Visit from our Michigan cousins

My brother Adam, his wife Meghan, and their Steven and Ruby were in town.  They came to visit us for two days, and spent the rest of the time in Utah with the other fam.  So naturally, we visited for two weekends in a row to see them all we could, since we usually just get to see them once a year.  They are so awesome!  Adam and Meghan are perfect for each other, I just love them.  And their kiddos are super fun.  I wish we could see them more, but we will take what we can get!  :)  I love how Cal and Steven always act like they've never been apart and they just click so well.  

When they came here, we made lots of yummy food...we had Ryerse Tacos and made a giant pizza cookie.  We talked a bunch, which was so great to catch up.  Besides our blabbing, the kids played hard, we watched Studio C and other YouTube greats one night, went to the Wyoming Frontier Prison on a tour (our first time, except Dave went this year for the Halloween haunted tour), went on a double date to Anongs to get some Thai food, and played some games.  

That weekend, the girls all went to Time Out for Women.  This was my second time going.  I just love it!  It was so amazing to be with the ladies I love the most - my mom and sisters.  And the speakers and presenters really were fantastic!  We got to see Mercy River, Elaine Dalton, Nicole Pikus-Pace, Sheri Dew, Camille Fronk Olson, Emily Watts, Kris Belcher, Gentri, and so many more amazing people who helped encourage us to be leaders and illuminate light.  That was the theme: Inevitable light.  I learned and felt some great things.  One of the best things I was impressed to start doing was to make my children think more, ask more questions, make more mistakes, and tell them "yes" more and "no" less.  Then, I need to let the Savior's enabling power take over my life.  He can do so much more with me than I can do alone, if I let him.  It was so inspiring!  Thanks, Mom and sisters, for the wonderful weekend!

While we were there, Dave went to the BYU football game, and so did Adam, Meghan, their kids and my dad.  Then, we went to the Ryerses, where we played with those cousins.  Lucy and Brody ran aroud screaming and Cov tried to keep up with them, Cal and Kaison played video games and with boy toys, and the oldest girls did a fashion show together.  They're all a hoot and just love each other!  It's so great! We love our family, and it's true what they say, distance makes the heart grow fonder!  We are so fond of all of our family and cherish the special moments we have with them.   

Our new jobs

In October, Dave got a pretty big promotion at his work.  He is now the Chief Operating Officer at the hospital.  Yay!  He's been kinda underpaid this past year but took the job because he knew the experience would be worth it.  And recently he was rewarded!  I'm so proud of him, he does a great job and is making the hospital a better place.  His employees are always saying how great he is, and I'm just like "I know, right?!"  The CEO at the hospital, Ned, just left and now there is an interim.  He was always telling Dave he needed to be more aggressive and more mean, but I don't think that's in Dave's nature.  He can get the job done while being nice.  Congrats, hon!

I took a job in October as a [very] part-time Merchandiser for American Greetings.  I stock cards, wrapping paper, and other fun seasonal things.  It's very part-time, so I can go in on Saturdays or at nights for a few hours after the kids go to bed to the three stores we supply for.  It's been great so far!  I'm really enjoying how flexible it is, it's fun to do so it feels like a break from the daily nitty-gritty, nice to learn some new skills and meet some new people on the way, and it gives Dave more of a chance to spend quality time alone with the kids and I feel like being a better mom when I get home.  Of course, my first and most important career has always been and will always be MOM!  And at first, I felt so guilty taking this job, but Dave and I really felt it would be good, I wanted to do it, and felt good when I prayed about it.  But I think this allows me to be a better mom to my kids.  So it works out perfectly!

Emma recently started helping out volunteering at the animal shelter on Thursdays.  This is in leiu of us getting a cat, which she's been begging for for years.  She gets her kitty fix in, Mom gets to take her and spend some quality time with her, it's a win-win.  

