Halloween Parade Day

AK & I both hit the BH Halloween parade. Since out camera is out...thanks to Kat (who was wearing an awesome mullet wig, I should have taken her picture). Here is the solo Halloween picture for today. Hopefully we'll scrounge up a few more pictures so you can see our kitty and vampire. Owen is the Power Ranger on the far right, with his very good buddies, D, and twins R & M.

I am looking for snow shoes. Kids and Adult sizes. Anyone got them and want to sell them or if you see them on sale somewhere... Pray for snow.

Oh, I am also hoping for the Burley ski kit attachment for Christmas. If anyone happens to have the ski kit??? We've got the Burley (and love it, P & I have almost been on a bike ride everyday!!!) Come join me.

Halloween Carnival

The Halloween festivities continue...and still no pictures! So we had a 1 year old birthday party and the Halloween Carnival tonight, at the last minute I sent Andy to the party with the 2 little ones, and I headed off for the Carnival with H, since I was feeling a little guilty for having not done one little iota of a thing for our biggest PTA fundraiser (and I am co-President). Well, chalking it up to fantastic parents, whom I know are far better qualified, deserving, and dedicated to lead, the Carnival was a fantastic success. I got to woman the punch and water and count the moolah, which I have loved to do since I was a wee little lamb. We made almost $500 more than any previous year, and we had an awesome taco-cart-bar which was sooooo good and spicy, and quite a hit. H was dracula complete with the long cape and red blood makeup dripping out of the corners of his mouth. During the night he won some goofy hippy looking glasses that he would wear the rest of the night, making the outfit even more creepy. I love that he considered himself totally dressed and fine in a cape and with the teeth and the blood drippings with no care as to what he threw on underneath, making it the easiest outfit to thrill a kid ever. O was the red power ranger and got chock full of cotton candy, snow cone (snuck without my approval), candy, and punch, which explained the blue stained lips and tongue and sticky face. I could tell he was tired, but he was definitely fueled on sugar. P was in her kitty costume and it was fun to see her walking around, since even just a few weeks ago when we put it on her she was still crawling. She had a blast trying to escape us with her newer skill (walking) and I was given huge kudos by AK for having the smarts to put her PJ's on underneath the costume making bed time for Penele a breeze for him. I can't believe October is almost over. It has been the longest month with lots of busy school things and what not, and I know that the rest of the year is going to fly, so I am trying to appreciate it. I've been able to bike with P in the trailer almost every day the last few weeks. I even do some wicked hills (1700 S. above Foothill and even more regularly up to Augusta above the zoo), today was up to the mouth of Emigration, down Sunnyside, to stop at Davis Park at 2000 E. for some playtime and then back home to get O. Penele is a trooper and we've taken Sierra and Samuel with us the last week. P & I biked to Kate's and it was a 20 minute breeze. We are watching Built to Shred and it is very funny. I miss the beach.

Dino Dig Friday

I know, no more cuffing the jeans.

Friday was spent at the Dinosaur Park in Ogden (I love this place!). Maama and Baampa and the Bunch kids joined us as well. Can you say we took advantage of the company car/free gas while AK was out of town, yes we did.

Scarecrow Festival '08

Thursday we hit the Thanksgiving Point Scarecrow Festival with Baampa, Maama, the Creer kids, & the Bunch kids. The kids loved the bouncy houses, the haunted house, the games, and especially the rockets. H attempted the rock wall along with Bailey and Harrison. Most of the kids rode the go-karts and some watched the magician show.

Snow Biking Pumpkin Patch Vegetable Deception

Family Pumpkin Patch photo, Farmington, Utah, October 10th, 2008

Silly threesome

Last night was the 4th annual Taylor/Knight & now Bunch & Sue & Dave Pack's Pumpkin patch family outing. Pumpkins were picked (from the vine!), pictures were taken (more to come), and the cold was felt (it was freeeeeezing!). Owen searched and searched and searched for the perfect pumpkin. He finally showed me with his arms, what shape he was looking for, and we found one within 3 pumpkins. H picked from the first 2 he saw, the biggest. I picked P's and ours. We had dinner at a Doug & Emmy's like place, Grandma Ana or something, and we are still feeling it in our guts. I've never been there after 10am. And we still had breakfast, Utah fried scones as big as your mid-section included.

Today we did the soccer thing, felt ill, then late afternoon, it looked sort of sunny (although freeeeeezing) I thought we could go on a bike ride. AK & PJ were napping so we bundled up and stuffed Owen in the trailer, raised H's seat (finally!) and headed off to Katie's. H was determined to bike the 5 or so miles to Kate's house, even when it started snowing. I knew I had to cut it short, but I was having a tough time convincing the little man, when finally he made a turn back and a block later was in total complaint mode from his cold fingers (I had been asking him every 10 seconds if he was okay, not too cold, since "it isn't going to get better", and he wouldn't budge!). I just kept telling him what a great story we had now that we went biking in the snow (like crazy people!). We were not very happily (on his end) biking along when we stopped to cross Parley's and he fell off his bike, I knew it was all over. We walked the rest of the way, and I tried to stop talking and talking him into what a fun time we had, to absolutely no avail. By bedtime, he had finally come around. Still, for the 2nd time this summer, claims he "will never ride that bike again." I hope he does, despite his cuckoo Madre.

