Gratitude Pumpkins, Doctor Visits & Other Things

Another super unexciting week which makes me happy. Unfortunately, this week the weather decided to take a turn for the cold which doesn't make me happy. We even got some snow flurries yesterday- boo!

Some of our happenings this week...

*On Monday we printed out pictures of everything the boys wanted for Christmas and then narrowed down the list to how much they can actually get. This was a good move because now they can stop focusing on what they want. The list is made and it is final. No more thinking about it.

*To counteract with all the greediness, for family home evening that night, each kid received a gratitude pumpkin. Every night at dinner the kids write one thing they are grateful for on it. So at least for one minute of each day they remember to be grateful:

*On Tuesday we had lunch bunch at our house since the lady in my Ward who normally hosts it needed a break. Unfortunately hosting it here made me have to do some intense (but much needed) cleaning. I'm not sure why I bothered though, the kids who came just exploded everything anyways. 

*Wednesday night I had my BUNCO group and I rolled 4 BUNCO's pretty much in a row! I had such amazing luck for one round and then, it disappeared :( It was fun while it lasted and at least I still placed second but I was a depressing 3 points away from first place and from that $50 Target giftcard. Sad day!

*Thursday Miss Lucy had her three year checkup. All is well with her and she is just growing big, big, big! She now weighs 34 pounds and is 3 feet 3 inches tall. She was really nervous for the appointment (thanks to Steven traumatizing her last time) and kept saying "I'm scared of the doctor!" But luckily she didn't need any shots so hopefully she'll be less scared for next time. The doctor did tell her to pat dry after peeing and now every time she pees she says, "Doctor say pat pat pat!" She's such a little parrot. She's also been super crazy this week, into anything and everything, constant messes and destruction and with her not napping but once a week....I'm exhausted!

*Thursday we had a belated birthday celebration for my friend Laci at the Cheesecake Factory. We had a good turn out with about 7 other ladies there and we had way too much fun. Goodness I love me a good girl's night!

* On Friday we went over to Laci's house to entertain Wesley so she could get some packing done (she's moving out of her condo into a house 5 minutes away). Wesley adores Lucy and they had fun hiding in a box together. This was the best picture I could get though because Wesley always runs as soon as someone tries to take his picture:

* Also on Friday Lucy fell asleep in the car when we picked up the boys from school. Since it was too cold to leave her in the car, I carried her inside expecting her to wake up but when I set her down on Benny's little trampoline she stayed sleeping. She must of been exhausted from all her craziness at last:

*This week Penny has really become a walker! Already the days of her walking just to me are over! She walks on her own quite often so I think very soon we will be able to officially call her a walker! It's crazy how much they change in just a week! Love her and her cheesy smile:

A Calm Week

The last couple weeks have been kind of crazy between having Grandma in town, Halloween and Lucy's birthday. This week, things finally felt like they went back to normal and it was nice to have a pretty unexciting week for once. Also this week the weather warmed up and we were blessed with lots of days in the 70's. It was a good week!

What we did...The kids had no school Tuesday and we spent the morning grocery shopping! Lucky kids! Wednesday was my friend Laci's birthday so we pigged out on cinnamon rolls while the kids played at the mall. Thursday was spent visiting teaching and going to a stake primary meeting. Friday morning I watched a friend's little boy and Friday night Tyler and I took the kids out to Red Robin's where they all behaved surprisingly well. And today was the Primary Program Practice. I have been placed behind the microphone and entrusted with too much responsibility. We'll see how tomorrow goes *gulp*! So as you can see, a nice and normal week!

My kids in a nutshell:

Penny has been a fussy child as of late and some days she can make me sooo cRaZy! But she makes up for it by loving me lots. I am the only person she'll walk too which makes me feel pretty special. She takes a handful of steps but still isn't walking like a champ. And she has officially worn out the bottoms in one pair of leggings thanks to her butt scootin' ways. She is also a pretty picky eater and pretty much survives on milk, go-gurt, and goldfish. Every once in awhile she will expand her horizons to include some sort of fruit or toast but that is not an always thing.

