For Thanksgiving we joined Gina and her family.  Spencer was able to come down the day before and hang out before he headed back down to his in-laws.  It was fun to get all those kids together.

Ellie, Shydon, Jace, Austin, Emmett, Laina

Here they all are having Spencer's famous McScribbie Sandwiches.  I have to admit, they are pretty tasty.  Like a McMuffin but so much better.... (I didn't realize until later that Ethan's face was covered by a star.  Or is that just his shining personality coming through?)

Although this isn't our best pictures ever, it does show our little girl's night out.  We all got a mani or pedi and then we stayed out for some good ol' fashion girl talk.

Aren't we festive?

We decided on Thanksgiving day that instead of finding some Mexican restaurant, we were going to try and do an entire Thanksgiving dinner.  We rushed to the store and back and before you knew it we were all chopping, stirring, baking and cooking up the most delicious meal.  It was back to the basics but really terrific.  I'm glad we did it.

Now...Gina got a ton more pictures on a really nice camera, so I wanted to wait to post this until I got them.  However, I realized that if I didn't get a start on this now, it would be Christmas already.  That won't do.  We'll just have to update later.

That Monday, we were able to meet up with Mom and Dad at the Academy of Science in San Francisco.  I had never been there before and I really loved it.  Mom and Dad had brought the kids to see it last summer and so they were able to help show us around.

I never understand why the kids think that Robert is the fun parent...

Oh dear.

The tropical conservatory was pretty cool.  And warm.  :)

Emmett and Robert loved pointing out all of the butterflies.

Here are a few more that Alaina found.

Me and my guy.

Ethan loved the white alligator.  (crocodile?  I can never tell which is which.)

resting by the fish.

We had a little fun, and I'm sure we annoyed a few people, by the huge aquarium.  It's just a cool place to take silly pictures.

love.

We had a great day with Mom and Dad and I was personally really happy to have the chance to check out the academy.  I wish we had something like this closer to our house.

Thanksgiving

At the last minute, we decided to spend Thanksgiving in California.  We threw everyone in the car late in the afternoon on the Saturday before and drove through the night so that we could spend a day with Ron and his family.  We knew that we wouldn't get a chance later to see Ron since he had to work all week.  So, on Sunday we hung out for the afternoon and went for a walk.  Since we had our camera, we took some family photos for them.  This was my favorite one.

  We also go a ton of great individual pictures and fun pictures of the kids.  I'll let them share all those, but I did like this one.

In return, they snapped a couple pics for us.  We weren't planning on a picture, but we got one with everyone mostly smiling and it was good enough for our Christmas card...so...that was pretty awesome.

I wish that I hadn't been distracted in this other picture...cause look at sweet Jason's smile!  But, alas, something cute caught my eye...

While we were taking pictures of their family, the little boys were running around in the rain.  It was pretty darn cute.  We could hardly even see little Emmett in that giant umbrella.

Later that evening, Jonathan and Jennifer and their kids came over as well as Mom and Dad.  We had a great dinner and the kids spent the evening singing karaoke and dancing like maniacs to their favorite songs.  It was very amusing.  We barely got them to sit still for one second to get a picture of them. 

It was a race to get there, but I think everyone was happy that we were able to do it.

The first half of November came and went in a blur of carpooling, scouts, basketball practices and homework.  We had a few colds and Robert travelled a bit.  I'm trying really, really hard to remember anything significant, funny, sad or just, well, interesting.  And I got nothin'.  I did manage a few phone pictures that proved that time did, indeed, pass.  Here's what I found.

Emmett and I made an apple pie.  It was pretty awesome.  And tasty.

Here is a picture of Ethan with his basketball coach, Scott Mitchell.  He once played for the Golden State Warriors.  The kids loved him, however, he was commuting from San Diego for practices and it got to be too much.  They just hired a new coach who got malaria before the first practice.  Now there is a substitute coach who is still pretty great with the kids, so we'll see how that goes.

Here he is with the whole team.

Jason.  What a clown.

The big kids performed in a Fall Festival which included dancing and singing.  It was a clever production, especially considering the fact they were bringing in kids from k-12.

Emmett had a hard night.  Which meant that Robert also had a hard night.  Doesn't Emmett look like he owns that man?

And so it was that November passed us by.  

