Carving Pumpkins

This was our best year yet for carving pumpkins.  We actually bought a .99 carving kit and it was worth it!  They make it a lot easier than cutting with one of our kitchen knives. 

Molly watched contently while eating chicken nuggets.

Alissa enjoyed the new experience of squishing the insides of a pumpkin and was most pleased with the outcome of her flower carved pumpkin.  Especially as it glowed with the candle inside.

Ella as super nervous about sticking her hand in the pumpkin and starting flinging seeds because she was grossed out.  I talked her into thinking it was cool though.  Then she had a great time!  She has a cat pumpkin with her name carved.

Dustin picked one of the most odd shaped pumpkins and made it look like an alien.  I think he did a pretty good job.  He made me scrape out the insides though.   Wimp  :)

I love my little family so much!  I have waited my whole life to make memories like this - to be able to sit up to my kitchen table, in my own home and carve pumpkins with my cute little kids and husband. 

Happy Halloween!

Red Ribbon Week

This week was Red Ribbon Week at Ella's school so all the kids got to dress up each day.   The first day was "Injury Day".  A bandaid on the forehead was about as much as I could talk her into wearing.  She felt a lot of apprehension about even that.

Tuesday was "Hawaiian Day" which she got excited about.  As you can tell by the pose, she was feeling so pretty.

Wednesday was crazy hair day and she was behaving like her hair was fixed.  CRAZY!  I'll bet the teachers had some chaos on that day.  We sprayed her hair purple and did unmatching ponytales and bows.

Thursday was "Groovy Day".  We borrowed a dress from grandma's dress up and crimped her hair.   She looked pretty groovy.

I was glad that by Thursday she was confident in herself enough to dress up.  It's sad that she is getting so big, but also fun to be involved in fun things like this.

Most Embarrassing Moment

My sister called to tell me an embarrassing story that had happened to her that day and it reminded me of my most embarrassing moment which I hadn't thought of in a long time.  I decided I had better write it down before it's forgotten.

We were blessed to have Seminary during the school day and not have to make any real sacrifices to attend.  One particular morning however, we had an early morning devotional of some sort.  My friend and her brother picked me up at my house and I was running behind so I was going to put my make up on in their car.  Because it was so early in the morning it was dark out so I was doing my make up blindly.  I wasn't too concerned, I'd done it before.

I was using some sample tubes of Mary Kay foundation and concealer at the time.  They looked like this, except the concealer was green.  You already know what is going to happen...  I didn't.

So we made it to the school and I got a few odd looks and even a few comments inquiring if I was feeling alright.  I reassured everybody I was a little tired, but I'm ok.  Nobody even made a comment on why they were concerned, not even my friend.  So I walk into the bathroom to catch a perfect reflection of myself in the mirror directly in front of the opened door.  It was similar to this:

Just a little lighter and caked into my eyebrows and much closer to my eyes.  Nice huh?  The perfect day for a teenage girl, let me tell you.  Thankfully I had enough confidence that it didn't ruin me.  I got a good laugh out of it and did my best to fix my face.

Fortunate for me I haven't had an embarassing moment to top that one yet.  Maybe it's because I have had to become humble as a mother and can drive a vehicle with a sock on the window wiper and not consider it an emberassing moment??

October at the Park

Dustin played flag football on Saturday at the park and since we have a few extra kids this week we decided we'd go along with him and let them play outside.  It was a bit chilly at 9am in October, but the kids still had fun. 

The leaves were the best!  I love making a pile of leaves and laying in them or throwing them.  I especially love watching my kids do it.

It's such a blessing to live close to family and have my brother's cute girls stay with us.  They are good girls and great friends to my kids.  We love them and are grateful to have squeezed in one more park day before it snows.

Face Painting with Dad

Dustin's favorite part about feeding our kids rice cereal is the fact that he can paint their face with it and they don't care.  He always gets the biggest kick out of it.  With Ella it made me absoluley crazy, with Alissa I accepted the fact that it was kinda funny and with Molly I'm laughing along with them and snapping pictures. Strange how that happens.

Anyway, the other night Dustin decided he was in the mood for some face painting and since we don't have any rice cereal babies we pulled out the chocolate pudding.  Ella cried, Alissa jumped up and down and Molly just sat and ate all that we would feed her.

Ella decided it would be ok as long as she had a towel to immediatly wash herself up.

