Halloween Festivities

Ward Trunk-or-Treat

Oct 24th

The kids wanted to do Harry Potter again this year.  This is the first time I have recycled costumes from another year.  At first it felt like a cop-out, but then, when I wasn't stressing out about finishing costumes in time, it felt REALLY GOOD!  I only did one new costume (if you can call it a costume--)  I added some feathers and wings to one of Hayden's white fleece hoodies so he could be "Hedwig."

Ron, Harry, Hedwig, Snape, Hermione, and Trelawny (who was taking the picture.)

October 25th:

Sugar Cookies on Saturday night. 

October 29th:

Wednesdays are short days at school--so they had all the class parties and costume parade on Wednesday.  Dallin and Arthur made Harry's "Nimbus 2000" out of branches from our recent pruning projects.  Dallin was so proud of it.  Daphne is dressed as a scarecrow because all the kindergarten classes dressed as scarecrows together.  It was really cute!

The Hubert Humphrey Costume Parade

October 29th evening:

Carving Pumpkins

October 30th:

Sean dressed up as Woody for his preschool Halloween Party.  Sometimes Sean likes to go to preschool and sometimes he doesn't.  It just so happened that Thursday was an off day--I barely got him to stay for his Halloween Party.  ???  I can't figure this kid out.

October 31st:

Me with my little ones who are ready to head out for trick-or-treating.

I stayed home to pass out candy this year, and start the home-made donuts for when they returned home with their sugary spoils.

Here they go!

And now they're back!

Hayden wasn't about to miss out on any of the treats. 

 He scavenged and found anything left unattended for more than 2 seconds.

Despite all the sugar, Sean is still looking forward to the "circles!" 

We enjoyed donuts after changing into jammies and watching "Harry Potter."

Happy Halloween!

You Are So Beautiful To Me . . .

1. Dishwasher update

Before:

After:

"You are so Beautiful to me!
Can't you see? You're everything I've hoped for!
You're everything I need.
You are so beautiful to me!"
~Joe Cocker

Ode to a Dishwasher
By Sharee Gariety
(To be sung to the tune of "Bicycle Race" by Queen)
Dish-washer!
Dish-washer!
Dish-washer!
I love to load my dishwasher,
I love to load it up,
I love to load my dishwasher,
And fill the top rack with our cups!

And that's why I'm not a poet. However, my heart is so full of joy whenever I look upon my beautiful new dishwasher, I simply had to sing its praise somehow. I hope I never take that blessed machine for granted again. I really do love loading and unloading my dishwasher--so much, that I haven't even made Dallin & Daphne resume responsibility for that chore yet.

2. Here is Hayden. He loves the music class I do each week that is actually geared toward 2 & 3 year olds. Sean frequently boycotts the class, but Hayden shakes the instruments and bounces up and down while we sing songs. It's really cute.



3. Dallin lost another tooth. This one was unique because he lost it at recess playing "tackle football." He told me, his friends Bobby and Jacob both tackled him and that's when he felt his tooth floating around in his mouth. Unfortunately, it popped out and for all their searching, they couldn't find it. Thankfully, the nurse sent home this special note indicating that he'd lost a tooth on the playground, which he put under his pillow in lieu of his tooth. The tooth-fairy mercifully accepted such note as adequate proof, and he was rewarded with a dollar.



4. Venting: So I have been asked to help the youth with a Christmas song for them to sing in Sacrament meeting. I picked this great arrangement of "With Wond'ring Awe" that I think they will have a lot of fun with once they learn it. Well, last night was our first rehearsal (I get 20 minutes at the beginning of YM/YW) and since Arthur is out of town, I got coats on everybody, loaded up all the kids and drug them all down to the church with me to hang out while we rehearsed. Kind of a pain, but that's what a good person I am. ;)

Well, when I got home, I was going through and stapling the music so it would be easier to use for next rehearsal, and I come across this on the back of one of my pieces of music:

In case you can't read it, it says: "This is so boring."

I'm not gonna lie; it hurt my feelings, because I put thought into choosing a song I thought they'd enjoy, and I try to keep things moving and fun for the youth. Also it was a sacrifice for me to get my children over to the church when I'd rather have been putting them in bed. So it was kind-of a slap in the face.

