HALLOWEEN

I just need to get this out there. The wording is pretty strong and maybe I should cut back but I hate Halloween. Now I know any of you who knew me as a child are shocked right now and thinking I have finally taken that step over the edge of my life as you knew it and have turned into that grumpy adult we all avoided being around. Well I can tell you the good part first. I truly enjoyed walking around our neighborhood and seeing and talking to all of our neighbors. Most don't have small children any more and they were all thrilled to see little kids in costume. They were very kind to us and that was fun. I wish we could come up with more holidays where I could go around and talk to all of them. That said even as we were walking around I was thinking why are we doing this! We just went to our trunk-or-treat for our ward and now we are continuing to collect candy. Do we each need a bag full of candy, seriously?

To settle my nerves just a little(though I still think it is stupid that they are getting something for their candy) we have found a "good witch" who comes to our home Halloween night. So they get to pick out 20 pieces of candy (crazy amount still) and they leave the rest on our back step for the good witch. She in return leaves them a book. At least, so far that is what we have gotten. Everyone so far loves her and is excited to participate. If she ever gets uninvited to our house I don't know what we'll do. Someone just told me you can dry-pack can your candy and it stays fresh. Maybe that will me my next step.

I was focusing so much on not being late for the trunk-or-treat that I forgot to take a group shot before we left. So here are just some snap shots of the night to help you get a feel for it. Max knew exactly how this worked. Before we even left the house we took is little haunted house box (meg made it for him) to Daren and said, candy, sucker,sucker, sucker, sucker, sucker until Daren put something in is box. He thought it was the best day of his life. Every piece of candy that went into his box he had to take out and just handle for a minute. On the drive home he kept saying candy please candy please! So cute and he said please which is still getting ingrained in him so I have to give him the candy right? He still keeps finding the girls candy bags and getting into them.

My sweet Lizza put her candy in a bowl on Saturday because some of our cousins came over (both younger than her) and some neighbors and took it out to her "fort" she was building. Partly I think that is was got the little kids to come out and that is what kept them there but she can be so giving. So everyone ate her candy on Saturday and she hasn't complained as Meg and Abby keep pulling out little pieces to eat. Of course Meg has shared some of hers with Liz because that is what Meg does.

Abby was a vampire

Lizza was Gabriella from High School Musical. She insisted that she had to have a brown wig or nobody would know who she was. (Even though the dress says HSM) on the front.) So I got a very cheap on half off at Shopko. She wore it for maybe 5 minutes and then took it off. Oh well at least she felt good about her self right?

Meg was a lady bug

Max was our standard 18 month elephant that every child has been. But still cute.

CANDY!!!!!

Meg and her "best" friend Madison/strawberry shortcake

Max and his buddy Quinn

trick or treating our neighborhood.

Halloween is over and we are on to bigger and better things. We are going to Disneyland this month YAHOO! We are all excited and planning what we want to do. We have also started talking about what we are grateful for. We do have so much to be grateful for I hope I am teaching my children to see all the goodness around us and to have a grateful heart.

moving on

Now for the real updates.

We have had another great month. Soccer has finally come to an end YAHOO!!! It was fun, I think, but it is so nice not to have to hurry after school to get everything done before soccer. Both girls improved and say they want to play again. I ask; are you sure? I know I am a lazy mom but I do enjoy having them around and not running all over the place with them.

Yep they still played and actually it stopped raining just as they got there.

Lizza loved to run fast to get to the ball.

Next we started something new in our family we started a parents kid date night. I have been stewing over this for a few years but just couldn't' figure out the logistics of how to do it. So With Daren's job change and no travel and less hours I asked someone else about it. Now the person I asked I absolutely worship and seem to ask her something about parenting monthly. She said that dates with their kids was probably the number one most important thing they do with their kids. I am reading 5 love languages of children and in the beginning (which is where I am) he list the 5 languages. One was quality time and it hit me that my kids don't really have any quality time with me. If we are together alone I am running errands, cleaning the kitchen, or helping them do homework, even when I read to them I am usually directing someone else to get something donw. So very rarely do I just stop everything I'm doing and give them 100% of my attention. That obviously made me feel bad hence starting the dialog about date nights. So we have moved family home evening to Sunday nights and every Monday either Daren or I go with one of the girls (Max is still to young) on a date. We have a rotating schedule to follow to keep it fair and it gives the girls consistency and they know what to expect. We go for 1 1/2 hours and we can only spend $3. Also it has to be all about what the child wants to do. We don't' run errands or run really quick to Albertsons for milk. We are trying to show them we love them enough to give them our complete attention and time. Well we started with Meg and since she was the first she could choose which parent to go with. She picked Daren. All day she was so excited about the date. She kept telling me they were going to dress up in their nicest cloths, go get ice cream, and find someplace to just chit-chat all night. So when Daren got home from work she made him put on a tie and she picked out her "prettiest" dress and added jewelry and a shiny purse and off they went. Daren said she just talked the entire time about everything.