My last HALLOWEEN post.  I promise.  It just wouldn't be right to not post the most important part of the season...the costumes!  This year we went with a family-super-hero theme.  I managed to buy or improvise with most parts of the costumes except for the capes.  So here we are:

The Super Joneses

And here are some close ups...since we all know you are dying to see more.

Captain America.  

This guy made his own shield.  I told him he had to make it out of cardboard, but he wasn't happy with it being flat.  So, instead, he layered the entire thing; each ring (or the star) being one level higher than the previous one.  This gave it a great curved look and Ethan was pretty proud of it.  (I thought it was such a smart way to make it!)

Storm

Alaina's cape was the hardest one I made.  She wanted it to attach to her arms and hands so that it moved when she did.  It took me a while to get it just perfect and we loved how it looked.  The next day I found it slashed up sitting on the floor.  It seems that our resident Batman found a pair of scissors and tried them out up and down the cape.  That wasn't cool, Batman.  However, after cutting off about 1/5th of it, I was able to salvage the basic look and make it work.  It wasn't quite as awesome as before, but it certainly did the job. 

The hair and make-up were another thing.  For one, I can never, ever, ever find a hair dye that turns Alaina's hair white.  This picture was taken after 4 complete bottles were used on her.  That hair wouldn't move if Alaina was in a typhoon.  

The make-up was fun to do, and since Alaina got dressed up 3 times, I got to try a bunch of stuff out.  Alaina really is a patient girl.  She doesn't even like to put make-up on but always humors her Mama.  I think it really makes the costume (humble opinion.)

Wolverine.

Austin has refused to let us cut his hair for months in anticipation of being Wolverine.  I do think the hair was working in his favor that night.  The finger knives were a lucky dollar-store grab and the army tag was a $2 purchase.  Including the belt-buckle, Austin's outfit was the cheapest and easiest of all of our costumes.

Spiderman.

Jason was Spiderman and since I got the little boy's capes done early this month, he has been Spiderman all the way through October.  Both of the little boys have been flying around the house like they own the place.  It is fun to see them get so excited about Halloween.  Any stranger that Jason met knew that he was Spiderman and his little brother was Batman.  (They also knew their ages, what they ate for breakfast and all about every single toy they own.)

I love me a little Spiderman.

Batman.

Then there is our little Batman.  He has also been more than excited to be Batman every day this month.  He'll fly up and down the stairs, through the kitchen and out the back door.  On Halloween night, he was so sleepy but he refused to be held.  Instead, he kept both hands out in front of him and 'flew' from house to house.  At least that is what he thought.  We saw a little two-year-old look convincingly like a drunk, flying in a wobbly, zig-zag, down the center of the road, all night long.  He was determined to do it right and always kept his little hands out in front of him, but we had to save him from collisions or falls.  Long after Jason collapsed on the sidewalk, too tired to move, Emmett could be seen weaving through the Halloween throng.

Our little boys.

Batman and his ever-faithful side-kick, Robin.

I dressed up too!  I almost didn't make it, though.  I had found some gold Washi tape and managed to bling out an old foam crown.  I also spent a good 5 minutes getting the 'W' on my shirt.  I didn't have time for the armband, and so Robert made them for me.  What a guy.

And there it is.  Our last Halloween post.  October truly is our busiest month of the year.  It is so much work, but so much fun.  Maybe next year we can all be ghosts and disappear off to Hawaii.  :)

Happy Halloween - 2016!!

We got a surprise visit from Mom and Dad Scribner just in time for Halloween!  When we found out that we were going to have company for our actual Halloween day, we decided to go all out with our Halloween meal.  I have to admit, it turned out pretty fun this year.  (Not as gross as last year's with our fingers-in-the-chili dinner.)  Here we are, all ready to chow down.

 Note to self:  Buy dry ice the day of the big party.  I had purchased the dry ice a few days before and when I pulled it out, 4/5th of it had evaporated.  So sad.  We had to do with what we had left.

The brain jello looked pretty awesome.

This year we went with chip and 7 layer dip being our main entree.  It's hard to see them in the back, but Alaina cut out tons of bat/ghost/pumpkin shapes out of tortillas and we baked them for our chips. 

Strawberry Jello is just too easy and tasty not to have a lot of.

The little boys are always happy we add the hot-dog mummies.

Overall, it turned out well.  I can say this because we hardly had any leftovers.  :)  It was spooktacular!