Roth Randoms - October

October was crazy and fun, as all months are around here lately! We have so many wonderful things to be grateful for! I love all the fun little moments we have together!

Sunsets like this make me forget about 100 degree highs in October!

Jordan thought he'd be funny and put Dirk in some of Reagan's clothes ... it's actually a little bit scary!

Reagan wanted to help with the yard work. You can't tell here because this is when we were in the process of killing the summer grass, but Jordan did an awesome job with our winter grass!

Our Colgrove cousins sent us a HUGE box full of Halloween surprises! It was like Christmas around here!

We went to the zoo with our Johansen cousins over fall break. This monkey and McKinley were bonding

Caught Madison reading her scriptures on the front porch one morning. She's so awesome!! She decided in July to read the Book of Mormon by herself before she gets baptized and she's doing great!!

A quiet moment with Dad

McKinley's handwriting has improved a TON since she started school! We had parent teacher conferences this month and got FANTASTIC reports on both girls. Both are at the top of their class academically and both received lots of praise for being kind and helpful, which is even more important

The school had a Donuts With Dad breakfast one morning but Jordan had to work so we made our own a few days later

Reagan loves to swing on her tummy

These kids have taken over the hall closet for their "hideout" complete with a desk, lamp and fan. Madison can often be found in there writing songs while McKinley hides in there to color. I sure love these four cuties!

Snuggle time with Dad

These two have become good friends since the big girls went off to school. Reagan LOVES Dirk and Dirk thinks Reagan is hilarious

Going for a swim during fall break

Cute boy catching a ride in the dump truck

Afternoon soccer practice 

She thinks she's so clever climbing on the stair railing

Career day at school - McKinley wants to be a teacher and Madison wants to be a scientist (who writes and sings songs about science)

Crazy sock day - soccer socks for the win

 And of course if the big girls are wearing socks, Reagan needs socks too

Our General Conference tent

Halloween 2017

We had another fun Halloween, although this one was more low key than year's past. After five years of doing pretty awesome family costumes, I just didn't have the time or energy this year so everyone got to pick what they wanted and we called it good!! I was actually surprised at what the big girls wanted to be - Madison chose to be a vampire and McKinley (after telling me all month that she wanted to be Elena) chose at the last minute to be a skeleton. They both thought it was really fun to paint their faces and pretend to be scary! Reagan chose an outfit from the dress up box and made a very cute Chinese princess. And I found a cute baseball outfit for Dirk!! Ironically, after years of complaining about family costumes, Jordan said he was a little disappointed that we didn't all dress up so I guess it's back to a family theme next year!!

The morning of Halloween, I let everyone have Frankenberry cereal, which is a big deal around here since we don't do sugar cereal anymore. Then I packed lunches for the girls that included ghost pizzas (cheese pizza lunchables), ghost bananas (bananas with chocolate chips for the eyes and mouth), chocolate mummies (chocolate Rice Krispy treats with edible eyeballs) and monster juice (Capri Suns with a monster face drawn on). I went to the Book Parade at their school in the afternoon and they loved showing off their books and costumes. Then for dinner we had ghost bananas, eyeballs (peeled grapes), Bloody Fingers (boiled hot dogs) and Mummy Dogs (hot dogs wrapped in crescent dough). Everyone loved the spooky menu.

Our new neighborhood was great for trick or treating!! The girls got tons of candy and loved every minute of it. Reagan especially got really into it and kept saying "I love Halloween" after every house :) There were a lot of really decked out houses too! The girls also made some fun decorations during fall break that we hung all around our house.

Madison wanted to carve a pumpkin for the first time ever so she and Dad worked very hard on it. Three days later, her pumpkin looked like this!! Lesson learned - you can't carve too early in Arizona! We bought another pumpkin and waited until the day of Halloween to carve it and she was so happy!

Doesn't she look scary?! Who knew Madison would love being a vampire?!

McKinley was a cute little skeleton. We didn't do face makeup on her for the book parade, just for trick or treating

Dinner is served. Eat at your own risk ;)

Madison's candy haul

McKinley's candy haul

Reagan's candy haul

Reagan fell asleep leaning on my arm while we were still going through the candy. She was a tired girl after all that fun!

Some handprint bats and our new scary pumpkin from our Colgrove cousins

Garland and ghosts

The monster door was a big hit this year - everyone in the neihgborhood loved it

Ghosts

Our new happy pumpkins! 

This kid is the cutest!

Happy Halloween!

Pumpkin Carving

We've always painted our pumpkins in the past but this year Madison really wanted to carve one so we decided to give it a go. Of course, we decided to do it two weeks before Halloween and within three days of carving it, the pumpkin had literally melted onto the front porch! We had a very sad girl on our hands so we got another pumpkin and waited until the day of Halloween to carve it and it turned out great! Madison had fun drawing the design she wanted and Dad did a great job of executing it! McKinley and Reagan both decided to use some fun pumpkin decorations our Colgrove cousins sent us and McKinley added some paint to hers. Then everyone painted some of Dirk's pumpkin!

Madison loved the pumpkin guts!

McKinley's enthusiasm disappeared quickly :)

She did give us a nice handprint though

Reagan decided on a skeleton pumpkin

Madison's first carving

McKinley painted hair on hers

He looks so sad :(

All better!