Holy Halloween Batman!

So, this has been an extremely long day for me! About 4 months ago, I volunteered to be in charge of the 3rd grade (Cole's class) Rome Day Festival. I was thinking that we would be in Fort Collins by now, so it wouldn't be that big a deal. However, we are still 1/2 hour away and it was a big deal! But I guess it was worth it because the kids had a really good time on our trip to Ancient Rome and everything ran pretty smoothly. We did clay reliefs, bulla lockets, mosaic pictures, Roman Baths, chariot races, and marshmallow catapults. It was a blast. However, I'm pretty sick of being at the school!

Our plane ride to Rome
The kids got split up into 4 different social classes. Patricians (wealthy upper-class), Plebians (more middle class), Soldiers and Slaves. Cole was a plebian.Here is Cole pulling in the chariot races
Corbin had his Nursery Rhyme recitation. He chose Humpty Dumpty. I was trying to see him a little better when I was recording him, so I flipped the camera so this is sideways. Proof that I don't think clearly on no sleep (we were at the school until almost 10 pm last night setting up Rome). Corbin is posing with his best buddy Glenn.


Cade had his Westward Expansion party today and he got to go to a ranch. He learned some square dancing moves, raced on stick horses, and took a hay ride. He said he LOVED it all! Here he is as a cowboy.

Of course, this evening we went out trick-or-treating. Clint took the older 4 kids and our nephews Taylor & Drew around the neighborhood. I hung back with Laney. Here are some pictures of the night and a little video of Laney all by herself!Here is "scary Hulk"

Annual Trunk-Or-Treat Event

Tonight was our ward trunk-or-treat party. We had a chili cook-off with some very delicious choices (and hot dogs for the kids because what kid actually likes chili?). Clint was upset with me that he didn't get to hit his goal of 5 full bowls (we were in charge of the spooky swamp fishing and didn't have much time to eat).

The primary and YM/YW put on a bit of a carnival, so the kids had fun eating donuts from a string, playing musical chairs, getting face painted, playing BOO Bingo, potato sack racing, etc.

Of course, the highlight of the night was the trunk-or-treating. They got tons of candy and the kids are reminding me of how much more they will get on Halloween night. I already scheduled their 6 month dental cleanings for Nov. 20, so that should give them enough time to gorge themselves and then get their teeth fixed up!

Our darling princess wanted to be "Scary Hulk"...I was just sure she would change her mind and want to be a princess, so I had to go out at 10 pm last night to find something to throw together for her, as she was not budging on the Hulk idea! I think she looked pretty good, considering...

Corbin (for the 2nd year in a row) was Spiderman

Cade was a fierce ninja

Cole was a scary scarecrow guy (I forgot to paint a nose on him...oops!)

Payton took her friend Rikishia. Payton was a vampire and Rikishia was a genie. They had fun doing their own make-up!

Choose Life

Payton's Volleyball Game

As stated in previous post, I have not been a good photographer/mom lately. So this past Saturday, at Payton's 2nd to last game, I made sure to have the camera on hand! Payton is doing well. She started off the season with the best bumps/passes on the team. She spent most of the season concentrating on her serves, and she can bang that ball over the net now! She is #3. All in all, she liked playing volleyball!

Cole's Last Single Digit Birthday

I've been horrendous about taking photos lately. All I got last night of Cole's birthday dinner was us singing (pitch perfect, I might add) Happy Birthday and him blowing out the candles. I make a vow to take lots of pics at his pool party on the 7th! He is such a goof! He woke up really early because he was so excited about his day. He also told me that yesterday was a great day...one of the best of his life! He LOVED his gifts (Broncos poster, Broncos watch, Broncos football, Pokemon cards & album + the Ultimate Pokeman Book AND IronMan DVD). He seriously made out this year and he's told me thank you about 11 times today! Oh, and yes, that is a pink cake you see in the video. Cole feels secure enough with his masculinity that he had no problem asking for strawberry cake,even after I explained that it was pink cake w/ pink frosting. He even let Delaney & Payton decorate it with sprinkles. What a guy!

Crazy Hair Day

Payton's school had a crazy hair day today. I don't really have any idea why, and neither did she, but we just went with it. This is the do she came up with. Such ugly hair on such a cute girl! Sigh...

Cole's Incredible FHE

For those of you not from the LDS culture, FHE stands for Family Home Evening. We have set aside 1 night each week (typically Monday) where we spend some time together just with the family. We sing, pray, learn about the gospel (and other good stuff), play games and ALWAYS have a treat. A few Mondays ago, Cole was in charge of FHE. He put together an awesome lesson about the scriptures. The date was Sept. 22 and while preparing for his lesson about the scriptures being a treasure, he realized that Joseph Smith dug out the Gold Plates (Book of Mormon) on Sept. 22. He thought that was REALLY cool. He assigned us some scriptures to read about why we have the BOM and then about how Joseph Smith came to have it. To illustrate his point, he made a treasure map for us to find some sort of treasure in our back yard. The picture I took of the map didn't turn out well, but you can get an idea what it looked like here.

After we grabbed our shovels and headed out back, we were lucky to find the X right away and began our dig. We found a wrapped package and took it back in before it was completely dark outside. Corbin was the lucky one who got to open the wrapped treasure. He was so excited!Cade got to choose the song, which was "Book of Mormon Stories". Grandpa Jay was trying to help Corbin do the actions, but it wasn't going that well. As usual, Payton was in charge of treats. She LOVES to make brownies and that is what we had.

Conference Time!

It's almost conference time and I am really anticipating the messages this year! Deseret Book has a free conference packet you can download and print for your kids to keep them somewhat engaged with conference (and hopefully very quiet). Click here to get it!