Pumpkin Faces

Our tradition of carving pumpkins is still alive while Rich is half way around the world.  10 of us in the kitchen made for a very loud and fun night of knives, spoons, guts and more as we made out pumpkins come to life.  The kids were pretty quick at choosing the faces they wanted on their pumpkins.  I was missing Rich's help, but was so grateful Matt was home to help out tonight.  He carved 3 out of 4 of the kids pumpkins tonight.  And he even gutted one of them too.  I helped by gutting the rest of them, carving one, and sorting the seeds and guts and cleaning the seeds to prep for roasted pumpkin seeds tomorrow!  Yum!!  The night came through without any mishaps or tears, which is always a bonus!  Happy Halloween !

Good bye old gals!

We have had chickens for a year and a half now.  We started with 7, Twinkle, Sprinkle, MaMa Bear, Cookie Dough, Penelope, Midnight and Midget, then Midget got stepped on and died and we replaced her with Sylvia.  Then during the winter a bobcat came and took care of Penelope, Twinkle and Sprinkle.  This spring we got 4 more.  Mona, Ruby, Ellie, and Flo.  Ellie died of heat in the summer, Mona died of starvation we think because none of the other chickens would let her eat (that or she couldn't see her food with her awesome mo-hawk hair), and Flo turned out to be Fred and was a rooster who crowed all the time.  Our painter ended up taking him home.  So we ended up with 4 good chickens.  We got 3-4 eggs a day.  Light blue, brown and light brown.  Great girls.  Too bad no one ever wanted to take care of them and you know who ended up doing all the work!!!  Well, we knew we had to get rid of them before moving to China, and no better time to do it then when it is nice and warm out still, and not snowing... that was the worst last winter...  So here they are, all boxed up, ready to go to their new home in the country to free range with 5 other happy chickens.  They will love it!!  Poor Peter had a hard time letting go.  He has such a tender heart sometimes.
Bye Bye girls!  It's been fun!

Tick tock, what time is on the clock?

The kids thought this was a boring paper chain today.  'Get to church on time and take a picture to prove it'  Huh, I wonder why they thought that?

Anyway, we tried hard and got to our one o'clock church barely on time.  I secretly took a picture of the clock from our seat, but it was super blurry, but what's a girl to do?  So we ended up in the primary room and took the clock down for a decent picture.  I swore the kids to secrecy, but we took this picture after church and wound back the time.  They were SOOO embarrassed!!  But here's the proof, sort of, that we can get to church on time without Rich!  Ha, HE is the one that always makes us late. Take that!

Pick a Pumpkin, Any Pumpkin

Our paper chain told us to go pick pumpkins today.  And it was super uneventful.  No drama what so ever.  Perfect weather, perfect tractor ride, everyone got to sit by who they wanted to, perfect pumpkins, everyone got just what they wanted, even Gavin with his mini pumpkin as he calls it.  And really, perfectly happy kids.  When does that ever happen??  The worst of it all was convincing Sophie that she shouldn't wear her yellow capri's in case they got dirty, that regular blue jeans, or blue jean shorts as it turned out, would be the better pick.  And I got to hear "you were right" out of her mouth when she wiped her muddy hand on her leg and I reminded her that that could have been on her yellow pants...  I win.  And we all won on this perfect fall afternoon.

Trick or treat, the trick's on me...

Just sayin', Max LOVES Captain America and the Avengers, so much so that he used to be obsessed with him.  Captain america shirts, pj's underwear, backpack, shoes, everything...  And this is the first year I have ever bought Halloween costumes for the kids.  Too crazzzy around these parts.  So, Rich thought it would be a great idea to buy Max a Captain America costume.  Nope.  He hated it from day one.  But we pushed it.  Especially next to our little Hulk Smash.  It worked for a little while and he even wore it to our family party.  But not tonight.  He threw a fit for over 30 minutes in the car at the Trunk or Treat party.  I ended up leaving the party that I never even made it into and ran to get him the costume he actually wanted.  A ninja, and a scary ninja to top it off.  Don't judge.  You weren't there...  He ended up happy and I ended up hungry because I missed the dinner.

PS- the only way I got him to pose for the captain america picture is because he knew the new one was coming.  And he could wear his mask to hide his tears.

Iron Man made a special appearance.  Max said he's not the real iron man because he can't fly.

And gum all over Sophie's face was sure fun to clean off tonight.  Note to self.  If one bubble sticks to my face, so will the next four I blow and it will make the mess that much harder to get off, just sayin'

Ice Cream, Yum

Our paper chain told us to go get ice cream, so who were we to argue! Fun afternoon with the kiddos...

