'Twas the Night Before Christmas, and Stacy was Blogging . . .

So, I decided to take a break from all the cooking and general merriment to update all that's been going on over here.

Let's start with Kate. Last week she popped her elbow out of the socket while we were waiting for our turn for tithing settlement at the church. (It's called nursemaid's elbow, and runs in my family.) Poor little girl! We went to the doctor, got her elbow popped back into place, and she wore a splint on it for about 3 days before she pulled it off. It didn't slow her down one bit. She has been helping Dad assemble an entry bench for me, jumping off ottoman's, and running into walls and furniture and laughing with a Santa's hat covering her entire head. What a nut! A lesson I learned during this whole experience is that (1) Kate has a very high pain tolerance and (2) Kate has a very low patience tolerance. She cried harder in frustration at trying to eat her macoroni and cheese with her left hand (and NOT wanting me to help!) than she did when they popped her elbow back into place! Aly and Lise were my big helpers and even carried Kate around on a stretcher . . .

Lise has been really into measurements lately, as demonstrated by the following questions, "Is 600 cents the day we're moving?" and "How many inches does this book weigh?" Also, last Sunday with Lise we had "the incident of the missing tights." Sunday morning Analise couldn't find her tights. So (scamble, search, chaos, we're gonna be late!) Lise ended up wearing socks with her Sunday shoes. Then, as we're sitting in the pew at church Lise says, "Mom, I found my tights!" She pulls them out from under her skirt, where they were securely static clinged. I tell ya, I am losing my mind! (The marbles are already gone.)

Aly had her Christmas program at school which the whole family was able to attend (and I was able to see the two numbers Aly was in before Kate started freaking out and we had to go out.) It was a real treat! I could hear Aly's voice clearly singing "Petit Papa Noel" in French and she did great on "We Three Kings" for the bell choir. I must say, that after all the hype I built up for myself, I was a little disappointed that there were no kazoos. However, there was an awesome Melekelikemaka (Hawaiian) number with some bumper car hula-ing going on that was pretty entertaining.

As for everything else, it's been a lot more Christmas related activities: delivering/receiving Christmas goodies, wrapping christmas presents, having sword fights with empty wrapping paper rolls, cooking food, food, and more food!, cleaning the house (it needed it - bad!), making christmas crafts at playgroup, receiving christmas cards, having a pizza/game night with the Gordon's, and going to see the lights on the river in Nachitoches. The lights were awesome! Nachitoches is where the movie, "Steel Magnolias" was filmed and it was very picturesque. It was 70 degrees outside and there was an awesome fireworks show along with the lights! There was a "snowstorm" made of dishsoap bubbles for the kids to play in, which they loved. The funny part was that Lise wanted to ride in the stroller and Kate didn't - go figure.

So, no snow for us for Christmas, it's 75 degrees today with lots of rain! But instead of hanging our heads in dismay, Chris took the girls on a "sleigh ride" around the neighborhood in the back of his truck.

Well, I guess I better get back to the Christmas Eve feast so that we can eat before midnight. So, just let me say, before I leave this website,

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night! :)

A Hodge Podge Blog

Well, I haven't blogged in a couple of weeks, and it isn't because I haven't had anything interesting going on - oh no! It's because I've had SO MUCH going on with the season and what-not that I haven't had time to blog. All the while I've been thinking about all the cute blogs I could write about. But now, sitting here at the computer, I realize that to post each individual thing separately would take way too much time that I don't have. So I'm just going to throw everything in here in a jumble (and hopefully a couple of pics will end up in here) to get caught up and hopefully it's not too dull. Here we go . . .

SNOW DAY

Can you see it? Can you see it?!? We got some snow in Louisiana and so the kids got a day off of school. I had to run outside at 7 am and snag this photo before all the snow melted. :) I realize that other parts of the state got up to 3 or 4 inches of snow, but seriously people! Aly has gotten more days off of school during her first grade year than I did during my entire school career, including 4 years of college! (My personal favorites were when they got half days of school because it was Leesville High School's Homecoming, and another time when the High school went to the playoffs. And that is affecting the elementary school . . . why?!?)

