Fun in the LEAVES!

Every year when it comes time to rake up leaves, you can find me and whichever boys I can convince to come help me, raking them into HUGE piles! It’s a lot of work to rake them up, but even more work to gather them all up and put them into bags. I don’t know that I like that part so much, so I put it off as long as I can...and enjoy the leaves as much as possible in the meantime!

We usually make the boys a leaf house out of the leaves under the walnut tree, just like the leaf houses that I used to make when I was a little girl. The boys like that, but they really like it when we rake as many leaves as we possibly can into a pile at the bottom of the slippery slide...so they can slide down into them and disappear! That’s always lots of fun to watch! My favorite part though is taking pictures of the boys in the leaves, which I’m sure no one would have ever guessed. I started when Hayden was just a baby and I’ve done it every year since...and I’ll probably be doing it for as many years as they’ll continue to let me!

This year Hayden was a huge help raking the leaves and he even raked them up into designated piles…one for the slide, one for pictures and one for their leaf house! We never did get around to making the leaf house this year because the leaves fell later than usual because it was so unusually warm for so long and with the threat of snow, I wasn’t about to leave them on the ground to get wet. We also didn’t have as many leaves for pictures as we usually do because our neighbor decided to cut off most of the limbs on the trees that usually drop all the leaves. You’d think we would have been excited not to have as many leaves to rake, and I kind of was, but it made it harder to get good pictures...but we did our best!

Announcement! Announcement! Announcement!

I know you’d never be able to tell from this picture…but Jon and Brittney are engaged!

Tonight Rod and I had to go to a youth devotional for Laurels Conference and AP Camp called “A Night To Remember” and so we invited Jon and Brittney to come “sit with the kids” while we were gone. We also invited them to dinner afterwards, so their “visit” wasn’t without a reward. What we didn’t know was that they were going to make their big announcement tonight!

Jon and Brittney showed up after Rod had left for his meeting and I was already at meetings, so neither of us saw them until we got home from our devotional. As soon as they got here, they told the little boys that they were going to get married and you know what their reaction was? Hayden just laughed! He didn’t believe them and no matter what they said, he was still pretty skeptical.

I guess Jon and Brittney must have told the boys not to say anything because normally with news like that, they would have spilled the beans as soon as we walked in the door. Instead, all during dinner, Hayden kept looking at Brittney and laughing. I thought it was a little strange but as long as Hayden wasn’t disrupting dinner or annoying us any more than he usually does, I didn’t feel inclined to ask questions. I guess I should have though!

Finally when we got done eating, Jon sat back and said “well, you know Brittney and I have been dating for a whole year now…” and then he went ahead and told us that they had decided to get married. I guess I should have expected it would happen sooner or later, but it definitely wasn’t something I was expecting tonight. We’re all excited though…and especially the two of them! They have set their date for March 18^th and they’re going to get married in the Ogden Temple. I’ve always wanted a daughter and it looks like I’m finally going to get one!

Aargh Mateys!

"All Pirates Beware and Be Warned…if your mom makes your costume one year and it still fits the next year…that’s what you’ll be for Halloween AGAIN!”

Even with that warning, the boys didn’t seem to mind being pirates for the second year in a row...and they were just as cute the second time as they were the first! In fact, they obviously know how the “costume rotation” works in this house because they didn’t even entertain the thought of being anything other than pirates...and I was glad! I guess I could have tried to talk them into being Earthworm Jim or Freakazoid, both of which we had costumes for because those were the things that Chris requested to be (and I had made) when he was 9 and 10 years old. It just probably wouldn’t have been any fun for them to be someone that they don’t even know...nor would anyone else (but Chris) for that matter!

With Halloween being on a Sunday this year, that meant we had to celebrate beforehand...so it turned into a weekend of celebrating! On Thursday, both kids had their class Halloween parties, on Friday night we had our ward party, which included a carnival, a hay ride (which Rod was giving with his 4 wheeler hauling the wagon) and trunk or treating, then on Saturday night, we did our normal trick or treating. I really hoped the boys would get enough candy at the trunk or treat so that we wouldn’t have to go out on Saturday night too, but they ended up having to share a bag and so they only got enough candy for one person. Needless to say, we ended up going out on Saturday night too!Hayden at his class party

Connor and his "matey", Zachary Gates

Our normal trick or treating tradition that we’ve done for probably 9 years now is to start at the Chatelains for a picture of the boys with Millie. Then we trick or treat in their neighborhood, which is the subdivision behind where we live and then come home. Of course, Rod doesn’t like to go out at all, so he opts to stay home and give out candy while we’re gone....but as soon as we leave he turns out all of the lights and goes into our room to watch TV, so how many trick or treaters do you think he really gets?

