Halloween!

I know I'm weird when I say this, but I love dressing my kids for Halloween in regular clothes more than in costumes! Costumes are fun, but black and orange striped tights are even more fun! Yes, yes, total Mom fail, but whatever. :D

 Aurora's hair can be explained by one thing: HALLOWEEN. (Or, she just woke from a nap.)

 Mom wins Grandma-of-the-Year because Azucena told her she wanted to be Rapunzel with her long, beautiful hair, so my mom went and made this wig for her. YUP. Thanks, Mom!

Two Months Old!

Austin is now two months old! We love our little chub-a-lubs! He's a growing, healthy boy and his older sisters adore him. Stats to follow!

 Height 22.25 inches Weight 12 lbs 9 oz

Leaf Jumping!

The leaves finally started to fall off the trees! The older girls grabbed their rakes to help me make some leaf piles to jump in while their younger siblings napped. I love that you can see their personalities in these pictures!

 Azucena is meticulous. The leaves had to be gathered just so, and the different kinds needs to be separated. She also analyzed how to jump in. Always started from the same place, used a countdown, and jumped into the same part.

 Adelaide is such a crazy ball of energy! She also hams it up for the camera. She'd run back and forth, leap into the pile, throw leaves into the air, anything and everything!

 

 Austin woke up so I brought him out into the leaves. He was confused about all the pokey things jabbing into him but took his time looking around at his new surroundings.

 Aurora was very upset that she was awake. (We did not wake her. But she apparently needed more nap time.) She pouted because we made her participate. :D

Gwen's Funeral

The day before her 88th birthday, Gwen passed away. I got a call a half hour before midnight on Sunday saying she had been taken to the hospital and got a few texts and Facebook messages a couple hours later confirming that that was old news and she'd passed away. Clark had promised me long ago that I'd be able to go to the funeral services no matter when it happened, so we spent a lot of time looking up flights from Salt Lake to any Bay Area airport. Turns out that this week was UEA so everything was sold out or over $900. Eep!

Clark looked into renting a car and it turned out that that was $25/day so we talked it out and decided to both travel to Petaluma by driving rather than flying. Annie and Kelly were amazing and took the girls last minute while we packed everything up. I love Clark for taking time off work and then driving like crazy to get to the services so I could spend time with my family and honor Gwen.

 

 

 Turns out Gwen was the first female high school band director in the state of California. What an amazing accolade for my awesome aunt!

All five of Jerry's children were able to make it!

Mara has the full shot, but this was setting up for our group picture

 

I love this picture of Mom with Aunt Harriet!

Pumpkin Patch!

Well, the Little Golden Pumpkin Patch is closed for good, so we've had to change our tradition of visiting a patch to elsewhere. We've settled on Swore Farms because it's close. :D The girls remembered going last year and the older two wanted to try some of the same things as last year, too. ("We have to sit on the pumpkin, Mommy!") My little munchkins have great memories!

 Poor Clark does all the grunt work when I force us on these family outings! Love you!

 Don't worry--Austin was there, too! He was just napping like crazy since he was snug and warm.