Koria in the red hat

She's such a nut...

Layne in the Santa's Hat

We had to resort to musical toys and weird sounds to get Layne's cooperation, but she looks as good as she is.

Luke ... not so happy in the Red Hat

This one above is my favorite! Well, and the one below.

Luke didn't want to cooperate. Can't say I blame him. It's no wonder I have a massive headache right now.

Kimball in Santa hat

I posted the edited pic that I took today of the kids on our other blog ... check 'em out! Here's some of the other photos that I didn't edit that were equally great ... maybe even better. I will post some of each Black child for all to see. They just make me laugh.

Halloween Night

Here's a few pictures from the night of Halloween. You can see the candy hall that Kimball brought home after the day's events ... at least what I could save after the exploding pop incident from earlier. There's the Scooby-Doo gang too, with Pirate Me. Trust me, I was plenty scurvy by mid-afternoon to pass the part. There's a pic of Layne with her Velma glasses painted on and her nice orange turtleneck sweater, followed by Freddy, Shaggy, and Daphne. The bottom picture shows Jared, Luke, and Layne at the Halloween walk from earlier. Luke and Layne are a very popular couple with the office staff. Here, the secretary named Peggy, is loading them up with snacks of their own before the school kids came. They had no shortage of attention and love, as always.

One other item worth noting from the day -- when we pulled into the house after driving around the town trick-or-treating, it was dark. We turned around to see that one of the kids had managed to break their glow sticks in half, spraying tiny drops of glow-in-the-dark paint all over the back half of the car, Layne's body (I'm guessing that she chewed her stick in two), and a chunk of Koria's face. Good thing glow sticks only glow for a day. Otherwise, we would light up a room wherever we go.

Halloween ... at least the morning of

Since I've married Jared, Halloween has taken on a whole new meaning and level of celebration. I have to say that I really look forward to it, due to his love and enthusiasm for it. The kid in him comes out on October 31st each year.

Our children, therefore, have inherited a great love for the holiday as well. Here's a few picture of K&K in their "school Halloween costumes." I told them that they could be whatever they wanted to for their school party as long as they all dressed up as the Scooby-Doo gang for Halloween night. They were more than excited about the idea.

Koria went as a witch, Kimball as "Luke Skywalker dressed up as a storm trooper." How clever am I? We have a Darth Vader costume (last year's outfit), a Bobba Feta suit, and a storm trooper, but no Luke Skywalker. I convinced Kimball that he could be the storm trooper because "really, it will be just like when Luke Skywalker was dressed up in disguise to save Princess Leia in "A New Hope." Worked like magic.

As part of their festivities in school, they both had a chance to march around town with all of the other elementary students on a "Halloween walk." We went down to Jared's office to see them and help the school district staff pass out treats to the kids as they all walked by. It was fun to see them. Koria somehow managed to lose her hat, tangle a mat of leaves in her wig, and rub off all of her makeup in a three-hour time period. Kimball managed to jump into the car afterward and open a can of soda pop, dump it all over the back seat in the car, and flood his treat bag (packed with candy) with Orange soda. I rushed the kids home, shoveled some cereal into all 4 of them, scrubbed the car out and sorted through gooey candy, then did a costume change on K&K and dressed Luke and Layne as Shaggy and Velma ... in about an hour's time. I about lost my voice from yelling so hard at them amid the frenzy, which suited my makeshift pirate costume well (they told me I had to dress as a villian from one of the Scooby shows and that was my best effort with only a few minutes of prep time).

We headed to the trunk-or-treat as soon as Jared got home from work, followed by trick-or-treating around town for a while. I am happy to say that I survived it all ... and so did they.

All kinds of stuff

There's a saying that Kimball and Koria picked up from their preschool teachers their first year in preschool that goes, "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit." That would be an appropriate title for our blog in general. I apologize for another mass entry, but it's our blog's means of survival these days.

So here's a few pictures taken over the last couple of weeks. At the top we have Koria and Kimball trying to fix a mess they made with identification pictures that the School for the Blind gave us. Koria decided to take all of the alphabetized pictures and dump them on the table. I told them that I thought it would be a good educational experience in many ways for them to reorganized them. After about one hour of trying and a lot more fit-throwing, I grabbed them all and put them back in their box - highly unorganized. Whatever. At least the bawling stopped. So much for education and discipline.

The next picture is one of Koria's attempts to gain another sister. She dressed Luke up in a princess costume on night when the kids were creating outfits. Jared was not here to defend his boy, and this is what Luke looks like in pink, for all interested. We texted him a picture while he was out of town in SLC for business and he threatened to come home!

After that, Luke and Layne are pictured with my Touchpad, not to be confused with an I-pad. Layne's therapists have started using their i-pads with some great apps for Layne to interact with. She and Luke were enjoying an app on mine that lets them draw with light shapes, accompanied by music. I only get the free ones, but they love them. Layne became very upset when she accidentally turned it off or I took it away. Don't mess with two-year-olds and technology!

The last two pics are of the girls in the kitchen during one of Layne's therapy appointments. Two of her therapists showed up one day with a bunch of pumpkins, a black plastic table cloth, and carving tools so that we could carve pumpkins together as a family and see how Layne reacted to the touch of the pumpkin innards. She did great. The floor however? Well, considering that I had finally taken the time to do a full mopping of it the night before, it was better than I had hoped for. Jared and the kids ended up having the day off of school also, so it turned into a great appointment for all of us.

fall scenes

Fall scenes is aptly the title of this post. It includes pictures I've taken of the changes that have taken place here in Huntington over the last few weeks. They range anywhere from pictures of our carved pumpkins on Halloween night, to the fall leaves on our trees out front, to Luke switching over to his "big boy bed," and yes, that has includes some falls of it's own. He likes turning the lights off and on. Layne doesn't enjoy that so much. It's a good thing he hasn't figures out how to open the door yet though. That may be a middle of the winter blues picture to come ...

Therapy, therapy, and more therapy

As always, Layne's multiple therapists come up with ideas that we can implement here are home to help her in her development. They would like me to make a picture book of some of her favorite things, people and places. I do plan on getting around to this ... but between the rest of my responsibilities each day, it will have to be a work in progress. They have spent a couple of sessions going around the house taking pictures of just such things. Here's a few that her therapist from the school for the blind took and sent to me.

In the meantime ...

... In the meantime, the kids and I were at home clearing out the yard and garden and getting everything ready for the winter. It took a lot of work, but by the end of the week, we managed to get it all done. Here's a few shots, more from Jared's trip, and some of the pumpkin harvest from our garden this year. We were excited to get so many!