CHRISTMAS PREP

So of course I've been working on Christmas stuff: finishing up Christmas shopping, taking the girls to see Santa (and they asked for things that Santa is even willing to bring - hooray!), wrapping a few presents, and writing/sending out the Christmas letter. If for some reason you did not get my Christmas letter e-mail, give me your e-mail address in the comments and I'll send it to you. :) We also had a Christmas parade come right in front of our house, which was pretty awesome. I don't know how much of the parade the kids actually saw, though. They were too busy looking down to pick up all the candy. Kate's been helping me with my Christmas prep also. She is in love with the Christmas tree and always wants the lights on. She's knocked off/taken down a few of the ornaments, but always hangs them back on. So, the other day, I see that Kate has added a few of her own ornaments to the tree. She put the girl's comb and Aly's headband on the tree. Nice of her to help out. I'd been looking for that comb, by the way.

EXTRA STUFF

On top of the usual hustle and bustle that goes along with this time of year, I've found myself doing a lot of "extra" stuff. Like the dentist. Why did I schedule a dentist appointment in December? I don't know. Next year I'm waiting until January. I also got selected for Jury Duty and was panicking there for a minute. But luckily it was for North Carolina and since I don't live there anymore, I don't have to do it. Phew. My CTR class has sharing time this month, so I've been working on that. Chris and I were able to take the family down to Baton Rouge last weekend for a temple trip, and even though that was busy, the temple is always a nice refresher and helps realign the priorities a bit. Also, I'm once again having car troubles. The plastic thingy that covers my spare tire under the car was hanging down and banging on the road. And now my battery has totally died and the leads have corroded. Chris has been a total champ helping me out with the car on top of his busy schedule - thanks Chris! And on top of everything else, the laundry still has needed to be done, bathrooms needed to be cleaned, and meals needed to be cooked. Doesn't the laundry know I'm busy?!? :)

THINGS THAT ENTERTAIN US ON A SUNDAY

Sundays are an interesting day at the O'Gwin home. Since we don't allow our kids to play with friends or watch movies, some interesting activities emerge to keep the kids amused. I must say that Sunday is often when the girl's imaginations are at their finest. Today, Chris was entertaining the girls by blowing up a balloon and then watching them squeal (yes, squeal) when he let go and it would zoom around the room. Another favorite past time is taking all the pillows off the couches to make huts, slides, or "bridges" with the carpet being the water. Last week, Aly really took the cake. She was dancing to the Mannheim Steam Roller Christmas carols with all sorts of unique choreography that included peeking through our fake trees and incorporating gymnastics moves. Aly also created a "balance beam" from the various step stools we have around the house and the girls played for hours walking along it and jumping off the edge. It was great to watch.

FAMILY UPDATES

Lise has been amazing me at how independent she is becoming. In the past few weeks she has taken it upon herself to learn how to buckle her own seat belt, wash her own hair/give herself a bath, and make her own Peanut Butter and Honey Sandwich (her favorite part is licking the knife).

Kate has started "make believing", which just blows me away. She'll be playing with Barbies and has them say "hello" to each other and has them dance together. She also makes me laugh - this week Chris was pretending to flex and then Kate would make her hands into tight little fists, strain her face muscles as much as possible, and go "rrrr!" She's the amazing hulkette. I tried to get a picture, but of course she only wanted to say "cheese" for the camera. Oh well.

Dutch Oven Thanksgiving

So, I was talking with my sister on the phone and realized that I have had quite a few non-traditional Thanksgivings. There was the time when I lived in Mexico, which doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving, obviously, and so I went to a resort with my family over the holiday; the time I spent Thanksgiving at Disneyworld and ate my Thanksgiving dinner in the France portion of Epcot; and the one I spent in the hospital giving birth to Aly. So, in holding with tradition, or non-tradition as the case may be, Chris and I decided to go camping over Thanksgiving weekend. The Gordon's came with us, which was great because it made things a lot more enjoyable, they were a huge help, and we had built in playmates for the kiddos. Chris and I wanted to try out a few things on this camping trip, one of them being dutch oven cooking. Unfortunately something got lost in translation and the Gordon's thought we were experts. Oops! We ended up with a few crispy morsels, but other than that, our Thanksgiving BBQ chicken turned out fabulous.

