Halloween 2011

Today started off bright and early getting kids dressed in their costumes for school. I sent Ethan and Tyra off, and then I got Jeremy and the little girls all dressed up so that we could go down to the school. Right after B track started the parade was scheduled to start, so we waited in the kindergarten yard for the bell to ring, and then I took the little girls inside to find a seat to wait for the parade to start.

Every year that I’ve gone to see the Halloween parade, I think I’ve got a good seat in the big entrance hall, but then all the people that come in late, just kind of come in and stand in front of everyone that was there early. So it ends up being hard for me to see and take pictures of the parade, and if it’s hard for me to see, it’s pretty near impossible for my little kiddos to see their siblings. This year, however, the school got smart. They decided to set up chairs in the gym in such a way that every person had a front row seat. Then when the parade came through they just wove up and down the rows of chair. It was great!

Before the parade started Dinah asked me if we would see Ethan, Tyra AND Jeremy. I said “Yes, I hope so.” Which ends up being a funny thing. Tyra’s class was the first of my kiddos classes to come through, but notice how Tyra’s teacher, Mrs. Gustafson, is looking behind her (I find out why in a minute).

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Only half of Tyra’s class ended up passing us, and I was starting to get concerned that my daughter wasn’t with her class like she should be. So I started looking all over the place for her. She ended up leading the half of the class that was behind her, a different way and they caught up with the rest of the class in the row behind mine. So Dinah and Chloe didn’t see Tyra. Stinker, I just told Dinah that we would see them all, and THAT is why Mrs Gustafson was looking behind her looking like something wasn’t right! After school when we were all in the car heading to Kyle’s work Tyra cried that I wasn’t there. I had to tell her that I WAS there, but since she had gone the wrong way she ended up NOT passing me. She was kind of surprised to hear that. We did see Ethan and Jeremy when their classes came by, so that was good. ๐Ÿ™‚ Ethan’s teacher was dressed as a baby, and Jeremy’s teacher was dressed up as ‘Fancy Nancy’.

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After school got out, we got to go into town to trick-or-treat at Symantec, where Kyle works. The kids love trick-or-treating at daddy’s work, and they look forward to it every year. This year I’m grateful that Halloween is on Monday which is ‘early out day’ for the school, so we were able to leave earlier and be at Symantec right when trick-or-treating time started.

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Isn’t Lydia such a cute Tenderheart Bear? My mom made this costume when Jenny and I were little. Of course this is the one Jenny wore and mom can’t find the Friend Bear costume that she made for me to wear. Oh well, at least almost every one of my kids has worn this one. ๐Ÿ™‚

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Here is a picture of all the kids when we were done at Symantec:

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Tyra the kitty cat, Dinah the furry lion, Lydia the sweet care bear, Chloe the witch, Jeremy the pumpkin, and Ethan the ย kangaroo. Tyra, Dinah, Jeremy and Ethan’s costumes were additions to our collection this year. We got them at DI for a few dollars apiece. I LOVE that Ethan used his pouch to hold his pumpkin. That was totally awesome!

Then we came home to pass out candy to trick or treaters in the neighborhood. Kyle ordered and picked up pizza on his way home. But when he got home rather than having everyone sit down to eat, Kyle decided to just take the kids around the neighborhood to show off their costumes. Lydia was SO done, so she stayed home with me to pass out candy and clean house. When Kyle and the kiddos came back, we ate. And I noticed that Chloe was missing her cape. It must have fallen off somewhere, and Kyle didn’t notice. I’m so bummed that now we have an incomplete costume. Other than that we had a great day.

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Pumpkins

We went to WinCo yesterday to let the kids pick out their pumpkins, and Kyle thought it would be nice to do the grocery shopping there as well. Halfway there Kyle realized he didn’t have his wallet, and wanted to know if I had mine, of course I did. So we kept going. The kids had a great time picking out their pumpkins, and the pumpkins were on sale nice and cheap.

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Some of the kids changed their minds a few times before settling their minds. As you see, Dinah is carrying an orange pumpkin, she ends up picking a white pumpkin and this orange one became Lydia’s. ๐Ÿ™‚

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Jeremy climbed on top to get closer to all the pumpkins so he could better choose.

