Tricks and Treats

After school we carved pumpkins. The kids didn't want to touch them. H said it hurt her skin (she does have sensitive skin that cracks in the cold so that could be true),Brother just thought it was yucky so Beloved and I got to do to honors.

Then we ate mac and cheese. Every year, for the last 15 or so I have made dinner in a pumpkin and jell-o grave yard and everyone complains so this year I decided to pass. They still complained but at least I didn't spend hours on it. We've had a lot of trouble with cheerful pleasant eaters. Anyway...


We got on our way. S and J to the game and us to the trunk or treat. It was, as always, a lot of fun.

Beloved got to meet his "hottie" Sarah. (I love Sherry, she is so awesome and looks like her too)


I handed out candy while he took Lu around. E and H disappeared with friends as soon as they could.

E and big E.

H and Olivia.

When we got home we pretended to be Democrats and redistributed the wealth, then the kids ate a few pieces and brushed their teeth and hopped into bed.

Now Beloved and I are eating sushi and watching "The Legend of Sleepy Hallow"

getting ready

Tonight a Tiger Princess, a Vampire Bunny and a Candy Corn will go trick or treating. They are very excited.

This morning we had a fun party for Lucy and some of her friends. They bobbed for apples and painted pumpkins and threw bean bags at a giant pumpkin plus some other fun stuff. She loved it!

The kids had to dress like literary characters for school. H chose to be Laura Ingalls. She looked super cute. Brother was going to be Bunnicula (we read the book this week in honor of the costume) but at the last minute decided it would be too hot so he was....any guesses???....yep, a Jedi. Tonight the bunny is making his debut though.

S and J aren't going begging, they are going to the football game. The big one. Cross town rivals on the rowdiest night of the year. Crazy.

D and Greg are going to be Juno and Bleaker and are going to a party. Can't wait to see the pictures. Can't wait for Dani to come visit! 6 more days!!!

Happy Halloween!!

Politics

Beloved is into politics, it's safe to say he is obsessed :) He studies and knows a lot about the issues and I am proud of him for being so informed and grateful that he shares that with me (sometimes I'd enjoy the readers digest version of the sharing but you know, you can't have everything :) )
So this is a intense time at our house, with Fox News on 24/7 and many talks about gas/national security/Marxism/patriotism/being a chosen nation..and falling from grace.

It is with great trepidation that we await the outcome of next weeks election. (We have, of course, already cast our votes) I worry as I see the values and morals that our nation was built on erode. Will we chose wisely? I pray that we will.

I am not catholic, although I did start out that way :), but this video was very touching to me and I stand with the ideals of family and life that they are promoting.

bunny

watch out for this "sinister bunny"
He hops around disguised as a sweet little bunny.

Killer Bunny

Brother's costume arrived from Nana today. It is awesome! He loves it. Of course once he put it on we had to make many movies of the sweet little bunny hopping along and then suddenly turning into a vampire and attacking!

Pumpkin Patch Fun!

Every year we go to this awesome pumpkin patch. The kids love it. This year the month has flown by and I thought we weren't going to make it...until we realized that we have a soccer bye this weekend and the coach (Beloved) cancelled one of the practices for this week. (it's good to have connections;)) So we headed out for FHE, minus the big girls who a) didn't care to go and b) have lots of homework every night.

We got there about an hour before dusk but still had a great time and made the most of our 60 minutes of fun!

Lucy loved the baby maze! She also ran the big one with H and E.

Brother's approach to everything in life. "Jump on in! the landing will be fine!"

Two sweet sisters. H is always so kind to Lu and Lu adores her.

We jumped in the bouncy houses, had a hay ride, played on the equipment. It was cool and not crowded.

Then we went home and had hot chocolate for a treat. It was a pretty fun night!

random

Tonight we went to the Pumpkin Patch and Lu and I were heading to the baby bouncy house when I saw someone who looked familiar. After I looked closely I realized that it was Tori and Sei from "My life...just pretend you're interested". How crazy is that!

