More October Fun

Friday, October 17th we went with Zach, Tammy & Lana to Gardener Village. Tammy took us to lunch where we enjoyed their famous fried green tomatoes before our entree. Man, those things are tasty!
.


.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
We shopped around, enjoyed the beautiful day, and checked out all the Halloween decor.



I always enjoy a trip to Gardener Village, but it is especially gorgeous in the fall.

Christian saw the face painting booth before we went in to eat lunch, and as soon as his tummy was full he went into full on obsession mode. He wanted "paint", "cheek", and "spider" RIGHT NOW.


.
We rushed right over after lunch and he got his wish. Faith got a pumpkin, and Zach got a spider like Christian's.

The kids, of course, loved the candy shop (even though it was PACKED and about 100 degrees), but their favorite thing was the petting zoo and pony rides.




Unfortunately, we had to wait in a long line while Buddy was tired and grouchy, but it was worth it!
He LOVED the ride even though it's hard to tell from this picture. The only bad part was when he shouted, "Again, AGAIN!!!" when I went to lift him off the saddle, and then thew a ginormous screaming tantrum the entire three mile hike to where our car was parked.





On Saturday, Faith had her last fall soccer game and she got a turn being goalie. She sure has loved playing, and is sad to not have practice and games during the winter.
.




.
.
Christian was obviously happy to see her play.




Faith made this cool haunted house in school, then came home and glued on a lawn with a candy corn fence. The next week they made a haunted gingerbread house with graham crackers and candy, but Faith was holding it a little too tightly on the bus and it didn't make it. She was kind of sad about it and said, "I was going to have you take a picture of it and put it on your blog!"

Later that day, while Tony was mowing the lawn, Faith and Christian decided to help by cutting the grass with scissors. Where did they get such a crazy idea??? Carolyn--have you been giving my kids lawn care tips? ;)



On Monday the 20th, we met Ann & Natalie with each of their 3 youngest kids at Arctic Circle. I got this pic of Christian, but then was having too much fun chatting to remember to get out my camera after they arrived!








The next morning, Christian took off his soggy diaper and then, for some reason, ran off to our closet to get Tony's boots. I guess he wanted a Cowboy Nudie Butt retake!

On Saturday the 25th, we went to my mom & dad's ward Halloween party. Our ward party was the same night, but I didn't find out the date until we had already planned on this one. Plus, I LOVE that they have a bunch of people bring crock pots of homemade soup for the dinner!

After dinner they have a small carnival inside the church, and then it's outside for trunk-or-treating. The kids behind mine are Sarah's: the skeleton is Brendon, the first witch is Celeste, then Alaura, and you can almost make out Yoda Noah in Brad's arms. We were sad that Sarah couldn't make it, she had to work :(

After the party, my mom invited the kids and myself to her neighbor's "Haunted Backyard", the proceeds from which were going to Primary Children's. We worried that it might be too scary for the littlest ones, and Noah sure clung to my mom, but Christian was in creepy guy heaven!

Faith thought it was pretty cool, too, but Buddy enjoyed it so much that we went around twice so he could study every spooky thing.

Even after all of that, as we were leaving he was crying, "Again, again!!" I'm sure he would have gone into a complete break-down-fit, but he spied a yard full of Halloween inflatable decorations across the street and out of nowhere cheered right up and shouted, "Yaaaay!"

.

.

.

.

.

The next day, while Tony had a friend from work over to our house to watch the Steelers game, the kids and I went to Lagoon.

.

.

.

The kids enjoyed lots of rides and Faith took her baby bro on Puff (second car back).

She is such a sweet helper with him. She lifts him onto every ride by herself and gets him all buckled in tight. Truly the best sister ever!

On Monday the 27th, I had a bunch of errands to run and decided that it was time for Christian's first haircut! From now on, I'll probably be doing it myself, but I wanted to watch a pro do it first. His hair wasn't long down the back of his neck or in the front, but the middle hairs were long and tended to stick straight out sideways and had that crazy new baby fuzzy friz going on. This was the end of the trim so you can see that it doesn't really look any different, but it should look overall "nicer" more of the time now.

