Carve It Up

Last night we did our annual Halloween pumpkin carving. It was messy, gooey, and super slimy, but the final products were totally worth all of the goo. Sadly, this is the only picture I have of Tanner...and it's only his hands. He picked a really hard pattern, and when it didn't turn out as well as he would have liked he kinda gave up. He ended up just putting a face on the other side of the pumpkin.Kevin is the official "goo getter outer" for Ty. Ty dry heaves if he touches the stuff, so he's lucky that his dad got it out for him.Treyson kind of liked getting his hands all gooey. Tate is checking to make sure all the "guts" were out.

Yep, they're out...time to start carving!Finished masterpieces

Brainiaks Halloween Party

Tate had his Halloween party today at pre-school and was so excited to put on his Spider Man costume to show Miss Leslie. He's actually been wearing it for the past 2 days...I'll be glad when Halloween is over and I can put it back in the box for another year!! Here are a couple of pictures from his party:

On The Shelf

My latest project has quickly made it to the top of the list of my most favorite things. It makes me so happy to be able to look up on the shelves and be reminded of my heritage, and it's great for the kids to be able to see pictures of their grandparents, and great grandparents in their younger years.

Wouldn't You Know It...

I'm the boring "mom type".

Take the Quiz and Share Your Results!

You are thoughtful and care very deeply for your family. A loving home is of great
importance to you and you always try to make people feel welcome. Although you have a great capacity to love, you also have a great capacity to hurt, so at times you can be
sensitive. You're firm when you need to be, but people trust your judgment and
appreciate the kind way you always handle things.

Which character are you???

What Did You Do This Afternoon???

We went to see HSM3 and we LOVED it!! Well, everyone except for Tate!Is it bad that I have a teeny, tiny little crush on Zac Efron???

STAR OF THE WEEK

This week Treyson was chosen as the Star Of The Week in his first grade class. He was so excited to help me make his poster and take a special treat in at the end of school today. He definitely is a "STAR" in my book! I'm so glad he's part of our family!!

Time For A New Chapter

After working at BYU for 35 years my dad decided to retire. Congratulations on 35 years, Dad!! I hope you have a wonderful retirement!

Fall Break 2008

We went up to Utah again this year for fall break and had a lot of fun. We always love to spend time with our family and the kids especially enjoy being able to spend time with their cousins. There are many times that the kids wished we lived closer to them so they could spend more time together. Here are a few pictures from our fun week.

The first day we were in Utah we woke up to SNOW!! OK, I realize that there's not that much, but the kids thought it was awesome.

Mom and I spent a full day with these beauties. I dread making spaghetti sauce, but it makes it worth it when I look at all my jars of fresh sauce and remember how much better it tastes that the store bought stuff.

This year mom and dad had a TON of grapes, so I decided to make some "blue juice" as well. When Tanner was just a little guy he used to beg grandma for "blue juice", and well, that's what we've called it ever since.

So, I'm totally joking about the smash-the-grapes-with-my-feet thing. Pretty funny though, hu?? (nice camera angle, right...you gotta love the elephant sized ankles and toes...oy!!)

Treyson and Tate helped grandpa dig up the carrots to put in the "pit". The pit is a hole in the ground covered by a piece of plywood where the carrots will stay fresh and crisp all winter long. They also store their potatoes in the pit.

We also went to the Scarecrow Festival at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, Utah, with all of the cousins except for Corbin, who lives in Montana. We were wishing he was with us!!

Waiting, patiently, to climb the rock wall.

Making rockets to put on the launcher.

The rockets went really high!

We can't wait for next year!!

Friends

"Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It's not something
you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you
really haven't learned anything."

~Muhammad Ali

Weekend Projects

I had a great weekend. I absolutely love Conference weekend and look forward to it every six months. It's so great to be taught by Apostles and Prophets and feel uplifted and re-energized in the gospel.

In our house it never fails that household projects accompany conference...so here's a couple of things that I did this weekend.

Project #1

The bulb on our DLP t.v. went out last week. The bulb and housing for the t.v. costs about $300...ouch!! So, in the spirit of trying to save a little cash I decided to just buy the bulb and replace it in the existing housing. I'm pretty handy (if I do say so myself) so I did some research on the Internet, and was confident that I could do it. Well, my first attempt failed miserably. I could not get the housing open to save my life. I worked on it for and hour (or maybe more...how embarrassing to admit!). I decided to send the bulb back and buy the whole deal...then, I remembered that I didn't want to spend $300 and that I just needed to sit down and figure it out. So, after 20 more minutes of Internet searching, an instructional YouTube video, a trip through the field to Auto Zone to get a "special" screwdriver, and a trip to Home Depot for a washer, I figured it out. Whew! The sad thing is that it was sooooo simple that I was actually mad at myself that I didn't figure it out the first time. The upside of it is that now the picture on the t.v. is awesome--just like new!!

Project #2

While I was cooking a corn dog for Tate on Friday, the microwave decided to blow up. OK, so it didn't blow up LITERALLY, but it was spewing smoke and making a weird noise. So, on Saturday morning Kevin and I headed to Sears to buy a new one. (It's a good thing I saved $200 by installing the t.v. bulb myself!!) When we walked into Sears the salesmen were on us like flies on...well, they were very exuberant...We did a quick walk through and then decided to go somewhere else. We ended up at Home Depot, picked out a microwave, told the worker which one we wanted and were out of there in about 10 minutes. Sweet! We made our way home and then I got to work on the install. When we got the old micro out we realized that the people that lived here before us had drilled about 6 holes in the upper cabinet to install their microwave...unfortunately none of the holes they drilled would work for our new micro (of course). So after about 4 more holes, a few not-so-nice words and 2 Cokes, we finally got the new one up. The upside of this one...it's all new and shiny. I like it!

{So helpful. It's a good thing he's cute!!!}