Cal has been looking for help wanted: good friends.  One day he came home a little upset so when we talked about it, he said "I'll tell you the worst part of my day, I had no friends to play with at recess!"  He was teary eyed and it about broke my heart!  He is so social, but a lot of his other friends were playing with other people and he had no one to play with.  It was so sad to see him!  But a few days later, he was playing with a new friend or two.  It's kinda hard how friends come and go and grow and evolve.  I remember that.  But he's a nice kid, I'm sure he'll have no problems.  But it's just really so sad to see your kids go through this.  

Lucy's accepted a position in our family as the drama queen.  Oh, wow!  She certainly has earned that title.  She is for sure a girl with her emotions going up and down all day.  Emma was never really like this, so we're not sure what to do with her sometimes.  She is quite the cute girl, but can be so strong-willed and stubborn at times.

     

Cov's new job is our family comedian.  He has been saying the funniest things and doing the silliest things that always makes us laugh.  When he has a dirty diaper lately, we will ask him "Cov, are you stinky?" to which he promptly shakes his head and says "uh uh".  Then he begins to point at the other kids.  Lol!  When he knows he's getting into trouble, he gives us a huge grin, smiles, and runs the other way.  Aunt Julie taught him how to put his face towards the ceiling and do an evil laugh, that's pretty funny too.  He does so many more things, too that just make us laugh.  Like his cute walk, his dancing, the funny looks on his face.  

Happy Hauntings!

Halloween is always our favorite, and this year was no exception! This year, the kids decided they wanted to be traditional Halloween boos and ghouls.

We had so much excitement getting ready for Halloween!  We always love the Halloween reading, movies on TV, and fun snacks and items in lunch boxes, and making Halloween crafts to get hyped up.

We had three jam packed days of Halloween celebrations!  On Tuesday, we went to our ward's Trunk-or-Treat.  Emma helped decorate along with a little help from the other kids.  We made the back of our car into a witches lair.  They did a great job!  Dave stayed back and passed out candy while I took the kids around.  It's always so fun to see what all of the kids (and some adults) are dressed up as.  The best part?  Bishop's Tow Mater tow truck (the picture we took turned out fuzzy and doesn't do it justice.  It was awesome!) and the sister missionaries wearing black and white striped skirts dressed as escaped inmates.  Lucy was more excited that she was able to see the Sisters than she was about the candy!  They had cookies and hot chocolate, which Cal guzzled and spit out right after I told him to wait because it was too hot, and got it all over his white bones.  Cov loved the music, some of our friends had Halloween tunes blaring out of their car, which he danced to.  Emma was more excited about passing the candy out and wanted to do that most of the time with Daddy instead of getting her own.

Thursday started early at 6:30 to get Dave's Gene Simmons costume ready for his work party at the hospital.  We got him taken care of, then he left.  But he couldn't fit in his little Honda with those big spikes, so we had to take him to work, he he!  He had a good time at work and ended up winning the costume contest, $25.  Not as impressive as when we dressed up the first time as KISS, as we had missing parts, but it worked and everyone thought it was hilarious!  They also had some creative pumpkins in their pumpkin carving contest and caramel and apples for their party.  

Then we were off to Lucy's preschool Halloween party.  It was cute!  They did a toilet paper mummy wrap game, bowling, fun foam craft, donuts on a string (Cov kept trying to eat them off before the game!), cupcake walk, and Cheetos and apple cider for a snack.  Those little kiddos are so hilarious and their costumes were all so individual to their personalities.  And all of the moms are great teachers.  Lucy is loving Halloween!

Then we came home, I taught a piano lesson, ate lunch, and then we went to the kids' schools for their parties.  We dropped off some skeleton cream-filled cupcakes to Cal's class, then headed off to Emma's school to do her class party.  We brought some "bat" (bean) dip, and they had a veggie tray and cookies, and then we played!  With Em's help, we came up with a Halloween Truth or Dare game.  It went pretty well!  The truth cards had things like "If you were a witch or worlock, what would your name be?" or "What's the worst candy to get trick-or-treating?"  The dare cards had things like "Stuff these pumpkin marshmallows in your mouth and say 'Happy Halloween' 3 times as fast as you can" or "Dance to this Halloween song".  It was a hit!  Then we rushed back over for Cal's school for the parade.  Luckily, we got there just in time to see him parade around the gym.  His class was so fun!  I loved how lots of the teachers dressed up like characters from children's books.  That night, the kids got to go to a Halloween Party at a friends, where they had pizza, made bug cookies, and got to smash a pumpkin pinata.