Don't worry, a family activity post with cute pictures of the kids is on it's way soon, just one more quick break with an attempt to get you hooked on another blog. This one is the Pioneer Woman Cooks blog, and it's way more fun than just delicious recipes:

"Add a generous tablespoon of regular (salted) butter into the hollow. So basically, 1 1/2 tablespoons, except I’m in denial about my butter use and prefer to say “generous tablespoon.”

"Someday I hope to write a book about the effectiveness of euphemistic language, and how a healthy sense of denial contributes to an overall increased happiness in life. It also contributes to an overall increased bottom size, but I won’t put that in the book."

I just had to post one more hilarious "Cake Wrecks" entry to entice those of you who are not already adicted to this blog:

"The ghost on the left looks like a cheerleader with pom-poms. The ghost on the right looks...uh...[noting kids in the room] ....cheerful. Yeah. Like, giving you his full attention kind of cheerful."

Some Ocober Happenings

Faith made the pumpkin mask at school last week, so she made her brother a kitty one so he could have one, too. I think it's so funny that they're held on by the nose hole!

Last week was red ribbon week at school where they.have activities that help kids say "no" to drugs and alchohol.

On the 9th they were supposed to wear red, white and blue, so Faith wore her "cheer team" style shirt. She looked so cute in it, I just had to get a picture!

.

.

Faith's favorite dinner is fajitas, and I love the ease of using the Tyson Beef Fajita frozen meal kit, so we have them on a fairly regular basis. Christian loves that he is old enough now to assemble his own, and he also tries to help assemble anyone else's who doesn't stop him :)

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

On the 11th it was cold and rainy for Faith's soccer game. We bundled up, but I forgot gloves, and the two little bunnies had some frozen fingers afterward.

On Monday the 13th, Tammy invited us to Cochran Produce (right by the WalMart Neighborhood Market in South Ogden) so the kids could pick out some pumpkins. I already posted a quick pic of the kids together the other day, but here are a few more cute ones.

.

Tina getting a skunky kiss.

Christain finding his pumpkin,
.

.

.

.

.

and Faith choosing hers. It snowed several inches on Sunday (you can see a bit of leftover snow under the pumpkins!), but luckily most of it melted earlier that day. It was a bit chilly, but still fun!

Here's a silly pic that my boy asked me to take of him. I guess he thought he was pretty cool setting a kid's chair up on the couch and sitting on it. I had to post it because of his smug little face!

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

On Thursday, Tammy took us to the Dinosaur Park.

First, I took pictures of the kids separately in their costumes.

Then we started touring the spooky park.

I love that they put red and green gels on the spotlights so that the dinos look extra creepy! After walking all around the park and collecting trick-or-treats from the costumed characters, Tammy treated us to scones at the "Cretaceous Corner Cafe".

Next, the kids entered the costume contest, and Faith won 2nd place!! Her prize basket contained a bunch of dinosaur toys, the park's DVD, some Halloween candy and toys, and a family season pass. Way to go Faith!!

At the end, we went inside and watched the moving electronic dinosaurs. Christian is always enthralled by those things. We had such a great time and it was perfect weather--cool enough to feel like fall, but nice enough to barely need a jacket.

.

.

.

.

I just had to get a close-up pic of Faith's hair when we got home. The very back is a French twist, the front curls are her own hair, and the farther back curls and straight pieces are a fake hair clip that I got at Sally's on clearance for $3. It took nearly 1/2 an hour, but I believe it was worth it!

I just had to get this adorable picture posted of the kids with Zach at the pumpkin patch on Monday!

(Zach is obviously a vampire, but if you couldn't tell, Christian's a skunk & Faith's a vampiress who forgot to bring her teeth.) Tammy always plans a plethera of fun Halloween activities for the kids, so there will be lots more pics to come!

Thank you so much to all who commented on my political post awhile back. I was still deciding who to vote for when Lewis Black gave me this gem of wisdom: vote against the candidate you hate most!

