October

On October 4th, Ceci started a ballet/tap class! She loves it and does such a good job!












October 6 was a beautiful rainy day. The girls enjoy putting on their boots so much and splashing in puddles!




On October 7, Bella and Olivia started horseback-riding lessons. They LOVE it! They spent the first 45 minutes grooming the horses and the next 45 minutes learning to mount and ride. It's like a dream come true for them!




























October 11, we celebrated Alex's birthday!

October 15, we took a field trip to the San Gabriel Mission as we are learning about local geography and history. We learned about the Gabrielino (Tongva) Indians and about mission life. We live less than one mile from the mission! We had a great time and learned so much!!








That same night, we went to our friend Susan Lopez' wedding. I was asked to sing "Dream a Little Dream of Me" for their first dance. It was so much fun! The girls had a blast making friends and dancing all night with them! It was a beautiful reception.





















On October 22, we had our first of THREE Halloween parties. It had been pretty rainy, so we almost cancelled this one. Thank heavens we didn't because it was only misty and the party was a BLAST! We had a circle with lots of Halloween songs and verses. Each of us moms had a station with something fun to do. We did a "Dia de los Muertos" altar. Elizabeth told some awesome scary stories and Lucy brought body parts of her "friend" which were funny different food things like noodles dyed red for guts! AnnMarie had some fun games and Anne told a pirate story and gave out candy from her pirate chest. We had a delicious potluck and the kids had so much fun just playing together. The day before, I spent lots of time sewing Olivia's pirate costume. I made the skirt, sash, and vest. I sewed lace onto a blouse we (thankfully) already had. I thought she looked pretty darn cute!! I think I spent about $15 on the fabric and I copied the costume from a fancy catalog that was selling the costume for $75! I'm so glad Bella and Ceci's costumes were so easy. Notice that Ceci dressed up in four different costumes for each party-- Cinderella, a ladybug, a fairy and a cat. We have so much dress-up that she could do that! :)





















On the 23rd, we went to Underwood Family Farms for their Harvest Festival. It was so much fun! It also started out rainy, but then became sunny! We saw a flea circus, pig races, an animal show, fed lots of animals, Ceci rode a pony, we got lost in the corn maze and took a tractor pulled trailor ride. We've been going here for a few years now and we love it! We love the pumpkin patch with pumpkins of all sizes including the huge ones!!



















































We had our next Halloween Party on the 26th with our Tuesday home school group. We had a potluck and a parade! It was really sweet. We love our home school group sooooo much!





















Our next Halloween Party was at our ward on the 30th. Earlier in the day, Craig helped the girls carve their little pumpkins and then he carved our big pumpkin. We brought it to the party and he won first prize for it! At the party, we had a trick or treat in the rooms, lots of games, a parade, and even a spook alley! Some people dressed sooooo cute! I loved the Vincent's as Daphne and Scooby and then the Alvarez' dressed as the Toy Story characters! SO CUTE!






For Halloween, we stayed home and handed out candy (I was trying to sort of keep the Sabbath Day holy by not going trick or treating) I made a "Witches Brew" soup which was like a black bean chicken chili. The girls were so excited to make it because it was from a recipe we got from Trader Joes where each of the ingredients were described in a creepy way-- Like "gargoyle tears" was chicken stock, the black beans were "bat kidneys," and the corn was "Frankenstien teeth!" We all got dressed up and for fun, we made a table with a box with a hole in the bottom so that we could hand out our candy like "Thing" from the Addams family! The girls loved being under the table to hand out candy! Grandma was with us and I dressed her up like a witch! She came up to surprise the girls! We had a busy, awesome October. So busy, that that's why I can't keep up with this blog! The last picture is of the Haunted House pictures the girls made. They made doors and windows that open and drew witches, monsters, ghosts etc behind each window and door. They came out so cute!