Halloween Fun

I love Halloween.

For me, it represents the beginning of the holiday season.
For my children, it is a chance to dress up and eat lots and LOTS of candy.

This year we planned to stay home on Halloween night (because it fell on a Sunday) but for some reason my kids all still have buckets full of candy. Instead of just one night of trick or treating, we went trunk or treating at the church on Wednesday, the kids trick or treated at their school and attended a carnival at their school Friday night, and there was a parade and city festival where the girls had a ballroom dance performance on Saturday.

Trunk or Treating

My nephew dressing up like his uncle Dr. Chad

Joey and his friend Isaac are doing pushups while waiting for the Halloween parade to start at the kid's school. You have to burn off all that sugar one way or another.

Dancing at the City Festival.

The girl's group performed three numbers. The last one was a zombie jamboree where Sara looses her eye ball. It was really cute.

Happy Halloween!

Home Improvement

Every now and then, Chad and I start thinking about new home improvement projects. Okay lets be honest, I start planning new projects and Chad gets sucked into them. (I guess that's just what happens when you have a husband who can build really cool stuff.) I told my husband I wanted him to build another set of drawers for our 4th bedroom, and his response was that he wanted to first build shelving for our garage. I thought that was a great idea and so I agreed to help him complete the project.

Before we could get started on the shelving we had to first paint the garage. We had so much stuff in the garage that we could only paint the half that we were building on. Having procrastinated my indoor painting projects (do to our prolonged company) I had paint on hand that we could use. We spent our Friday night painting and the next morning Chad went out to purchase supplies. Unfortunately, Saturday was crazy so we couldn't get started on the shelving until this week.

Wednesday was Chad's day off and so my goal was to get as much done as we could. We would get the wood cut out and then realize Chad had bought the wrong screws. Then we would get the base finished and realize we needed a different screw. After several trips back and forth to Lowes and Ace Hardware, we called it quits for the day. Chad was on call the next day, so I purchased the last of what we needed and was hoping to finish on Friday. After only spending about two hours Friday afternoon this is the end result.

I love that I can finally find and get into all of our storage buckets. In the past I would spend hours trying to hunt things down. Now everything is labeled and easy to access. I love organizing things.

Because I can never work on just one project at a time, and because Micheals was having a sale on their picture frames (65% off with coupon) I decided to finally finish decorating the wall above my TV in the front room. Thanks mom for taking such cute pictures of my family.

Jakeisms

I found out on Friday that Jake likes to pass along words of wisdom to his fellow classmates. Apparently Ann (who sits across from Jake) comes home just about every day with something new she has learned from Jake.

Her two most recent Jakeisms were:

#1. If you look in the mirror and say blood fingers three times you will disappear.
(I guess Ann made her sister try this one out, but she didn't do it right because her sister didn't disappear.)

#2. If you don't cut your pumpkins into Jack'O'Lanterns by October 31st they will break.
(We still have one pumpkin that isn't carved. I guess we will have to see what happens tomorrow.)

Sunday School

After participating in the primary program, I found Joey wondering the halls during Sunday School. I told him that it was time to go to class.

His response to me was. . . "Mom, I just can't be reverent anymore."

Lucky for him the "Candy Bomber" was talking to the kids today and he was able to take home his own bag of candy taped to a parachute.

Happiness is. . .

A few weeks before my friend Rachel passed away she used to say to me, "If I don't laugh, I'll cry, so I choose to laugh."

I have since learned that happiness is something you find when you are looking for the good in everything and everyone and every circumstance. It is a choice; and one I hope that I can always make.

Emily's Wedding

In one year my two twin nieces that I used to babysit, and who were only 9 when Chad and I got married, are both now married themselves. Elizabeth married Tyson in February and Emily just married her High School Sweetheart Sean Daily.

I can't tell you how incredible it was to watch her marry such a neat young man. I have never seen Emily so happy. She was a beautiful bride.

Elizabeth and Tyson

Just in case you can't tell from the photos, Sean is 6 foot 8 and Emily is about 5 foot 2. They are darling together.

