Halloween 2008

I am OFFICIALLY Halloweened out! Don't get me wrong. I enjoy Halloween as much as the next guy, but I'm done. I started the day out at Kennedy's class Halloween party. All of the kids wore their costumes, and they had several activity centers for them to do.

Just before we took the class picture, Mrs. McGuire asked if anyone would mind sitting like this on the floor so they could all fit in the picture. Kennedy and her friend Taylin jumped at the chance. Look how happy they are to be there!

Last night we went to a Halloween party with a bunch of friends from our neighborhood. We ate Navajo tacos, apple crisp, and homemade root beer (just to mention a few). The kids bobbed for donuts, cleaned out their pumpkins and ran around! When we got invited to the party, my friend told me that we were to dress up-even the adults. Landon and I don't usually dress up. I know I know, boring. But it's been a long time. So I told Lan that we needed costumes, and after seeing a picture of our friends dressed up, he said he'd do what they did. So I ran all over town trying to put together a couple of costumes. Here we are as Isaac and Julie from the Love Boat. The funny thing is that when we got there, we were the ONLY adults dressed up!

After the party we came home and finished carving our pumpkins. Very serious business.

Tonight the kids put on their costumes one last time, and went out trick-or-treating. Landon drew the short straw and is out with them. I am home handing out candy, and baking some yummy pumpkin bread!

(Kennedy's costume update. Obviously the dead bride never showed up!)

Happy Halloween!! Until next year-

That's Miss to you

Ya know what word I really hate. Ma'am. Landon and I were at lunch yesterday and the server (who was at least my age, maybe older) kept calling me ma'am. Somewhere along the path of life, I went from being a miss to a ma'am. I'm not sure how that happened, but I don't like it. I don't feel like a ma'am. Well, okay sometimes I feel much older than a ma'am and I realize that I am actually 30 something, but most of the time I feel like a miss. What is the magic number anyway, when we go from miss to ma'am. I think someone should've warned me. I will tell you this. When I'm at a restaurant, and the server refers to me as miss, you can be darn sure that they'll be getting a fat tip from me!

Trunk or Treat

(Kennedy wearing Whitley's old witch costume)

Last night was our ward Fall Festival and Trunk-or-Treat. The kids were so excited to finally wear their costumes. We had sloppy joes, and played some get to know you game. The kids had a blast trunk-or-treating, and running around with friends.

When we got home they spent a good hour trading their candy. They made out prety good for a ward trunk-or-treat, and still have Halloween night. We should be on sugar overload for until the rest of the year!

Costume DRAMA

There has been some serious costume drama at our house this year. We started out with a dead bride, the devil and "I don't think I'll dress up this year. I'm just gonna hand out candy". A couple of weeks ago we went to actually buy their costumes, and that's when everything changed.

Colton found this huge sword that he thought was too cool, and then decided he could be the grim reaper. Not too bad. It's hard to find a "good" costume for Colton anymore, that is age appropriate since he is in men's sizes! So I was quite pleased with his decision.

Bless Whitley's heart. She knew she wanted to be the devil, and stuck to her plan! Onto Kennedy. This is where the drama begins. When we got to the costume shop, the dead bride costume was way too big for her. She couldn't find anything else she wanted, and I had seen it on ebay in her size. We came right home and ordered. After almost 2 weeks of waiting, it still wasn't here. Our trunk or treat was fast approaching and we needed a dead bride. So I emailed the seller, and inquired where the package was. She said it had been delivered to Gilbert, AZ on the 20th! YIKES. Somehow, ebay had given her our old address. So I called my sister and out of the goodness of her heart, she went to our house (where we now have people renting) and asked them for the costume. They had no idea what she was talking about! After more investigating, we found out that it had been forwarded to our old PO Box in Moses Lake, and they had returned it to sender since we no longer had a box there. Luckily for the trunk-or-treat we had an old witch costume of Whitley's that wasn't too big. I have since emailed the sender AGAIN begging her to overnight Kennedy's costume if she gets it in time. She says she doesn't have it yet, but will let me know.
I guess the moral of the story is STOP FREAKIN' MOVING SO MUCH-YOUR MAIL CAN'T KEEP UP WITH YOU!

