Randomness ;o)

Over the last few months I have taken pictures of just silly, random stuff! And here they are in a collection for you! These are from the end of August to the beginning of November!

Hmmm... Ella has become Lexi's dress up guinea pig.  (And then, thanks to Aunt Donna a few years ago... my house is filled with teeny-tiny black feathers every once in a while!  Sigh...  They have so much fun with their dress-up stuff, but man is it hard to get all those miniscule feathers!)

Hmmm... I guess you've already noticed that the GLOVES are on the wrong part of the body!  I have a super funny picture of Lexi at about this age putting surgical gloves on her feet!  Eeewww... feet!  But funny, just the same!

Amazing... I found it!  Oh, Lexi!!  Funny girl!  This was Sept. 2005, so she was... what?  2 1/2 yrs. old!  As it is told... SHE was the one who put the long gloves on Ella's feet in the picture before!  ;o)

Classic!!  Big sister and friend dressing up little brother and turning him into a beautiful princess... of sorts!  Alyssa, Lexi, and Tristan

Isn't he lovely?  Isn't he wonderful?  Haha!  At least he still has a little testosterone left showing on his t-shirt!!  The man of steel gets a little softer!  Poor Tristan!  ;o)

There's a theme starting here... with Braeden.  Look at his mouth... something in it.  ??  Braeden, Lexi, and Alyssa

We really did have a fun afternoon with some friends over!  Here you see Alyssa, Kaleb, Tristan, Lexi and Ella in front.

Here's more of the mouth thing.  Lexi has a belt in her mouth, Alyssa looks totally normal, and Kaleb is about to put a LONG Fruit By the Foot in his mouth.  Crazy kids!

So... out on our front porch one day we met some new friends.  Well, we met one who had been partially eaten by the other, and then the other surfaced, and here you see him above!  EEEEKKK!  For several days we were finding these lovely creatures around our home, and even some at school.  Braeden, who isn't afraid of anything, I guess, holding a praying mantis on the end of a long leaf.

Eeww.  Don't get it any close to your face, please!!  (BTW:  I really do NOT like bugs.  Creepy-crawlies give me the creeps, slimy-slitheries give me the shudders... )

Boo!  Lexi's jaw is sooooo small that we had to have the first 2 teeth of MANY to come removed to buy time and make space for others that are coming in.  She will eventually lose her permanent primary molars... For-E-Ver!  Poor girl.  Eye and teeth stuff all in the same month!  October!

But I have to admit that the extraction went well.  She had to be given a lot... a LOT... of pain med, but she didn't cry, and was mostly very brave!  (And she got to miss school... !)  Her roots were so long that it actually made me hurt a little just to watch it all and then see how long they were.  :o(

This is Braeden's "Mom!  I'm sick of you taking my picture!" look!!  Too bad!  It's not going to end any time soon!  What you need to look for is something on his shirt... and no... not Optimus Prime!

AAAHHHHH!  There it is.  ANOTHER praying mantis!!

You can even see its labrum a little here.  (Insect mouth parts...)  CREEPY!!!

Yay for braids!!!!  YAAAYY!  My mom was able to get two itty-bitty braids into Ella's hair!  Aren't they cute... and thin!!?? 

I guess I shouldn't be surprised, based on my post about school... and that my kids can totally out-draw me!!  This is Ella's artwork!  All by herself.  Arms, hands, legs... and not just stick legs and arms!!  Eyes, mouth, etc!  I just couldn't believe it when she showed me, and I questioned Lexi and Braeden to see if they had helped her.  Nope!  I just think it's FABULOUS!!  (This happened just last month... in October!  So just a month or so before she's 3!)  I just LOVE IT!!!!  And I know I say this all the time, but I think my kids are the cutest, smartest, most amazing little people on earth!!

Our elementary school's mascot is the Huskies.  And during Red Ribbon Week this year they tried to get all the younger children K-2nd grade to make a pledge to be "PAWS"itively Drug FREE... and to include their picture with a paw/pet friend on their pledge paper and turn it back into school for the chance to win something as a class at the end of the week.  Well, we have no critter friends here... sad as that may be, so we borrowed our neighbor's dog (Tristan and Alyssa's, actually) for our picture!  Thanks!

Of course... more BASEBALL!  It is the true LOVE of Braeden's heart!  He would be out there every day, all day long, if he could!  Braeden, Ella, Tristan wearing Iron Man, Cody by the big wheel, and Vinny in the back.

Lovely chalk self-portrait, Lexi!!

And Alyssa!

 And just as I turn around, Braeden slams the ball!

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Ella and Alex!  (Let me just insert here how GRATEFUL I am that my children still LOVE to be outside more than almost anything else!  It's so good for them, and if they're outside, then they're not glued to the tube... which can be... yes, CAN... be a problem here.  There was a time when I thought that Braeden might actually get sucked in and never return!)

So sad when I won't let them out of the house and they have to play in the garage!  It was Sunday.  Halloween.  And I'm sure they could have found friends outside, but... we try not to do our regular play on Sunday's.  We TRY to rest, read, watch church stuff... you get the idea!  So... after I had used Braeden's remote control car for The Great Pumpkin Racer Bowling in Primary, they just wanted to have some fun with it, too.  (Mostly because I didn't call their names in Singing Time that week to help me "pick" a song to sing.)

Some of my favorite shots are my "art gallery" shots!  You know how random, very hard-to-understand ART gets put in the art galleries... and you know... KNOW that is was just a mistake shot... or an accident that turned out looking... artsy... in a fun(ny) way?  Yep... I have some of those, and this is one of them!  I really do think it's fascinating what a camera can capture!  ZOOOOOM!!

Gotta love a girl's defense against a quick car controlled by her brother!  It's a paint extender... thingy!  (Brain not functioning in the vocabulary area anymore... )

Yep... we also got glasses!!  LOVE it!  But they make her look so much older!  What happened to my little girl??  Boo.

Her hair looks very red in these pictures!  I love the new look for her, though she's having a hard time remembering to wear them at school lately.  I had to ask her teacher to remind her.  I hate doing that because I don't want to embarrass her, but she really does need them.  These are not just a stylish fashion accessory!  Even though they are cute... and she would NOT let me help pick them out.

Ah, yes... the real age coming back now!  Crazy girl!  Like Aunt Colleen says... "Lexi, what if your face get's stuck like that forever??"  Haha!  That would definitely be interesting!