One of our favorite Halloween traditions is making spiders out of Ding Dongs.  With the recent news from Hostess, we might have to be more creative next year.  Here are pictures of everyone's creations.

And, being the awesome parent that I am, carved pumpkins, even though I hate it.  Each of the kids designed their own.

We tried a new tradition this year.  Worm sandwiches and monster mouths for dinner.  The kids LOVED it. We even tried out the monster mouths on ourselves.

Ready for trick or treating!  Yes, I did buy their costumes this year.  I'm not proud of that.  Maybe next year.

Since I haven't blogged for three months, we'll just put a few pictures up and maybe hit some highlights.

I know I posted first day of school pictures already, but I found this one of Tansy on my phone.  This kid loves kindergarten.

 This was a picture of the boys' haircuts.  Also great blackmail.  Mwahhaha.

 Our neighbors moved and decided not to take their basketball hoop so they gave it to us.  Super fun!

 Here's Zack's first day of school picture.  I let him get this shirt to wear for his first day, and he wore it every Tuesday for the first month of school (because that's when it was clean; otherwise he would have worn it every school day).  He loves preschool.

 We started having lunch with the girls at school on Fridays.  We trade off each week who we eat with.  The boys realized that their reusable Subway kids' meal bags make great hats.  They do this almost every week.

 Sydney participated at a booth with her karate teacher on UCM campus a couple of months ago at Get the Red Out, which involves vendors and anyone else who wants to advertise lining the street through campus with a lot of fun stuff to do.  Ben had a lot of homework, so I ended up taking everyone.  While Syd did karate demonstrations, I wandered with the other kids.  These Star Wars characters were wandering around.  As you can see, Tansy loved them.

 This is Sydney using three hula hoops at once.

 At the end of September, we had a yard sale.  It went okay.  We had planned to wait until May, but we didn't know when we were moving, so tried.  The kids thought it was awesome.

 Sydney won first place in the coloring contest for Fire Prevention Week at her school.  This is her picture hanging up at the commissary here on base.

It's been a fun couple of weeks.  Last weekend, we went to the Missouri State Fair.  It is held in Sedalia so it only takes us about 25 minutes to get there.  We let the kids do the pony rides this year.  Tyler was excited until he realized the horses were real.  I talked in him to getting on, and once they started moving, he was good.

The petting zoo is right next to the pony rides.  We go there every year.  This time they had to go twice.

We arrived 1/2 an hour early for the pig races, which is the only way to get a seat.  We snacked on nachos from a nearby food truck while we waited.  Have I ever mentioned how much I love nachos?  I really love nachos.

The kids were trying to help the pigs find their Oreo cookies.

It was already lunch time at this point.  This is Tyler's foot-long corn dog.  Yes, he ate the whole thing.

Zack and Sydney were not sure about these massive pizza slices.  But Syd finished hers.  I tasted Zack's, and I think the crust was made of pretzel dough.

This was probably the last bite Tansy took.  Tyler finished her corn dog as well.

It has become a tradition to play on this rock by the museum.  It's right by the picnic area so they run back and forth while we eat.

Sydney loved creating the energy to turn on the light bulbs.  They other kids were sad they were too small to try.

Tyler was finally big enough for rides this year!  He had so much fun.  Ben took the girls to the rides for bigger kids, and I had the camera so we only had pictures of the boys.

Sydney earned her orange belt in karate on the 13th.  She has been taking karate for a year now, and I am so proud of her hard work.

On the 14th, Sydney had her first lesson with her new piano teacher.  I have been teaching her, but we don't have a great amount of patience with each other, and I didn't feel she was making the progress she could.  Her teacher is a sweet woman from church who helped me learn to play the organ.  I am so excited to just be the helper and not the teacher anymore.

The 16th was the first day of school.  Here are my girls waiting for the bus.

Tansy was so excited to get on the bus, this was the best picture I could manage.