Steven and Benny keep busy with school and homework. They both have also been very into the Target Christmas Toy Catalog we have got and deciding what Santa is going to get them. They have some very high aspirations. They just need to work on making sure their behavior doesn't exclude them from getting these things. Ben for the most part does good because he is easily motivated by the jewels we earn for screen time- these jewels have finally gotten him eating all his lunch instead of just one or two bites. Steven, on the other hand, has been struggling with fighting with his siblings and isn't as easily motivated to be good. They are both lucky that they are just so darn handsome:

And Lucy. Oh my Lucy. Anytime I tell her about anyone from Nursery she says "he my friend!" Always "he," even for the girls. And you CAN NOT say they're your friend because she will get very upset and say, "NO! He MY friend!" She also has started to say "No problem" when asked to do something. Which is nice right, except she doesn't actually do what she was asked to do. And this little stinker is all mine, all the time because she only takes a nice, long nap about once a week. Most days she will stay upstairs and take a break for like 30 minutes but then she's back down, ready to play. Lucky that I love her.

This week she spent the money her great grandparents gave her for her birthday on these lovely accessories and an Elsa dress. She is such a Diva:

And to end this post here is Lucy with what she believes to be a snack sized bowl:

I was in the bathroom when she asked for some goldfish so I told her to get a bowl and I would pour it for her when I was done. She decided to pick the largest bowl possible and then pour it herself. Quite ambitious!

Halloween!

After carving our pumpkins Halloween morning we raked leaves! Super exciting, right!? The boys earned $10 that morning by filling up 10 bags of leaves. We still have at least 10 more bags of leaves left to do. This whole Fall thing makes for a lot of work. But Steven was pretty excited about this working and earning money thing, he kept telling me that today was the best day ever. So of course, immediately after earning this money, the boys wanted to go spend it. So Tyler obliged and the boys spent the afternoon spending their new found wealth. They also made a stop at Verizon where they got me a new phone- whoop whoop! I finally have a phone that can handle group and picture texts and the battery will get me through the day and then some! Yippee!

Then night came and it was time to go trick-or-treating! As I was trying to finish getting the kids ready, people started coming to our door. It stressed me out a bit but we just turned off lights, shut the door and headed to the backyard for some pre-trick-or-treating pictures. The boys are into Star Wars, and Target had a sale so a Star Wars theme it was. I don't normally get into the dressing  up thing but due to a costume party we were invited to I got into the spirit and it was quite fun. Here we are:

Tyler and Penny came with us to a few houses and then they went back to the house to hand out candy.

They were lucky that they got to hand out candy under the safety of the porch because after we got nice and far from our house, the rain came down. It wasn't a super heavy rain but enough to get us damp and to make the 48 degree temp feel a little colder. The boys were all about persevering through the rain for a bit but eventually the cold got to Steven and he started complaining that he couldn't feel his hands and that the wet and cold was going to make him sick and he wanted to go home. So home we went. Here are our after pictures:

Our lucky Penny, nice and dry:

Pumpkin Time!

Last week we picked up Steven, Ben and Penny's pumpkins. On the night before Halloween we finally had some time to turn them into jack-o-lanterns. We decided that we would only worry about getting the pumpkin guts out that night though, and the next morning we would carve them. I'm glad we split it up like that, it made the whole process way less overwhelming since they all need lots of help still.

Here are the before shots of the kids with their pumpkins: 

Since Penny didn't have her own pumpkin she spent the time climbing the stairs, getting into trouble and throwing tantrums:

Penny does this awesome thing now where she throws herself back when she's upset. I swear she is going to knock herself out one of these days!

The kids are all still pretty squeamish about pumpkin guts:

It took a lot of courage for them to pretend like they were eating them...

