One More Photo

This one wouldn't fit on the other post, but too cute to leave out!!! Ethan did all the carving by himself. He was pretty proud. :)

Halloween

It finally came!! The long awaited holiday of candy and costumes! We have had a carnival and a ward party to dress up for already, but it is the big night tonight and we pull out all the stops. :)

Miriam's 2nd grade class painted pumpkins to display at our local grocery store. Hers was a winning pumpkin, she was given a $5 gift certificate. This is the adorable girl, with her pumpkin.
Pumpkin carving at our house today. Caleb was trying to look like his, in case you hadn't noticed.


Camille and Leslie worked on this one together. It has shades.

The tall pumpkin was a joint effort by Seth and Jacob. Thanks for growing great, cool pumpkins, Grandpa Jake!

Here they come! Camille is a spy, Ethan is spider man, Miriam is a fairy princess, Leslie a hippie, Caleb is a hobo, Seth is Tigger, and Jacob is a chaperone this year. He, Ethan and Caleb went far and wide after the treats.

Girl Stuff

Camille is our only girl at Achievement Day age right now. Tonight was the Mom and Daughter party. They had a Halloween theme. We ate bloodshot eyeballs (devilled eggs) and severed fingers (hot dogs, with a tortilla bandage wrapped around it) and yummy sandwiches. Then, the girls bobbed for apples and they had us do each others hair. This is what we looked like when we arrived at home.

Now for Miriam's great news! She lost one of her front teeth! She has been wiggling it for days.

Of course, the world's flakiest tooth fairy attends our house, so she woke up disappointed because that tooth fairy was delinquent. Sigh. I'm sure she will come around.

Autumn Checklist

Do any of you get the list in your head? The one of all the cool things that make each season perfect, and you want to go down it and check them all off?



Some of the things on my Fall list:



1) Play volleyball (check. Still sore.)

2) Eat pomegranates

3) Read a really tame ghost story. I am a big chicken at heart. Last year I read Legend of Sleepy Hollow. This year, I want to read the rest of The Woman in White. I started this summer, but didn't get more than a couple of chapters in before I had to return it to the library. Now, I have my OWN copy. :)

4) Walk on lots of crunchy leaves. I have stomped a few already, but I am waiting for the trees up the street a ways, they dump huge piles, and it is so fun to slosh through the leaves, almost to my knees!

5) Go to a football game and YELL really loud! (I haven't done this in years, but Jake may look around and find me at his high school game in the near future. He probably won't claim me :).)

6) Watch "Meet Me in St. Louis", which you maybe think of at Christmas time, but my favorite scenes are the Halloween scenes.

7) Eat doughnuts and cider. Well, really and truly, it is my mom's doughnuts that I crave, so to officially check it off the list, I'd better make her recipe.

8) Break out the sweaters.

9) Watch "Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" with my kids.

10) Harvest the garden, can and freeze the food. Stock the storage room. (check)

11) Read the cookbooks and start baking again! :)

12) Starting my Christmas planning and shopping.

13) Read "The Little Broomstick" with my kids, and "The Oxcart Man".

14) Get out my adorable fall rubber stamps and make cards. Send them to people, just to spread the joy of autumn.

And last, but not least.....Celebrate my Birthday. Then we can officially get on with winter.

Alas, October has been flying by!! Halloween is upon us. Some of the list can carry on to November, but I must prioritize, for I am just not in the mood for ghost stories after Halloween is over! One cannot attend the football game if the season is gone. Carpe Diem! Get out of my way, stuff of little consequence (anything not on the list), I am on a mission!

Good News!

Nathan took my camera to use it for work, and I just barely got it back. Sorry for the delay. We have SUCH NEWS! Seth has finally done it! We are wearing our underwear and feeling so big!!! I am rejoicing. He still has a few accidents, but I cannot complain, because he is staying dry all night, he is doing all the poos in the potty and it is only the occcasional, "Oh, I forgot to stop playing and come tinkle" accidents. And they are the easiest to clean. So HOORAY!

I spent last week trying to restore some order to my house. It was so yucky! Mom shouldn't get sick, it isn't pretty. But now, I am down to 4 bathrooms that need some solid attention, and here I am, hiding out on my computer. :)

I can't get enough of the weather right now. It has been warm and nice here. Today it is gray, but what a nice backdrop for all the fall colors. I have tried several new recipes this week, but none of them have been very exciting, so I am posting an old standby today, that we love! It came from a neighbor of mine who grew up in New Orleans.

So, now I guess it is off to clean those potties.

Bleah!

I stole this line from Snoopy, one of my heros. Sigh. (and this one.) I spent several days trying really hard not to be sick, so now I've made it worse, and I have to stay down for a few days. At least I have sweet family and friends that check on me, and bring my family food and clean up after them. (Thanks, Grandma!)

Our weekend to Idaho (me and 7 kids--always an adventure) was great. We enjoyed conference with my parents and Natalie, Arnica and Shane's families. It is so funny to have wall-to-wall children, TV blaring to drown out the buzz, conference bingo etc. It made me think back to conference at my grandparents as a child. I used to play the game to jump the peg into the holes and try to just end up with one. We were wall to wall back then too--what a blessing.

Mom and Dad are in the middle of the moving process and are digging through years worth of life to sift and sort and only save what will fit in their new, smaller home. Alot of that stuff belongs to their kids, so we tried to help. It is a little sad, to think of them in a new place, but exciting too. They have been painting and building shelves at the new house, and it looks fresh and expectant. Soon.

While I was there, I inherited my great grandmother, Josephine Murdock's jewelry box. It is a sweet box, but mostly because it is evident that her hands cared for it. It is painted creamy white and has oriental pictures on it, and only a few costume pieces inside. One entire compartment is dedicated to holding her curlers, metal style with a hinged clamp. Practical. Two of the compartments were sealed forever when she mended the box after the Teton Dam Flood caused water damage. My great grandma was a tall lady, and her watch is there, reminding me of her big hands. There are a couple of the brooches I always remember pinned to her sweater. There is nothing of worldly value here, but as I opened the box, and viewed its contents, I was reminded of a woman who had been content with what she had. Who had found joy despite a tiny income for the majority of her life. It brought back memories of her wide smile and big hugs. That was the precious part of the inheritance. To look into the shabby little box, and be given eyes to see the real "jewels" my great grandmother adorned herself with. May I emulate this in some small way. Thanks Grandma Josie, for the legacy.