Our little talent show performers

Our Primary at church had a talent show and Lydia and Ethan were in it. Lydia (all decked out in Hannah Montana apparel) sang"Stars in the East," which she has been practicing in Music Class at school. The first recording didn't turn out very well though, at first it was zoomed in too much and didn't focus so it was blurry (I didn't add that one). So I stopped recording and started the recording again. She had hand motions and everything. Oh well, what can you do.

Then Ethan sang a song. It is his weather song at preschool. One day I heard him singing it... in the bathroom and I couldn't believe he actually knew all the words to a song. He told me he wanted to sing it for the talent show. Since then he has started singing other songs as well. It is always pretty cute. He didn't ever really have a strong interest in that department before.

Last but not the least, on a split decision just before the show, Lydia wanted to dance for everyone... so she did and it was uhh, interesting. A lot of jumping. She has always been quite the dancer... it wasn't quite showcased here though. She has wanted to dance in front of an audience for some time now. So I figured it was a good place to let her try it out. She thinks it was pretty silly too, but it is fun to watch. Amazingly, some grown-ups complimented me on her dancing. Mike and I just had to chuckle about it. We weren't sure how it would turn out. She had a lot of fun though. She said to me after, "I just kind of criss-cross jumped a lot and couldn't think of what to do. Maybe I should practice more next time, haha."

Ok, the dance was too long or something, because I've been trying to upload it all day. Maybe I'll add it later if I can

Lydia reading to the boys

Lydia is loving school and reads to the us every night for 15 minutes. Ethan is still fascinated that she can read. He is so excited the next year he will be in Kindergarten and will learn how to read as well. Together they (literally) fantasize about next year how they will be together for recess and can play hide and seek together or whatever. One positive thing about our move to Helena, MT is that they have become really close to each other since they don't have any friends around like they did in Seattle. Oh Seattle. I miss everyone so much!!!! I will treasure those memories and friendships of those 4 years for the rest of my life. Truly.

P.S. I have both pictures there because Ethan kept smiling as I was taking the picture all nice but then the last split second he'd make a crazy face and I wouldn't even know about it till after and then we would all laugh. It was funny. Third time was a charm. haha. They looked so cute all siting together on one single couch cushion. Each of them really love stories being read to them... which makes me so happy as I am a reading fanatic. It's crazy I didn't really get into reading and loving it until after I was married. I wish I knew how awesome it was as a teenager.

The results of the contest

So... it has been about a week and amazingly nobody guessed it. I thought someone would being as it was the day after Halloween... anymore guesses now?
It has to do with candy.
Ok it actually wasn't anything amazing. We were all eating some candy and Mike was making exchanges with the kids. He was just eating a mega warhead, very sour. My only regret was that I didn't put it on video camera mode. It was quite the production. The kids were shocked and were wondering, "why is dad acting like that?" And then we laughed at him... along with him, Mike thought it was pretty funny too. His comment was, "whoa, that was sour!"

A Contest

I luckily snapped this picture while Michael was responding to... something. I want to see if anyone can guess what caused his expression.

Family Websites?

I'm looking around for a good website for my Bentley family. Does anybody know a good one? Or which is better than others?

Halloween Fun

Halloween was a lot of fun this year. Charlie was a cowboy/sheriff. He has to be the cutest cowboy I've ever seen. Every time I looked at him I just had to smile.

Ethan was Spiderman and Lydia was a Sparkle Witch.

The kids and I went to Lydia's school for her party and went on the little parade around each classroom with her.

After school, the kids played school (very usual) and Lydia read Halloween stories to Ethan. At this time we also all practiced our best and scariest "whooo, whooo, whoooo!" for fun. Then we went to the trunk-or-treat at the church and after Mike took the older kids around a couple of blocks. One of which was Mikes freshman English teacher. At last we dumped out all our candy, traded what we didn't like (and bargained for what we really did) and finally ate our steak dinner quickly.

I was a butterfly... compliments of my 6 year-old daughter. I did however recieve many compliments on my beautiful wings from little girls. I think I'll go grab a candy... compliments of Charlie. : )

The honorary sand pit

This would be the honorary sand pit that the kids seem to have adopted... which is a bunch of dirt by the garage.

The only problem is the amount of dirt that stays on them. whereas sand just brushes off...

As you take a closer look it is even inside Charlie's ear! My thoughts on cleanup at this point was, "where to even begin?"

He sure had fun playing with the big kids and was quite pleased with himself. They loved it. Lydia and Ethan have been going out there daily, making mud pies, cakes, ice cream, towers, and whatnot.

The easy solution and everyone is happy.

Are the Nakey Days for a toddler here already?

Charlie has discovered that he can take his arm out of his clothes. The look on his face was pretty cute. Hopefully that will be the extent of his curiosity at least for now. When Ethan was maybe a few months older or so, he was constantly taking off his pants and of coarse... his diaper. So you can imagine how we usually found him waking up. Sleepers-he would just unzip, pants-take off-- our solution was to snap onsies over his pants when he slept. It was quite the look, but it worked!

Charlie playing

Charlie here was playing in Ethan's room while I filmed him for a minute. Lydia says the blue we painted looks like the sky and his room makes her feel like she is flying. Sorry about the video being sideways! Apparently, you can't rotate video clips. Good to know for the future.