This past Monday was Lizza's and my turn. I was all excited because Liz is usually our play it up girl but it wasn't as climatic as Megs. We had fun and she was happy for sure. She chose to go to Boondocks which is a video arcade place where you earn tickets to get a prize. She was excited to go my complaint was that it was so loud we really couldn't talk to each other. After that we went to the library to read books. That was fun and she just snuggled up and helped me read. I am excited about doing these and if nothing else it takes away some of my guilt about no quality time.

Lastly Abby Finally got baptized! I cannot believe she is old enough for this. Driving to the church I was saying this is it. Now everything counts. I hope we have taught her well enough. She was so excited and nervous about the whole thing. It was great though. We had family come for the weekend, which was great and really made her feel good. I am proud of Abby. She is a good girl and I hope she stays that way. We are grateful to have her in our family.

I've been tagged

So I was tagged before we went to Tahoe and I just didn't get around to it until now. I took the pictures right after we got home and then never got to downloading and writing about it all so here it is.... A self portrait of me. Serious anyone have any tips on eyebrows? I cannot control mine. I have them professionally waxed every once in a while then I think I can do this myself and just follow their lines but after a while they get like this. Pictures of the outside and inside of my fridge. You never know what your going to find in there. I thought you all would enjoy a close up of Abby's cultures she was growing in our fridge!! Is that safe to mix dinner with science projects? the kitchen sink. My favorite room in the house? This one stumped me for days. I compromised and found the 2 I dislike the least. The family room because it is the most likely to be clean and my food storage room because I love having a place to store all the food and looking in there makes me happy (even though it's unorganized.) The bathroom (s). Funny thing the person we bought the house from considered this a selling point that the bathrooms were connected and we shared on bathtub/shower combo. Yeah real great. No Lizza is not going to the bathroom I have no idea what she is doing. My favorite shoes. If you've haven't caught onto me yet I am a white-meaning indecisive. I don't' know of very many things I have a definite favorite of. Laundry Room. Okay so this is a place no one ever goes into but me so it get no attention in way of cleaning. My mom has taught me to never show or admit this type of stuff in public and I am sure if she looks at this I will get a phone call. My closet. What are my kids up to? Who knows!! Actually Abby and Lizza are getting ready for bed which means being extremely loud, laughing, teasing, and running around the house until one of them cries. Meg is obviously helping me and Max is already sleeping. My dream vacation.. (remember the white) I think it would be a service trip to an orphanage with my family. Or to a tropical beach with Daren. 6 quirks about me 1. I just cannot let my kids unbuckle their seat belts. Even ride without a booster. Abby is 8 and I try every once in a while when I am taking Daren's car and only some of them, thinking we're just going around the corner less than a mile. Then I always stop in the drive way and switch the seats. I just can't do it. I would never be able to live with the guilt if something happened to them. 2. I cannot feed my children white bread. I don't know why again I've bought it before because they asked for it and I just can't make sandwiches with it. I think of the waste in eating something that has no value. It's does and it's fortified but I can't willing do it. 3. I pretty much drink hot cocoa every morning-even in the summer. I love chocolate and it's my quick and easy fix in the morning I suppose. 4. My pinkie toes basically have no toenail because they are such small toes. My sister has made fun of me my whole life because of it. She still just has to look at it when we see each other. 5. I love to read but once I am done with the book I rarely can tell you the author or even the complete title. 6. I take food with me where ever I go. I cannot leave the house with out a package of Ritz, pretzels, grapes, cheese sticks, craisins, etc. I am so afraid of being stranded somewhere and my kids being hungry. Finally this is off my back! I tag anyone who wants to play but you have to leave me a comment so I can go look at yours and not feel so exposed myself.

On our way up to the gondola Meg loved the bear waving at us.