The day of Halloween, I had to go into work (more about this later).  Then the kids and I played the truth or dare game from Emma's class party we made, called up Grandparents and read tons of Halloween books.  Lucy loved finding the eyeballs in the "guts" dare, Cov was all over the "blood" (V8 juice) and kept drinking it!  Emma loved putting her vampire teeth in and telling everyone "Happy Halloween" as fast as she could several times.  Cal enjoyed talking to his Grandma's.

Then Daddy came home and it was time to get ready!  We went to the downtown trick-or-treat. As I mentioned, we decided to be traditional Halloween things this year.  Maybe not as exciting as years past, but it's what they wanted.  The kids all helped do their costumes a little bit, and give input on exactly what they wanted.  It's fun that Emma is getting really good at helping with it and she had some great ideas!

We had Frankendad, the Mummy, Emma the cute witch, S-Cal-eton, Lucy Kitty, and Coverton the Pumpkin.

For Dave's costume, we used the turtleneck he wore from his Gru Despicable Me costume, one of his suits, a hat and chains from the Queen of Halloween, mother Sue, used some plastic bolts from one of Cal's toy tool sets and some wire, and a little green eyeshadow for his face.  Easy peasy!

For me, we started with some white thermals and we just wrapped a bunch of scrap white fabric (thanks, Mom!) around and around.  We also made this tutu out of an old sheet, which was Emma's idea.  Added a little makeup to make me look dead (doesn't make-up usually have the opposite effect? He he!), and I was mummified.

Emma was so excited to be a witch, she's always wanted to be one!  Her dress pattern I just kind of based off of a peasant dress, and I used more scrap black fabric my mom gave me.  She picked out the orange spiderweb overlay fabric for the skirt.  One night when it was her turn to stay up with me for one-on-one time, we decorated her witch hat with cheap ribbon, plastic glitter spiders, blingy jewels, and fabric flowers.  She was also excited about the boots (a few sizes too large) we found for her at the D.I., and luckily, she never fell walking in them.

Callahan really wanted to be a skeleton.  He's always had a thing for skeletons and skulls.  We got some black sweats.  We found a pattern online for the bones and enlarged them.  Then Dave, Cal and I cut out white felt, glued it on with fabric glue.  We found his hat and gloves for a couple of dollars at Target before even making those, so we figured it would be easier to buy those and they worked like a charm.  Cal was particularly happy they were glow-in-the dark.

Lucy wanted to be a black cat, but we ended up going with a dark gray fleece.  We made this simple jumpsuit, then I sewed on purple feather boas around the wrist and feet holes.  Then we made the hat, which was a little small, but it worked, and added purple fleece in the ears and a purple bow to make her look like a feminine feline.  She was not wanting to let me take a picture of her, he he!

Coverton was our little pumpkin.  I've always wanted to dress one of our kids up in this classic, and this year I got the chance.  The first time I put it on him after I finished sewing it to make sure it worked, he started dancing around and didn't want to take it off!  It was pretty cute!  I thought he made a handsome, happy little pumpkin.

After the down town trick-or-treat (which was so fun and warm outside!), we went to the Rec Center for their trick-or-treat maze, bouncy house and spook alley.  The kids loved the blow up toys the best!  Lucy was asleep the whole time, that sleepy kitty!After that, we went to Buck's for dinner.  Yum!  It's fun to go all out together.  Many people there were in costume as well, which was entertaining.  Then we went to Emma's teachers house to trick-or-treat and a few other friends.  They were excited to see them!  We ended the night at home watching spooky kids shows on TV and passing out candy to trick-or-treaters (we probably had between 10-20 during the time we were home).  Another great Halloween in the boo-ks!  Happy spookings!