I walked up to them and said "are you Tori?, I'm _____ Utmommy's sister" Then she knew me too and we chatted and met each other's husbands and admired each other's kids. It was so fun, she is super sweet and way skinny:)

How random, it's such a small world and blogging makes it even more so.

sisters

See my Tabblo>

mommy myth #264

you know how when your child is sick, really sick, and you feel so badly for them so you let them sleep in your bed, and watch TV and drip Popsicles on your sheets and you don't even mind because you're just grateful they are not getting dehydrated?
That was yesterday.
Today, still sick. Now laying in bed watching TV, ordering room service and whining.

When you get to that point fresh air and sunshine aid recovery, A LOT. It doesn't matter who gets it, the mommy or the sick child, but someone must go outside and breath some fresh air. It makes everything better.

movie night

last night H, S and I went to see HSM3 at the theater. It was a lot of fun. We got there and waited in a long line with many other girls, teens and moms. I didn't see a single man, but there may have been one or two there. After we got some popcorn and secured "good seats" we sat back to enjoy the energy and excitement. When the movie started there was a big cheer and then 2 hours of singing and dancing, romance and friendship. It was very fun. It might have been my favorite of the 3 movies. 1 and 2 are fun and catchy too.

Brother's first Halloween he was a cute little pumpkin!  The next year he was a frog :) so cute! Then my favorite year was the cowboy, Nana made it and he was so darling.  The next three years he was a Jedi.  For school in Kindergarten he had to dress like a nursery rhyme so he was the muffin man, and that year we made him a F-35 for Transportation Day and I wanted him to be a pilot but no it was Jedi all the way!

.

... See my Tabblo>

I could write about how we were up all night with a throwing up boy, or about how now, after many vomit loads I am running a load of bleach and water. Or how J has soo much on her plate and is up til all hours of the night doing homework and how S and I made multiple runs to the Wal*mart for supplies for her project. Or how whining and crying some kids are. Or...

Or instead I can be grateful that I have a husband that is really good with sick kids and throw-up. And that I have a washer to throw it into and get things clean and smelling good again. And that we have Popsicles and Gatorade and Tylenol, I know that many moms don't and they just have to watch their kids suffer without any relief. I know I am so blessed. I am grateful that my cool hands can soothe his troubled brow, that Beloved and I can work together in the wee hours of the morning and then collapse and 'fight over the covers' since we are blessed enough to have covers. I am grateful for the trust my little ones have in me and the joy it is to help them and the greater joy to see them well and happy soon, which I know is coming. What a blessing.

Fall Through the years of Lu

See my Tabblo>

Lucy's fourth Halloween is coming up. I can't believe how much she has grown. BTW, we did make her a dress last year too but every picture I have with her wearing it she's very scrapalicious.

Stuff

Yesterday Lu and I went to the mall. It was very pleasant, we got there before it was open and spent some time playing on the playground. I went in search of church shoes for brother so once it opened we went to Payless and got a pair for him and a BOGO for Lucy, then we browsed around a little, shared a galactic sundae and headed home.Today Lu went to play with Austin. I had to choose what to do with my child free time. There is always laundry to fold, and a kitchen to clean or errands to run. I did do a little folding but I also made Lu this little Halloween jumper. I've had the fabric for some time and had been meaning to get on it for a while. It came together quickly and hopefully she'll enjoy wearing it.
Yesterday Lucy got some stickers at the mall. She shared with her good friend Millie who walked around all day with Hannah Montana stuck to her head :)
Today J starts drivers training after school. Watch out! She is excited. I am not.

the word of wisdom lesson you'll never see in Primary

Today is my turn to have Lucy's little friends over. The first thing they always want to do is play play-doh. I am surprised but week after week they love it and want to play and it takes 45min or an hour. It keeps their attention really well. They also love it when I let them paint.

Our lesson time is always welcomed as well. We pray, do the pledge and then march the flag out to the flag pole, do the calendar, have a lesson and song time and story time and a craft.

Today we had two crafts.

The lesson was on the word of wisdom..sort of.

I got out our cute flannel ghosts that Grandma gave us from her classroom and modified the story.

This is how it went.

Once there was a white fence and behind the fence was a house where there lived a ghost family. A mama ghost and 1, 2, 3,4, 5 baby ghosts. The mama ghost taught her babies all the things they needed to do to be good ghosts. One of the things she taught them was that they could only eat milk, marshmallows and vanilla ice cream; so that they would stay nice and white.