Climbing aboard our ride. Some how Aaron and Stephanie with no kids ended up in one with 4 kids!

Ty-Ty loved the hike can't you tell.

After it was all said and done they could still smile. Doesn't that mean it was successful?

Tahoe take 2

Josh the baby of the fam was the music man. He did fantastic and was right on que.

Meg sitting with Jason and Tif. She had her ups and downs thru-out but she made it. But I love this picture of her little chubby face. She was so excited to see Stephanie and her beautiful dress.

The girls got to be flower girls. The weren't expecting it and they have told everyone since we got home about it. There were some petals left after they made it down the aisle. They kept them and brought them home. They thought it was fantastic.

Beautiful Abby. She loved these flowers behind her and specifically asked me to take a picture of here by them. Where is a solo picture of Lizza you may ask? She was busy following Stephanie around the entire day. If she couldn't be by her for some reason she was following her cousins Fisher and Tyler and round. She loved "taking care of them". They were good sports about it too. At the wedding they had put disposable cameras on the tables. So the kids all picked one up and started snapping pictures. On the one hand it was a life saver. We were having Hors d'oeuvres while Aaron and Stephanie were getting pictures taken and they were growing restless. On the other hand all I can say is sorry Aaron and Stephanie. I gave everyone the talk about these are to take pictures of the people at the wedding and they don't want to find pictures of the rocks, the chairs, your feet, the clouds, etc. They all nodded and agreed that it would be funner to see faces but then forgot apparently as soon as I released them.

Lake Tahoe!!!!

We had such a fun trip to Tahoe City, CA this past week. My brother Aaron got married there. He and Stephanie did a great job planning this all out and making it memorable for everyone. My parents rented a house for everyone to stay it. It was so great it even came stocked with polly pockets and books to read. What more could I ask for? The house was just a 100 yards from some trails that we managed to run on and hike on with Abby, Lizza, and Cousin McKenna to gather pine cones. It was great. We went on 2 other little hikes as well. Emerald Bay you'll see down below the other one we rode a gondola up the ski hill and hiked to a lake and back to the gondola to get back down the mountain. It was so fun to be out all together talking, singing, and joking around. My kids had a great time. Aaron and Stephanie joined us for that hike, which was above and beyond. They had to leave as soon as we were done to drive back to Hanford, CA. Elizabeth stuck to Stephanie like glue. she had to ride up with her and walk with her. They went ahead of us to get back to their car and she was pushing the whole way down to hurry up so she didn't miss Stephanie. I can't figure out how this post is going to work so things will be jumbled up. Below are random pictures I will explain under each but this post may end up being a few post long so good luck. We got out and walked around Donner's Pass memorial. You can't really tell how tall this is but up to where the people are (not counting them) is how deep the snow was! The place was about to close so we didn't do much more than walk to this monument and get a few pictures.

On the dock at Emerald Bay. We hiked down a mile to get to this bay area. All the kids did very well. The bummer was we had to hike up a mile to be done with the hike but everyone made it and I don't remember any crying either. Don't quote me on that one I am pretty good at blocking it out now a days.

Mandy, my sister, and I looking down on Emerald Bay.

Daren had a great hike! I don't think he had to do this for very long but still I wouldn't have even offered.

Birthdays!

We celebrated Daren and Abby's birthdays a few weeks ago and I just haven't had time to get anything posted about it. Now it's old news and all of you have heard about it so I will make this short. Abby tuned 8 and will be getting baptized October 25th. She missed the September baptism because we were in Lake Tahoe at my brothers wedding. It took a little bit of time to work through the angst of that but now she is good. She had a friend party this year which was actually very manageable. I haven't had to do a friend party for several years and I was a little worried about this. Every year I give them the option of doing a special family day where they are in charge or having a friend party. They have chosen the family thing in the past. But she has been talking about this friend birthday party for months. She invited 8 friends plus her sisters and She knew exactly what she wanted to do and it went really well. By this age they are still really sweet to each other and pliable i.e. happy to do what they are told because THERE AT A PARTY!!! We had pizza, played high school musical on the wii, played the candy bar game, painted magnets, decorated cupcakes, and opened presents. It was great. There was a point during it that I was sitting down thinking I have nothing to do right now...weird. It's Daren's day to so the girls all sang to him as well and I got him cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory. I planned ahead on their birthdays, at least better than Megs. So I am counting it as a success.