We had every kind of weather imaginable: the first day it was warm enough for us to let the kids wade in the lake and to try out some fishing. (And yes, that is Kate in a kid leash. She got soaked from head to toe anyway, but at least I didn't have to go in after her and get wet too.) We also were able to go out on a boat for a few hours. On the night we were trying to cook Brats and Hot dogs for dinner, it was pouring rain. But Chris built us an awesome fire that even the rain couldn't put out (with a little help from Kate. She loved squatting down with dad to blow on the fire)! We found out later that we were under a tornado warning . . . hmm, fancy that! We had a tent, but we also had a yurt, in case of inclement weather. I included a picture because, if you're like me, you have no clue what a yurt is! It was my favorite word for the trip - yurt, yurt, yurt. All in all, a really fun trip and I'd love to do it again. Maybe over Spring Break?

Funny O'Gwin Girls and Silly Santa Prep.

Okay, first of all there's funny me, for not realizing that if I videoed (is that even a word?) Aly with my camera sideways, that the movie would be sideways. I've tried multiple things to get the movie rotated to no avail. Just rotate your head to watch it. ;) Thanks.

Secondly we have Aly, who absolutely loves her Hannah Montana guitar, as do her friends. We are finally the "cool house" where the kids want to come play. Thanks for the awesome birthday present, Grandma! The great part about it is that after playing all day with her friends she got a blister on her thumb. I got a good chuckle out of that.

Analise saw a purple truck the other day and just thought that was a hoot because "why does a boy have a purple truck?!?" Good question.

Kate is always running off with stuff or taking off her shoes and leaving them places. But she cracks me up because when I say to her, "Kate where is . . . ?" she goes "uh . . ." like she has to think about it for a second, and then runs off to find it. Also, anytime we see Dora or Disney princesses on anything (and believe me they are on more labels in the grocery store than I'd ever thought possible) she lets out a huge inhale gasp. Um, I think she got that from me.

Also, switching gears a little bit, this year has been very interesting as we've gotten ready for Santa to come visit our house. First off, we broke down and got a fake Christmas tree this year. It's actually been pretty nice and we've got lots of yummy smelling pine cones underneath to create the "real feel". Also, I am never more grateful that we do not have TV in our home than I am at Christmastime. Hooray no commercials for my kids to see stuff they've "just got to have". Even with the catalogs coming to our house it's been bad enough. Analise saw some horses in an American Girls catalog and has been having her ponies play with the ponies in the catalog and asking them why they can't jump out of the magazine. Sad but true. We had to explain to Aly that Santa has to obey copyright laws so that he won't get put in jail, meaning that he can't bring her the High School Musical 3 movie since it hasn't been released yet. Can you imagine Santa doing pirated films? I think not! And for the past two days at lunch Lise has said to me, "I really wish I knew what Santa's mom looked like." Hmm. No idea where that came from.

Gratitude in tribulation

This week I realized that it is often when something bad happens, that my blessings pop out at me the most. Take my car, for example. The driver's side window wouldn't roll down anymore, which is a huge pain since, living on post, I'm required to show my ID every time I come in the gate. I hate dealing with car issues!! So anyway, I had scheduled to take it down to the dealership to get fixed and (blessing #1) Natalie had graciously agreed to drive down with me so I wouldn't be stuck at the dealership all day. While driving down, I accidently passed the dealership. So I pulled over and jumped out of the car to let Natalie know we needed to turn around. Then I went to get back in the car and realized that I had locked my keys in the car with the car still running and Kate inside - PANIC! We got a locksmith to come and (blessing #2) he didn't even charge me for it because my baby was inside. There are still good samaritans out there! We eventually got my car to the dealership and (blessing #3) they did have my part in stock and were able to fix it that same day so that I didn't need to come back another day. I am so grateful for true friends, kind strangers, and Heavenly Father watching out for me.