One day the mama ghost had to go to the grocery store. She told her babies to be good and play nicely and she would be back soon. After she left the first little ghost decided he wanted to eat a fill in a red food: we told the story many times and used tomatoes, strawberries, raspberries, spaghetti. Then he turned red. The next ghost wanted to try a banana (lemon, egg) and turned yellow. The third ghost tried some eggplant (grapes) and turned purple. The fourth ghost turned pink after eating beets (a pink sucker, birthday cake). The last little ghost always tried a chocolate chip cookie.

Then the little ghosts were so sad and worried, they hid behind the fence and didn't want their mom to see them.

When she got home she knew right away what they had done. The babies cried and were so sad. That night was Halloween and they wouldn't be able to fly around all purple and yellow and spotted.

Luckily the mom had lots of vanilla ice cream, marshmallows and milk for her little ghosts so they ate it up and turned white again :)

Then we talked about how we have the word of wisdom and we need to eat things that are good for us. Everyone got to think of things that were good for their bodies. It was very fun.

We also played outside, played dress up, ran around in circles and watched Mulan.

The kids loved to fly the mama ghost around, to switch the baby ghosts for colored ghosts and to hide the babies behind the fence.

pigs and goats and goals

We had a good weekend. On Friday night my good friend Good Life and her boys met brother and I at the dollar show. We had been waiting for Clone Wars to hit the theater and it was finally there. The boys had a GREAT time and loved the movie. It was so cute to see them be so happy to see each other, and so excited to go to the movies, and so enthusiastic in the blow by blow reenactment in the parking lot after :) Very fun. Beloved saw it opening weekend when he was in Detroit on business. He said it was a disappointment so I had very low expectations when I went in to it, he went so far as to advise me to bring a book to the theater (LOL), so with that expectation I found it "better than expected" it was kind of like watching brother and Beloved play Battlefront for two hours, with a little dialogue but it was okay and I had a fun time.

H went to book club while we were gone and then was able to stay after and watch Ariel's Beginnings, which she had such a fun time doing but said the movie was sad because we met Ariel's mother, who was so pretty and ended up eaten by a killer whale or some other tragic end. Yikes!

Saturday we had soccer. It was a very exciting game. We won 4-1! Brother got two goals, Ryan got the first goal of the game and McKenna the last. It was a hard fought victory and so fun to watch!!

This weekend was our Stake Conference. Saturday night was the adult session, which is my favorite meeting of the year. This one was awesome. The music was so touching and the talks were very powerful.

Renaldo update, he moved pens. Now he is rooming with Lilly, a little and shy meat goat who runs away every time we go to feed them. Hopefully it will work out well for him there. Also the pigs arrived so we went to see them and they were soooo cute and little. We wanted one!

almost forgot: Friday while Beloved and I were running errands we stopped for lunch at a place called Mamma Mia and my Chicken Jerusalem was the best ever, and he loved his Lasagna. I will definitely go back, it was so delish!!

crafting

Last night, while the good Mormons sat in the Frog's stadium cheering their beloved Cougars (to victory?~ I hope) some of us remaining slackers went to HFPE and had a pot luck and made these cute "Boo" blocks. It was very fun. When Dani comes to visit we are going to make "thanksgiving" and "noel" blocks.

library

I hardly ever have my camera during the day anymore. S is taking photography and we are "sharing" which means she takes it to school every day in her purse and if I think to ask her for it I can use it on weekends. This means most of the time I have to sneak Beloved's out of his camera case, carefully take a quick photo (if we are at home), down load it, put it back in it's case and move on with the day. Very tedious. Today S forgot hers my camera so I grabbed it when we headed out the door to the library. The library was very fun, when we finally got there. Lu, not-dog (the only member of the herd that ever leaves the house to go on errands) and I went to the library. We got there a little after 10 only to be informed that the library changed its hours and wouldn't open until 11. We decided to spend some time at Kohl's and drove over and browsed. So many cute things!! We went back an hour later and it still wasn't open. This time I got out of the car and went to read the sign, open at noon. They just changed their hours last week. So we went to Chick fil-a and played. Then at noon went back. Finally. Had a good library visit, found some books, did some puzzles. The End.

