there, but I put my hair in front so it'd look nice and pretty.  I swear I didn't even think about doing stuff like that for school pictures until I was like in high school.  That might explain why most of  my school pictures were a little frightening. Ha ha!

We were just about to have our family pictures taken by a friend/professional that I figured would do a better job than school pictures, but I decided to pay the $13 to get these done anyway and I'm glad I did.  I don't know if they do stuff like this at international schools or not, but if they don't these can be our special - I went to school in America that year - portraits.

Assignment: Guangzhou China

Okay, this is out of order, because it is current.  But I wanted to write about it now, while it is fresh.

We found out last week that we are moving to China the summer of 2016 - specifically, Guangzhou.  I wanted to write about how this all came about because, you know, some day some one some where, might care. :)

Before we even left Moscow, Levin told me that this fall there would be several posts that met our two most important criteria.  1)  It was safe for me to go out alone.  2)  We could have church with other members and understand church or at least part of the meetings.

We wanted to stay in the US a little longer than 1 or 2 years.  Or at least I wanted that and Levin was willing to comply.  However, the reality had to be faced that there aren't that many good posts left within the Foreign Ag Service.  Well, we were moving to my mom' house temporarily, having a baby, getting settled back in our house in Maryland, and I really didn't even want to talk about bidding.  Levin was really excited at the prospect of Tokyo. Although logically I could see that it would be a great assignment I just couldn't get into it.  It is super safe and there is a whole Stake with church in English.  When I would think about it I kind of felt nauseated.  The moving boxes were either still unpacked or too fresh a memory too.  Levin would send me things to read on all the places, but I just couldn't read them no matter how much they praised the specific location.

When I prayed about it, the answer I got wasn't yes you should bid or no you shouldn't bid, it was just, if you do bid, you will get posted.  I think this is important because it put the responsibility back on us, not some unnamed person I have no idea who they are, that works for FAS and makes these decisions.  It'd be easy to say, well we'll bid and if we're supposed to go, we'll go.  But that puts the idea of following God's will on somebody else, not us.

One day the lists of posts that were open was officially sent out, not just Levin figuring it all out in his head.  He read through a list of posts.  Some were easy to dismiss like Caracas.  Um .. no thanks.  Remember, criteria #1.  We had already talked about Seoul and a lot of people love it there, but same thing I just didn't feel happy about the prospect for some reason.  The Levin read Guangzhou China.  I said, "is that the one not too far from Hong Kong?"  He said,  yes and I said, that's where we're going.  He said, "REALLY?  You want to bid on it?"  I said, "I don't know if we're going to bid on it or not, I just know that in the end, that is where we'll be assigned."

Let's rewind back to Levin and my dating experience.  I knew we were going to end up in Nigeria before he even bid.  Mind you we are not engaged at this point, but I knew.  I was ridiculous and was a little surprised he didn't bid on Nigeria because I said, "I told you that's the one."  His come back, of uh . . . you're not even agreeing to marry me was very appropriate. :)  But in the end, during the 2nd or 3rd round of bidding they talked Levin into putting Nigeria down and he talked me into marrying him and going with him.

So I thought Guangzhou could end up like that.  Like I said, I didn't know how it would "go down" but I knew we'd end up there.

Levin said he'd need some pretty clear revelation that it was the right place to go.  Pollution, etc. make China not the perfect place to live.  But we did some research and discovered Guangzhou actually has a lot less pollution than Beijing and Shanghai and even Shenzhen (sp?)  We researched the school and it is the only American school in all of China, but was also rated the best international school in all of China.  It looked like a really good school.  I found out there is an English speaking branch there that sounds similar to our ward in Moscow.  The main housing is an apartment building that gives you free breakfast every  morning.  What's not to love about that? :)

So in the end we put Guangzhou first on Levin's bid list.  We put it above The Hague, Brussels, Tokyo, and Seoul.  All which theoretically could be better places.

Levin went from needing a big vision from heaven to want to go there to being so worried we wouldn't get it he was driving himself crazy.  I am the one that is calm and Levin worried.  Pretty  much it is the other way around.  But he was worried and dying with the whole, be patient while bidding closes and we wait on people to come to a decision and the publicize that decision.  I did pretty well until the last week and then I started to worry what if we did get Brussells?  I wasn't ready to leave America next summer.  Brussels and the Hague don't have the long language classes Levin will get for Chinese.

But in the end we got what we wanted.  It is the first time it felt like we got what we wanted on a united front.  Nigeria was kind of pushed on Levin and therefore me too.  Russia seemed inevitable because Levin was required to bid after his first assignment and he did speak Russian.  However, a while back I found an old email that Levin had sent me while we were living in Lagos and preparing to bid.  He was sending me a bunch of information to read about other assignments and I said, I can't even read them and focus on them because I know we're going to Russia.

So there you have it.  That is how we decide where we're going.  Not so much a, you should bid to go here feeling, as much as a, this is where we're going and I feel okay about it and actually a little bit excited, and then we start to worry we won't even get to go there we want it so much.

