Thursday a special package arrived in the mail for the Craiker kids care of Nana.

Ethan had to stare at the package for a few hours before his sisters came home. Once they were home they got right into the box squealing with excitement and beginning their sugar induced comas for the next few days.

It was so much fun, it was scary!!!

  

Thanks Nana!

 

Daddy was out of town today and I was trying to decide how to entertain the kids. We had a full morning, but while we were out I had the kids pick out a pumpkin. I told them to get just 1, luckily they all were happy with the same one.

Once we were home I told them that if they cleaned the house (which is their typical Saturday chore anyway) they could carve the pumpkin.  I admit, this was bribery – and I’m not above that. They are supposed to do it anyway, this just helped it happen quickly with little to no complaints.

 

I love Ethan’s face in this one. Ew!

This year, unlike others, they were all into getting the guts out of the pumpkin. And they actually did a pretty good job of it.

Once the guts were out Isabella said she had heard about people eating the seeds. Thinking she wouldn’t want to actually do it, I told her if she went through the guts and pulled out the seeds she could eat them. She wanted to eat them right away, luckily I stopped her and promised to roast them for her later. I’m not sure the seed straight out of the pumpkin would have tasted so good.

Truth be told, I actually carved the pumpkin (they drew out what they wanted, I just don’t trust them with the knife yet).

Happy Halloween from my little MONSTERS.

(Aren’t they scary?)

I have been planning to take Natalie somewhere for 2 weeks to do her 6 year pictures. It never quite worked out. I wasn’t thrilled with my options near by but I didn’t have time to take her some where else and the one night I planned on going it rained, and not just a little bit, a lot, which meant I couldn’t do my back up plan of a rain boots/umbrella shoot. I had researched fun backdrops with the idea of clearing out the play room and setting something up in there, but I just hadn’t found the right idea that got me excited enough to move all the furniture. THEN I remembered reading about garage portraits. I have read several times that the light at the edge of a garage is perfect for portraits. So I grabbed what I could find on short notice (a table clothe and a blanket) and set up a picture spot. I wasn’t disappointed. The light was amazing, her eyes sparkled and looked so blue, and we did it all in about 25 minutes while Ethan watched a TV show and Bella did her homework.  Click on the picture and it should take you to my photography website where you can see more pictures, if you haven’t seen them already.

 

Today is school picture day at the girls school. I had about 3 minutes before we needed to go to the bus stop so I forced the girls to pose by the window because I don’t buy the pictures. The cheapest package is almost $40, and although I’m tempted to buy them for a keepsake of their school years I know I can do much better on my own. Besides that you know that most the time your kid’s pictures end up being taken right after they’ve been sweating in P.E. Why do they do that?

Natalie, age 6, Kindergarten

Isabella, age 7, 2nd grade