The next morning the boys and I scanned Pinterest for ideas for their pumpkins. Once they decided what they wanted they sketched it out on paper and then they used a dry erase marker to draw it on their pumpkin:

Then, because Tyler is much better at it then I, he cut them out:

Lucy went a different route with her pumpkin. She took a drill to it and made "flowers" It was super fun that she actually got to help "carve" hers and it was super fun to watch her use a drill:

And here are the results:

Benny was adamant that he wanted his pumpkin to have a loose tooth 

Of course, Steven wanted a Creeper

Lucy and her flowers

Lucy's Birthday

I decided to throw Lucy an early birthday party while Grandma was still in town. I was originally going to do a tutu/ballerina theme with all sorts of handmade Pinteresty things but after a trip to the dollar store it was decided that a purple Princess party with store bought decorations was the much easier option. We got Princess crowns, necklaces, stickers, placemats and a lovely purple tablecloth: 

I did make some crown shaped PB&J sandwiches, compliments of an awesome cookie cutter:

The funny thing about the sandwiches is that my cute sandwiches were apparently unappealing to kids because they did not look like a normal sandwich. Most of the kids just picked at them.

I also made some "fancy" cupcakes:

Lucy didn't eat my sandwiches either, she basically just had Dorito's because, why not? It's her birthday and she can eat what she wants to!

I ordered "Place the tiara on Aurora's head" from Amazon and it was quite funny to see Lucy and her 4 friends attempt to play it. They did not understand the purpose of the blindfold at all. Why must we wear this thing that makes it so we can't see? A few friends flat out refused to wear it and one got grumpy when she took it off and saw that the tiara was in the wrong spot, she wanted to fix it! Lucy just kept pulling it up so she could see and with that cheating, she got the tiara in the exact right spot.

So apparently these cuties were not quite ready for a party game but I still think it was a fun attempt.

After lunch and the game, Lucy got sung to:

And then she got spoiled with presents galore! She got a sticker book, a magnet scene, a Sofia book and Sofia toys, purses, a wand, candy, Rapunzel & Cinderella barbie dolls but her favorite present had to be the purple dress that Audrey got her. These 2 are such good friends and such trouble together (they kept running upstairs and hiding):

Audrey was the only girl that came to Lucy's Princess party. The other girl we invited couldn't make it. But the rest of her guests were real troppers with her Princess theme. We even got a couple of them to wear the crown and necklace. Here is Lucy with her good buddy Wesley:

And here she is with Graham:

Her other friend, Zane, was apparently all boy and had no interest in wearing such things. 

All in all I think it turned out perfectly! Lucy had a great time and we were so glad that Grandma could be with us to celebrate!

Onto Lucy's ACTUAL birthday. Her real birthday was Sunday which is kind of a not too exciting day. She was getting really cranky in the morning before church so we let her open her presents from Grandma Hatch. She got another purple dress, a crown, shoes and a tiara. Spoiled!

She absolutely loves her Sofia dress and we had a hard time getting here to take it off for church. But she eventually complied and I think she looked equally as cute in her church outfit:

She had a good time in Nursery at church being with all her friends. They even gave her a crown and some play dough. When we got home Tyler decorated her "tutu" cake. Lucy kept calling it her tutu cake but it always sounded like she was saying "choo choo." She loved her fancy cake:

Lucy had a rough time keeping her 3 fingers up so Tyler tried to help her:

After dinner our neighbors, the Farquharson's, came over for some cake and ice cream. It's always nice to have a few extra voices when we sing "happy birthday" but we still can't match the magnitude of a true Hatch family birthday song.

Spoiled Lucy Lou got even more presents: a pretend hair styling kit, a stick pony that sings and a Princess Sofia purse from us. A book and a mask making kit from our neighbors. 

And I'll end with some of Lucy's favorite things:

Favorite color: purple

Favorite books: Any Disney Princess book

Favorite Song: "I'll walk with you"

Favorite treats: Swedish fish, pops (lollipops)

Favorite TV Shows: Strawberry Shortcake, Princess Sofia, Angelina Ballerina

Favorite phrase: "He my friend" (even if its a girl)

Favorite food: PB&J's 

Favorite clothes: purple dresses