Halloween Night

We ate dinner at Arby's (minus Alexa) and then we went out Trick-or-Treating. Max didn't take a nap and he fell asleep on the way home from dinner. He was pretty grumpy and wasn't really that excited about the whole trick-or-treat thing. After every house he would face plant in the grass and have a fit. It got to the point where it was pretty much me or Rich doing it for him and so we called it quits after only a few houses. We came home and watched Nightmare Before Christmas. I was sort of bugged with Max because it was such a GREAT night, it was perfect Halloween weather.

Alex went with his friend Colton, they were gone for about an hour or so and then he came home and fell asleep. He wasn't feeling that great (neither was I for that matter). He handed out candy for a while before he fell asleep.

Alexa went with her friends and they were gone all night. They had fun and went to her friend Maddy's house after until about 11:30pm.

It was a great month and I always get excited to see what everyone dresses up as. Alex makes Halloween a great holiday for our family!!

Halloween

Since I already had a costume...I decided to dress up on Halloween day. I got some really funny looks at work and none of the residents recognized me.



I went to help Alex's class with their Halloween party in the afternoon. There were four different activities for the kids to rotate through. I was in charge of the relay race. They had to put the skeleton together the right way the fastest. It was a fun party.

 

After I picked up Max from school I had to run into the grocery store to get a few things, I asked Alexa if she wanted to come in with me. She said "your going in like that??" I said "yes, its Halloween" and she said, "I'll just stay in the car." So much for the "Halloween Spirit."

Glowing Pumpkins

Since I was not home whe it got dark yesterday, we had to wait until tonight to light up our jack-o-lanterns.

Alex put this mask on our plastic pumpkin...it looks better in person and he thinks it is really going to scare the trick-or-treaters.



Max was loving the "Jason" mask and wanted me to take the picture while he had it on.



Luckily he let me get one of his sweet face with out the mask too.

Alexa's First "REAL" Report Card

I told Alexa that if she got a 4.0 I would give her $20. She missed it by a -. All A's but one A-. She is such great student and is very smart and always does her homework and studies for tests without me having to ask.

I am so proud of her and I hope she will continue to work hard and keep studying and striving to get good grades all throughout her school years!!

Life OFF Game ON

The fun begins again...Season Opener for the Utah Jazz, and I was there, along with Norma and Shannon and baby Korver (his first Jazz game, obviously). Thanks to Rich's mom for getting season tickets and being kind enough to let us tag along every now and again!

They have made some improvements to the Energy solutions Arena. I guess they have some new lights and the sound system was improved. It did seem brighter but other than that I didn't notice much difference. We had a great time watching the game and it was a good one since we pulled off the WIN!!

 

On the way home we were chatting about different things and Norma had mentioned that this is Coach Sloan's 20th year (I think it was 20) coaching...that made me feel OLD since I still remember going to games at the Salt Palace and Frank Laden coaching. Time flies!! Thanks again girls for a GREAT night out!!!

Carving Pumpkins

We are a little late this year with the Pumpkin Carving. I have had the pumpkins on the porch for weeks but we have been pretty busy. I PROMISED Alex that we would do it today FOR SURE!! When I found out I was going to the Jazz game I knew that I HAD to find time to get these buggers carved.
It was a great day so I thought it would be best to do it outside then that would make the clean up really easy, since I didn't have much time.

 

Max would not touch the "guts" and was not really understanding what we were doing sticking our hands inside these things and pulling out seeds and orange sticky stringy things. He kept saying "that's a mess mom."


Alexa was trying to get out of carving her pumpkin but me and Alex convinced her to come join in the gross mess. It was great doing it outside, we never have but if the weather is this good next year we will have to try it again!!


Alex had a hard time deciding what kind of face to make on his. He had a set of triangle eyes but then changed his mind a few times and just kept cutting away. He didn't want any help from me.


Alexa just started cutting...don't know if she really had a plan or not. She was fast and it turned out cute.


When I was done with Max's face he was really excited. I think he realized what was going on at that point and was really proud of his pumpkin. I just did the traditional face since I am NOT artistic and not that creative either. Rich wasn't home so he missed out on all the fun but he did cook the seeds later, which is his favorite part anyway!!

Things Aren't as BAD as they Seem...

Well as you all know, things have not really been going that great for us this month. Rich getting laid off, getting my jewelry stolen, the holidays coming and still not a lot of job prospects...pretty stressful to say the least. Well today my faith in good people was renewed and this is why. I have a friend named Kellye She has a post on her blog that I want everyone to read (just click on her name and it will take you there).



I am pretty sure that Kellye has never met my Sister Amberly but yet she organized this great effort to get her the trike of her dreams!! My sister Amberly has "special needs" and she is the greatest sister. She has blessed our family in so many ways and she is always is doing something that makes everyone laugh (or be really embarrassed). She is just so simple and really doesn't ask for much. I know that she would be so "touched" to know that perfect strangers are willing to donate their hard earned money so that she can have something that she really wants!!

Thanks so much Kellye for reminding me that there are SO MANY good and caring people in the world (sorry I am getting a little emotional here) you have really made my day and I can't really explain to you how much this means to me!!

Witches Night Out (YW style)

For our Young Women's activity we had a Witches Night Out Progressive Dinner. It was a great activity and everyone had a great time. We had ALOT of witches turn out for this event!!

Here is Me and Alexa before we left

These are some pictures of the girls and the leaders.


We had a yummy salad at the first house and heard a story (can't remember the name) about 2 witches that had a great moral that whatever you do good or bad will come back to you!!