I absolutely adore my children. It took eight years, thousands of dollars in infertility treatments and tests, and the tremendous heartache of two miscarriages to get them here. I feel so lucky because I know there are many, many women who have gone through more than I have and don't even have two precious angels to show for it. But sometimes, just every once in awhile (actually, a lot more often now that Christian's two!), that proverb about being careful what you wish for comes to mind. :) On Sep. 17th, my little stinker got into my makeup bag! But at least he's a hard worker: he managed to coat his face, the bathroom floor, cabinet doors, bathtub and his baby potty in cover-up stick and liquid eyeliner in 5 minutes flat. He's so smart that he picked the two items that would be the most difficult to remove!

On the 19th, Christain and I got invited by my dad to attend "Real Men Can Cook" for lunch. It's a charity event, held at Ogden's Union Station, where men volunteer to cook up their best dish and you pay $10 to sample everything, with all the money going to the YCC Women's Center. It is so fun to try all the food and such a worthy fundraiser, I encourage everyone to get out to it next year! There was a bunch of my family there, and after the kids were done eating (they were so well behaved that day!), Jordan took Christain and his daughter Sierra out to play on the train they have on display. The kids obviously loved it!

On the way back to our car, Buddy wanted to see this "neigh" and struck such an interesting pose for the picture with it:

On Saturday, the 20th, we decided to try out the brand new Chuck E. Cheese that opened in Layton. First, we had some pizza, and then we started playing the games.

Christian loved one where a light goes around a wheel and you push a big button to stop it. If your light lands on certain spaces, you win tickets. As luck would have it, the first time he played he won 100 tickets!! I don't know if he understood about the winning part, but he sure loved watching it (<---) and pressing the button!

Faith's favorite was, of course, Deal or No Deal, but she and Buddy also loved this half virtual "bowling" game. It was too packed in there for me to get a good shot of it, but you bowl the ball into what looks kind of like a skee ball game, and then the top part is a computer screen which uses a censor to determine what your ball would do from about half the lane, on. Clear as mud? Anyway, it was fun!

.

That evening, we thought we would have a quiet movie night and rest from our game playing and crowd dodging day. Tony, Faith and I watched Nim's Island while Christian quietly got into trouble and made a mess. When I got up to make popcorn about halfway through, I found that he had gotten all the pasta out of my lazy susan and had built this great tower. I also found the floor covered in little pasta bits because he had discovered that the box of fettucini was open and that it's super fun to break apart. By the end of the movie, he had unwrapped the multi packs of maccaroni and cheese and had laid out the individual boxes, plus the boxes from his now deconstructed tower, in a 20 foot long winding pathway down the entry hall. At least I got to watch a movie in peace!
.

I must have forgotten to get my camera out for awhile because this next pic is from Oct. 3rd. I had just cleaned (Faith's Beta fish) Ed's bowl and Christian was having a ball watching him. He is usually kept on top of Faith's armoire and completely out of his reach because he likes to "feed" Ed crazy things like paper, little toys, food from our pantry, and everything else that he can find that will fit through the neck of the vase.

I actually started taking pictures that day because Christian had gotten out a little elastic band like the one he had seen me put in Faith's hair and wanted one in his, too. I obliged and gave him a tiny pony tail in the back. This was the cutest photo of the bunch, but it's a shame that you can't see his hairdo.

Last Saturday (the 4th), we took a drive up to Logan to see the pretty leaves for Conference weekend. It was raining, and the trees and mountains had an etherial beauty because of the low hanging clouds. Unfortunately, the rain also made it impossible to get a decent picture. We bought some delicious local raspberries from a truck on the side of the road, but Gossner Cheese Factory was out of cheese curd! The nerve!!

When we got back to town, we stopped at the Newgate Mall for some See's chocolate and to let the kids play on the squishy playland.

The kids had a great time, and I had a blast talking to my friend Kim, who just happened to be at the mall having a girls night with her daughter.

Christian was dying the whole time to ride the pay rides, so we finally let the kids do one at the end. I personally think that 50 cents for one minute of being shaken back and forth is totally rediculous!

Tina then called and asked us to stop by her house. She gave the kids and Tony Steeler ball caps that she had gotten from Fanzz warehouse sale for $1 each! She is so sweet to think of us!!! You can see that the kids are also enjoying their chocolate See's suckers in the car. It was a fun day!

