Happy Halloween!

I feel pretty lame this year. This is the first year we didn't make it to a single pumpkin patch. Usually we end up going to at least two different ones. This year, I am embarrassed to say, that we bought our pumpkins from Albertsons on Halloween! How lame is that?

There are so many cool pumpkin patches around here and we didn't make it to a single one this year. Oh well, I think it bugged me more than the girls.
Natalie carved her own pumpkin this year!

The girls couldn't wait to go trick or treating AGAIN. What we lacked in pumpkin patch outings, we more than made up for in trick or treating. I think the girls must have gone 5 times this year. I was glad to be getting their costumes on for the last time by the time Halloween came. In case you can't tell, Angela was a ghost, Natalie a witch and Sarah a rock star diva.

This year we went trick or treating with Sarah's best friend Monica and her family. Eva, her mom, and I are good friends and I enjoyed chatting with her as we walked around the neighborhood. We enjoyed perfect temperatures and had a lot of laughs. The highlight was when Juan, Eva's 11 year old son downright refused to go up to the house pictured below. It's hard to see, but there were three people dressed up on the porch saying "spooky" things. All of the children, including Juan's four year old sister, Jasmine, went up to get a treat anyway. Juan would have nothing to do with it no matter how much we teased him. He didn't care. Those people freaked him out. On the one hand, I thought it was funny he was so chicken. On the other, I was impressed that our teasing didn't bug him. Despite the peer pressure, he stuck to his guns and didn't care what we thought. (o:

Some of our neighbors are so fun and really get into the Halloween spirit! (o:

Sacajawea, not Pocahontas (Monica would correct everyone) got a little tired at the end. She and Sarah held hands and dramatically carried on about how tired they were and how exhausting all the trick or treating was. We just laughed as we pointed out the 4 year olds who were doing just fine and dandy.

They didn't know if they could make it back.

They leaned on each other for support.

For the last half of our trick or treating Lydia and Jacob joined us. It was lots of fun going trick or treating with friends!

When we got back, I enjoyed watching a U of U football game against Wyoming. They won 22-10. And look! I had a couple cheerleaders joining me! I think it was all the sugar. Usually, the girls just give me strange looks as I cheer my team on.

Cutest Spiders Ever

I saw this darling craft idea at Craft Warehouse and it ended up being so much fun! It was easy for all the girls to do and they had fun making several different versions of these spiders. Including Sarah's Princess Lea spider with buns in her hair. See the silver legged spider below.

These were fun greeters for our trick or treaters.

Fall in the Northwest

Fall here is beautiful. And it lasts a long time. The colors are amazing and I couldn't resist taking some shots as we cleaned up the beautiful, but messy leaves. In Oregon not only do you rake the leaves, but you also have to constantly sweep them out of the gutters. Because we get so much rain, we have to keep the gutters clear. Many mornings, after getting the girls on the bus, I'd grab the broom and sweep leaves out of the gutter that were blocking the drain. It creates huge pools of water amazingly fast if you don't keep up on it!

I have a hard time keeping Natalie out of flip flops no matter what the weather.

Halloween School Parties

I love to help at school when it's a holiday. I helped run this little ring toss game (below) for the first graders. Angela loved going around with Natalie to each of the stations. She's so ready to be at Patterson with her big sisters.

Sarah's class had a fun party with sweets and funny Halloween shirts her teacher and some other moms helped them make. The kids had a fun time signing each others shirts.

Mrs. Elliott has been a great teacher! We love her. And you want to know something totally crazy? We figured out that it was her husband that gave us Twilight our kitty at the Fall Festival last year!! Mrs. Elliott's cat, Peaches, is Twilight's mommy! There is talk of a reunion in the coming months! (o: How fun is that?

Trunk or Treat

Let's face it - the girls do not need one more opportunity to beg for candy. Between Disneyland trick or treating, Halloween parties, going to daddy's work trick or treating event, the actual trick or treating on Halloween and our ward trunk or treat - we got waaaaay more candy than three little girls could/should eat in a lifetime. But the ward trunk or treat is a fun tradition and I love to see all the cute little kids that we know dressed up so cute.

