Halloween 2012

I love that everyone in our family loves to get dressed up almost as much as I do. Ben is always a good sport and does great "character roles." Eleanor would were a dress up dress everyday all day if I would let her. And although Clara is only 15 months old, she too loves to dress up, especially if it means she gets to carry a "purse."

So this year Eleanor wanted to be Snow White and couldn't have been more thrilled with how her costume turned out.

 Clara went as Little Red Riding Hood, because I thought she'd love carrying the basket around (which she did)!

 The girls painted little pumpkins and Ben carved our Picasso pumpkin to decorate our Trunk for our ward Trunk or Treat.

 I wish we had taken a better picture of Ben and I, but we went as Bert and Mary Poppins. And in this picture you can't see my awesome hat (which was the trickiest part of my costume to make). Oh well, we had a ton of fun and sang "Chim-chim-cheree" all day, even Ellie.

 Ellie really got the hang of trick or treating this year and kept running ahead of us to go get more treats. She's a riot!

Happy Halloween!

Epic Family Home Evening on Tithing

As many of you are aware, Eleanor and Clara have done some modeling while we've been here in Japan. Like this

 and this

 Seriously, how cute are our girls!?

So this means that they have earned some money, and it's no small chunk of change. So we finally got all of their "paychecks," cashed them and exchanged the yen for dollars. And then we had the world's most epic FHE lesson on tithing.

Yes, those are Franklins. 

Of couse, they have no understanding of how much money was sitting in front of them. Ellie just liked to count how many there were. And Clara just wanted to grab things.

But we did have a great lesson talking about how much we have been blessed and how we want to give back to Heavenly Father so he can bless and help other people too.

But, they now both have tithing slips to turn in next week. And they both have made more money this year than me.

We also told them how we would save most of the money (like 95%), but they could each pick out a fun thing to buy. And the first thing Ellie shouts out is, "A big shovel!" So later this week we'll go to the 100Yen store and get that big toy shovel and rake that she's been asking for since the beginning of spring. Yeah, we're big spenders over here.