.

.

A messy playroom pic as an addition to my ongoing effort, "Keepin' it real":

On Sunday, the kids and I went over to my mom & dad's for the second session of conference and some delicious ham and funeral potatoes. Tony was out in the cold, bonding with his dad and nephew while hunting ducks and geese. Luckily, they didn't hit any :D

Since we were there awhile before the cousins showed up, Faith and Christian collected leaves in the front yard and Faith made this cute "fall leaf crown". Christian made "a huge mess with globs of Elmer's glue on a piece of paper and then threw a ginormous fit while wadding it up and throwing it on the floor when I tried to take it all away from him". See, he's just creative in a different way.

When the cousins arrived, Christian played cooking set with Lily and was so cute "feeding" her with the fork that Jordan asked for my camera to get a picture of it from his vantage point. How adorable!

Later, when we met up with Tony over at his parents', Christain got ahold of my camera. He got cute shots of Tammy

and Tony's dad,

but then the rest of us did what you're supposed to do when a two year old repeatedly takes your picture--make crazy faces!! Here's my wacky fish face,

Tony's "my eyeballs are burning from the flash!" face,

and Tony's mom's menacing toothy grin. I must say, Christian is getting pretty good with a camera!

Faith spent the evening with paper and markers creating this adorable little trick-or-treat bucket complete with paper candy (she's holding the "Smarties" in this picure). She, as I've mentioned before numerous times on this blog, is amazing at three-dimensional art!


Finally, I wanted to include this movie of the kids watching America's Funniest Home Videos. We were watching a montage segment featuring animals, and Faith, as usual, was providing extra commentary and sound effects. Christian was laughing so hard that we had to rewind it and watch it again. I finally got my camera on the third time through, so he wasn't laughing as hard, but still completely enjoying it.

Sorry for another non-family-picture-related post (I'm getting crazy with these lately, no?), but I was telling my family about this YouTube video on Sunday and then saw it posted somewhere again today so I thought I'd share.



You can find the complete story from snopes.com here.

I was invited to a neighborhood girls' night last Thursday and got better aquainted with some awesome ladies!!! I had such a blast and was so excited to get their blog addresses so I could learn even more about them. On my new friend Brandi's blog, I found the "which Austen heroine are you?" quiz.

My results were: "You are Elizabeth Bennet of Pride & Prejudice! You are intelligent, witty, and tremendously attractive. You have a good head on your shoulders, and oftentimes find yourself the lone beacon of reason in a sea of ridiculousness. You take great pleasure in many things. You are proficient in nearly all of them, though you will never own it. Lest you seem too perfect, you have a tendency toward prejudgement that serves you very ill indeed." Not exactly accurate (except the parts about me being intelligent, witty, and the lone beacon of reason, hehe), but fun to do!

Take the Quiz here!

WOW!! That's about all I can say about Lance Bass on Dancing With the Stars Monday night (which I just watched late last night). And especially for those blog readers who might be offended that I added Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl" to the top of my music playlist--take a gander:



Now, I used to feel a little weird about this song as well--I'm usually against kissing someone outside of your preferred gender attraction just for kicks (especially if you're in a relationship)--but that was before I heard it in this context! I'm still fanning myself!!!! I'm also against crazy texting/internet chat spelling of words to exaggerate them, but I'm sorry, Lance doing that Paso Doble (and specifically the kiss) was hawt.

Sorry to all those (non-gay-man-loving) readers that I may have offended, but I just had to break up all the cute kid pics and churchy packet goodness with something from my spicier side! :D

I just wanted to post this awesome conference packet for anyone who's interested: . . . . . . . . (it came from this blog)

October Conference Packet - Upload a Document to Scribd

edited to add: I just found another really cute one from Deseret Book - click here.

How fast do you type?

I found this fun little typing test and had a go at it. Made me a little sad that my skills have slipped so far from the 78wpm I got up to in my college speed typing class (I know, still not an impressive speed), but still enjoyed it and wanted to share!

63 words

Typingtest