High School Musical 3

Kennedy went to a birthday party today for two of her friends, Megan and Taylin. They went straight from school to Jack in the Box for a shake, and then it was on to High School Muscial 3. Kennedy was sooo excited. First of all, she love a good birthday party. Second, she loves HSM.

This of course was a sore spot for Miss Whitley. I asked Colton if he wanted to see it, and he really didn't. Luckily, Landon didn't have to work on Friday, and we decided to get Colton and Whitley out of school an hour early to go and see the movie. Whitley was thrilled, and super excited. Colton was very so so about the movie, but said it was worth it to get to get out of school early! We had a huge thing of popcorn, tons of pop and too much candy. All four of us were sick all night long! The movie was okay at best. I thought the first 2 were better, but we had a great time together.

Flu Shots

I had to take Colton and Whitley to get their flu shots today. Kennedy got hers on Monday, along with 3 other shots. She did really well, and didn't cry or even bat an eye at it. She is tough as nails! Anyway, back to Colton and Whitley. They were both so wound up about these shots, I thought they might have a panic attack. They made them put on these sweet blue shorts because they also had a check up. We had to wait for a little bit for the Dr. and they got a little loopy. Here are a few shots of them goofing around with the shorts. They were WAY too big for Whit, and a smidgin' small for Colton.

Just for record purposes Whit weighed in at 72 lbs and is 52 1/2" tall. (50% height and weight)

Colton weighs 152 lbs. and is 5'4 3/4". (He's off the charts)

Tide-pool

Today I had an experience unlike any other. It started out like any other day. I put in a load of laundry just before I left to walk the kids to school, and then went right to yoga. My plan was to come home and clean the house before Landon got home from Moses Lake, help decorate Kennedy's classroom for Halloween, and then take Colton and Whitley to the Dr. for flu shots. Most of that happened without a hitch.
When I got home from yoga, I went right to work cleaning the downstairs bathroom. I was hoping to get done in time to watch my recording of Biggest Loser before I had to go to school. Anyway, I hauled all of my cleaning stuff and vacuum upstairs to start up there. When I got to the top of my stairs, I could really smell the laundry. Now, I LOVE the smell of laundry and I thought it was nice. A little stronger than usual, but still nice. I went in to clean the kids bathroom, and then remembered that I needed to change the laundry over. I got to the door of the laundry room, and saw that about 4 inches of the carpet outside the door was bright blue! Then I opened the door. I have a front load washer, and that sucker spins so fast! My new bottle of Tide was sitting on the washer, and was thrown off when it started to spin. The lid broke, and it proceeded to flow out all over my floor. It looked like a swimming pool! My entire laundry room floor was covered in a thick layer of Tide. Let me tell you something. Tide and linoleum-not a good combo. I was soaking it up with towels, and slippin' and slidin' all over the place. I steam mopped the floor about a dozen times, and it still feels sticky! Not to mention the carpet. I steamed that forever as well, and it's still a light shade of blue.

I have really learned this past year that everything happens for a reason. The only silver lining I can come up with for this one, is that my house smells-no wreaks- of fresh laundry. Which is the BEST smell ever!

Sunday Ritual

There is nothing in the world that Kennedy would rather do than shave Landon's face. She loves it, and he's just glad that he uses an electric razor! He leaves too early on the weekdays for her to do it, so Sunday morning he is all hers.

(don't mind my non-matching flannel sheets. They're warm, and really that's all that matters)

Food Storage Oatmeal and Homemade Wassail

Lately I have been putting a lot of my focus on our food storage (or lack of it). We've always lived close to family, and Landon's dad has always had enough food storage for all of us. What a blessing. We always knew that all we had to do was get to Bumpa's house, and we'd be okay.