This year we decided to break tradition...much to Rod’s chagrin! To begin with, it rained most of the afternoon, so we weren’t even sure that we’d get to go at all. Then when it stopped raining just before 6:00, the Hedins called and wanted us to come go with them…and pull the trailer (that we used for the party last night) for the kids to ride on as we went! We’d already had to unload the hay earlier in the day because of the rain, so all we had was the trailer and Rod really didn’t want to go, but he came anyway!

The Hedins took their 17 year old special needs son, Mason trick or treating with us and he added a whole new dimension to trick or treating. First of all, we had a hard time getting him to go to the door with the kids, then once we got him there, we had a hard time getting him to move on. Eventually, the kids got on the trailer to get a ride around the corner to the next house...and then we couldn’t get Mason to leave the trailer alone. He either wanted to ride on it or when he wasn’t riding, he’d run behind it with his bucket of candy banging at his side as he ran. It was an interesting way to trick or treat!

We went all the way around their block and when we got back to the Hedin’s, we left them and went to trick or treat in another subdivision in our ward where we heard you could get “big candybars” at one of the houses. We weren’t sure exactly which house though, so we had Rod drop us off and we went up and down the whole neighborhood and never did find the house that gave out big candybars...but we lost Rod!

Eventually we dropped off Rod and went back to get our picture at the Chatelains, but we almost didn’t even get that because they weren’t answering their door. However, when they didn’t answer the first time, we decided to go trick or treating along their street and found someone that was giving out “big candybars”, so maybe it was a good thing the Chatelains hadn’t answered their door?! We stopped at their house one last time before we went home and this time we could hear them inside so we weren’t going away until they answered the door...and they finally did!

The boys and all of their "loot"

While I wouldn’t want to drag out Halloween like that every year, we sure had a good time this year!

Pumpkin Masterpieces

When the word “Halloween” is mentioned all sorts of things come to my mind…witches, ghosts, mummies, Frankenstein, trick or treating and of course, pumpkins! However, when I think of pumpkins, I may envision them as being the “carved” sort, but in reality, that has never been a part of my Halloween festivities because quite honestly, I don’t like all of the work and the mess involved. So up until this year, I’ve been completely content having solid, uncarved pumpkins adorn my front porch as a cute Halloween decoration...and by not carving them, they can still be used as a Thanksgiving decoration too. I’m all about getting my money’s worth! Well, this year that all changed!

For some reason, the little boys decided that they needed to carve a pumpkin for Halloween…and not only one pumpkin, they decided that they each needed to carve their own! I wasn’t too excited about the prospect and I really tried to talk them out of it but at the same time, I purchased the biggest, cheapest pumpkins we could find just in case my “talking” didn’t work.Getting ready to carve pumpkins

I made the boys wait until the week just before Halloween to do any carving so that the pumpkins wouldn’t get moldy and wilty before Halloween was even here...and by doing that, I really hoped they might forget, but they didn’t! On Friday afternoon they reminded me that Halloween was in only 2 days and if we were going to enjoy the pumpkins and be able to light them, we needed to get them carved.

As much as I didn’t want to carve pumpkins, the boys had won and after much begging, they even talked me into buying the “special carving kit” that promised to be “safer than the normal kitchen knife”. It was also cheaper looking and I didn’t really think it would last longer than this year, so I really had reservations about spending $4 on something cheap like that...but I gave in! Just in case you’re wondering, they really did work better than the kitchen knife, but they also broke just like I thought they would.

Rod was afraid we'd lose a finger cutting the tops off of the pumpkins...so he did it for us!

A pure look of determination...notice the tongue sticking out!

You want me to do what?

I want to be just like my big brother...and stick out my tongue!

With that much concentration, these pumpkins are going to be masterpieces!

