Halloween

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holiday. When I was young My mom always made chili so that when we came home cold we would have a warm dinner with Apple Cider. I have never been a fan of chili, but nothings better on Halloween. Bill and his family had the same tradition so it worked out perfectly to have this continue in our family.

It has kind-of grown from there. I'm not a great host and I get a little stressed out inviting people over, but for Halloween we have ended up with quite a few people.

It seems to grow every year. This year I made about 20 quarts of chili and about 140 bread sticks. We also have hot apple cider.
Either I or Bill go out with the kids (although I really think we both just locked the house last year and went for a while together, but Bill is sure we never leave the house, his house got robbed and has been vandalized quite a few times on Halloween and so he doesn't like to leave). Anyway this year I took the kids around for a while in the van and went around to our ward, our ward is spread out so we just hit the houses that we knew.

A friend and neighbor came along for the ride with her son Kyle while her husband stayed home and handed out candy. Once we came home we let the older kids go out with friends while we entertained. We had about 4 or 5 families over and invited a few neighbors over for a hot bowl of chili.
It was so fun to have a scary movie going, friends over and talking with a ton of kids playing everywhere. The clean-up the next day wasn't as fun, but I was smarter about my food prep this year so even that wasn't terrible.

BJ was a Jazz fan, nothing out of the ordinary except that he usually only has face paint when he goes to a game or goes trick-or-treating . . . he didn't go all Putty on us and paint his belly though . . .

Taft was a Jazz player . . . .











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Ammon was a "Ranger's Apprentice" from his favorite book . . .

Carson got to be 2 things, pack meeting they dressed like their favorite book character so he was Harry Potter (no surprises here)


Then he was Batman on Halloween. He saved up his money around his birthday and bought his own costume.

Heber wanted to a vampire, but just a normal vampire. "I want to be a vampire, but just a normal vampire with no name, like Dracula I don't want that name, no name just a normal vampire that doesn't have a name and can you come with me and tell people I don't have a name especially NOT Dracula".

Carving Pumpkins

This is from October, but I am a bit behind . . . .
So for the last few years we have been carving pumpkins. We used to paint them and always painted them once I got older, I don't remember doing pumpkins before that except my dad carving one pumpkin. Once all the kids were born we started painting them and always did it. I am sure for safety reasons.

When Bill was the 11 year old scout leader and the Webelos leader we continued trying our hand at painting. So about 2-3 years ago I wanted to try our hand at carving, much to Taft's dismay. He hates it, he thinks it is gross and disgusting . If you look at the middle pictures all the kids are into it up to the elbows. They enjoyed making noises like they were sneezing the pumpkins guts or pretending like they were throwing it up or acting like they were going to eat it. It was all more that Taft could take. We had to make an end to trying to gross him out and if you look closely at him carving he has a knife and a spoon in his hands and nothing on him. He would have worn rubber gloves if he could have. Also if you look close his pumpkin is hardly cleaned out like the other kids. He is getting better though a few years ago this episode of family togetherness brought him to tears and not happy ones.

We might need to let him paint his next year and have the other kids carve. Either way we aren't drawing on them first. I love doing family traditions and need to remember that it is worth the trouble to create memories and we always have a good time.

Ammon's 12th Birthday . . .

It doesn't seem possible. It seems like just yesterday my mom was holding Ammon and admiring him and noticing that we have the same tongue. Of all my kids I think Ammon looks the most like me. The other kids look like me until you see a picture of Bill at their same age and then you can't even tell I had anything to do with their creation. But I have pictures of me that look a lot like a "girl" Ammon. He isn't fond of me saying that we look a like unless you throw in that he is ALL BOY. I remember him sitting up for the 1st time on my mom's front room floor and her so excited. Ammon will probably always mark time for me since he was only 6 months when my mom died, but as grateful as I am for the time I had with my mom and miss her I am equally grateful for the time I have had with my wonderful family.

Ammon's 12th Birthday . . . He was ordained by his dad to be a Deacon. Taft and Ammon are both now in the same Quorum. He is so excited. There are a lot of boys just older than him so it will be a big quorum, but in 11 year old scouts there were just 2. He has been able to go on a couple of Deacon scout camps already and has loved it. I am so proud of him and his decision to get the priesthood. He really has a strong testimony of the church. I hope that he always keeps it.