You can tell Alissa is enjoying every minute!! 

Oh boy!  We just love these kids.  Glad we can make some silly memories with them.

Kittysitting

My mom has stray cats that live outside her house and catch any mice that might think about entering.  She recently noticed a crying kitty outside the house that had goopy eyes and was freezing.  Being an animal lover and with much compassion she wiped the kitty's eyes, bought the her some milk and baby kitty food and went out of town! :)  We watched the kitty for the weekend for her to be sure it didn't die.

It had no issues.  My kids LOVED her to pieces and had fun being chased by a baby kitty.

Ella named her Bananas.

I was reminded why we don't have a pet. :)

Journal Junction - My Home

I started these posts in the very beginning of the year and am just now getting around to finishing them.

I thought it would be fun to answer the questions in the church magazine The Friend under Journal Junction.  So there will be a series of Journal Junction posts.

Write about where you live.  How many rooms does your home have?  What color is it?  Who else lives there?  Do you share a bedroom with a sibling?  What does your room look like?  Write about your favorite place to be at home.

Growing up my address was 1778 N 50th E.  I lived in a red brick home on the corner of the street.  We had 5 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.  My bedroom was always across the hall from my parents and my baby sister shared a room with me when she was born.  But eventually we all had our own rooms. 

My mom tried to help me decorate my bedroom to suit me and usually let me decorate however I wanted.  Before we replaced the wall paper in my room she let me draw all over the old wall paper.  I had friends write me notes or draw pictures all over my walls for a few months and it was awesome!  I probably would have just kept it like that, but my mom had some cute white picket fence wall paper all picked out for me.  My room was my sanctuary.  I had a desk and I would sit in there for hours just writing in my journal, writing letters, doing home work, talking on the phone, etc..  My parents SPOILED me rotten and let me get my own phone number to my bedroom so I wouldn't tie up the phone line at the house.  (I think that was the reason)  I used to talk for hours.  Boy ... they were pretty nice to do that.

When I got married, Dustin and I moved to a basement apartment which had 1 bedroom, 1 living room/kitchen and a bathroom.  It was perfect in every way for a young newly wed couple.  Mostly because it only cost us $300 a month to rent.  One of my favorite memories is having Dustin's nephews over for a "farewell" party for his nephew going on a mission and then a New Years Party with the same clan.  We lit fireworks in our back yard.  We decorated with a picture or two on the walls and glow stars on the ceiling. :)  Like I said, perfect for a young newly wed couple.

1 year later we moved to Logan where (with the help of my parents) we snagged a 5 year old mobile home.  I seriously do have THE BEST parents.  Our address was 668 N 500 W.  I fell in love with this house.  It had 2 bathrooms and 2 bedrooms.  The master bathroom was HUGE with a garden tub, 2 sinks and a separate room for the shower & toilet.  The walls were white and we painted the guest bathroom cream.  Many great memories were made there.  Some of my favorites were playing Settlers of Catan, Bang, Pictionary and Rummikub or watching movies and eating popcorn with our good friends Bob & Haley. 
This was one of the many snowmen Dustin built there.  He had a big CTR and shield carved into his chest and had a Santa hat.  One time he built one on the roof and another time when Ella was around we made a colored snowman with food coloring and water in a spray bottle.  He is a pro snowman builder!!

 I dumped cooking oil outside the back porch at that house on the iris plants thinking it would soak up??  Dustin accidentally dumped gasoline on my head and face in the back yard. I had multiple 80+ years old friends that I tried to visit regularly.  I  pushed an old push mower with no drive every week to mow our  lawn.  Ella had her first birthday.   Oh, I loved it!

Now we live in a 5 bedroom, 3 bathroom house at 3273 Skyview Dr.  My bedroom is cream and brown and we have a much smaller master bathroom.  Our house has rock on the outside and tile all throughout the inside with carpet in the bedrooms.  We have almost 1/2 acre so the kids have ample space to run and play.  We have a vegetable garden and I have a new pear tree.  I get tulips in the spring time and get to ride a riding lawn mower every week during the summer.  It is the house I dreamed I would one day have.  I think it is beautiful and I love it.  Numberless memories have been made here with our 3 sweet kiddos and endless more have yet to be made.  

Weekend in Nampa

It wasn't until Tuesday night that we realized Dustin was off on Friday, Ella had no school on Friday and Dustin's birthday was Sunday.  We talked over dinner about what we should do since this didn't happen all that often.  We decided we would try to go see Dustin's brother and sister in Nampa & Boise.

