Corinne's Baby Blessing

Two Sundays ago, Ryan had the opportunity to bless Corinne.  I love baby blessings.  It's just neat to have that moment set apart to reflect on the love and hope you have for your new little one.  She was actually very quiet and good!  We've joked that our other kids had more of an exorcism, given the amount of screaming they did.  After church we took a quick family picture.  Corinne wasn't in her blessing gown at that point due to a diaper explosion.
   

   
On the week of the election, the kids' class made entries for a civil rights-themed art contest called "The Dream."  The school website posted pictures, so I stole them.  I totally want to live in Elise's version of America.  Connor's looks pretty awesome, too, but not in the same way.  (Oh, I was just informed by Connor that his picture is entitled, "Money, Money, Money for the Poor."  That's actually kinda sweet.)
   

  

   
I recently pulled the baby dolls and toy food out of the garage, and Evan went nuts.  He's such a tender little guy sometimes.  Last week he started talking about our dogs again, and suddenly asked, "I like Portia!  Where Portia go?"  It was a little sad.  I guess he hadn't noticed that she was gone until now.
   

    
About a year and a half ago, we played a bit with Letterboxing - that treasure hunting game involving handmade stamps.  It was a little too frustrating, so we hadn't done it in a long time.  Then last week I downloaded a Geocaching app to my phone, and we tried finding a cache near our local park.  It's so much better!  Having GPS coordinates makes it way easier to know you're on the right track.  You still have to search - the coordinates only get you within 20 feet - but so far we've found four caches within a mile or two of our house.  Oh, yeah, since it's so popular, it's much easier to get caches than with Letterboxing.  There are hundreds in our town alone.  This one we found on a night hike above our house.
  

  

I'm not sure who put this on my phone . . . 

Halloween

Elise decided a little over a month ago that she wanted to be a dragon for Halloween.  I found her a great costume and dragon makeup, and she was excited for Halloween to come.  Then, the Friday before the big day, her best friend Sarah surprised her at the park with a duplicate of her "Emily" costume (from The Corpse Bride.)  I guess it had come with a backwards hand, but Elise certainly didn't care.  The girls decided they would be twins the next day at the church party.  We then had to buy a copy of the movie, so Elise would know who she was pretending to be.
  

   

Connor, of course, went as Link (he was irritated that some older folks thought he was Peter Pan.)  Evan was given a choice of four hand-me-down costumes: an elephant, a kitty-cat, a doggie, or a chicken.  He followed his heart and was a very manly kitty-cat.  Corinne, following in the tradition of all Brown babies, was a googly-eyed lobster.
  

    

In addition to the trunk-or-treat, we did real trick-or-treating on Halloween night, although I'm not sure why (they had more than enough candy already.)  One nice thing this year was that Connor and Elise were finally old enough to carve their own pumpkins, although I did help Elise scoop out the "yucky" pumpkin guts.  Evan is too young to care, so his pumpkin remains unharmed.  
  

   
After hearing a General Conference talk by L. Tom Perry, we decided to set up an allowance for our older kids, so they could learn to manage money.  I found a great app. for my phone called iAllowance that makes things a lot easier.  Our problem before with money was that the kids loved to dump it out on the floor (not pick it up, of course,) which led to mix-ups.  Also, it was hard to figure out tithing since I couldn't keep track of which money had been tithed and which hadn't.  The app is cool because all the money becomes virtual, just like in real life.  They get allowance deposited each Monday, with tithing automatically sent to a separate account.  Then, they can put as much as they want into savings, which calculates interest (I'm giving them 5% a month as an incentive.)  The rest they spend on TV and video game time, or candy, or stuff they want to actually buy.  I decided not to pay per chore, although I do deduct for having to remind them too many times.  They can do extra chores for money if they're motivated.  Anyway, we'll see if it works.  I had to make icons for both of them, and Evan wanted his picture taken too.
   

   
We were at the park on Friday, and I lost track of Evan for a minute.  When I found him, he was far away doing this.  He stayed there for half an hour before I dragged him, screaming, to the car.
  

Autumn in Utah

After school on Wednesdays, my kids' class often plays in a wooded lot across the street.  It has no playground or landscaping, but all the kids love it.  I thought it was cute, though, that they spent this day reading together:
  

 
Elise loves her baby sister.  She also loves princesses and butterflies.  I guess this is the natural result of those passions:
  

  
In the middle of October, I got to take the kids to Utah for some fall weather!  Ryan took a separate car and followed us to Las Vegas, where we saw the Bodies exhibit at the Luxor.  Elise's passion project (her first!) is on the body, so we figured it would be a great field trip.  My mom was in town for a dog show, so on Sunday the older kids rode part of the way up to Utah in her RV, while I brought Evan and Corinne (Ryan went home in his own car to earn a living all week - sorry, honey!)
  

Showing off the sticker he got at his first dentist appointment.  He's also eating candy.

   
The day after we arrived, we slept in a little, then went to run some errands near Manti.  We went for a walk around the amazing temple grounds there, and the older kids were kind of exploring on their own a short distance away.  I guess Elise was running down the hill and missed a curb between the grass and the sidewalk.  When I heard her crying and went to get her, she had blood pouring down her chin, and her two front teeth were bent backwards.  We found a really nice dentist a few minutes away in Ephraim, and he predicted that the teeth would either have to be removed or would fall out on their own fairly soon.  Luckily, though, they seem to have mostly recovered.  They're both still loose, but look normal and don't hurt, so hopefully they'll last awhile!
  
On Tuesday we got to see Kelli and Kyle's new house!  I'm so jealous  They have four stories (well, split-levels, including a basement), four or five bedrooms, a chicken coop, and an amazing landscaped yard with fruit trees and a deck.
  

  
We visited Grandma Cloe on Wednesday, and the kids got to pick apples in her backyard.  I'm so bummed that we forgot to bring them back to California - they were awesome!  Grandma Cloe met Corinne for the first time, and spent a crazy amount of time playing with the kids.  She always surprises me with how much energy she has.
  

Playing Cars with Evan

Yep, she sang her special baby song!

On Thursday we went to Jaker's Pumpkin Patch in Springville.  This place was unbelievable.  They had a straw-bale maze, a petting zoo, hay rides, a real pumpkin patch (pumpkins still attached to the plant), and a "corn box" which is a giant sandbox filled with dry corn kernels.  That was the highlight for my kids.  Kelli and Felix came, and she was nice enough to take my kids on the hay ride while I dealt with Baby Girl.  At the end, the kids all went into the field to pick their pumpkins (Grandma watched Corinne while I helped the kids carry them.)  Everything was free except the pumpkins, and they only came to $7.  I gave the guy $10 out of guilt.
  

Elise runs like a princess.

She kept jumping off the bales into the corn.

Corn in Mouth

Connor and Felix really get along well.  They both like to scream and be hyper!

Little Cousins

Autumn is my favorite season.  I miss it in California!

Sunday we celebrated what we called "Canadian Thanksgiving", although it was a little late for that, technically.  Ryan has to work Thanksgiving week this year, so my sweet family did a fake one just for us.  I forgot to get pictures, but Grandma Cloe, Kelli, Kyle, Felix, Kevin, and Katie all came down for it (plus Grandma and Grandpa, of course.)  Katie spent a lot of time watching the little boys play cars in the basement while everybody else goofed off upstairs.  It was great to get to see everybody!
   

  
The drive home wasn't as bad as I'd feared.  I did it all in one day, but the kids were pretty well behaved.  We stopped a lot, and Corinne slept most of the time, other than that fussy hour we spent in the parking lot of Whiskey Pete's in Primm.  She's such a good baby!