I tried to let the boys do as much of the “carving” as possible, but wouldn’t you know it? They hated the seeds and gunk inside the pumpkin worse than I did...so they made me clean the pumpkins out! YUCK! The next step was to draw the faces on the pumpkins and I gladly sat back and let the boys do that…until I saw that they needed “help”, so I convinced them to let me help them just draw the face, but I promised that I’d let them do all of the cutting. That worked out great as well...until the boys started to struggle with the cutting and then I ended up doing most of that too. Who’s project was this anyway?

As it turned out, as much as I complained and would have preferred to avoid this project altogether, by the time we got done with the pumpkins the boys had done a great job, Rod had come out and helped us a little, and we all had had a good time...even me! Maybe we’ll do it again next year...but no promises!Connor's masterpieceHayden's masterpiece

The Colors of Fall

Who said we needed to go camping this weekend to have fun? We found plenty of things to do to keep us busy...and all of them were equally, if not more fun than camping would have been! Even though I kept telling myself that, I couldn’t help but think that it would have been a wonderful weekend to be camping down south because the weather was perfect!

After going to The Living Planet Aquarium yesterday with Jan and her kids, Rod decided that we were having too much fun without him, so he took today off and we went 4 wheeling. Rod gave us the choice of going to Temple Fork in Logan Canyon or Tibble Fork in American Fork Canyon and since I had never been to Tibble Fork, that’s where I chose to go...and it was the perfect choice!

It took us nearly an hour to get there but as soon as we got off the freeway and started up the canyon, it was all worth it because the trees were changing colors and everything was so beautiful! We rode the 4 wheelers up to Tibble Fork Reservoir and to Silver Lake and although the ride was a little rocky at times, it wasn’t a hard ride and it was gorgeous! We had to contend with a few vehicles and other 4 wheelers but most of the time we felt like we were all alone.

About an hour into our ride, we got up to a point where we could go no further because it was gated off so we turned around and headed back down just far enough to find a place to eat the lunch that we had packed and we stopped and had a picnic. We were up so high on the mountain at that point that it was actually a little cool and most of the trees surrounding us had already lost their leaves, but the mixture of the green pine trees and the yellow leaves on the alpine trees that we could see below us was absolutely breathtaking!

When we reached Silver Lake on our way back down the mountain, we decided to take another break so we stopped to let the boys play for a while. Almost immediately, they found a great big flat rock that they could easily climb up on from one side of the rock, but on the other side it was a big drop off to the ground and luckily they were wise enough not to get too close to that edge. It was the perfect backdrop for pictures though, and since I had my camera with me I just had to take some pictures.

After we got done with our ride, I talked Rod into going home via the Alpine Loop because I knew it would be absolutely gorgeous. I was a little worried about how narrow the road was and that we were pulling 4 wheelers behind us, but he didn’t seem to think it would be a problem. And he was right…it wasn’t a problem as long as we pulled off or stopped everytime a car wanted to pass us going the other direction...and that happened to be about every few minutes. It was a beautiful ride just like I had thought it would be, but I don’t think Rod was able to enjoy it for even a minute and I soon regretted even asking him to take us that way. I guess we’ll know better next time won’t we?

We went back home through Heber and by that time it was getting close to dinnertime so Rod suggested that we stop at Taggart’s Grill since we were going to be driving right by it. My first thought was that we were all a dirty mess and I had helmet head, but on the other hand, did that really matter? I decided that since it’s not often that we get up that way and it was still a little early for the dinner crowd, so just maybe we wouldn’t see too many people. It’s always worth it to eat there because the food is so good...and of course, they have an amazing Chocolate Mousse Cake, which is really the reason I like to eat there anyway!

Overall it was a wonderful day and I’m glad that Rod thought of it, but best of all…I’m glad he took the day off just to be with us!

Schools Out for UEA...Now What?

It pretty much goes without saying…the boys and I LOVE to go camping…and Rod usually likes it too as long as we plan ahead! Normally we try to take advantage of any opportunity we can find to take as many family vacations as we can fit in during the year, but for some reason, this year we kind of lacked in the vacation department! I’m not sure why that was, whether it was that Rod and I were too busy or whether it was lack of planning or if it was just the fact that none of us would make any decisions as to what we wanted to do...but whatever it was, we only eeked out two vacations this summer and neither of them were very long, although they were both lots of fun.

Because of the lack of vacationing this summer, when October and UEA weekend rolled around, we were intent on taking one last camping trip for the year and we were even going to take Jan and her family along. Unfortunately, once again, none of us would make any decisions as to where or when we wanted to go and once we finally decided to go to Moab, there was nothing available. So our hopes of going camping one more time this year were pretty much dashed. UEA week still came though and we had to do something besides just sitting around, so Jan and I decided to take our kids to the Living Planet Aquarium in Salt Lake.