Luckily the rest of my week wasn't nearly as traumatic. I spent a lot of time getting stuff ready for Aly's birthday, to include rearranging and going through the playroom, partly for Aly's party, and partly as a pre-birthday/christmas toy thinning. I was actually in the middle of this huge sef-induced project when I had Natalie and her kids over for dinner. I was totally not prepared and a frazzled space cadet for most of the evening. Natalie ended up unloading my dishwasher and cleaning up my kitchen for me so that we could eat. I am in deep gratitude towards Natalie this week. Did I mention how much I like having her at Fort Polk?

Oh, and the playroom turned out awesome! Here is a picture of the girls testing it out. Aly had stayed up with me until 10:30 pm on Friday getting it set up for her party the next day. She's a great helper.

Aly, the High School Musical Gal

Aly turned 7 this week. And what was the theme of the festivities, you may ask? Why, High School Musical, of course! Originally I was going to take Aly and a couple of friends to see HSM3 in the theaters, but, what do you know, Thursday was the last day it was showing in the Leesville theater and Aly's birthday/party was on Saturday. Not to be deterred, Aly, cool as a cucumber said, "No problem. I'll just let my friends come over to my house and vote on whether they'd rather watch HSM1 or HSM2." It was the best b-day party I've ever thrown. Aly's friends came over, we did presents (Aly even got a HSM poster, which she and her friends promptly hung up), and then the gals watched HSM2, singing along with all the songs and having a great time, I ordered pizza for them to eat with the movie, and then they went home. Aly loved it and it was totally low stress for me. Thanks Aly. You know how to make any party fun.

I also brought Aly's favorite cookie, pumpkin chocolate chip, to her school class on Friday and sat with her at lunch. Good times. Chris surprised Aly with a dozen roses on her birthday too. What a cute dad. All in all I'd say Aly's birthday was - what else? - FABULOUS.


A - Athletic and Adored by your sisters
L - Loyal, true Friend
Y - You're an awesome helper
S - Smart and Creative
O - Outgoing and Obedient
N -Never a dull moment

More about food and our happenings.

This week was busy, but in a good way. I was able to do a lot of my favorite thing - spending time with people! Whether it was taking my girls and their friends on a Slurpee run (it was my girls first Slurpee ever!), visiting teaching, enrichment, play dates, dinner with friends, or a lunch date with my hubby, it was a good time. I also made some more progress in the Christmas shopping arena, so over all, a successful week.
This week the girls were their normal hilarious selves. Aly had a loose tooth that she let me pull out (using pliers nonetheless) because she "needed the money" from the tooth fairy. Also, going along with Aly's teeth, ever since the dentist told Aly she couldn't bite on suckers anymore because of her sealants, she's been dipping suckers into water and then sucking on them. . . I don't even ask.
Lise asked me this week, "Mom, why don't skeletons have ears?" That sprang into a very interesting conversation about whether skeletons could hear or not.
Kate contracted a horrible skin disease this week called "I got a hold of a red marker while my mom wasn't looking and decided to color myself." I also have a few things to add to the list of what Kate is willing to eat: glue sticks, play-doh, and wet wipes. Luckily everything is "non-toxic" that we've caught her with. Also, she loves eating grapefruit for breakfast. What sort of 17 month old does that? And finally, there's a few words Kate has added to her vocabulary: sit, stuck, please, and Dora (ola). She has also started trying to figure out the TV/DVD player to put Dora on for herself. Aye, aye, aye. What are we going to do with that kid? Hopefully she lives to adulthood.

The Dining Practices of the O'Gwin Family

Over the past few weeks I have observed something. Even though our family does a fairly decent job at acting "normal" when we have company over for dinner, there is nothing normal about the dining practices of the O'Gwin family. Let me elaborate. First of all, Kate has this thing with putting her feet on the table. I caught her one morning eating her dry bowl of cereal in this position. Comfy, huh? Secondly, Chris seems to feel that dinner time is the perfect time to teach our kids how to contort their bodies, faces, and various body parts to learn all sorts of spiffy (and very useful, I might add) tricks, like the raccoon face trick, shown here, or how to hold up 1/2 of a finger to show that you are four and a half or six and a half. Thirdly, there's Aly, who is usually hanging upside-down off her chair or doing some other sort of gymnastics thingy while simultaneously trying to eat. Fourthly, there's Lise, who is constantly entertaining us all with her awesome songs (usually the ABC song belted at the top of her lungs), knock-knock jokes (Knock, Knock. Who's there? Cup. Cup who? Cup Plate - Ha, ha, ha, ha.), or sharing movie quotes (see video). Fifthly, there's me, the human jumping bean, who am not able to sit through an entire meal without having to get up at least three or four times to get children milk, seconds, the rag for spills, etc. I am like the mom in "A Christmas Story". Yeah, pretty much I'd say meal time at our house is more like a circus, or - dare I say it? - a zoo. Yes indeed. Staceroo and her mealtime zoo.

