Monday, November 1, 2010

Ghosts, ghouls and goblins...okay, well, a Western Hunter, a Firefighter, two Fairy Princesses and a Giraffe

A lot of things have been happening lately. On Monday we had a "party" for a Family Home Evening night. We rarely do things like that for FHE so I think we were all looking forward to it (well, I was!). The kids had the day off on Monday and that afternoon we started the party preparations by making sugar cookies.
Oct 25 2010 Cal and sugar cookies

Oct 25 2010 Haley and sugar cookies

Party time!  Eating candy and decorating cookies during scripture reading...
Oct 25 2010 Clark and Elden

Oct 25 2010 Elden and Clark

Oct 25 2010 Clark

Oct 25 2010 Cal

Oct 25 2010 Cal and cookie

Oct 25 2010 Shanna cookie

Oct 25 2010 Clark and ghost

Oct 25 2010 Shanna

Oct 25 2010 Lee and cookie

Oct 25 2010 Ruth cookie

Oct 25 2010 Haley cookie

Oct 25 2010 Haley cookie (2)

Pumpkin carving time! Lee was a trooper and carved most of the pumpkins!  Thanks!
Oct 25 2010 Lee carving

The pumpkins!
Oct 25 2010 finished pumpkins

Oct 25 2010 pumkins

Elden was fascinated with the lit pumpkins
Oct 25 2010 Elden pumpkins

We wanted a picture with the kids and for some reason they all laid on the floor (minus Elden). 
Oct 25 2010 kids and pumpkins

Change of gears...this past week it was my turn for preschool.  It seemed to go well.  On Thursday after preschool I had invited a bunch of moms over for a potluck lunch.  I really enjoyed it.  Thanks for coming ladies!  Thursday night I met up with my Relief Society President and we hashed out Visiting Teaching routes yet again.  Whew!  Heidi, you're amazing!  Friday Lee surprised me with having the day off and getting a babysitter for the day! Thanks Andrea and Nathan!  (Sorry, lots of "!"!) We went to the outlet mall and out to eat at Panera Bread.  YUM! It was my first time there.  Oh and Gianetta, I went to Chipotle this summer and it was soooo good.  After we picked up the kids we went Trick-or-treating at the hospital.  That is one of my favorite places to trick-or-treat.  It's quick, warm and they always have a fun little party at the end.  Saturday we went on a bike ride to do some errands and Lee's chain broke.  What is funny is he got home before me.  Also on Saturday I stopped at the commissary and bought 30 things of cheese (2 canisters of Parmesan cheese and the rest 8 oz. packages of shredded and blocks) and 4 boxes of cereal.  Averaging everything out, each item ended up costing about $0.64 each. Not too shabby!

That night we went to the ward (our local church congregation) Trunk-or-Treat & Chili Cook-Off.  Kristi and Jenny and whoever else did a fabulous job!  LOTS of people attended--it was great!  We had a fun time and got more candy--thanks for the chocolate kids!
Oct 30 2010 St. Robert Ward Trunk-or-Treat

Cal wanted to bring the spray bottle I use for fixing the girls hair to "put out fires" or something along those lines...(3rd year use of this costume!)
Oct 30 2010 Cal

Shanna and Haley were fairy princesses or something like that...
Oct 30 2010 Shanna Haley

Pretty creative, eh?  Thanks for the idea Daniel!
Oct 30 2010 Lee and Ruth

Our Western Fighter or something...
Oct 30 2010 Clark

Oct 30 2010 Shanna Haley and Hailey Phillips

The girls!  The girl in the pink (her name is Hailey actually!) looks a lot like my Haley!
Oct 30 2010 Shanna, Hailey Phillips, Haley, Kaytee Skinner

Elden was so content with having a little lollipop in his mouth!
Oct 30 2010 Elden

Oct 30 2010 Elden at trunk-or-treat

Oct 30 2010 Elden lollipop

My decked out van, ha ha.  I did have some creepy music playing!
Oct 30 2010 Our scary van

Haley and Shanna with their buddy Talan.  He's such a cutie!
Oct 30 2010 Talan Sexton, Haley Shanna

Oct 30 2010 Talan Sexton, Haley Shanna (2)

My back again
Oct 30 2010 My back again

Today Elden has been a walking machine!  He and Haley were playing this afternoon.  It was so cute.
Oct 31 2010 Haley Elden

The whole afternoon the boys were playing in the play/toy room.  Our friend Colten gave my boys his Legos after church today!  Clark and Cal couldn't be happier--especially Clark.  This afternoon Clark and I were talking about it and he jumped up and gave me a big hug.  Clark even consented to getting just one Christmas present!  I think I'll do two, maybe three things per kid, but I think three will be the max.  I don't want them to expect a lot.  But now that I could spend extra money on them, it's a little challenging mentally to keep things at a minimum--hence why I want to stick to the no-more-than-three presents rule.  (I am in the Christmas mood a lot sooner this year than normal...keep Christmas in your hearts all year round, right?!)

Tonight a few kids stopped at our house to trick-or-treat.  Since trick-or-treating was held on Sunday (today), we didn't go and of course didn't hand out candy. We thought it was funny that people rang our door bell even with the porch light off. Someone even rang our bell three times. Hope you all had a fun Halloween and a Happy Nevada Day!

7 comments:

Lena said...

Awesome Halloween pix! I'm also in a Christmasy mood. The Christmas stuff at Walmart didn't even bother me. What better way to start the holiday season off than by giving thanks to Heavenly Father for all He's given us! I even bought all my kids Christmas socks today that they can open and wear Christmas Eve.

Bryan & Ashley said...

sWe've been doing the 3 gift limit for a couple of years, and it's worked great!!!

Lois said...

Happy Halloween! Your kids all looked super cute. And the cookies looked super yummy!

Kaylene said...

Yummy-looking cookies! You guys do a great job of making sure your kids have fun! Love the costumes. :) Don't ya just love trunk-or-treats? We went to our ward's also and then ignored the doorbell last night too.

Kelly said...

I love all your pictures! Looks like you guys have been having lots of fun.

Cara Lee Haraden said...

Fun blog and cute pics. I sure miss you guys! I am so in the Christmas mood that since there was a good sale on Christmas PJ's I bought them today (a lot better choice of sizes and styles this early and about 25% - 50% off)

andyandsteph said...

Yay! Cute post :) I love that you made Halloween sugar cookies. I do that every year now ever since you and Lena sent me Halloween sugar cookie cutters.