So Thursday Dustin headed to work out at the site and I packed us all up.  As I was packing we squeezed in a little play date with some friends at our house and helped the kids put on snow clothes to celebrate the first snow of the season.  (I was super sad for the snow!  NOT celebrating!)

Since Dustin works an hour out on the way to Boise I just told him to take an bus to Arco and I would pick him up there.  However, I didn't realize I would be driving on these crappy roads.  So just after passing the Lost River rest stop my wiper blade got filled with slush and was not wiping my window, just rubbing it all over.  So I reached out the window and grabbed my wiper blade and flicked it as I have done many times before.  I must have flicked it a little too hard because it went flying off the window and onto the side of the road.  It took seconds for me to realize I couldn't see out my window without the aid of a wiper blade so I quickly pulled over.   My plan was to change the blade from the passengers side and put it on the drivers side until I get to a store in Arco and get a new blade.  I have never changed a wiper blade in my life and have NO clue how to even attempt it.  So I call Dustin who is sleeping on the bus to Arco and can tell he is a little confused so I tell him I'll call my dad and call him back.  So Dad gets on the phone and tries to help guide me through changing my wiper blade.  All the while it is 35 degrees outside and snowing giant flakes all over me.  Every car that passes gives me a nice wet shower of dirty road slush... too bad I chose to wear my clogs with no socks and white pants.  Every time I got showered I could hear Ella in there giggling at me.  I would bet you would be laughing too.  Here is what I was looking like.  Beauty eh?  We were in Arco and I had taken off my wet coat and changed to my dry but thin jacket.

 Anyway, Dustin calls a few minutes later and finishes explaining to me how to remove the wiper blade and replace it on the other side.  We knew we couldn't leave the passengers side without a blade or it would scrape the windshield so Dustin had a genius idea to put a sock on it.  I didn't question one bit, just threw the dumb thing on there and got in the car. 

As soon as I got in the car I could not stop laughing.  It became HILARIOUS to me to watch this stinking sock wave back and forth accross my window.   I felt like the biggest redneck ever!  I brought along with me a book Small and Simple Things by Majorie Pay Hinckley and am always inspired by one of her quotes that kept coming to my mind:   "The only way to get through life is to laugh your way through it.  You either laugh or cry.  I prefer to laugh.  Crying gives me a headache." 

Pretty fun experience right there.  So we replaced the blade and got some food and then the tire pressure light was on so we found a gas station and filled up the tires with air.  A few hours later we had a close encouter with a deer in the middle of the road.  We were pretty dedicated dodging all those hurdles in getting to Nampa that night.

But, boy are we glad we did.  We had a great time staying with Pam & Alan!  My kids LOVE their kids and they had such a great time partying until they dropped each night in front of a movie.

(Look how big she is looking!)

Aren't they cute!  I just love these kids.  There are 2 more missing.

Friday afternoon my kids got SUPER lucky and dad agreed to take them to the famous Chuck E Cheese.  Even if their pizza is gross the kids love it and it's pretty inexpensive with their coupons.

Molly had a cow because the Chuck E Cheese robot was actually moving at the moment we took the picture.  She didn't want to be near him.

Saturday we went and watched Noah play flag football which was cute but hard to keep track of my kids in a big field.  After the game we had lunch at Golden Corral and got to watch Dustin squirm as the waitresses sang Happy Birthday!  :)  The kids enjoyed ice cream.. cotton candy.. chocolate fountain.. cupcakes.. soda

I absolutley LOVE this picture! Dustin's squinty face is so stinking cute!

So back at the house some neighbors came over, and friends came over, and family came over.  They are one busy household let me tell you what!  I thought that was one of the cutest things.  These 3 girls were sitting on the hood of this truck reading Junie B Jones.  Ella's always good to pose for a picture.

Grandma Beverly brought over these little puppies and Molly wasn't too much of a fan at first, but they obviously grew on her.  I wasn't expecting a french kiss or I wouldn't have let her go near that pup.

Here is the crash and burn at the end of the night.  The bigger kids all got to campout on the floor of the basement every night.  Ella loved it. 

Happy Birthday Dustin!!  Sunday was Dustin's 29th Birthday.  We celebrated by giving him a new Ipod touch and driving home from Boise. :)   

We sure do love him!