There was a Halloween, or excuse me, FALL Carnival at the kids' school the other night. I gave Will some tickets to go around to some games and told him to check in with me after every two games. (How did he get old enough to be allowed to do that, I ask you???) At one point I saw him and stopped to talk. He told me that he'd gone through the trick or treat hall and I asked where his bag of candy was. He said: "Mom, bags cost TWO TICKETS. Why do you think I have pockets?" He is his father's son!
Ella just came running up to me while I was surfing the internet. She stared at me without saying anything, so naturally I looked over at her. She said: "Mom, do you peel wike you need be nervous?" and then began laughing hysterically while her eyes bulged out of their sockets.
Right this minute, all four of my children are in my bedroom laying on the floor while Will reads to them from an animal encyclopedia. (They sound like nerds but they like it, so hey. At least they're not drawing on the walls, right?) Will asked Beth "what animal would you like to learn about next?" and Beth said: "Hmmm, just a minute. Lainey, what would you like to learn about?" (leaning her ear down near Lainey's mouth.) At this point, Lainey begins to grunt and squeal for joy because she is in grabbing proximity of Beth's long hair. Beth patiently and gently takes her hair from Lainey's hand and then says: "Hmm, oh, what was that last part? Oh, OK!!" Then she turns to Will and says: "We would like to learn about owls please." A few minutes later all three older kids are trying to teach Elaina how to whoot like an owl. It's so cute to see her happy little drooling face as she sits in the middle of her whooting siblings.
And here are some catch up pictures. I know it is annoying to post a bunch of random pictures, but it's better than posting no pictures, right? I'm a little disappointed that I can't use my free Picasa photo editing software on these pictures (to fix the contrast - my point and shoot can only do so much, ya know?). I can't get it to work for some reason. The internet here is a little patchy and if I fight with it any longer, I will pull what is left of my hair (I just had a baby so I'm seriously loosing it all *sob*) out of my head. And I like having hair so I will settle for non-contrasted pictures.
These are the two dogs that we *almost* had trained to be service dogs for Ben. Ella ended up not being able to be around them. They were the sweetest and HUGEST things. They were just over a year old in these pictures. They are the size of my cedar chest. These pictures do not do them justice.
Ella spent most of her time the first day the dogs were here sitting here or on the back of the love seat because she was petrified of them. After the first day she realized they were just giant slobbery hearts wrapped in fur and she decided that she could pet them and touch them. They were so good to her. They were great with all of the kids. Their names were Venus and Hera. Ella can't say "V", she makes the "P" sound instead. So she sat on the edge of the love seat all evening talking loudly to Venus, telling her to sit and and come here. You figure out why that was hilarious.
Alaska is so beautiful. Most of the pictures I've taken have been through the window or windshield of a moving car (hence the many shots I have with the road in them) so they don't do it justice. So times these pictures by like 100 and you'll be getting close to how beautiful it is.
This is one I took on the way to the Nature Preserve for Elizabeth's field trip. See the sun? It's like 10 am and that's where it was. And that was like a month ago. There's still plenty of light right now, and where we live will never be completely dark even in the dead of winter but I have to say it is kinda weird. It messes up your sense of direction (like I needed any help in that department) to have the sun change all the time and never be where you expect it to be for the time of day that it is. 
Anchorage has a really fast tide. Most of what you see towards the bottom and the middle of the screen is not covered in hardly any water and underneath it is sand that is famous for sucking tourists in, to their death. So just a little tidbit if you ever come to Alaska: Don't go out on the beaches around Anchorage even though they are pretty!
Ella and Elaina were troopers on the field trip to the Nature Preserve. They had lots of fun. Elizabeth was so sweet with them. She kept making sure that Elaina was warm enough and taking Ella by the hand so that she could look at everything that the class was seeing. 
This lady was so nice. She was our tour guide. It was really funny when she asked the kids if they had any questions about the salmon. A little girl asked how the fish could communicate with each other. A little boy asked if they had venom so that they could disable their enemies in battle.
This was after Will and Beth's race for running club. They were so proud of their little medals!
I have 5-10 more pictures that I want to upload but I've run out of time. I will put them on as soon as I can!