We decided that we either needed to carve our pumpkins tonight or it just wasn’t going to happen. There are a ton of things planned for tomorrow, so there just won’t be time to get the pumpkins done and out on the porch. So here are all the kiddos waiting to get started with their pumpkins:

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The girls pumpkins were all easy because they picked the potato head sets. So we had Tyra, Dinah, and Chloe’s pumpkins all done in less than 10 minutes. The boys, however, wanted to CARVE their pumpkins.

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I don’t know how Jeremy escaped without having a picture taken with his finished pumpkin. And the zucchini clown was Kyle’s idea. ๐Ÿ˜‰

Happy Birthday to ME!

This year I turned 29 years old. My sister, Jennifer, texted me saying “Happy Birthday! Happy Birthday! Happy Birthday! Happy Birthday! Happy Birthday!” a bunch of times. Then she said “Happy Birthday x30!” Then she realized her mistake and said “You’re only 29!! Haha…Happy 29th!” That was pretty funny. ๐Ÿ™‚

I knew we were going to be out of town this past weekend, so I sent Kyle to take the kids to buy me a birthday present a couple of weeks ago. I told him what to get so that he wouldn’t let the kids pick out something lame, and so that when the kids that can’t keep a secret ended up telling me anyways it wouldn’t ruin the surprise (because I already knew what it was anyways!). So they went and got me a scripture case. I got to open my present last night and Kyle had added to it to make it a bit of a surprise. I opened the bag to find the scripture case, but there was something in it. So I opened that next and there were a couple of Twix candy bars. Then I noticed that there was something else in the gift bag as well and so I pulled it outย  and opened it and it was Lego Harry Potter for the wii. I actually knew this was in the house so it wasn’t a complete surprise for me, but it was a total surprise to a certain blue eyed boy of mine (namely ETHAN).

After I finished opening the presents we sent the kids to the table for cake. I didn’t feel like making myself a cake today, so I asked Kyle to pick up a cheesecake from the store and a can of blueberry pie filling to top it with. It was yummy. ๐Ÿ™‚ So it was a nice simple day.

Temple Hopping

Sunday morning we woke up and started getting all of the kids dressed and the stuff packed up and loaded up in the van. Laurel attended a nearby sacrament meeting, but I hadn’t packed anything to wear to a church so we just stayed at the house and got our stuff ready. The Adam’s made us breakfast once again, this time hashed browns with crumbled bacon and scrambled eggs, topped with cheese. They like to call this “Idaho Scrambles”. It was very good and kind of reminded me of our own cheesy potatoes with sauteed onions.

Our plans for today were to hit a bunch of temples on the way home. Not to literally “hit” them but to stop and see as many temples as we felt like we wanted to see and had time to stop and see. First up was the Rexburg, Idaho temple since it was right around the corner from where the Adam’s live.

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We didn’t get out of the car to walk around the grounds since we had JUST gotten in the car. But the kids were still excited to see it. ๐Ÿ™‚

Next up was the Idaho Falls, Idaho temple:

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Dinah and Chloe were asleep when we got to the Idaho Falls temple so only the older kids got to go into the visitor center. Dinah was mad when she woke up to find us stopped and the others were out of the car. We still didn’t take her in though, she was way too cranky for me to want to deal with her inside.

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We saw this cute sign on our way back to the temple and I just had to take a picture. ๐Ÿ™‚

Next we went to Brigham City, Utah. The city itself was such a cute place. I LOVED the city hall buildingย  (maybe we’ll have to visit that place again during the summer and get a picture of it). The Brigham City temple is being built right across the street from the Tabernacle there:

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The Tabernacle is such a lovely building. The kids had a great time running up and down that long walk to get their wiggles out. The sign out front says they do tours in the summer time so we’ll definitely need to go back. And here is the temple:
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Lastly, we stopped to see the Ogden, Utah temple. I didn’t notice the church’s website listing this one as being under construction so that kind of caught me by surprise. We couldn’t really see any of the temple so we parked on the street behind it and took a picture through the fence:

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So that is the backside of the Ogden temple under construction. And that concluded our weekend trip to the north. There were several other temples that we could have stopped at, but it was getting late in the afternoon and we really wanted to get home at a reasonable hour so the kids would be able to wake up for school the next day. ๐Ÿ™‚