Also of note, update on the autumn cooking craze, I woke up early to make the oatmeal bake thing, was able to shove it down my kids throats within 10 minutes of the first game (topped with my homemade applesauce, the bestest!). Then I proceeded to roast a huge "butternut squash" (it was spaghetti, I cannot tell from the outside), and sweet potato, which I later pureed in my processor to keep from 'Deceptively Delicious' recipes. Tried the first one tonight and it worked! I spread the squash puree on the bread (spy-tech like) then the cheese, and baked the grilled cheese in the oven (new technique from allrecipes, I liked it!), and voila. H got a little vegetable (more than he has had in the last 765 days) and never even suspected it in his favorite meal. More to come...

Calendar Much?

So today I told Margarita not to come for 3 weeks because in 2 weeks is Thanksgiving and the in-laws will be in town, etc. Thank goodness she does not understand English (or whatever crazy I claim to speak). I realized my mistake an hour ago, seriously, I thought it was November. Also, I thought the Ironman Hawaii had already happened and I really wanted to watch it and wish Susan's hubby good luck, but totally thought I missed my chance. I texted her today to see how he did and ask her how Hawaii is. The race is this Saturday and they are probably still here. On Monday I reminded AK 5 times that we had a teacher's conference with Holden's teacher Monday at 4:15. Andy was home, the kids were set to play on the playground at school, I rushed into class, and upon a few words of crazy talk realized that SEP conferences are NEXT WEEK! I think my brain is literally melting.

Grateful Sabbath

1. We turned our T.V. room into Conference central, complete with pulling out the black out table and placing it directly in between the couch and the tube and covered it with papers, notebooks, pens, crayons, scissors, and the great conference activity packet (thanks to Rachel & Aunt Jody). We watched the Tivo'd versions, which started about 15 minutes and up to 1 hour later due to soccer games, german oven pancake and vanilla syrup breakfast, spider web decorating, & lunch. I loved hearing the hope generating talks complete with new resolutions to be more of a peacemaker (Eyring), laugh more at life (Wirthlin) and that great blind date story, attend and focus on the temple more (Elaine S. Dalton), be very handsome and say "Moroni" adorably ("Moronee"), accept change and help other's more (Monson), remember the angels (like my mother) (Eyring), "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all" by Sue Stayner as a likeness was said by President Eyring, whose own mother said - okay Andy just said "Long Term Perry" speaking of L. Tom (ie. we call Grandpa, as in Grandpa Al, his likeness). And many more... I am still in need of watching them again due to crossword puzzles, helping with spelling Apostles names, the Quorom of the Twelve memory match game, and trying to keep P from destroying everything. It was lovely. A definite highlight was the Kaysville youth choir harmonizing to "I Am A Child of God" (our Farmington kids would ask to do that every week and I was always impressed, still am, by that talent).

Who is that little girl in the yellow dress, the most darling blonde hair, and black rimmed glasses? Love the sly looks of the kids towards the cameras. So cute!

2. It snowed at the 'bird! I can't wait to go play in it.

3. Rain and the bless-ed lovely autumn weather.

4. Facing the fact that I am addicted to facebook. Seriously. I am a nerd and need help.

5. Going to Kate's with the kids last night, who upon hearing that the Creer kids were dressed up in their Halloween costumes, quickly got into their costumes; O, a power ranger, H, a skeleton (from last year), and P in her kitty cat (she loves wearing it). I took some pictures on Kate's camera of the very pre-Halloween fun. I delighted in having to go to the store on the way and traipsing the kids through the grocery store in their Halloween finery on October 4th.

6. The boys going fishing Friday night and seeing their first moose of the season, two in fact, and going on a new trail up Little Cottonwood (White Pine). No fish, but lots of yellow leaves were found and brought home.

7. I got a fun break to Market Square with H. Johnson yesterday afternoon wherein I have only ventured into the fabric section before and this time hit the food with a vengeance (you know 1-year supply and all). Went a little crazy and still need to buy milk and eggs in the morning.

8. Got the Halloween gear up, including the aforementioned web, and the scary dude who hangs from the tree.

9. Getting back in the cooking and baking gear and being psyched it's soup weather.

10. I was biking with P on Friday morning last week and I was doing hills (up to and to the top of St. Mary's, where Grandpa D.O. & Marjorie lived above the zoo) and on the way we caught up to a beautiful dog (for P's entertainment) being run by a cute, super fit lady who exclaimed, "Wow, you are fast", and I mumbled how I was just catching up to her to see the dog and a thank you and further sought to impress her by turning and going up a steeper hill. I was stoked and such a show off.

That's the glorious Annette week (lost tempers, time outs, escapes, and other Annettisms omitted).