I should also mention that last night Beloved and I watched the debate, of course, and it took a really long time, again of course, why?? you ask. Well we watch about a minute and he pauses to rant and rave and rip out his hair. Then we continue. Over and over. Beloved is very frustrated. I don't care as much. I have a hard time getting excited over McCain, although I'll vote for him. He just looks half dead and who is dressing him? Nobama has much better "people" cuz his tie was nice. I'm worried about what will happen to our country under a socialist regime, sadly McCain makes some good points but is unable to hit it out of the park so he will probably lose and we will probably find out. I guess we'll see.

oh yeah, one more thing. Last night brother was reading a book about walruses to me and he said "mom you are like an ancient walrus". (Thanks son, that's the best compliment I've ever gotten: said silently in my head), out loud : Oh? Yep, you are 40 and that's how old they live. OH! Okay. Come on, being compared to a walrus is a little too fluffy even for me.
Did you know that walruses live in separate herds, boys in one and girls in the other. When a male calf is born he lives with his mom until he's weaned then off to the boy team he goes. Brother thought that was awful and told me "if I was a walrus, I'd always live with you" (the best compliment for real :) )

my talented kids :)

Brother jamin to HSM. He dances a lot. So do the other kids. It's like living in a musical :)

Edward's Song, I missed the end. J plays a lot. I wish we could find an awesome teacher, and some time for lessons, and some money. She really could do well. Maybe when she goes to college she can take a paino class.

ranting and rambling

Today is it very overcast and we're expected to get some rain. If feels like fall. I have the kiddos over and we are going to do a scarecrow craft. Should be fun. This morning Austin and Lu watched vintage Disney Halloween video's on you-tube, which they loved. Then we started Charlie Brown but they were bored and off playing something else by then. I think I'll watch it later, for nostalgic reasons :)

My sister V and her family are at Disneyland this week. I am so jealous, well, that's not the right word, I am excited for them, it'll be SO fun. I talked to her on Monday and they were in line for Splash Mountain! How fun. I just want to be there too. I love Disney. Our trip last summer to DisneyWorld was SO fun, and I have been to Disneyland a number of times and always L.O.V.E. it! My dream is to go to Disneyworld again, at Christmas time, when Lu is 8-9 years old. I want to go when every one is old enough to have the stamina to spend hours in the park and to stand in line and stay up late and not miss a thing. I'll bring treats for Beloved to help him endure. It turns out that he is not, although I am sure he would not say this, an amusement park lover. When we were engaged (for those whole 4 months ;)) he had a birthday and I thought it would be so fun and wonderful to go to Disneyland, take the kids, have a magical Disney family fun time. He didn't want to go. He thought it was too expensive. I thought he was having "paying for the wedding stress" so we went to Knott's instead, and had a fun time, although he still thought it was too much. Little did I know that this was a theme that would follow us. He does go, mostly because he loves me and knows I love it, but I think he secretly, or not soo secretly thinks it's a waste. Anyway, that is still my dream. In the meantime I am trying to convince him to take a Disney Cruise next November. Wouldn't that be so fun. They have a 3 day Bahama cruise that the kids would love, and while not cheap it's not over the moon expensive and it's shortish so we could sample cruising and see how we like it. The problem is there are many, many places we'd like to go and we have to pick, and they all are $$, and some we wouldn't take the kids to and some we would so that is a whole other set of concerns. I'd like to go to Belgium while my parents are there. Especially if they are in Brussels. If they are in some little town in Northern France I don't know if I care as much. And there is still Africa. We'll see, maybe we'll just go to Wal mart and buy groceries but it's more fun to plan and dream about a day when we'll do more exotic stuff. (I am also planning a trip to Holiday in the Park this December~ I really wanted to go last year, even had tickets, but we had a lot of angst and conflict and bad weather and the girls ended up going but not me :( so this year I am "surprising everyone read:Beloved" with a day of park fun (which is not so secret since he reads this)~they have real snow there, and an Chinese acrobat show and fun rides and funnel cake! come on, who doesn't love that?)