Jan and all of the kids had already been to the aquarium before, but I hadn’t, so it was fun for me to see all of the sealife exhibits…and I think the kids liked it too, even though they’d seen them before! It actually wasn’t too busy at the aquarium, which surprised us a little since all of the kids in Utah were out of school, but we didn’t complain because it was nice not to have to fight to see all of the exhibits and we got to stand right next to the stingray pool and pet them as they swam by...but none of us really wanted to, least of all the kids!

The stingray exhibit...no one would pet them though!

Hayden just loved being with Carli

The little boys at the shark tank

My favorite exhibit was the penguins...and it was probably the busiest of all of the exhibits, so obviously it was everyone else’s favorite too! I loved to watch the penguins swim back and forth in front of us and then suddenly stop and jump straight up onto the ledge. They were cute!

After we saw the last of the exhibits, we had to go through the aquarium’s store in order to leave, which of course, was by design! They had all sorts of stuffed animals and various other sealife toys that were cute and fun...and the kids desperately wanted everything they saw! It would have been nice to just bypass the store altogether but since that wasn’t an option, we decided to take pictures of the kids with some of the cute toys...and let the pictures be their souvenir! Then just as we were ready to leave, the boys spotted the penny smashing machine and our souvenir dilemma was solved! It only cost us $1.02 and both boys were completely happy with their smashed pennies. I love those machines!

Look at all of the cute penguins...and kids of course!

Paige preferred the ladybug over the penguins

Going to the aquarium may not have been the camping trip that we had all hoped for, but it was definitely cheaper than going camping and a lot more fun than staying home…and I still got to spend some time with Jan and the kids got to spend time with their cousins! What more could we ask for?

Skookie and Conference Anyone?

Can I just say I LOVE CONFERENCE? I love the fact that you get to sleep in, relax all day, eat whatever you want, stay in your pajamas until noon (or longer), and just sit back and enjoy hearing all of the wonderful talks...and then ponder on how you can be just a little better!

After hearing all of the talks, my goal is to do like President Monson suggested, focus more on the things I have to be grateful for and less on the negative things in my life. Somedays that will be a challenge, but one that I look forward to. I also loved this thought that he shared...

"To express gratitude is gracious and honorable, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live with gratitude ever in our hearts is to touch heaven."

The boys loved the weekend too! Their favorite part had to be playing Conference Bingo with whatever candy we could find...and then they'd eat more of the candy than they ever used on their cards! We started out using mini marshmellows because that's all I had, but then after they ate a whole bag of those during just one session, we had to find something else! We ended up going to the store between sessions so I got some Skittles for their game, but I made them ration those out so that they'd last until the end of conference on Sunday.

Usually Rod's favorite part of conference is going to the Priesthood session on Saturday night and then out to eat with one or more of the boys...and since we have 5 boys, that should be an easy thing to do, right? Not so! This year, even with the promise of dinner, he couldn't get one taker! He almost got Jon to go with him but only because he and Brittney got in a car accident on Saturday afternoon and he was excused from work. Luckily, they weren't hurt but they were both sore and when it came time to go to Priesthood, Jon wasn't feeling all that great, so he didn't go after all. Rod still went but he had to eat dinner at home and I think he was a little sad that he didn't get to share the night with one of his boys. In only 3 years, Hayden will be old enough to go with him and then he won't be alone anymore for a long time.

While Rod was gone to his meeting, the boys and I decided to make a Skookie. What exactly is a skookie? It is a chocolate chip cookie baked in a small skillet! We waited to bake them until it was time for Rod to come home so we could eat them hot out of the oven with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce as soon as he got home...and then he was late coming home! He had been invited to go out for ice cream with the bishop and his son after the meeting, so when he didn't come, we just ate our skookie without him! It was yummy!

This is a SKOOKIE!

Can we start eating?

Sunday was equally as fun. The boys played Bingo, I worked on my scrapbook and Rod...well he just hung out more than he usually hangs out and enjoyed conference along with the rest of us. Afterwards we were invited to Rod's parents house for dinner with the little boys and Jon and Brittney. It was the perfect way to end a perfect weekend!