5th grade volcanoes

Sophie and Rich made an awesome rice crispy volcano over top of a 2 liter bottle of diet coke.  It turned out so cute, especially when she colored it in sharpie polka dots.  Combine that with 4 5th grade classes and a pack of mentos and you have a fun filled afternoon of exploding volcanoes.  Sophie did such a great job, and her volcano went sky high!!

Rich is gone...

Rich left early this morning for his flight to Shanghai, China.  I get so paranoid about him missing flights that we were there at 4am sharp for him to get his 6am flight to LA, to sit for 6 hours before his 14 hour flight across the ocean to Shanghai.  The airport was dead in SLC and we sat together for a while.  I can't believe he is really gone...  He made the cutest paper chain for us while he is gone.  Each link has an activity to do each day he is gone. 
Today the kids were supposed to each draw a picture of daddy flying in an airplane to China.  The kids did so great.  Even Max, who struggled, saying he couldn't draw an airplane.  He went through several papers and much crying and fit throwing because he wanted it to be perfect for dad.  In the end he did it all by himself as his creative juices were flowing and it turned out so cute.
We can't wait to see what else we get to do over the next 101 days.

It's a new day

A friend of mine was talking about her blog the other day and the blog books she makes out of them.  Sound familiar??  That's what I was doing a few years back before I started massage school and before my life got even crazier than it is now.  A light went off in my head and I was ready to start again.  I feel like I am living a different life than I was when I last wrote on my blog.  So it's time to start again.  I don't want to play catch up.  I just want a clean start.  So here goes nothing!

But maybe I'll go back a little to add a few things...

Cub Scout Day Camp

I just got called into Bears in Cub Scouts maybe 6 weeks ago.  And Peter just turned 9 so we get to be together!!  Fun for both of us since I'm still cool in Peter's eyes.  So we got to go to Camp Kiesel and had a great day together shooting bee bee's, getting wet in the canoe and even shopping at the little trading post.  Peter is so great and I love him so much!  Great day together bud :)

Peter's Birthday

It was a great day today.  Peter turned 9 yrs old.  He feels so big to me. 

But at the same time I can't believe it has only been 9 years since he was born into our family.  On the top of his list for birthday presents this year was an ipod, ipad, cell phone and a motor scooter.  So lucky him!!  He got a motor scooter and ALL the other kids are super jealous.  But Peter is a good kid and I know he will share with everyone...  JoAnne got him a fishing pole.  He went fishing with Matt and Kyle a while back and had so much fun.  Now he is dying for them to take him again sometime soon since he has his own stuff now.  His cake even has real fishing lures on it!  We got to spend the day together since it was a Saturday and we had a great time.  We went to the Layton museum to finish off his Wolf for cub scouts, then we went to Mexican for lunch.  They brought him this lovely outfit to wear, including the moustache!!!  They brought him fried icecream with a churro and a candle on top.  He was so excited until he learned that all the kids got the same dessert because it came with their kids meal.  He said "now I don't feel that special anymore."  But got over it soon enough.  We got to run to the store to pick out treats for our fun activity.  Peter chose a family party this year and we went to the drive in movies to see Epic.  It was really fun.  We brought our own popcorn and had our candy and the kids sat in the camping chairs all tucked in while we grown ups sat in the van.  Perfect day for our perfect new nine year old.  Happy Birthday Pete!

Family Photos

We finally got new family pictures and I think they turned out pretty good. I don't have my disc yet from our awesome photographer (Amber Thompson) so I borrowed these images from her website to post here in the time being. Enjoy my beautiful family, I know I do!!!

Pioneer Day

I love parades and carnivals, and Rich loves me enough to come along with us and have a good time. Peter was so funny, he was a candy magnet and got twice as much as the other kids did. We loved the day, even if the parade was really long and hot. And this carnival is awesome. For $15 the kids each rode 2 rides (8 rides), we got 2 cotton candies, 4 snow cones, and nachos. A steal of a deal.

happy anniversary

We had the day to ourselves. Ahhh.

We spent the day at Lagoon riding rides (that ended when Rich got motion sick and threw up ON a ride), and relaxing at Lagoonabeach.

We did a little shopping and I got a hot new pair of red high heels.

We at dinner at this awesome restraunt called Prarie Schooners. The whole place was like a pioneer wagon round up with covered wagon tables and in center was a scene of fire and animals. Totally fun and delicious.

And topped off the night with taking in a movie.

Best day ever, with my sweetheart of now nine years, and counting.

seusical the musical

Aaron is amazingly talented!!! We had so much fun, and a lot of laughter watching him up on stage today. We took a car load of kids (we were lucky to have Sarah, Rachel and Hyrum staying with us) and braved the crowds. All in all a sucess. Followed by dilly bars from DQ to top off a hot and wonderful day.

And you've gotta love Matt posing in the background...