Things I Learned This Week

- No matter how many times you redo the same plot in a movie, if it's High School Musical, it will be awesome because the music and dancing rock! (We went to see it as a family and it was a huge hit. Kate was even content with her popcorn and drink for 2/3 of the movie, a personal best. Chris stayed in with Aly and Lise while I took Kate out when she got too wiggly. I think he's in denial about how much he likes HSM.)

- Christmas shopping in November (since you have a daughter who's birthday is in November, and you're out shopping anyway) is a good thing and will reduce your stress for later (you hope).

- Serving others really does make you happy and is possible in any stage of life (having friends over for dinner, welcoming new neighbors, and watching others children are my current venues.)

- I LOVE libraries. I love books. I love children's story time. I like that they're quiet and a great place for study and meditation. I love that everything is so alphabetized and organized. They're better than bookstores in that you can read books for free. (The upside of bookstores, though, is that you can get a strawberry smoothie while you're there.) At any rate, I think I would like to work/volunteer in a library sometime before I die.

- Although I realize that accidents happen and, having children, they are inevitable, they are still no fun. Aly sprained her ankle jumping on the trampoline early this week. Then, another day this week, we had Aly's friend Amanda over, and while they were playing Amanda got hit in the head with a golf club. While both are recovering well, there were some not fun times at our house this week.

- I LOVE nature. Nature makes exercising so much more enjoyable - walking in the crisp, cool mornings and seeing the beautiful autumn leaves - it can't be beat. (Oh, and I also learned that the leaves here do change color - just in November instead of September.) I was able to go on a walk with Aly to her school this week (before the sprained ankle) and it was fabulous. Living just outside a small town also allows us an exquisite view of the stars. I love it!

- There is so much to be grateful for, even in trying circumstances, and yet there is a constant tug of war going on inside between Gratitude and Murmuring. Like Faith and Fear, the two cannot coexist, and I choose which one will dominate my life.

Analise FHE

Okay, so this week was Analise's Family Home Evening and she chose to do it on Prayer (remember this, it becomes important later on.) Once again we got some cute ideas from the new Nursery Manual, Behold Your Little Ones, (thanks Rebecca, for introducing it to us!) First of all, Lise showed us a picture of Jesus learning to pray to his Heavenly Father as a child and told us that we learn to pray the same way Jesus did. Then Lise told us about the four parts of a prayer using her flip chart she'd colored. Finally, she had an activity using two groceries sacks. One said "We thank Thee" and had items inside that represented things we were grateful for, and the other said, "We ask Thee" and had items that represented blessings we pray for. It went really well and the girls were very involved and so I'm thinking "Yes! Another successful FHE. Mission accomplished." So then, that night, during family scriptures we read a verse about prayer and this is how the conversation went . . .

Chris - This verse talks about what we talked about in FHE tonight. Did anybody hear it?

- Blank stares.

Stacy - Do you remember what we learned about tonight?

Aly - Oh, I know! We learned about things we're grateful for!

Stacy - Close, but not quite. Lise, what did you give your lesson on? (mind you, Lise and I had been practicing her lesson for a couple of days.)

Lise - Sharing our toys and being nice.

Alrighty, then. So, there was a My Little Pony to represent "toys" in the grateful sack and a picture of our family to represent "a happy family" in the blessings we ask for sack, but where in the world did that come from? At least the girls got some positive ideas out of FHE, even if they weren't the ones we were trying to teach. :)

And along those same lines, we were reading in the scriptures the other day about how we need to "preach the gospel unto every creature" and Aly thought that meant we needed to send missionaries to teach the animals too. Another time I was asking the girls if they knew who Joseph Smith was and Aly said, "I do! He's the one who went into the peaceful and quiet grave and saw Heavenly Father and Jesus." So we had a discussion on what a grove of trees are, versus a grave. Kids sure keep you on your toes!

