A few left over from when Uncle Brian visited

Of course, we had to go to Salt Lick before Brian left.  It was a perfect day for playing outside.  Matthew got a lift from Uncle B.  That Friday Brian and I went to eat lunch with Meagan and Natalie.  This is a photo with Natalie's sweet friend Inyaa, the one she has been friends with before Inyaa was two!

One last Elmo Picture

Halloween Fun

Uncle Brian L is in town and carved this awesome mustache themed pumpkin with the kids on Wednesday night.  Andy and I went to go see Gravity.  We never go to movies, but this one is very worth seeing.  It is an intense action film and the cinematography is stunning. Anyway, I digress.  The kids had a great time with him doing the pumpkin and the seeds came out really well.

This year's costumes were a little bit more original than in the past.  Natalie was a minion.  Matthew was supposed to be a minion, but he didn't want to be one.  We had already ordered overalls for him in size 4T, but they worked just fine as capri pants on Natalie.  We found awesome goggles on Amazon and a yellow ski hat with pipe cleaners going through it to be hair.  Meagan was Flo from Progressive.  She cameup with the idea and I loved it.  The most important things for Flo are an apron and bright red lipstick.  Matthew was a rocket ship.  I had bought it a few years ago after Halloween just to play in, but he loved it.  We got a ton of compliments on all three kids' costumes. 

These are some of our neighbors that we have celebrated Halloween with for quite awhile.  I think if I looked, I could find some from when they were toddlers. 

We didn't trick or treat terribly long, but we have more than enough candy.  For the first time in forever, I overbought candy.  Usually my mom (who hangs out at our house to pass out candy) runs out after an hour or so, but we still have way too much. 

Brian is still here until tomorrow morning.  We are enjoying the fantastic November 1st weather of 82.  I am thinking a visit to Kerbey Lane is in order, preferably sitting outside.

Elmo at Matthew's Party!

Face Painting at Matthew's Faith Montessori Birthday party

He is FOUR!!! (or almost)

I just wrote a very long piece about my very last baby turning four.  I wrote all about how much I love this sweet little guy and many details about the way that he plays with cars and his superheroes.  I talked about his love of grandparents and about how much he misses Papa Joe, but adores the other three.  The sun rises and sets with his sisters, though.  He loves, loves, loves, them and wants to do everything that they do.  You would find this to be a much longer post had some weird glitch not happened that caused me to lose the whole thing.  A few things:

He sure does love cars.  

He loves his dogs.

The Topas are bonus grandparents and he adores them.

His best friend is now in Kindergarten and when they see one another, they run up to each other and say, "I love you, best friend!"

He is all boy.  I mean, really, really, all boy.  He runs and runs around like crazy, says silly boy things, is rougher than the girls, but he also hugs, cuddles and loves his family.

Still working on the learning part of preschool.  We have the numbers 1-9, except for 7.  He skips over that one. :)

I am going to try to post more, but that is the bare minimum post on Matthew Colin turning 4.  My sweet little 5 1/2 pound baby is now more like 40.  His eyes are still gorgeous and his smile is still the sweetest thing you've ever seen.

A Pretty Awesome Birthday Party

Meagan's friend Makenzie, the girl on the left, had a great birthday party at a place called Painting with a Twist.  The kids all make the same picture and the instructor gives directions as they go.   The actually mostly do lessons with adults, but Meagan lucked out to be able to go to this one.  Makenzie is one of Meagan's oldest friends; they met in Ms. Erickson's Kinder class. I was beyond excited to find out that the two of them would be in the same class again this year!  The girl on the right is a friend from last year who did tutoring with Meagan over the summer.  Her name is Hannah.

 "Because you were always on my mind...."

No, Meagan didn't paint this.  She actually entered a drawing and won it!  It is a supercute longhorn, which is great since it was on a day where UT beat OU and shocked everyone, maybe even themselves.

If anyone needs a book....I just finished Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith, othewise known as a mildly famous author named JK Rowling.  It was an awesome suspense novel.  It started kind of slowly, but was beautifully written and drew me in.  Enjoy!