On a different topic, I hate school fun raisers. HATE. Every year I sign a paper saying my children are not allowed to participate. And every year they go to the pep rallies and come home and beg. This year we had thought about doing the boosterthon. H filled out her donations form (unauthorized by me, no, more than that, despite being specifically forbidden to do so on her own.) She wrote down that Nana pledge $25 a lap a $750 donation. She got a huge prize, which she got to haul back today, and I got to chat with the teacher telling her no that is not right. Tomorrow is the dumb run and I'm thinking of keeping the kids home and sending no money. No laps, no money. Soooooooooo annoying. I can't even say. J is on her third fund raiser of the year. (sigh) Her's I hate but not as much. For one thing she is a born sales person. For another thing they go to concrete, specific things. Her wreath sales is going to help with the team's trip to State. The cheese cakes sales were for goat vet bills, and meat is also for the goat. I am not against helping the school, we send in money for trips and supplies every week it seems like. And I even chaired the carnival committee one year where we made thousands and bought playground equipment with it. I know the schools need our support, there is just something about all these fund raisers and selling of junk and pressure on the kids that I hate. And I hate when kids come selling to our house. I don't want $24 popcorn, or $8 wrapping paper~ I just don't. I liked the carnival because if you wanted to participate you went to the school bought your tickets and had fun. No one came to you to sell you something you don't want. Also I hate phone solicitors, same reason, if I want a newspaper/bug service/cable upgrade/free trip to LV/etc. I will go and find it; don't come to me.

that said we have wreaths and meat for sale?? any takers?

Beloved's favorite shot of the day

zoo

Sunday evening we had Beloved's bosses over for dinner. Having company two nights in a row has it's advantages. Cleaning the house, day two, is much easier than day one (is there a lesson there?) We were a little more anxious for things to go nicely than we normally are. It ended up being a very nice evening. Dave's kids were really nice and got along well with our kids, and our children were welcoming and friendly. They are usually happy to have other kids over so I wasn't too worried, I was especially glad that Laura, who is 15 and J seemed to hit it off and laughed and hung out in J's room. I thought there would be a lot of airplane talk, and there was very little. The conversation flowed easily and was interesting and covered a broad range of topics. Our grill didn't work so we had a bit of a delay in serving dinner, however the weather was perfect and we pulled chairs out in the backyard and sat around eating hummus and enjoying the cool breeze. After dinner we played Wii. I think everyone had a nice time.
Beloved had the day off work and the kids had a day off of school so we went to the zoo. The big girls didn't want to come. They ran around doing whatever and folded some clothes.

We had a fun time. The weather was nice, the animals were active.
We particularly enjoyed the baby lions and tigers.

After the zoo we went to the dollar show and saw Wall*E, it was cute. It was a fun day off.

faith is not just a feeling, it's a decision

Dinner Groups

Welcome Fall. I love wreaths on the door. Last year when J did her wreath fund raiser I was so excited because I always have wanted a real wreath on the door. Sadly it died rather quickly and wasn't the festively fun good deal I wanted. Maybe if we lived somewhere colder it would do better. I was not very happy when she brought home the same fund raiser for swim team, only because it's too warm here. Anyone want to buy a Christmas wreath?
Yesterday we finally got our fall decor out. We really don't have a lot but it's fun to put it out and enjoy the changing seasons. Our picture of the baby Jesus is not seasonal, He stays up all year long. He's the central figure in our lives and not just a guest at Christmas (or Halloween as the case may be :) )

Last night was our first dinner groups, we hosted. I thought our table looked nice. I love our brown goblets, so pretty. I made a delicious salad with nuts and blue cheese and cranberries! and rolls and Beloved's favorite "Pioneer Woman Lasagna". For dessert I bought individual cheese cakes that were quite yummy. We had a fun evening, with some of our favorite friends coming to join us. After dinner we played Wii. The only bummer was one couple didn't come, and one couldn't come. If I had known ahead of time I would have invited someone else to join us. There are several couples that are not doing dinner groups that I would have liked to invite over. It was still a very fun evening.

It was a busy day with soccer, karate, cleaning up and cooking for company, E,G, and Beloved took a quick run out to the Alliance Air Show, the girls went to the movies and to feed Renaldo. Busy.

date night with Lucy

Tonight all four big kids had plans. That doesn't happen too often. H and E went to spend the night with K and C. They were thrilled and looking forward to going for a couple of days. J had friends Siara and Sofia over and S hung out with them and then went to Courtney's. So we decided to take Lu on a date. She was very excited. She asks to go with us every week and now was her big chance!