I'm Weird.

-I'm weird.
-No. You're quirky. Weird and quirky are two very different things.
(Quote from the movie Runaway Bride)

So, I saw on another blog a post where you have to list six of your quirks and I thought that fit me perfectly. So I copied it. Oh, and I drug Chris into the mess too and thought of 6 of his quirks to share (which he is absolutely thrilled about, by the way.)

STACY
1. I'm obsessed with smells in general, but mainly smelling food. For instance, if I'm having a salad, I can't decide which salad dressing I want until I've opened up the dressings and smelled them. I might also open up leftover containers in the fridge for a whiff before deciding what to eat. The aroma lets me know what my tummy wants.

2. After watching a movie a couple of times I can have nearly the whole thing memorized, and will often quote movies as they relate to the circumstances in my life (as demonstrated by the intro to this post!)

3. I am one of the most organized people I know - I'm like the list Nazi. Anyone who knows me can attest to (and usually comments on, upon entering my house) the number of lists just on my fridge: grocery list, meal idea list, Wal-mart to buy list, etc. And that's not even scratching the surface. There's also the "potential gift ideas list" for each member of my family, "songs I like to download list", "books to read list", "things I want in my someday dream home list", my "getting ready for Christmas to-do list", "packing for a vacation list", "possible baby names list", not to mention my regular to-do long term and short term lists. I can't function until I've written something down. Chris and I have a rule in our house that you are not allowed to cross something off of the other person's to do list. That is for their personal satisfaction. Oh, and back to the organized thing, I've actually had movers tell me how much they enjoyed packing my house because it was so organized - a couple of times, actually. Sad, but true. I do not stress myself over the organization, it just is me and I love doing it. I know I'm weird (I mean, quirky.)

4. I will make up my own song lyrics to fit my current scenario and am constantly singing at random times - like in the middle of the supermarket. My kids are always saying "oh mom!" when I change the High School Musical lyrics to "What time is it? Time to wake up. Get out of Bed!" or "You look Fabulous! You're gonna have a great day. Fabulous! No clouds in your way." Etc., etc.

5. Chris told me that I had to put one of my quirks as picking garment wedgies. (Of course he would know, as he's always staring at my behind. See Chris quirk #3.)

6. And finally, I talk to myself. Mostly in my head, sometimes out loud, and sometimes, if I really need to work something out, I'll have the conversation in the mirror. When I was growing up my mom would think I was talking on the phone or had called her and then when she'd come to my room she'd find I was really just talking to myself. And it was a private conversation - sheesh!
("Next time you're talking to yourself, tell yourself you're single, and end the conversation." --While You Were Sleeping.)

CHRIS
1. Chris is the only grown man I know that still orders sprinkles on his ice cream when we go out.

2. Chris loves teasing the girls about their girly stuff by renaming everything. At our house we've got "My Little Phonies", "High School Poosical", "Manna Hontana", "Smolly Rockets", and "Stinkersmell".

3. Chris is obsessed with my bum. There has been a continuous game of bum pinching tag going on (yes, I take part in it as well, it is not one-sided) since we got married over 8 years ago. And it is not confined to the privacy of our own home by any means. Chris has no problem pinching my bum at family functions, out on a date, or even at church.

4. Chris has a great love for books, and especially book stores. He was the one who introduced me to the joy of spending a Friday evening at a Bookstore and has definitely rubbed off on me in this respect. We love reading books together and he likes to read books from almost any genre you can think of. He's usually in the middle of four or five different books at a time.

5. Chris can eat a whole pound of bacon (16 oz.) in one sitting. When we have bacon and tomato sandwhiches, Chris generously lets me pick my 3-5 pieces for my sandwhich and then he divides whatever is left between his two sandwhiches. He LOVES bacon!