Well then I got angry. (Robert: "Oh I'm angry." Giselle: "Angry. . ." Robert:"Angry, yes, have you ever heard of it?" Giselle, "Oh yes, I have heard of it." Robert "It's a very unpleasant emotion." . . . name the movie.) So I'm angry because it's my music. I bought and paid for it, and I don't care if you are bored, write on your own stupid piece of paper.

So now that I've gotten that off my chest, I am giving myself the advise I know my mom would give me if were here:

"Consider the source."

It's probably an insecure youth who was actually having the time of his life, but would never admit it because he wants to look cool for his friends. :) Alright maybe he wasn't having the time of his life, but he probably is insecure . . . (and thoughtless, and ungrateful, but we'll just go with insecure for now.) And I'll admit I often feel insecure myself. Case in point--this probably wouldn't bother me so much if I didn't feel so vulnerable myself, right? So if you've read this far, it would really help my self esteem if you could all leave comments about how awesome I am and how you would love it if I was teaching you a song to sing in sacrament meeting, and how if you were rich, you'd send me on a cruise to Tahiti or something along those lines. :)

Tomorrow, Tomorrow, I love you, Tomorrow!

Long title, I know, but I am ONE day away from my new dishwasher!
I'm so excited!!!!!
Hopefully, this is the last time my counters will be full of dishes like this.
Except for maybe Thanksgiving.
(The other side of the sink was also covered with drying dishes.)

Tomorrow night I'll be loading my brand spankin' new dishwasher . . . I can't wait!

A Windy Balloon Fiesta!

Windy, one of my greatest friends ever, came to visit us for Balloon Fiesta this year. We actually got there this year before the balloons started taking off, so we enjoyed our breakfast in the dark before the sun rose. Then we went out to see the balloons. The mass ascension on Saturday was cancelled due to the wind, so it's a good thing we got out there on Friday.  (This montage has pictures of her whole visit-balloon fiesta, a trip to the park and our hike in the Sandias.  It's a mix between Arthur's photography and Windy's--our camera was set weird so the pictures didn't come out at a good resolution, and they had the blasted date on them!  Thanks, Sean.) 

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

These bee balloons take off holding hands, turn toward each other and "kiss" and then part ways. I have no idea how they have that much control in maneuvering these balloons!

This is the very balloon that flew over our backyard last week. Dallin recognized it first, and we were so proud of that little balloon because he won the key grab! The balloons fly over these poles that have prizes on top, some have cash, and some have keys to new cars and stuff. It's fun to watch them come in low and try to grab the prizes.

This year, we actually got to see the Darth Vader Balloon. (Sean calls him "Dark Mater")

He really is "most impressive."

We asked the kids their favorite balloons this year.

Dallin: Darth Vader, and the yellow one with the black bird who flew over our house

Daphne: The castle and the pink pig

Sean: Dark Mater and Nemo and the green dragon.

Sean loved balloon fiesta.

One of his favorite questions lately is, "Mom, we go to Balloon fiesta?"

Okay, here is the nifty little craft we did while the weather was blustery and cold on Saturday.  I got this idea from a friend of mine who introduced me to the blog "Joys of Home."  Here is a link to the project on her blog.  We modified it a little bit so it took a little more time and a little more money.  But not much!  The frame is $1 at the Dollar store.  The background is torn up newspaper glued down, and we used chipboard for the letters, instead of printing them. (That's where the extra cost came in.) Also we painted our frames which didn't add to the cost since I had it on hand.  It was very fun, and very affordable, all you student moms out there.  Give it a try.   I did BOO and Windy did EEK.  They look cuter together, though, so I think I'll have to go get another frame and make one that matches Windy's.

We went for a hike in the remnants of hurricane Norbert Saturday afternoon.  It was cold and windy, but fun anyway.  I have more pictures of our hike but this blog is already taking far too long to post, so here are just a couple.  

Daphne loved Windy so much. She said, "Mom, Windy is such a good friend to me, and Dallin and Sean . . . I wish she were in our family all the time. (Then, after some thought,) Maybe we could adopt her!" 

Thanks for coming Windy! You know you've got a good friend when you can go years between visits, but when you're together it feels like no time has passed at all.

Real ones after all

This morning, Dallin came into my room and said, "Mom, come here!  You've gotta see this, you've just gotta see this!"  

