halloween

Halloween was AWESOME!!! We had a great time. Our church did a fun Halloween party full of carnival games, spook alley, costume and pumpkin contests as well as a chili cook off. We also did the usual school and trick or treating stuff. Our neighborhood has a block party where they serve free hot dogs, drinks and other goodies, while they show a movie on someones garage. I love my neighborhood on halloween. Most houses are decorated and they string stuff across the street like bats or "dead bodies" and ghosts. Its all super fun and super cool. The funnest thing we did was an after party. We had the sitter come at 8pm and partied until almost midnight. The party was great. It was at our friends huge house that is on the hill over looking the city and the whole place was decorated classy Halloween style. They had it catered by one of our favorite resturants, a good DJ, and a hot chocolate and apple cidar bar.It was so much fun. Proving once again that Halloween is my favorite holiday!!

Balloon "UP" birthday party

I can't believe Ellie is 9. My how time flies. We had her birthday on the craziest weather day ever. Well crazy for us. The day before was a beautiful 89 degrees and full sunshine. Her day was a cold 64 degrees hurricane. Not the best day for a balloon themed birthday party. At around 10 am I had 100 balloons filled inside of the trampoline enclosure. By the time the party started I had 8 balloons left. Weather aside it was a good party. We had some balloon relay games and shave the balloon with a razor without popping it. I also taught the kids how to make a balloon animal. Everyone had a good time regardless of the cold WINDY weather. Luckily we had a bounce house to entertain and warm up the kids by making them jump around. Her cake was "UP" inspired. I made a house out of cake then covered it with fondant and painted it with food coloring. I screwed a small piece of wood to a dowel stuck it in the cake and covered it with small cupcakes and fondant balls to look like balloons. It wasn't perfect but it was cute, and the kids LOVED it so thats all that matters.

The perfect day

Just wanted to post some pics of the cutest kid you have ever seen. Check out the dimples the size of craters. Peter has finally hit my favorite baby stage. The 6 months always happy and smiley stage. The one where they interact but don't really get into trouble yet? Although Peter has started rolling all around to get what he wants. He's like one of those robot vacuums that covers the entire floor but doesn't take a straight path. We were just playing in the back yard because it was the most perfect weather. Not to hot not too cold, the grass was green and the sky was clear. I was giving rides in my new favorite toy. My wagon. I love my wagon, I know it sounds silly but I always wanted one of my own, and now I have one.
All my clan in one photo that almost never happens. Look at how big William is getting. He is so proud of his pumpkin that he got on his first field trip. Everyone is growing up. My little girl is turning 9, my little William is getting wiggley teeth, my crazy Brennen has a vocabulary almost as big as his sisters, and my baby Peter is almost 7month old. Where did the time go? Was I there for all of this? I guess that's why we take pictures. To capture life before it passes us by. I guess its a good thing that all of our gadgets have cameras on them. So we don't miss a minute of PERFECTLY ordinary days like this. Sometimes I think ordinary days are the most perfect of all.

Whos who?

This ones called guess who's who. I knew I had to write names on all the backs of my kids pictures when William was born. My kids all look so much a like. Scott can never tell their baby pictures apart.
LETS SEE IF YOU GOT SOME RIGHT.

1. Peter
2. is that William and Brennen or Brennen and Peter? It's Brennen and Peter.
3. Did you guess Ellie? NO, that's Brennen he just needs a haircut
4. William and Brennen
5. Is that peter with the dimple? Nope that's Brennen
6. William
7. Brennen
8. William
   

Well how did you do? Don't feel bad Scott only got 2 right. Its too bad I don't have digital photos of Ellie's baby pictures. I can find pictures of all 4 that look like the same person. (peter is kind of the exception because his dimples give him away.) its a good thing they all come with different personalities. I love them all.

