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!

Thieves Among Us!

I'm sure you've all heard about people who have been abducted and had their kidneys removed by black-market organ thieves. Well, here's my story.

My thighs were stolen from me during the night a few years ago. I went to sleep and woke up with someone else's thighs. It was just that quick. The replacements had the texture of cooked oatmeal. Whose thighs were these and what happened to mine? Finally, hurt and angry, I resigned myself to living out my life in jeans. And then the thieves struck again!

My nice flat tummy was next. I knew it was the same gang, because they took pains to match my new gut with the thighs they had stuck me with earlier. But my new gut was attached at least 3 inches lower than my original. I realized that I'd have to give up jeans in favor of long skirts.

Two years ago, I realized my arms had been switched. One morning I was fixing my hair and was horrified to see the flesh of my upper arms swing to and fro with the motion of the hairbrush. This was really getting scary - my body was being replaced one section at a time. What could they do next?

When my poor neck suddenly disappeared and was replaced with a turkey neck, I decided to tell my story. Women of the world, WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE! Those "plastic" surgeons are using REAL replacement body parts - stolen from you and me! The next time someone you know has something "lifted", look again - was it lifted from you?

THIS IS NOT A HOAX! This is happening to women everywhere, every night!

WARN YOUR FRIENDS!!!!

P.S. Last year I thought some one had stolen my boobs. I was lying in bed and they were gone! But when I jumped out of bed, I was relieved to see that they had just been hiding in my armpits as I slept. Now I keep them tucked in my waistband for safekeeping!

Water World

I know I'm a day late and dollar short with this post, but hey, at least I'm getting to it within a month! For Grandma Cheryl's big 5-0 birthday, we all went to Water World. It is her birthday tradition to go to Elitche's every year. However, this year, Elitches was closed because of a private party (jerks). So we opted for Water World. It was a blast, but I had forgotten about all those ridiculous hills. AND you have to drag your own darned tube up those stinkin' hills! Even with all the Jazzercising I did this summer, I was exhausted by day end! I pretty much hung out with Delaney & Corbin all day doing the "little people" rides. Although we had fun anyway! We all went on the Voyage to the Center of the Earth ride. Then split up so the big kids could ride the scary stuff and the smaller kids could ride the less scary stuff.

Since, surprisingly, there is a lot of water at Water World, I didn't take my camera with me on very many of the rides, so the pictures are fairly lacking to document the experience. However, here are the few shots I got...

Corbin's First Day of Kindergarten!

Woo-Hoo! Corbin had his first day of kindergarten today! We are all so excited! He is "finally" in the "big kid" school! We LOVE his K teacher, Mrs. Bennett and I know he will have a great year. He looked so grown up and handsome with his Justice League backpack & Spiderman lunch box. We took some shots of him out in the hall by his frog.

We shot him by the story time fire place.





Then we got a picture of him at his "desk".




And finally a picture of his "locker". What a good looking kindergartener! Those little 5 year old girls better watch out! He's a heart breaker!