Poor Baby

McKell has had it pretty rough the past few weeks. Two weeks ago she was cranky and a little feverish. I finally took her to the doctor a few days later - ear infection.

She started feeling better pretty soon after we got her on an antibiotic.

Then this week she's had a runny nose, and Wednesday night she was up coughing quite a bit.

She was doing much better last night and slept great, but woke up this morning looking like this:

Time to go back to the doctor! It's worst on her cheeks, but she's got polka dots over basically her entire body. I thought it might be an allergic reaction to citrus, since she tried oranges for the first time Wednesday and Thursday. However, the doctor said it's due to some virus. Not contagious at this point, and it should clear up in a few days. 

I sure hope this little girl can enjoy some healthy days after this rash is gone. :(

Make It Do

The creativity of children always impresses me.

I came into the kitchen one Sunday evening to find A and B waving their "batons" around while K sang a song. Who knew kitchen stools and cookie sheets could make such nice music stands?

Everything Else Related to Halloween

I'm not really into carving pumpkins (I think because we've been living in humid climates where it only takes a few days for the pumpkin to turn disgusting and moldy), but Russ asked about it this year, so I picked up a pumpkin at the store for Monday's family night activity.

Russ made the girls do the dirty work (except Brenna, who refused to touch any of the inside goop).

While Russ carved, Kaylee practiced her photo-bombing skills (thank you, Studio C).

We named him Chuck.

We had Halloween activities going on Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday night. This pic is from Tuesday, and was the only night Brenna wore her clown nose. She couldn't keep it on. The following night we painted her nose instead, but on Halloween she didn't want anything done with it. So I'm pretty sure most people guessed her costume to be a scarecrow or a hippie by then. Oh well. 

"Mary had a little lamb" was not fond of her bonnet.

Gypsy

50's Girl

Clown

Russ, unlike me, always likes to wear some sort of costume. Your guess is as good as mine in terms of what he was going for this year.

Hope ya'll had a very HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Halloween Eats

This year I tried to be a fun Mom by making lots of Halloween themed food the last week of October. Most items were a success, though there were a few failures as well. 

We are still new enough in our neighborhood that we don't know everyone on our cul-de-sac. So, we decided to deliver some holiday cookies to the 11 other houses on our street for our family night activity on Monday. The cookies were a WIN with the neighbors, and my own kiddos. 

I found this adorable recipe for Candy Corn Quesadillas that I decided to try. My kids eat quesadillas all the time, so I figured they wouldn't mind some cheese, crushed Doritos, and sour cream on top. Wrong. This was my biggest FAIL of the week. Russ and I ate them, and everyone else ate up the few pieces I had left plain for McKell.

We've done Mummy Dogs in the past, and I think they're fun and tasty (definitely a labor of love though, especially if you buy cheap crescent roll dough that falls apart). The Mini-Orange Pumpkins and Banana Ghosts were pulled from a friend's Facebook post. Easy and cute and the kids all love fruit. WIN.

We've also done Pumpkin Pancakes and Spider Sausages in the past. Ashlyn doesn't like pancakes, so I wasn't planning to make any for her. Russ doesn't care for chocolate chips, so I was planning to make some plain pancakes for him. And when I asked Kaylee if she wanted plain pancakes, or pumpkin face pancakes, she said plain. I only made a few pancakes with chocolate chip faces for me and Brenna and I patted myself on the back for catering to everyone's wishes. But when we sat down to eat Kaylee and Ashlyn both grabbed one of my jack-o-lantern pancakes. I was like, "What!? I specifically asked each of you what you wanted, and you did NOT want one of these pancakes." So, in the end they were a WIN, but I was sad I only got to eat one of them. Boo to fickle children.

But hooray for holidays and doing fun things to celebrate. :)

Pass It On

Here's another favorite article of clothing that has now been worn by all 4 girls.

General Conference

We always look forward to General Conference weekend. But there are times when I feel like it's complete chaos - noisy kids, crazy messes, fussy babies, etc. This time around, however, was AWESOME. I felt like all the kids, even McKell, were super good. They didn't sit quietly on the couch taking notes during all 8 hours, but they did listen some, and they did take notes some, and they didn't leave my house a disaster, and they didn't go crazy. So nice. I felt like I was able to pay attention to nearly all the speakers. 

The 3 older girls have "General Conference Journals" and special pens
that only come out during General Conference weekend.

I'm always trying to come up with activities to keep everyone entertained. This year I printed off and laminated pictures and names of the First Presidency and 12 Apostles. I put them all on a poster, and on other posters I had labels for each session. When someone spoke, their picture and name got moved over to the appropriate session heading (I had extra papers to write in the names of other speakers, too.)

Russ is especially fond of these weekends, since it means he doesn't have any church responsibilities to take him away . He loves spending the days at home with all of us.

Pics from the Park