I am sad to report that this year I did not win the chili cookoff. I guess I can't be too greedy. I think my recipe has won three chili cook offs that I have entered, one that a friend entered my recipe in and one that a family member entered mine in. And I think it came close to winning in another friend's ward this year. (Did I remember that right Kim??) I think it is sooo funny that it is such a winning recipe because on the whole I do not consider myself a good cook at all. Maybe that's why I get so excited about my chili and chili cookoffs. It's my one specialty. (o: I think our bishopric would have voted for mine. The bishop seemed apologetic and said something about letting someone else win. Ah phooey, so we have to be Christian and good sports and let someone else share the spotlight? Bummer. I wanted to win! (o: Nah, just kidding, I don't really care. Well, not really....
Another tradition at the ward party - the carnival games hosted by the young women.
This year we did a cupcake walk, fishing pond, bowling, tattoo parlor and bean bag toss. The kids love these simple games and get so excited about it all. These rubber duckies (like the one Sarah is holding above) dressed in Halloween costumes were a big hit.

Kelly and Kelly or Phantom and Christine. What good sports. We have a few adults in the ward who dress up too - I love it! Maybe I will one of these days, but between making chili, getting the girls ready and making sure the carnival games are ready to go, I am lucky to just be dressed at all! (o:

Preschool Fun

Here's a cute picture of Angela and her fellow classmates on their Halloween party day. (o: Angela is the Minnie ghost in front - you can't see her because she's invisible.
Another cute picture I thought I'd include. The girls were very proud of this tower they built and asked me to get a picture.

Cutie Loo

Here's a couple of cute pictures of Angela in October. . .

Above, Angela making her skeleton dance on a necklace from grandpa P.
Loo was so excited to take her first gymnastics class from a good friend of mine down the street. Angela LOVES going to Rebecca's house and doing 'tricks'. Rebecca said that during classes she would just giggle with excitement and joy the whole time! She does not stop smiling the whole time!

Homecoming Princesses

Aren't they beautiful? Inside and out.

Sarah and Lizzy are sisters and best friends. I hope my girls are good buddies like these two when they are teenagers. And I hope my girls are as sweet and fun. One of the things I consider a huge blessing about being in young women's is that my little girls get to rub shoulders with the teenage girls I work with in church. They look up to my young women and want to be like them. They love having any of them come over for a visit or to babysit. They think it is funny that I have a "big" Sarah and a "big" Natalie" in young women's.

I would be so proud if my own girls turned out like the girls I get to be with at church. So I hope the fun, sweet, kind and hard working qualities I see in my young women rub off on and inspire my own little girls.

Another fun thing about my young women, like Sarah and Lizzy, is that I consider them my good friends, not just girls I happen to be a leader over. I really enjoy being around them and will always be their friends even when they graduate and move on. They are so sweet and actually consider me a friend as well. I appreciate that they don't just see me as an old lady that bosses them around. (o: Sarah and Lizzy often come to visit me when they have time. They even took the time to come and show me their beautiful dresses and hair on their way to the homecoming dance at school. That meant so much to me. Not only are they kind to me, but they are sweet to my girls, they visit some of the elderly people in the ward and genuinely love them, they are very ambitious and do great in school and they make good choices despite all the yucky things going on around them at school. I am proud of the way they are leading their lives already. They are going to do great things in life.

I am grateful for the high standards upheld by our church and that we try to live. (We are far from perfect, but we try.) I have seen first hand the wonderful results that can happen in teenager's lives if they catch the spirit of those high standards and live them with faith that they will be blessed for their strength. These girls know who they are and have a confidence that is rare in teen years. So many of the teenagers that surround them struggle with problems that come from poor choices - low self-esteem, relationship drama, pregnancy, selfishness, drug use, laziness and basically putting a HUGE emphasis on trying to fit in and impress their peers to make them feel important.