6. Chris is in love with the whole GPS (Global Positioning System) technology thing. When we were first married he got his first handheld GPS unit and tracked our latitude and longitude as we drove to the movie theater (I had to drive so that he could track.) This has expanded to a worldwide treasure hunt called "geocaching" where you use your GPS to find caches around the world full of odds and ends and you can take stuff and leave stuff. Of course we had to buy another "kid friendly" GPS for the kids to use. The girls love going with Daddy on their "treasure hunts". And lastly, we have recently acquired our third GPS unit, one for the car, which I have nicknamed Chris' mistress "Lucy". He insits he loves me better, but he's stuck by Lucy through thick and thin, even when she led us off roading on our way home from a temple trip.

Well, that's it. Now you know a little more than you wanted to about the O'Gwin's unique eccentricities. The sad part about this is, that as I've read over my quirks, I realize that these are the very things I blog about my children doing every week. What have I done to my kids? Oh well. So, if you'd like to join in and share your quirks, I'd love to hear them. If not, no worries; I'm not going to tag anyone. I believe in creating the least amount of stress in people's lives as I possibly can. :)

Trunk or Treating and other such festivities

So, for Halloween this year I ended up with a Princess, "Tinkerbell with her wings down" (Lise was supposed to be a fairy princess but decided not to wear her wings or her crown), and a Jack-o-Lantern. At our ward's Trunk-or-Treat there was face painting and Chris took Kate -hence the mustache on Kate's face.













Chris also got into the action by getting the bobbing for apples going.









As for the Jack-o-Lantern carving this year, we ended up with Aly's "happy pumpkin", My "scary, horned bat", Chris' "upside-down face", and Lise drew a "sleeping face" and a "thinking face" on her's and Kate's pumpkins.
All in all a very fun, successful Halloween!!

Aly's Family Home Evening

So, Chris thought Aly was old enough to give a lesson for Family Home Evening. We asked her if she would like to be in charge of an FHE and she said "yes" (she loved being able to pick who gave the prayers!) Topic of choice? "Picking up Garbage." We looked in the new LDS nursery manual, Behold Your Little Ones, and expanded it to "Jesus Christ created the world for me" and how we need to take care of it. So Aly told us about the creation and then wanted to do a "play" (see video below).

For the activity Aly chose to trash our playroom and play a game of "who can pick up the most trash in the least amount of time." It was a GREAT and very entertaining family home evening. Good Job, Aly! Lise is having her turn next week . . .

Hooray! The temperatures have left the 80's. We are starting to get some crisp cool mornings and I am loving it! I forgot how good the air smells when it's cold. I've been able to go walking along some of the nature trails on Fort Polk with Natalie and that has been beautiful. I love nature!! Did I mention Fall is my favorite season? We had more Fall activities this week, to include being "Booed" twice by our neighbors with yummy treats (hooray apple crisp and vanilla ice cream!), and going to a pumpkin patch activity on post. That one was kind of lame-o and pretty much just a big "stand in line for an hour to get a balloon" thingy, but we did pizza and games with the Gordon's afterwards and that made it all worthwhile. Friends make all the difference!

While volunteering at the elementary school this week I learned a few things:

- There's a teacher at Aly's school that calls kids "bubba" if she can't remember their name at the moment. That's quality teaching for ya, right there.

- When Aly grows up she wants to be a sailor because she likes the ocean and lakes, loves swimming, and likes riding on a boat and driving a boat. We have my dad to thank for the driving of the boat - thanks Dad! (Over the course of her short life, Aly has wanted to be everything from a parachuter to a Walmart checker. It will be interesting to see what she actually becomes when she grows up.)

- When filling in the blank "My Family is . . .", Aly chose to write "very funny". Okay, I guess that fits.

This week Analise was able to go to a tree farm with her preschool and see baby Christmas trees. Very exciting. She also had to do a nursery rhyme art project and chose "Mary Had a Little Lamb". She had so much fun drawing her school, Mary and Lamb.

And Kate . . . this week Kate has learned to give high fives and loves to give them to the entire family. She also discovered unrolling the toilet paper roll this week . . . many times.

Balloons and Kazoos

This week Analise learned how to write her name and likes to write it all over the place. She's really excited about it and . . . well, I think the picture says it all. She says this is her "brightest" smile.

