Happy Halloween

All three girls chose characters from "Doctor Who".  Sabrina dressed up as the 10th Doctor (played by David Tennant), Lizzie dressed up at Rose Tyler (the 9th and 10th Doctor's companion), and Kate dressed up as a Dalek (the nemesis of The Doctor).
Sabrina was very concerned that the 10th Doctor has brown hair, and she really does not.  So I promised to get some brown hair spray for her hair.  Unfortunately the brown turned out burgundy!  So I added some black.  (Spoiler alert: the sprays stained her hair and she had pink streaks in her hair for 6 weeks!)
In this pic Kate was tacking some stuff on her costume after wearing it to school and before going Trick or Treating.
Also note the sonic screwdriver :)

School parade:

The 5th and 6th grade performs The Thriller every year after the costume parade.  Kate memorized the dance really well so she got to be front and center.  It's very funny watching a dalek do the Thriller.

After school I drove the girls to daddy's office.

The office was thoroughly decorated, including black lights.

the teenage boy across the street enjoys playing the part of a child-teasing zombie.  Sabrina finally decided the candy was worth the obvious trap.

then the 3 girls together made a plan.  Sabrina played the part of the distraction while the other girls grabbed the loot.

top right: the loot was totally worth it!
I moved the big recliner from the living room to the front porch where I sat with my computer.  I turned on the Phantom of the Opera and passed out candy from under my heated blanket.
I spent all afternoon getting dressed up.  I took a shower AND did my hair AND put on makeup.  I'm pretty sure nobody recognized me.

Skipping back to the office, the Salem City civic trick-or-treating was in the parking lot outside Daddy's office, so we went around there too.  Then the girls left notes and drawings on the boards at the office as usual.

See?  I told you Sabrina's hair was tinted pink afterward.  She can totally pull it off.

Sabrina's 7th Birthday

Sabrina drew a picture of what she wanted her cake to look like.  Right down to the pennant saying "Sabrina" on one side and "Wizard!" on the other.  I'm still not entirely sure why, but she was happy.  Kate made the banner for her.

Sabrina wanted loaded baked potatoes for dinner.  Unfortunately it was a rough day and I didnt' get it started on time, so we went for Irish Nachos instead.  Kate made "window stickers" out of contact paper.  Lizzie gathered up some pens and bubbles.  I love how excited she gets about every little thing.  It makes it so fun to give her things.

Sabrina's big present from Mom and Dad was this doll car.  She was SO excited!  She even got to decorate it with stickers.
And yes, we were apparently out of tissue paper, so her car was "wrapped" in a handy gift bag with a length of fabric covering the top.  Super classy. ;)

Sabrina also celebrated her birthday with Grandma Jensen who made her a scripture bag, and with the Southern family.

Then some cousins were in town from a few hours away so we had a cake decorating "tea party" to play with them.

(You can see J decorating cakes like a MAN)

Then we played a game where each player took turns rolling a pair of dice.  Each number meant one thing added to their paper so in the end every person had drawn a jack-o-lantern, complete with name.

 Finally, Sabrina got to invite two friends to come with us to the Nickelcade, followed by Krispy Kreme for donuts.  Doing the two friend outings is SO much simpler than parties at home!  Love it.

 Happy 7th Birthday to my dear, sweet Sabrina.  I love you!

October

 Now that I have a functioning computer AND keyboard -- AT THE SAME TIME!  I'm going to try to play some catch up.  Yes, I'm about 2 months behind.  Tough.

Here are a couple of more unique items I made: the pretzels really did taste as good as they look.  The "spiders" are hot dog chunks (good ones, for the sake of the parentals) with spaghetti noodles poked through them, then boiled until the pasta was done.  Served with alfredo sauce.  It was surprisingly good!  I was prepared to deal with it for the sake of the girls, but I'm not even opposed to doing it again someday.  It was a fun tribute to Halloween one night.

 I don't remember whether I've covered this or not, but Lizzie had her first chance to attend General Conference with Aunt Janice and Aunt Jennifer.  Her cousin T was her conference buddy this time.  She absolutely LOVED it!  These two pictures are screen-grabs from when she was shown on TV during conference!  This was immediately after President Monson announced the change in age for full time missionaries.

These pictures are from the Aunties.  Lizzie was wowed by her visit to The Roof restaurant.  I am so grateful my girls get these opportunities!  I never would have dreamed to be so close to the General Authorities and First Presidency when I was their ages.

On a random change of subject -- We knew Sabrina was in need of some urgent dental work.  She already had her first work done (already posted) and we had appointments scheduled for all the rest.  Then over one weekend she started to complain a lot about pain in some teeth.  Then she developed a nasty fever and when I checked her mouth again there was a bad abscessed pocket on her gums.  We got her in to the dentist the next day and my brave girl had 3 root canals and a filling all in one appointment, all on the left side.  If the swelling had been worse she would likely have ended up in the hospital for IV antibiotics.  Thankfully some oral antibiotics "stat" took care of it.

 Lizzie and Sabrina were both scheduled for a lot of dental work and Kate started to complain about a sore spot in her mouth.  I checked and noticed some molars coming in and said she'd be fine.  By the weekend she was complaining again.  Finally on Saturday morning (of course, no dentist available!) Michael noticed that one side of Kate's face was swollen.  Badly.  I took a look in her mouth again and discovered a HUGE abscess.  Thankfully she didn't have a fever, but she sure had the swelling going on!  We could not get in touch with the dentist so we finally gave up and took her in to the emergency room so she could get started on antibiotics.  Good thing, too!  If she had developed a fever then SHE would have been planted in the hospital on IV antibiotics.  Between Sabrina and Kate we'd have had a much worse couple of weeks.  Thankfully getting in to the dentist on Monday they fixed the bad tooth and the antibiotics did their work.  And no, there is absolutely nothing contagious about abscesses.  They're not even that common!  We're just THAT GOOD.  (Yes, this is despite regular brushing, flossing, and flouride.)  So glad to have teeth more or less settled for now.  Knock on wood.