We went to Panera Bread. I had the super yummy harvest salad, Lu had grilled cheese, Beloved ordered two things ( I guess he was hungry ). Then we went to the Botanical Gardens. We arrived around 6:30 and it was a completely different park. Dusk at the park is so fun. We saw so many animals out and about, it was crazy. First we saw a turkey walking around. Yep, a turkey, how unexpected. Then we saw some squirrels. Then we saw a raccoon. We followed him for a long time. He meandered around, ate a nut. At one point we stopped and watched him sit and clean himself. While we were watching nuts started dropping down around us. We looked up and there were several squirrels in the treetops throwing nuts down, I guess so they could scamper down and get them. It was so funny. Finally Mr Raccoon got up and walked along under the bridge, climbed a tree, climbed over the railing, walked to the trash can and climbed in looking for an evening snack. It was sooooo cute. And we didn't have our camera, either of us!

After the wild life show we played hide and seek, which Lu loved, then headed over to the book store where I got to read 15 books to her. We ended the evening with some hot chocolate. So fun!

festive

i don't know why but I find Chinese lanterns all strung up so festive. Silly huh? Seeing these up made we want to go to Boo in the Zoo, because obviously it was going to be soooo fun!, they have lanterns after all :)

what's more fun than going to the zoo?

Going to the zoo with your friends!! We had such a fun day!! And we got to see the super cute baby lions!

PACE

H is in PACE this year. I think she likes it, she's glad because her friend Karlee is in it and they combine 4th and 5th grade. Every week they have had a project to work on at home. This week they had to make a shield to represent themselves. She wanted to find a family crest but that didn't happen. Yesterday after school she finally got a chance to sit down and work on it and this is what she came up with, all by herself. I think it turned out really nice and she was happy with it as well.

PACE is what they call the enrichment program for gifted kids here in the great state of Texas. I don't know what it stands for. In Ca it was called GATE, which stood for gifted and talented education.

YW in Excellence

J got her YW award last night at YW in Excellence. The girls all presented their projects and J gave a little talk. They asked me to speak, but then forgot so I didn't get to share amusing antidotes from J's childhood, which I am sure she was happy about :) She got her necklace and the stake came and gave her a beautiful statue. The Bishop spoke and he had the plaque with all the girls names on it that have received their awards in our ward, we have one more spot before we need a second plaque. Since S is half way done with her last project I think her name will finish off the plaque. He said he looked at all the names and of them there are 11 girls who he knows are married already and of the 11 eleven were married in the temple. Pretty neat :)

The girls sang a lovely song, their theme was "let your light so shine". They turned off the lights in the room and held glow stick wands while they sang, it was pretty. From where I sat I could see J and her friends glowing and singing. I could also see the glass container with one glow wand left in it sitting on the table behind them. That struck me as particularly poignant as I know several girls were not there and that one light represented those girls, that girl. I don't want any of our young women to be left behind, it's hard to make right choices and they really need the strength comes from good friendships, and from living the gospel.

more bats

When it's my turn to watch the kiddos I always try and do a little lesson, to pass the time, and because it's fun. I pick a theme and we read a story or two and do a project or something. Sometimes it's more fun than others. Yesterday in the mail we got a zoo book on bats. Perfect theme!

So this morning we cut bat shapes out of play-dough, and other shapes as well.

We read our new zoo book. We learned a song about 5 little bats. We made a cool bat picture out of our cut outs of our hands. And we decided that if we were bats we would most definitely be fruit bats and not cow blood suckers.

In other unrelated news: brother thinks the letter "c" is dumb and we should get rid of it and just use a "k". How are we supposed to tell which one to spell with he wanted to know. His three best friends at school all have names that start with a "C" Caden, Carter and Caleb, he thinks all three sound like a "k" at the start. I don't disagree but that's the way it is so he'll have to live with all the unnecessary "c"s around.

Also, just so I don't forget, the best part of having friends over is sharing food. At lunch they always trade and swap and look with great interest at what the others have. They are good little sharers too which is so sweet. Austin shared cookies with the girls, Emmie and Lu traded an apple slice/piece of ham for two chicken nuggets. Lu passed out candy corn for all and Emmie shared her cheez-its. There is lots of giggly fun at lunch and lots of eating, these guys are ALWAYS hungry!