At the reception, Joey decided to bust a move on the dance floor. I wish I had kept my camera out because he was hilarious. I have never seen my 5 year old try to break dance, but he was out there spinning, doing the worm, and having the time of his life. What a great day. I am so grateful to have been a part of it.

Oh Yes we did!!!!

For those of you who are not familiar with Golden Spoon Frozen Yogurt I am sooooo sorry. Growing up in Southern California, Golden Spoon is everywhere. For my sister Cindy and I it is one of our favorite treats. To celebrate having been named the best frozen yogurt in Southern California, on Tuesday Oct. 12th they decided to give out free minis or small yogurts from 6pm to close.

Now, let me give you some background on Cindy and I. If there is something free to be had, we want it. The day after Thanksgiving sales are crazy when we are together, so just imagine what we decided to do when we found out that Golden Spoon was giving away FREE frozen yogurts. In two hours we visited 8 different Golden Spoons stopping only to pick up a second ice chest, and Cindy's husband for the last two stores. In total, with Rebecca in tow, we accumulated 27 free frozen yogurts. SCORE!!!!

Disneyland

In between a trip to Vegas, we started and ended our October break in CA with Grandma and Grandpa Brown. Grandma decided that rather then take the kids to Disneyland for a day she would buy everyone season passes for Christmas. My kids were in heaven.





It has been 4 and a half years since our last visit to the "Happiest Place on Earth" and so Jake and Joey couldn't remember having ever been to Disneyland. Jake quickly discovered that he LOVES roller coasters. He went on Space Mountain, the Matterhorn, Thunder Mountain, and Indiana Jones, and came off each with a grin that took up his entire face. It was so fun to hear the kids come off rides shouting, "That was AWESOME!"



I think we walked anywhere from 5-10 miles a day as we hopped back and forth between Disneyland and California Adventure but there wasn't a single kid that complained. They just wanted to go back again and again and we did. We were even able to go with Hailey and Blaine on one of the days, making the kids even happier. I have to admit that even after 5 days of park hopping and 800mg of Motrin Disneyland is still seriously COOL. Thanks Grandma for the early Christmas present. We LOVE it.

Going to Vegas

When we lived in Clovis, NM we became good friends with a family who lived down the street. The Fullers had two children who were the same ages as two of my children, Rebecca and Jake. Evan, their oldest, and Rebecca had birthdays that were only a week apart and so for three years they would celebrate together. After Rebecca turned 8 Jason was transferred to Canada.

In May of this last year we found out that the Fuller's new assignment was in Las Vegas, Nevada. Rebecca was instantly determined to visit. We decided that October break would be the perfect time and so we went.

While in Vegas we went to the M&M factory and the coke factory. Imagine 4 stories of M&M's and shirts that smell like your favorite soda. It was way cool. We also went over to Mandalay Bay where they had a really neat aquarium. There were sharks and komodo dragons. Jake was in heaven.






A day later we went to the Hoover Dam. I haven't ever taken a tour of the dam, but I now know what it feels like to suffer from claustrophobia and serious anxiety. As part of the tour they crammed 50 of us into one elevator and down we went. It was neat walking through the caves, but I'm not sure that being underground is my thing. I asked Joey what he thought of the tour and he said it was "YUCKY." I asked him why he thought it was yucky. He said that the caves we were walking in were dirty and the snow had melted all over the rocks making them Yucky. There was a lot of acid rock, so I guess I can understand his snow hypothesis.

At the end of our tour we stood out on an observation deck and that was when the anxiety kicked in. When Jake and Joey started climbing the railings to get a better look that's when I decided that it was time to go back inside.



We all had a great time with our friends. The kids enjoyed seeing each other again and it was really fun to visit so many exciting new places. Thanks Keiko and Jason for a great week. We miss you guys already.

Joey's Bowling Party

Last January Jake celebrated his 6th birthday by having a bowling party. Ever since that day Joey has talked about having a bowling party for his 5th birthday. Fortunately there is a bowling alley close to our home and so Joey was able to have his "bowling birthday."

For those of you who don't know Joey very well, he is particular about some things. His bowling birthday was no exception. From the cake to the party bags, Joey was involved in the entire process.

I can't believe my little Joey is 5. Happy Birthday cutie .