 

I didn't take pictures at the other houses but we moved on and had soup and the best rolls, they were SO DELICIOUS!! The soup was also really really good, not usually a fan of soup in general or tomatoes for that matter but this tomato basil soup was scrumptious!!
Then we went to our last stop and had a little "lesson" using the first Harry Potter movie. We watched the clip of when they are doing the sorting hat and it was related to how we were each placed in our own families for a specific reason. It was a really good thought.
Then we enjoyed some delicious treats that we dipped in warm melted chocolate!! It was a really great night and I hope we do it again next year!!

Caramel Apples

We met at Carrie's house to make some caramel apples. She is such a great chef and always knows the "proper" ways to do things. There were TONS of kids there and it was a little crazy but we all had a really good time.

 

I have never made caramel apples before and was really excited to try it. We had some delicious toppings to make them extra yummy. We ate them after church the next day and they were scrumptious!! Thanks Carrie for having us over (and cleaning up the whole mess!!)

Main Street Trick-or-Treating

There is a tradition in Spanish Fork for the businesses on Main Street to do Trick-or-Treating for the kids. They have different displays lining main street and it is pretty festive. We have never been before and so we met up with some of Rich's family and gave it a try!
I LOVE this costume on Max...since he loves Batman and is Batman everyday, I thought it would be fun for him to be a Bat and he LOVED his wings. He held out his arms for the longest time saying he was flying in the sky!


Here are all the cute little trick-or-treater's before we headed out. They were all really excited about going and couldn't wait!


Alex hasn't really decided what he is going to be for Halloween yet so we just got in the costume box and pulled this out...he always loves to try and scare people!

Here is Alex posing with some of the "main street monsters"
It was a great day for being outside and everyone really seemed to enjoy themselves!!

Mesquite

For my birthday Rich gave me a trip to Mesquite and so on Wednesday we took off for our little get-a-way. We left the kids home with Joseph and McKell. We stopped in St George for lunch at IN-N-OUT Burger, I LOVE it!!
This is the only picture I took and it was on the way home. We had some good times and some bad...

First of all Rich has been driving for almost 20 years and he has NEVER had a ticket...he had the cruise set on 90 and totally got busted. We thought the officer might have mercy on him since his record is totally clean, well he only wrote the ticket for 10 over instead of 15 so I guess that's something.

We checked into the Oasis and our neighbors were pretty loud so Rich called the front desk to see if we could switch rooms, they said they only had a room across the street and I didn't want it so we decided to just live with it. We took off to get some dinner. We got back and our keys didn't work, we went to the front desk and they fixed it. We noticed that the curtains had been shut and there was a magazine and some newspapers on the table...also I had a plastic sack with a book, ipod speakers and some snacks on the table that was gone. We called security and they came and figured out that when Rich had called the front desk about the room change they put our room back in the system as available (even though we never went to the front desk to change rooms) so the people they gave it to realized that the room was not vacant and went and got a new room. Well the security guard told us he got us a new room so he escorted us across the street to our new room.
When I was getting ready the next morning I went to put on my jewelry and realized that I had left it in the old room on the bathroom counter (we had put on our swimsuits to go to the hot tub in the middle of the whole mess and I didn't even think about checking the bathroom)...I called the front desk and asked to see if they had rented the room after wee left, and they had. They put me through to housekeeping to see if my stuff was in lost and found and of course it wasn't!!! I was sick, my wedding ring, my watch, a few other rings (that have special meaning to me)and my earrings ALL GONE!! Security came up to our room for the second time and we had them call the Police. The officer assured me that if someone from housekeeping had seen my jewelry they would have turned it in. The people who were in the room had already checked out but were still in the hotel so the officer was going to talk to them. HELLO of course it was the maid. We were in the room long enough that they would have called housekeeping to clean the room before they gave it to someone else...I just wanted to talk to whoever was assigned to clean the room but of course that is NOT an option. We never heard anything all day from security or the police so Rich called security and they said they were still investigating. They have that policy on the door that the hotel is NOT RESPONSIBLE for anything lost or stolen and that pretty much leaves you with NO options!
I feel so stupid to have made such a dumb, dumb, dumb mistake but I honestly can't believe that someone can feel OK about stealing a woman's wedding ring...it is SO SAD. To top it off our insurance will only pay $1500 and we have a $500 deductible so that would leave me with $1000 to replace it. I just want my original ring back!!.
Even though we had some crappy things happen we still had some fun. We each got an hour massage and hung out by the pool all day. We had some quality time together too which is always good for business (if you know what I mean)!!

Halloween Cruise

For Young Women's tonight we went to Provo to go on a haunted boat ride...well let me just say that it was definitely NOT haunted and it was barely even a ride.

 

It was pretty pathetic and I feel bad cause I was laughing like the whole time...I couldn't help it. This guy, our "Captain" guided the boat with an overhead rope through the river. There were lights and jack-o-lanterns but that was about it. We did have a "pirate" with a weird pirate voice come aboard and he told some jokes (that were SO BAD) it was pretty embarrassing.
Well the girls were good sports and now we know what NOT to do next year!!

Dinner

While Alexa was at the mall...me, Monica and Brooklyn decided to blow up some balloons to make it more 'partylike' in the house. Monica started making balloon people and so then me and Brooklyn joined in on the fun!
I made Alexa pose with some of our creations!


Alexa usually picks the same dinner for her birthday...biscuit pizzas, finger jello and doritos, I added fresh pineapple and veggies and dip. We had a FULL house. My whole family was there (thats 19 including us, Dave was home doing yard work) my Aunt Annette and most of her kids were there (we missed Michelle and Nick who just moved to Portland)(7 more) then Alexa's dad came with most of his family thats in town (6 more) so for those of you like me who are slow at math that is 32 people!!! Thank goodness we had room for everyone!
It was a great meal and I have to thank Amy and Melissa who took over the pizza making for me...that was incredible! I think we made at least 100 biscuit pizzas!!

 

Here are just some random photos I snapped while people were eating!!