Ben's costume

An addendum to the Halloween Posting. A lady from our church sent me this. What a Kodak moment!

Happy Halloween!

Ok, so maybe you're starting to get sick of the posts. Nothing for ages, then suddenly they won't stop! Seriously, though, the kids were so adorable last night, I just had to put these pictures up. We went to our church Halloween party which was amazing as usual and the kids had a total blast. Monica and Ryan and their kids came too. I hardly ever bring them up, but they're a huge part of our life. They live next door and we homeschool our kids together. They're kids are somewhere between siblings and cousins with our kids. In fact, today I was talking to Eve about her upcoming birthday. She told me she wants a fairy tea party. I asked her, "what about RJ? He might not like to be a fairy." She told me, "he can be the cowboy who kills all the fairies and steals their tea party stuff." Eve has such a clear understanding of the differences between boys and girls.



Makayla Brown was a princess. Liberty was so happy to see her. She went running up to greet Makayla shouting, "RJ!"
And the winner is... There was no costume contest, but if there had been, Olan would have won for most realistic, hands down.



Of course, Sadie wanted "what my sister has." Eve watched to make sure Nancy got the sundae just right.



Eve and Sadie on the hay ride - jam packed to say the least. Libi didn't last long - after a circuit of the upper parking lot, the driver came back to where we were waiting to rescue her from the crush.
Yes, that's a little VW - a rabbit I think - giving hay rides. I love the McGuires, they know how to party.


And the highlight of the evening; trunk-or-treating!

More Mavy Fun

So here is the rest of the fun we've been having lately -
Ben took us all out to Foresthill for a picnic at the park a couple weeks ago. What a gorgeous place! Massive pine trees, verdant grass everywhere, brand-new play equipment and best of all, almost completely silent and empty! The girls got to practice their monkey bar skills and enjoyed helping Libi go down the slides. Liberty, as usual figured if her sisters can do it, so can she, and scaled a pretty intimidating ladder without any help at all. Ben wouldn't let me get too close. He says I'd make anybody anxious, so I let him hover. As you can tell by the pictures, he's good at making the kids feel like they're doing it themselves. Trust me, he was still close enough to catch her. We also got to go to a Colombus Day parade that my parents put on. Monica walked with Eve, Sadie, RJ, Makayla and my Mom in the parade. The girls' Halloween Costumes weren't ready yet, so they didn't get to dress up, but RJ wore the cowboy outfit I made him for his birthday this year. I think I get more fun out of him wearing it than he does.
And here are more goodies from my neglected garden. We're getting a bumper crop of pomegranates from our tree/bush this year. They are quite tastey and so pretty!
And lastly, I just have to share the story that Sadie wrote yesterday. For school we made leaf people out of construction paper and crayola'd leaves and I asked the kids to name their people and tell a story about him or her. This is Sadie's -

My Leaf Person's name is Cheeseblock. Cheeseblock is a little girl with a little house made of wood and cheese. She eats candy at her house. She has wood blocks and cheese blocks to play with and to eat. She keeps them in the fridge. She lives with one brother and her mom, and a baby is in her mom's tummy. The baby's name is Eddy and it's a girl baby. And the next baby is going to be a boy.

Surely I'm raising the next great American novelist!

Life, as usual is roaring right past us. I can't believe how quickly everything changes around here. Eve's reading and adding and subtracting and has an endless supply of interesting questions about the universe. Sadie is learning her letters and their sounds and can add with her fingers. The two of them have a new spelling game - Sadie asks Eve how to spell a word, and if Eve gets stuck, Sadie gives suggestions, "it starts with M," or, "it's spelled SHRY." Liberty is finally starting to communicate a little better, which means less tantrums and more cuteness. Ben has 14 days until the election (thank goodness!), and I have exactly 11 weeks of misery left, assuming this kid gets here on time. Here are a few things that have been keeping us busy and entertained at the Mavy house lately:
Another cute game from Libi, but this one got old for her after a few days. She desperately wants to be able to open the front door so she can follow her sisters when they run out. She's not quite tall enough to reach that magical knob we all use, but she knew how to fix that. She was pretty frustrated when it didn't work out.

We got a kitty this summer from my parents. Those of you who know Ben are probably wondering how this possibly could have happened. We had a vole problem in our garden this summer, I lost at least half my tomatoes to those greedy little mice. Strange did a great job of wiping them out. At times he would bring as many as five voles over the course of a day up to the lawn to play with until he got tired and ate them up. Awesome Cat!!!
He and Libi have a special relationship. Strange takes a lot of abuse from Libi without much fuss. I actually caught them snuggled up together and Liberty was pouring water on him while he cowered next to her! By the time I got the camera out and on, he ran away of course. Here they are playing together.
Eve and Liberty got to go to Chuck E. Cheese for a birthday party a few weeks ago. It was pure chaos, but they both had lots of fun. I don't think I need to go there again :)
Here are some of my Marigolds from our garden. They're still growing, but I'm too walrusish to make it down there to pick any more. I kept putting off taking a picture of them until I could get the table cleared, but after a few days of that, I decide the heck with it. This is my blog about my life. A clean kitchen table doesn't exist in my world.
Here are all our Apple Buds, hiding from the camera at lunch time. I can't believe how well Sadie is doing in the lessons this year. She's such a thinker, always giving thoughtful answers during our teaching time.
I have a few more things to put on here, but I'm out of time. Maybe I'll get to it this afternoon, or maybe next month.

My Hobbies

Ok, the boy isn't here yet, this is still a female-dominated blog, so no more football. And speaking of girly stuff, my pack has finally made it to etsy.com! You can check out my listings at alipboutique. A friend of mine has been so kind as to post my things at her shop. She has some darling hats and headbands for sale there. So now, when I make something fun for my kids or my friends, you can expect to see an extra one posted at the shop.
Here are some fun pictures of Liberty playing her latest game - vegetate in a basket. She brings it into the living room, gets inside, and sucks her thumb for a while, then when she needs a fresh view, she gets out and moves it to a better spot and gets in again.


And here's Eve being cute.

For Mature Audiences Only

Well, I know the Redskins tight end, Chris Cooley just got in trouble for posting pics of his boy parts on the internet, but I also know no one will believe me if I don't show proof that this little munchkin is indeed male. So here it is!
I've included all the pics the ultrasound tech gave us, even though to most people it's just fuzz. Ben wasn't ever able to discern the boy parts, but he's willing to take my word for it.
So, I guess I need to learn how to sew boy clothes now!
Eve and Sadie were excited to see the pictures, but not at all surprised he's a boy. From the start they told anyone who asked that they're getting a new brother. They did pick out a few girl names just in case - Saladozy Rosy, Chorchiya, and Rainbow Girl were their favorites. As for Liberty, she still laughs and says "no" when I tell her there's a baby in my tummy. She thinks it's a cute game and plays along by giving my belly kisses, but she knows better.

Gold Country Fair

On Fri. night Ben called to tell me he was leaving his computer at the office so we could have some fun with the girls, so we decided to take them to the Gold Country Fair in Auburn. We didn't get there until after 7, and it was pretty hot, so that's why everybody looks kind of dopey. We had fun checking out the farm animals, though. Before we did that, we stopped by the tigers - yes real tigers. I didn't take a picture of the tigers, because I was too chicken . Here's a picture from the Auburn Journal (Ben, the html expert put it on here for me - he says it's not really here even though we can all see that it is). Can you tell why I was a little nervous about using flash photography?



Checking out the 4-H pigsLibby was a little nervous about petting the steer. She actually smacked him when he got too close.

Libby saying "bye bye" to the animals.