More October Fun

That last post was getting a bit long, so I decided to divide it into two posts.

Thane built a climbing wall in their house and it was finally at a point where we could try it out. One evening we gave all the kids a chance to climb!

Annaliese

Owen

Haleigh

Mallory

Elias

There were also quite a few cute pictures of the girls from around the house; they love to have their pictures taken but don't always stand still long enough for a clear picture!

I told Lydia I thought she looked cute today and that I wanted to take a picture of her outfit...
so she turned around and said 'cheese!'

This looks like such an awkward way to sleep!

October

I feel like I just posted a September update and here it is time for an October update already! Looking back through my pictures, I realized that we spent a lot of time at the park  and hanging out with our friends! Makes for a good month!

I wanted to make some dried apples so one morning we headed to the apple orchard nd picked some apples. It was a beautiful morning and it there were so many apples on the trees. We were able to make lots of dried apples, some homemade applesauce, an apple pie, apple cookies and apple muffins!

 

 

We continued our fall fun with an afternoon Harvest party at some friends from church. They had pumpkins for carving, chili and hot dogs, and s’mores for dessert!

 

We decided to have an Italian-themed dinner in memory of Grandpa Tursellino, kid-free, so one night Kyle and I headed over to Mom and Dad's house while the girls stayed home with a babysitter. Mom made bragioli and we had salad and bread to go along with it! Dessert was tiramisu, carrot cake and some fancy thing that Ben made. It was all delicious! While we love our kids, it was really nice to have a kid-free night together with my parents and sisters.

 

The weather has been fantastic, so we spent lots of time outside! Annaliese is a fan of the monkey bars, so she prefers to go to Star Park, but we also visited Hovander, Berthusen, and Elizabeth Park as well!

She was so focused! She wanted to climb along the outside of the play structure.
 It's hard to tell from here, but she's about 5 feet off the ground.

 

 

 

A low-key Halloween

Each year I have these ambitious ideas to put together a fun family themed Halloween costume. However, I don't think it has ever gotten past the point of just being an idea! This year was no different.

After the girls got home from school on Halloween, they asked to go trick-or-treating. So they looked through the closet and the dress-up drawer and found their costumes. We had a mermaid, Piglet, and a ballerina. We headed out in our neighborhood for a little while and then came back home; the girls took baths and got ready for bed in between opening the door and handing out candy...I'm pretty sure that had just as much fun answering the doorbell each time it rang as they did actually going door-to-door.

Saturday night, Kyle and I went to my work Halloween/Fall Harvest Party at my manager's house. It's a fun time to mingle with my co-workers, eat good food, have fun drinks, and dress-up. I had to work the night before and I spent my break perusing the internet for easy, last minute Halloween costume ideas.

Kyle and I will probably be M&M's for the next few years...the girls are clearly outgrowing their costumes and we might need to plan ahead next year! But we all had fun and now we have too much candy in the house!

September

September seems to have passed very quickly, yet at the same time, Lydia's birthday and the beginning of the school year seem like a very long time ago! I know I just wrote a post about what Lydia is up to now that she is two, but within the last month she has already changed so much! My job has changed; Kyle is continually up to new adventures with work and Haleigh and Annaliese are learning how to navigate school. Since the goal of this blog was to help me be able to look back and remember where we are and the things that we are doing, this "September in review" post is going to capture some of our daily life and the recent changes. It might be kind of a boring read, but later in life, I think I will appreciate it!

Lydia: At two years old, she is full of spunk! The majority of the time she is happy and agreeable, but her vocabulary has rapidly developed and with that has come the ability to scream "no." She likes to pull hair and bite when she doesn't get her way, but can be easily distracted with a snack or her blankie. She likes to play with her sisters, go outside and pick out her own clothes. She's all about layers...lots of layers. I think she had 4 shirts on the other day. She also likes sandals. It's amazing how particular she is about her shoes...if I pick out the wrong pair, she simply won't wear them. I've learned to just let her pick out her own and go with it! She hates having her diaper changed or getting buckled into her carseat.

Haleigh: Haleigh is officially 4 1/2! She is also usually pretty happy but when she's not happy, she is hard to deal with! When she is hungry she gets a bit irrational and will start crying and will just sort of mumble and not make sense. She usually ends up in her room for some alone time and then things resolve. She loves to play with the Noah's Ark set and her magnet tiles. She loves to build and is super creative! There are lots of days where she tells me she doesn't want to play with me and just wants to play by herself. She loves going to school, wearing dresses, and helping me make dinner. Now that the nice weather has gone away, she's also decided it's time to learn how to ride her bike...it's hard to learn in the rain!

Annaliese: Annaliese is in 1st grade, loves school, reading, and playing the piano. She loves to be crafty and is constantly drawing pictures for her friends. She likes wearing dresses and tennis shoes, taking pictures and videos to document what she's doing and 'doing gymnastics.' She still sucks her thumb on occasion, her two front teeth are finally growing in and she is constantly thinking of her friends and wondering what they are doing at any given moment.

Kyle has been working for himself since March and his business, Gillette Solutions, continues to be something he is super passionate about. He fills his days with networking, coaching sessions, and helping people to learn more about who they are and how they can grow. It's fun to watch him brainstorm and develop new ideas and figure out exactly what he wants this business to look like. In his spare time, he does things like take care of the yard, play with the girls and read lots of books.

I decided to switch things up at work and spent the month of September working day shift (7am-7:30pm) orienting in the ICU. I'm going to be working as a Critical Care Float now, which means that I will eventually be working ICU, ED, and PACU...which are all completely new and a huge learning curve! I will also be working night shift, which will be an adjustment for everyone. However, I really didn't enjoy day shift, so I think it will all work out nicely!