So, I mentioned Aly's in a hand bell choir at school, right? They've been practicing for a Christmas concert and I thought it sounded really classy and had in my mind this beautiful concert we would be attending as a family in December to watch our daughter perform in. Well, the other day I was doing Aly's hair and she starts trying to make music with her comb and tells me that they use other "instruments" in the choir along with the bells, like combs and rubbing sticks together. So now I'm wondering if I'm going to go to a concert with kazoos and washboards and bells - true Louisiana style. Sounds like we're in for a real humdinger of a time . . . I'll keep you posted.

The highlight of this week was an overnight temple trip down to Baton Rouge. It included swimming, pizza, and playing with friends. I love going to the temple, especially with my husband - the peace you feel and putting everything into perspective just can't be beat!

And finally this week, Aly had a quote of the week about her school lunch:

Our family has "wet" [juicy] hamburgers and I don't like those. I like the dry hamburgers my school has.

In Search of a Good Book (or Two) . . .

Lately I have been looking for a few good books to read as Kate has learned to self entertain a little better. I love reading a good book (although I can only do it sporatically because it takes over my life until I'm done)! So if anyone has any suggestions, I am all ears! (Erin, sorry, but I lost the list you sent me when our computer crashed!) I'd also like to list a few of my favorite books, in case you're also in the market. Happy reading!
1. The Hiding Place - Corrie Ten Boom
2. Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
3. The Other Side of Heaven - John H. Groberg
4. These is my Words - Nancy E. Turner
5. Alas, Babylon - Pat Frank
6. I also liked Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer, but I think everybody's already read that!

To curl or not to curl, that is the question

Okay, so you get to hear more about my hair. I know what you're thinking, "Spiffy", right? I am one of those people who never does anything to her hair. Maybe I grow out some bangs for a couple of years, then cut some for a couple of years, then grow out some more. I've had plenty of criticism from hairdressers for only getting a haircut every six months or so and for letting my sister (sorry Laur!) cut my hair in our garage. So a couple of years ago I was grateful when my friend Niki told me to get my hair out of the 80's and actually showed me how to style the bang schwoopie off to the side and how to use mousse. :)
So, I've been feeling pretty good about my hairstyle for the past couple of years, except lately I've noticed that my natural curl is becoming a lot more predominant. Could be the pregnancy hormones from three kids, could be the humidity in the air, who knows? The point is that I've been thinking that I need to learn how to do a curly hairstyle before I end up looking like Little Orphan Annie (you know the red head fro girl from the movie?) So I asked a lady in our ward who had a cute curly hairstyle how she does her hair and I've tried it out a couple of times. It required the acquisition of "curly mousse" and a diffuser (I had to ask what that was), but here is how it turned out. So, what do you think? Is it a "go" or a "no go"? Do any of you fellow curly hair gals out there have some tips to help me out?
Okay, so enough about me . . . a couple of highlights at the O'Gwin home this week are that Chris finished another quarter of classes with all A's, I got a date with my hubby, Aly is loving her gymnastics class and the hand bell choir she was chosen to be in, Lise brought her "Scootaloo" My Little Pony to show and tell, did a fabulous job, and currently knows almost half the letters and sounds in the alphabet, and we discovered Kate knows how to blow kisses and say "hello" in the exact same sarcastic tone I use! :)

We also completed the yearly monumental task of getting the family picture taken for our Christmas letter. It was a whole day event as the closest JCPenney with a photo studio was a 1 1/2 hour drive away. But we made the most of it, smiled brilliantly, ate lunch, bought the girls some clothes, and I even got a new bedspread out of the deal. Then we went home for a relaxing family movie night.

The lowlight of the week is that at about midnight, Lise started throwing up. Chris joined in at around 5 am, and Aly woke up at 7:30 saying she was going to throw up. Lise went through 3 or 4 sets of jammies and blankets last night and finally was able to keep down a bowl of cereal for "breakfast" at 4 pm. Aly and Chris pretty much slept the entire day. I spent last night and today doing laundry and feel pretty beat, but I am so grateful that Heavenly Father gave me the strength to take care of my family today and that so far Kate and I are not sick. Is it terrible that I am also grateful that no one started throwing up until after we were done taking family pictures?