And the cool thing is that, just because many of my young women are genuinely good and aren't trying to impress everyone else - doesn't mean that they don't have a lot of friends. They are leaders and people are drawn to them. They are FUN and do crazy and funny things. They are definitely not boring. I feel honored to get to work with such great girls and hope that their awesome qualities will be passed on to my little girls.

Sarah's Prank Party

Look at all these cute girls. Sarah has such great friends. However, when you get 14 of them together (plus Nat and Angela) it's a little chaotic! But we had fun. (o: We had (from the bottom) Eliza, Sarah, Jensen, Phoenix, Monica, Mallory, Jenna, Alaina, Taylor, Hannah, Alisa, Eaden, Madeline, Natalie and Angela and Brianna came later. Sarah's so lucky to have so many good friends. I really like every single one of them.
And here was our big "Ta Da" prank cupcakes. I was so excited they turned out so good!
And they really tasted yummy too. The meatballs were cocoa pebbles made like Rice Krispie treats. My good friend Shannan let me use her nice frosting piping tools to make the frosting look like spaghetti. The red sauce was strawberry freezer jam and the Parmesan was grated white chocolate! I got this from my Cupcake! cookbook. The girls thought this was hilarious and some thought it looked so believable, they were hesitant or didn't eat the cupcakes at all!
Some other pranks that night were - handing out unsolvable mazes when they first arrived. Playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey and then declaring the winner, the one farthest away from the rump, eating gummy bugs, sending home a field trip permission form for a trip to outer space (a prank the kids could play on their parents when they got home). Sarah even set up a few pranks around the house, like putting a scrap of toilet paper in the toilet that had BOO! written in permanent marker. We put a Happy Easter sign on the door and other silly out of place decorations. It was a pretty fun theme to go with.

I got some pretty funny expressions from the girls as we played a funny prank-is game. I put gross feeling food items in paper sacks and had them try to guess which yucky ingredient it was for my Halloween brew. There were ears of newt (dried apricots), slug slime (cornstarch and water goo), eyeballs (peeled grapes), etc. This was a huge hit and pretty entertaining to watch the girls gross out as they very cautiously put their hand in the sacks. When Angela saw all their reactions she flat out refused to stick her hand in! (o:

Sarah wearing her silly glasses in an even sillier fashion.

I was so proud of Sarah for thinking of sweet Brianna when making her birthday invitations. This was totally Sarah, without any nudging from me. Brianna is in Sarah's primary class at church. She has autism, which was something Sarah wasn't very familiar with before she met Brianna a couple years ago. She now knows that just because Brianna can't communicate the same way as her doesn't mean that Sarah can't say hi or do nice things for her. She understands that when she says hi to Brianna at school, Brianna might not say hi back, but that it still makes her feel happy. I think Brianna had a fun time at the party. She loved wearing this funny headband that I let her borrow and looking at herself in the mirror. And she LOVED playing with the whoopee cushion that the girls each got for party favors along with wax mustaches and other silly things.

What a cutie. (o:

Party animals. I think Mo* had them dancing around after the Mad Gab game. He's always the life of the party!

Alaina is always so cute with Angela.

Notice the "4" candle on the cake. The pranks we thought of were endless... (o:

Mallory really got into the "prank" theme and put her present in this big huge box. Inside at the very bottom was a little envelope with some money. (o: This was so hilarious to all the girls and a very creative prank idea. And ironically, the box itself ended up being a big hit. Natalie and Angela were inside the box with crayons and decorating the inside it before the party was even over. That box was entertaining for the girls for days after. (o:

I think Sarah had a good time. I was totally exhausted at the end of that night after the OMSI field trip, violin lessons and the party with 15 girls running around. Sarah, if this isn't evidence that you are loved, I don't know what is. (o: Happy Birthday sweetie.

A close up of one of the cupcakes. Pretty funny eh?