Me:  See what? (with my eyes still closed.)

Dallin:  The clouds, Mom--They're pink!

So I opened my eyes (even though it was really hard) and went outside to see the sunrise throw it's magic on the clouds.   I'm glad Dallin dragged me out of bed to share that with him.

Later on at breakfast, I heard a very strange sound.  I checked to see which of my kids was making it, but they were all innocently eating breakfast.  Then we heard it again. It sounded like a dragon breathing fire, and it was coming from outside.  It was a hot air balloon floating right over our backyard!  We all ran outside, our bare feet getting wet on the grass, and watched the bright yellow balloon until it floated out of sight.    The day before Balloon Fiesta starts, many ballooners launch from various elementary schools around town.  We didn't make it down to the school to watch, but we were lucky enough to see one anyway!

"It is the sweet, simple things of life that are the real ones after all."

~ Laura Ingalls Wilder

Teeth and other tidbits

Things here have been crazy lately, and so I haven't been posting as regularly. I know that must be a bitter disappointment to you all, so I have some random bits of life to share:

1. Dallin lost one of his big front teeth. He has a theory that he learned from Junie B. Jones, I think, that the Tooth Fairy recycles baby teeth. She cleans them off, and puts them into other babies' mouths. So Dallin thinks that Hayden surely is growing in his old tooth somewhere.

2. Which leads me to tidbit #2. Hayden now has two teeth on the bottom, and almost four on top. It's hard to see them, but there they are . . .

3. The other day, Daphne said, "Watch Mommy! Watch me forever, okay, Mom?" What she meant was "Watch me forever," as opposed to looking for a second and then going back to folding laundry, or washing dishes, or picking up clutter, thereby missing the special trick she's showcasing.

4. Our Dishwasher is broken. It has been out of commission for two weeks now. I realize now how much I take those kinds of things for granted. I have been spending lots of time chained to the kitchen sink washing, and washing and washing the dishes, and thinking deep thoughts like, "Shouldn't my fairy godmother have arrived by now . . ."

5. Sean . . . what to say about this one? It's a good thing I love him, because today he woke Hayden up from both of his naps after he'd only been asleep for about half an hour. I was so mad. Then tonight while Arthur had to work late, and I was hosting a baby shower, Dallin & Daphne ran downstairs to inform me that he was flooding the bathroom. Yep. He sure was flooding the bathroom giving all his bath-toys a bubble bath in the sink. I was sooo mad.

(looking very innocent)

6. Dallin has awarded himself a Caldecott Award for a book he is writing entitled, "No, Sean, No!" (pretty similar to the Caldecott-Award- Winning "No, David, No" by David Shannon.)

7. I don't usually get this personal, but I experienced a tender mercy of the Lord today that I wanted to share. So you need the background information to understand why it was meaningful to me. Lately I have been feeling overwhelmed and inadequate. Happens to the best of us, I guess. :) I'll blame it on my dishwasher for now. And my four little blessings might be part of it too. I feel like I'm killing myself trying to keep the dishes clean, and the clothes washed, folded, and put away, and the children nourished and happy and thriving, and safe, food on the table, diapers changed, toys picked up, church stuff, mom's preschool, music lessons, and everything else in between, and I'm just not doing any of it well. Anyway, the last few evenings, I have found myself in tears because I feel like "butter scraped across too much bread." I just feel discouraged. (I need to read Pres. Uchtdorf's talk--it was so great.)

Anyway, to get to the point, today I was practicing some music for the Messiah, and I was singing "He Shall Feed His Flock." (For those who are not familiar with Handel's Messiah, the text is all scriptural.) I was singing along, "He shall feed His flock like a shepherd, and He shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in His bosom," and then I came to this part, "and gently lead those that are with young" the first time I sang this line it didn't really sink in, but the music repeats, "and gently lead those, and gently lead those that are with young." And as I sang that, I realized the Savior was speaking directly to me through this scripture. I felt the spirit witness to me that my Savior is mindful of me and my young children. He is mindful of my efforts, my strengths and my weaknesses, and He will gently lead me. I am thankful for the tender mercies of the Lord, and that he does succor his people according to their need. I am thankful that he was mindful of me and spoke comfort to me through music and his words in my time of need.