Sydney's always ready to pose.

Tansy has told me that she loves everything about school.  She loves making new friends and learning, so this is perfect for her.  Sydney is a little less enthusiastic, but she is happy with her teacher so far.  Now to try to settle into a schedule again.  Sigh.

Abshire summer all in one post.  Ready? Go.

Tansy graduated from preschool!  She was adorable as she did her songs and dances.  She didn't know where we were since we were in the very last row in the chapel.  That's why she doesn't look happy when she's carrying her certificate.  She was still trying to find us.

Her graduation was also Ben's birthday.  I let the kids decorate the cake.  They had a great time.

The Wings Over Whiteman air show was as fun as ever.  The girls got to perform.  Sydney was in a dance/cheer class that she really enjoyed.

Tansy has been doing tumbling and loves it.  So glad it is starting again this fall!

We took a little family vacation to St. Louis.  We always said that we would schedule a trip sometime when we went to the temple.  We now have a temple in Kansas City, so we had to just plan the trip anyway.

Our first stop was the Cahokia Mounds (or "Hokie Mountains" if you ask Tansy) in Illinois.  They are huge mounds of earth created by the native people hundreds of years ago.  They had different functions depending on the shape.  We did that first because we didn't think the kids would be very interested.  But they really liked it.  We climbed Monks Mound (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monk%27s_Mound) and got to have a good look around.

The next day we went to the zoo.  The carousel is free for the first hour the zoo is open so we rode it a few times before getting started.

My allergies decided to assault me shortly thereafter and we nearly scrapped the whole trip because I couldn't open my eyes.  I used WAY too many prescription eye drops, but after about an hour of that, my eyes calmed down and we had a really good time.

We tried to go up to the top of the arch, but they were sold out for the day by the time we got there.  We bought tickets for the next day, but we still had to get a picture.

We also visited the science center, which my kids absolutely love.  They had some fun shows as well as a hands on area where we played FOREVER!

As you can see, we finally did make it up to the top of the arch.  It was amazing!

We also went to Utah for a couple of weeks this summer.  The following three pictures are the only ones we took because we are lame.  Tyler was a horrible bed hog.  His pillow is actually at the foot of the bed on the other side so that he wouldn't bug Zack.  That worked well.  This room also had a set of bunk beds (one of my kids favorite things about staying here) so the boys got to sleep in those on the way home.

On our way back to Missouri, we were getting back in the car after a potty break.  The boys could not take their eyes off of this motorcycle next to us, and the owner offered to let them sit on it for a picture.  I couldn't get the boys to look at me for the picture because they were so impressed with the bike.

About a minute after we got home (okay, more like a day and a half) Ben found out he had to leave for a three-week training in New Mexico.  He left five days after we got home.  My parents decided to come keep us company.  Since bowling is the only thing to do around here, that's what we did.  I beat my dad for the first time ever.  Go me!

Zack celebrated his fourth birthday last week.  Unfortunately, Ben was still gone.  We opened presents while on Skype during his lunch break and had some friends come over that evening for cake.

We picked Ben up from the airport yesterday after getting Zack's portraits taken.  I was surprised that we were actually able to do them considering how much Zack's beat up his face the past few weeks.

This picture was taken at the ER after he fell on to concrete while trying to get off a trampoline.  He isn't bleeding.  That's all bruising.

Two days later, he did this on a different trampoline when he collided with his friend.  It turned in to a magnificent black eye that extended to his right eye as well.  Sorry for the poor quality cell phone shot.

He also fell off his chair at dinner a couple of days after that and got a bump and bruise on the top of his forehead.  Somehow, the kids managed to completely heal in just a couple of weeks and we got some good pictures yesterday.

Zack wanted to go to Rib Crib for his birthday dinner with Daddy, so we headed there from the airport.  It's amazing how happy the simplest things can make me when Ben is finally home with us.  I love my family and how we have such great times together.