These beautiful people.

Because I have a nifty camera (a very basic one, but nifty non-the-less) that I am fully capable of pointing it at people and pressing a button, and also because I have a super-fun editing program that I can kinda sorta use... (that's officially a very, very confusing sentence) I get to snap pictures of my sister and her lovely little family.

Look at these ladies!

It's so fun watching these two take care of twins!

I've seen just how much work two four-month-old bambinos can be.  Seriously, when they both work themselves up into a screaming tizzy... holy hannah!  Cover your ears!  Run for the hills!

But these two?  They handle the stress of it all so stinking well.  Whit has the particular skill that I am jealous of: she just does this grimace-smile thingy and starts humming and just plain manages.  I have always been the start-sweating-and-begin-taking-shallow-breaths kind of mom.

Love this Lish family!

Halloween

I am officially combining all October activities into a single Halloween post.  And mostly I am just going to post pictures, because I am so far behind in this recording my family's history thing that I am overwhelmed.  And I just don't seem to care too much about describing the stuff we did.  But I do feel the mommy guilt for not putting the memories down somewhere.  And journals and myself?  We just don't get a long too well.  Mostly because I lose them.  Every single time.

Isn't it funny how it takes me a paragraph to state that I will not be writing a lot?

I must tell you, however, that this year marked a big Halloween event in the Merrill household:  I did not make everyone's costumes.  I also did not take "Courtney Official" Halloween pictures.  Really, I cannot explain my laziness.  Except that we saw an "Army Guy" and fireman costumes at Costco for the low price of $20 and I jumped all over them.  Piper wanted to be a biker chick from Teen Beach Movie .... and my sewing skills- while they are amazing (just ask my heavily used seam ripper)- are not at the leather-jacket level.  I do score points for Adi's 50's girl skirt (and the twin one I made for her BFFL).  And the picture thing?  I planned on taking them a couple of times, but... it just didn't happen.

Anyway, now... onto to the pics!

First up: a trip to Vertuccio Farm.

Where we spent $50 to go down slides, swing, and play on a teeter-totter!

There was also a corn maze:

 And please do not ask about my children's clothing choices.  I am trying oh-so-very-hard to not micro manage their choices.

It is very hard.

Next up:  Mom's Annual Halloween Party.

I seem to have forgotten how to focus pictures.

See Mr. Wyatt down there in the corner?  He flatly refused (read:screamed his head off) to put on his fireman's costume.  So he went to the Halloween Party as a spoiled brat instead.  Wyatt: 1, Mom: 0.

  

Selfie!  I hate myself right now...

 
On the morning of Halloween:

Thank you, Walmart, for these awesomely cheap photo props!

For their lunches...

And, finally, Halloween night...

Wyatt decided that he would dress up as a Miner (aka: Daddy).  Luckily, Orrin had already brought him a hard hat, head lamp, and a safety vest.  I just sewed up the sides and bottom of the vest, and: wah-la!  A Halloween costume!  That he kept on!  Without crying!  It was a Halloween miracle!

Adi's best friend had a matching skirt, but she got to my mom's house just as we were leaving to go Trick-or-Treating, so I never quite got a pic of them together.  Sad Mommy :(

So there ya have it!  Halloween 2013!  Yeah- it's over!