Now that we live 100's of miles away, that's not quite a reality for us. So, I've been getting food storage of our own. I know, I know, I should have been doing it all along, but I didn't. I really wanted to store food that we would eat, and that we knew how to eat. I didn't want a bunch of stuff that I had no idea how to use. I'm thinking that once a week I'm going to make a meal from my food storage. That way, I learn how to cook with it, and it's being rotated! This month I'm focusing on oats. So, for breakfast I made this yummy oatmeal with all pantry items, except for the apple. However, it would be just as good without it! It was delicious, and super easy.

Landon and I have also been cooking up big pots of homemade wassail. We love it, and it tastes so good on a cold fall morning, or night, or afternoon. YUMMO!

Saturday is a Special Day

The kids had a primary quarterly activity first thing, which took up most of the morning. After lunch, we got to work. The weather is beautiful here today, so we decided to get out in it and clean things up. Colton mowed the lawn

Whitley and I swept up after Colton

Landon did the trimming and sprayed the weeds

Kennedy did some dusting inside

After all the hard work was done, we rode bikes, and played a little football. I love the days that we don't have anything we HAVE to get done. We always find a way to have fun together. Even the work wasn't so bad.

Exhausted

This is what happens at the end of a long week of school and activities. Kennedy fell asleep half standing this afternoon, while she was waiting for me to finish a conversation! Now that's tired.

However, she is our child that falls asleep EVERYWHERE! In a restaurant, sitting on a chair, on the stairs, in the bathtub, you name it. So I guess I shouldn't be surprised by it anymore.

You'll Shoot Your Eye Out

I gave the kids an art project to do this morning, and that lasted about 10 minutes before they were bored. Instead, they found something else to do to entertain themselves.

Whit trying to cock the gun
Colton put together a little target in the backyard yesterday, and didn't have much time to "play" with it. They all got on their safety glasses and had a little target practice this morning.
Colton helping Kennedy hold her hat up so she can see

Colton helping Kennedy cock the gun
Whit taking aim

Colton-professional marksman
Kennedy being weird

The target!

Ahhh, I love a nice relaxing sabbath morning. It's so nice that we have all this time before we go to church at 1pm. It really gives the kids a chance to spend some quiet, peaceful, quality time together.

Pumpkin Pickin'

Today we went pumpkin pickin'. We found this cute little farm, and they had HUGE pumpkins.

I tried to tell the kids that the bigger the pumpkins, the more "guts" were inside, and that I WAS NOT going to be gutting their pumpkins for them!

They didn't care and all picked pumpkins that weighed over 35 lbs! Now we just can't wait to carve them.

(I have no idea what Colton is doing in this picture)

Poor Landon, our pack mule.

Rain Rain Go Away

Ever since we got here I've been meaning to post about the rain. Everyone we meet keep "warning" us about the rain. To me it is the equivalent to the heat in AZ. Like when you meet someone that has just moved there, you almost pitty them that they have no idea what the heat is "really" gonna be like. Plus, you know how to live in it, and how to avoid it-more or less. Well, it seems to be the same here with the rain. People keep saying, "ya know it's gonna rain", or "you probably won't see the sun until June".

There's been rain off and on since we got here, but for the most part it's been nice. In fact, a lot of the time, the rain is more like a mist. It comes and goes off and on all throughout the day, when it's rainy.

( I took this picture with my cell in my car)

UNTIL TODAY! It's been pouring rain all day long. I don't mean a little mist, or even a drizzle, I'm talking major rain storm mixed with a little hail! I just got back from taking Colton to his new ortho, and as I took him back to school he was asking if I thought they'd still be outside for recess? I didn't think in a million years that they would sent the kids outside in this storm. Boy was I wrong. As we got to the school, there were all the kids, most of them in their rain jackets, playing outside like the sun was shining. They didn't even seem to notice that they were sopping wet. Can you imagine what their classrooms will smell like when they all get back inside. Can you say WET DOG-

Well, I guess we chalk this one up to another new EXPERIENCE, and be darn grateful that we have raincoats