Jimmy came up for Ammon's ordination and brought his girlfriend, Natalie. It was really nice to get to know her. The kids all seemed to have a really good time with them.

And here is Heber saluting again. I don't notice until I upload the pictures onto the computer. I need to pay more attention so that every picture we have of him isn't saluting. I have been making more of an effort to have family pictures and now we seem to have a ton. Unfortunately none of them are that great. We need to get one that is really good of all of us.

Corn Maze

I'm trying to do a bit of catching up with a piece of crap slow computer.
I am also trying to make it so we do a few more things and stop trying to just do what is thrown at us but plan. I had planned at the beginning of the month we were doing this and what day. I think had I not we would have just had a short FHE at home and then off to do homework and a quick treat, but here is our trip to the Corn Maze.
We had so much fun. We had to find numbers 1-15 (I think, I can't remember how many there were). We didn't find them in this order, but we had a bit of a fight over who found it first (I'm sure no one has ever experienced that before) and I wanted at least one picture of each of them so we had them stand by their birth order number.
We started out together, but by the time we got to the end we had lost BJ. I'm not sure he did it on purpose. A few cheats here and there and a few lost boys here and there and freezing, but we had so much fun. We even got a family photo out of it (although it's not very good). Heber salutes in most of his pictures lately, I don't know why except that he has 4 big brothers all in scouts, but he was saluting in almost every picture once I got them loaded on the computer and not just on this little adventure.

Twighlight here I come . . .

So my original post on this was greeted with mixed reviews. Ammon seemed almost proud of his picture and what I wrote. Bill hated it and said it was like taking a picture of our dirty dishes and saying this is what our house looks like . . . I was just going to delete the whole thing, but now am just leaving it as it is and will maybe delete it later. I have edited my comments and hope that it is still not offensive.

I don't have any idea of what Twighlight is, Judy loaned me the book. I lost it and then found it and now think I have lost it again. I am going to read it but I need to get through Thanksgiving first.

Anyway here is Ammon's new teeth coming in . . . before he has lost his old ones. . . . . When Ammon got his baby teeth he got all his eye teeth long before any others and looked like a little vampire, but I didn't think it would effect his permanent teeth.

Ammon wasn't posing for this picture up that close, it is from another one, but when I blew it up to take the red eye out it was shocking how much you could see his new teeth coming in on top of his baby teeth.

20 Years . . . and counting . . .

Today is our 20 year Anniversary . . . I can't believe it has been that long. In some ways it seems like we have always been married and in other ways it seems like we are still newly weds. Since it is FHE (family home evening) we took the kids with us on our "romantic" night out. Bill had a gift card from his parents to the El Matador, a restaurant that they have been going to since Bill was a little boy. It was really fun. It is up in Bountiful so it was a full night, we came home and had Ice-cream and now as all parents do with young kids we are doing homework. Maybe this weekend we will be able to have a quiet date together.

I am so grateful and lucky to be married to the most wonderful man. My life is wonderful and aside from a few minor issues, missing my mom a lot and just regular struggles of trying to stay on a budget and keep the kids taken care of and healthy and trying to stay patient we have a GREAT life.

So much for a big celebration for our 20th, we will try again on our 25th. It seems like big miles stones like our 5th and 10th we have something come up that makes it so time and money don't allow something big, but this year we have our addition and we are about to send the kids to bed and enjoy watching TV in our family room.

Bill bought me the most beautiful multi-colored dozen roses, I'm not sure the picture does them justice. I can't get the picture to load so I will have to add them later. - - - I never got a picture and they are wilted now, but they were beautiful.

This is the Place Monument

We have had major computer problems and so I haven't posted much, but I love seeing other peoples posts and think that I just need to do what I can slow computer and lost pictures and all. Conference Sunday we took advantage of Bill not having a bunch of meetings and packed a lunch and went up to the This is the Place Monument with the kids. It was so much fun. The park was closed as far as shops, rides etc. In fact we didn't see any workers there at all. There was actually hardly anyone there and we were just able to walk around and have the place almost to ourselves. (Maybe we were breaking the law and shouldn't have been in there). The kids had a blast. It was just so nice to have some time together. We took the tri-pod so now we have a few family pictures. None of them turned out that great, but that might be more of a feeling of how I look than how they turned out.