Sunday tradition

One of our latest traditions is one of my favorites. We just call it story hour. Every Sunday night we build a fire in the fire bowl and read stories. The stories usually consist of church history and other short church related stories. Some times we make smores or just roast plain marshmallows. Other times we just watch the stars. If we are feeling lonesome for the Utah caln we cook tin foil dinners in our little fire bowl in honor of my Dad who really enjoys those meat and potato packages. This just started out as something to do on a Sunday night but now everyone looks forward to it. I didn't realize the learning impact it had on my kids until Ellie started giving her testimony on church history. I hope we can all remember simple moments like this in our lives. So even though some nights it is still 90 degreas we still have our story hour, and we all love it.

target practice birthday

This was a great party unfortunatly I didn't get pictures because I was too busy running the show. My son wanted to have a target practice birthday. For each of the guests I made a real bow and arrows. They got to keep this as their favor, along with some saftey glasses. I just bought sunglasses at the dollar store. I made the bow with approx. 4ft of PVC pipe I cut a slit on the same side of each end. I got some heavy duty string and knotted one side then put the knotted end through the slit of one end. I taped that with electrical tape so it would stay. I then bent the pvc to resemble a bow then knotted the other end of the string and put it through the other slit and taped it as well. For the had hold on the bow I got some scrap batting and taped all around it so none of it showed. For the arrows I bought some small dowels notched one end and put a pointed rubber eraser on the other and viola. We first had a lesson on safety and proper handling of weapons then we had the kids take turns with assistance shooting. I created a bunch of targets out of old cardboard boxes. We also had a metal shooting target which we used an airsoft gun to shoot at. My husband handled the airsoft gun activity. After a few rounds of bows arrows and guns we had obstical courses where the shooting and targets were involved. Everyone had a great time. No one was hurt or in any danger because we stressed the safety issue every step of the way. These are all very city kids and me growing up with target practice as a past time felt like I could let them see that weapons arent always weapons, they can be a sport. It was surprising to see how well the kids could hit the targets. A girl was the best and got a bullseye a couple of times. the cake was cupcakes frosted like targets with a toothpick arrow in the bullseye. I made the toothpick look like an arrow by cutting electrical tape on the end to look like feathers. I have a lot of fun creating birthday's for my kids. The best part is that I don't ever spend more that $50. How do I do it you ask? You need a little bit of time, some luck at goodwill, and lots of thinking outside the box which I owe all to my mother. She always has a way of turning nothing into something. So whenever you think your kids aren't listening to you, they are. . . but most of all they are watching you. Thanks for all your great creativity Mom. I hope I do you proud in trying to live out your legacy, so when people notice my ideas they say "YOU MUST BE ONE OF LYN'S KIDS".

Tea Party birthday

My sister has asked me if I have written a book about my kids birthday party's yet. The answer is no and probably never but here is a glimps just for
memories. One of my favorites was my daughters
tea party birthday. I found a canopy net that goes
over a queen size bed at goodwill. I hung that in
the trees and strung little flowers hanging from
the inside top of it. They kind of looked like
butterflies. I also got a bunch of small real tea cups
and saucers from good will to serve the tea. The
tea was hot apple cider because we don't drink
tea and kids don't really like tea. I filled the tea
pots with water and put the apple cider mix in the
sugar cups so the girls could scoop their own
sugar. For the food I made little peanut butter
and jelly, plain jelly, cucumber and cream
cheese, and ham sandwiches. We had fruit on
the side. I made a cake that looked like a tea pot. We had a fairy hunt. I made little faries out of foam butterfly wings, a jinglebell body, a little wooden bead for the head with a dismantled flower petal for the hair/hat. I just hot glued everything on. I hid them all over the back yard and in the garden. The kids got to take these home as a favor. We played a version of croquet, not the whole game for time reasons. On the invitations we asked the girls to come dressed appropriatly but for those who didn't we set out the dress up box so they could join the fun if they wanted. I always have a craft for the kids to do at my birthday partys so we decorated hats. I found a bunch of easter hats at goodwill but they can also be purchased at craft or part stores. I got a bunch of artificial flowers at the dollar store and let the girls hot glue the flowers on as they pleased. It was such a fun party all the kids loved it. I think its important to let the kids explore and create on their own. Who cares if they picked the ugliest flower to put on the top of their hat. It what they wanted. All you control moms out their. Just let them do it, even if you think it looks dorky, they think it looks great. I love doing this stuff even if my husband complains that I go a little crazy. to me its a good crazy. Stay tuned for more birthday stuff. I only have a little time here and there to work on my blog so I have to do everything in shifts.

skate park

here is Brennen's 1st experience at the skate park. can we say natural. This kid has no fear. just give him a ramp and his twist n go car and he'll do anything. Not to mention he can turn on a dime with that little car.

Brennen

This post is dedicated to our polite, sweet, crazy, Brennen. Some of these pics i will probably using as blackmail at a later date. He can find fun in everything. We love this kid. He's Crazy but we love him