It is an interesting experience.  Today at Leah's school it was a spirit day and it was cowboy/cowgirl day.  As I watched other kids getting out of cars with their cowboy hats on and had the sudden realization of how American this is, and how much I love America I may have had a little tearing up in my eyes.  And during lunch prayer when Oliver hesitated with what to say next I threw in, "and thanks that we get to be Americans."  He said, "bless that we can be Americans" and then at the end said, "what does it mean to be American?"  He is only 4 so I don't think that is any indication of anything, but I am truly grateful to be American.  But I'm also grateful for these experiences Levin and I get to have living overseas.  It makes me appreciate what I have and at least at this point, I think it brings our family closer together.

Leah has friends now in school (almost too many friends, including boys that have fallen in love with her) so I was worried she wouldn't be so excited to go to China, but she was thrilled.  It may help that we told them Hong Kong which is 2 hours away has a Disneyland and we promised to take her there at least once.  It's all about Disney. :)

For now we will enjoy the time we have in America, try to learn about China, and learn to speak at least some Chinese.  And eat as much Mexican food as I can.  McDonalds and KFC are around the world, but Mexican food somehow doesn't spread.

Random

I finally reached my goal of being caught up through the end of September . . . the problem is, now that is not caught up.  I still have October to do!  Well . . I will do my best.

I took this picture because these toys were some of the greatest toys we've had in our house.  Oliver plays with Woody and Buzz almost daily for quite a long time now.  We've had Buzz almost 2 years and Woody a year maybe.  He has so much fun with them.  They've had to have a little sewing done on them during that time, but they're still great friends. 

Autumn needed her picture too.  She has really started being a buddy to Oliver lately.  When we go to Story Time at the library she just sidles right up next to him and sits down.

I just thought Autumn looked so cute one morning when she woke up.  Although the picture doesn't do it justice.

Oliver got a little crazy with asking for me to print coloring pages of stuff related to Cars.  Unfortunately, he used to only scribble quickly on the picture.  I slowly got him to pick an appropriate color (sometimes) and to use more than one color per page.  I think we're  making progress.

One day they wanted to go swimming, but it was already a little too chilly out so we did a swimming bath in their swimming suits.

I wish I had more pictures of this, but I will try to get a few this month.  Oliver and I every day do a lesson from this Preschool curriculum.  He loves it.  I've found it is futile to expect him to have quiet time first and then preschool so we do it as soon as Autumn takes a nap most days.  I've realized I can't get anything done with his naggings to start preschool anyway, so I might as well just do it.  We don't do all the stuff it suggests because I'm usually  not prepared, but it is nice.  We have a memory verse for every 2 weeks and he actually amazes me how he knows them.  The current one is, "And God called the dry land earth and the gathering together of the water he called seas.  And God saw that it was good."  He had it memorized before I did.  He used to get really upset when cutting was involved, but he's gotten better and days like today is disappointed if there are only 2 worksheets so he makes me print more from online.

I took this picture of one of Leah's kindergarten assignments.  You can't see it so well, but on Patriot's Day (my birthday) they did this and it says, "I am free to _______"  I thought it was funny that Leah filled it in with eat.  She is her mother's daughter and loves food.

This says I can play tennis.  Levin told Leah when we moved here and school started they'd play tennis at her school.  It took a while to get to it, but the last few Saturdays they've gone to the school or hit a few balls at home at least.  By the 3rd bag of balls Leah does pretty well getting them over the net.

Every baby deserves to have a picture of them taking a bath.  He is quite too big for his baby bath, but he can't sit up alone yet so this is still easier for me.

One day the kids put on a musical performance for me by standing on the coffee table.  It was cute. :)

Lance got his first tooth before he was even 4 months old.  I was a little shocked when one day he bit my finger!  This picture doens't show his tooth, but it documents the day.  And he kind of looks like a bear thug and I kind of like it.

This is Leah at Oliver's preschool table.  This table is constantly a junk heap because Leah also uses it and is always pulling out paper and making a card or some other such thing.  Paper scraps, glue, and crayons - everywhere!  I kind of hate it, but it keeps her busy too.  I just wish we didn't go through crayons so fast.  I honestly have no idea where they go.

Every Wednesday I take the kids to Story Time.  We don't do preschool that day so it is actually almost easier for me and less time constraint.  It is so nice to have a library after the years in Russia without many children's books besides the ones we owned.  Every once in a while a lady from the county who works on infant and toddler development shows up afterwards to do a play group.  She is so quick to pull out the toys I can never get my kids out of there so we stay an extra 20 minutes but I usually don't mind.

I don't know why, but I just liked this picture of Oliver with his toys, cowboy boots, sunglasses, and church clothes on.  I think Leah must have taken this because I don't remember it and surrounding this photo on my phone were about 20 odd pictures and close ups of toys and such.

I think this was in September, maybe late August. . . the kids in some new church clothes I bought them.

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