Carving Pumpkins

Halloween is one of my most favorite holidays.

However, the one thing that I really, really don't like at this time of year is the "carving of the pumpkins". I've been putting it off and putting it off and finally told the kiddo's we'd do it after school on friday since Dad would be home to help us.

It was no suprise that the 1st thing out of the big kids mouth when getting home today was, "can we carve pumpkins now, you said!"

While helping the big kids "carve" I gave Brayden his pumpkin with a tub of markers!

Wow! Did he go to town. Being they are washable markers he really thought it was great when dad using a wet cloth washed his drawings away and he could do it all over AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN!

Every year a few local famers donate "extra" pumpkins to the elementary school. So both Hunter and Madelyn were able to decorate a pumpkin at school using paint or markers. They loved doing this at school. I don't know why they won't do it at home. Bringing these pumpkins home today, Hunter and Madelyn were able to carve 2 pumpkins. Boy did they think they were hot stuff! During the 1st 2/3 months of school other people donate fresh veg/fruit from there gardens to the school for a "healthy snack" for all the kids.

I think that's kind of cool!

Crazy Hair Day 2011

This week has been spirit week for the big kiddo's.

Wednesday was RED day, so they wore as much red as possible to school.

Thursday was pajama day.

Leaving today: Crazy Hair Day (always Madelyn's favorite).

She LOVED it!
We just cut Hunter's hair for our recent family pictures so it was a little short to be able to do anything drastic. All I had left from my stash was Pink and Red hair spray dye. He didn't want those colors so he went to school normal.
However, when he got home he was quick to show me that his hair is now green!
Someone at school brought the green hair spray and colored his hair for him.
I guess I need to pick up a few more colors after Halloween this year!

Halloween Costumes

This year Halloween has snuck up on me which is NOT normal!

Did you know that Halloween is in just 7 days?

I've got a few projects to complete for each of the kids costumes this year. I started with the 2 younger ones today. Can you guess what they're going to be?
Brayden is going as DIEGO, what a suprise! Emily on the other hand has suprised us all. She wants to be Alicia who is Diego's big sister.
Why????
Well duh!
She's Brayden's big sister. So now she feels the need to be Diego's big sister too.
Boy did I feel dumb!

Brayden LOVES his "backpack". He insisted on backpack going to sleep with him.
He hasn't seen "click", the camera, yet becuase I didn't get it finished until after all the kiddo's were in bed. I love the way backpack turned out. Click on the other hand is just O.K. Her eye's bug the crap out of me. It's only the 3rd pair I did and they are still NOT the same size. Seriously! I'm thinking I may need to go back to kidergarten and learn how to cut again.
Oh well, I'm sure the kids will love her too.
Tommorrow I will be making Emily and Brayden's matching safari vests which will complete there costumes. Brayden will be wearing "backpack" and it'll double as his candy bag. Emily will wear "click" around her neck while she does her trick or treating.
Two down, two more to go and just six days to do it in.

Emily Starts Preschool

Miss Emily FINALLY started preschool this past week. My sister-in-law, Heather, put a preschool group together the same year I was part of one in Prescott Valley, 4 years ago. The difference between ours was that she couldn't get enough moms that wanted to rotate each week. So she took it upon herself and teaches it solo twice a week. When we moved here Emily talked to her Aunt Heather about joining her preschool. Aunt Heather warned us that she didn't start preschool until sometime in October due to all the canning she does. Emily was so excited for her big day to finally arrive. Here she is with her Aunt Heather, a.k.a "teacher".
Emily had a great 1st day of school and can hardly wait to attend again this week.

Woo Hoo!

Knock on Wood for me please......

I've decided that it's finally time to blog about this big event in little man's life.

Brayden is Potty Trained (no accidents for 9 days).

Woo Hoo! His older 3 siblings were done by the time they were 2. Brayden was by far my oldest to potty train. All I can say is it was much easier in a way with the other kids being a bit younger. For instance at the beginning Brayden would cry for his mickey mouse diaper. I thought him having Diego underware would make everything alright. I was mistaken!

Being he could talk he could tell me that he perferred to run around "nated", he didn't want to be "mobest". So for a few days I relented and let him run around naked as there were far fewer accidents. He still perfers to be bottomless but is slowly getting the idea that those days are over and his cute little cheeks will be covered now, regardless of what he wants. The nice part about him being older then his siblings were is that he usually goes by himself. It's not until he gets close to me and I smell something horrible that I ask him if he's gone potty. He replies quite happily, "Yep, me pooped!" No kidding! So we high tail it back to the bathroom to take care of that stink! Yesterday before church Kory and I talked about having him go in his undies but decided with both us having to teach we'd go one more Nursery class with a diaper BUT as soon as we got home the diaper was replaced with his big boy underware. Next week we'll be more brave and let him attend church with underware on.

Good Job Brayden!

Family Pictures 2011

A few weeks ago we had our family pictures taken.

Here are a few of my favorites. I'm not sure which one I like the best to have it blown up and placed on my wall. I like the old truck we are sitting on.
The photographer brought props such as the teddy bears. I like the picture but not sure I want the teddy bears on my wall.

The photograper saw this tree and thought it might be fun for Hunter to climb. Once he climbed it he decided to try the whole family.

I really, really really wanted the fall leaf colors in our family pictures. At the time I was going over Cedar Mtn. 2x a week and was watching the leaves change. We decided it would be a little farther to go to the mountain and so we tried Rush. Being we had just been there the week before we thought it would be perfect. It probably would have been if it wasn't for the recent wind storms we were having. There wasn't a single Aspen tree with leaves. However the grounds had a beautiful blanket of fall colored leaves that we got to use instead. I was happy with that.

This is my favorite picture of the girls. I have one of the boys but they were all a bit blurry except one. Of course that's the one that Hunter has his eye's closed. AHHHHH!

I just can't have family pictures taken without a few of just "us".

Newest Cakes

To say this past week was very busy is an understatement. I volunteered myself to do 2 cakes all wanted on the same weekend.

My Aunt Pam got married about a week and half ago and this past friday was her open house. I volunteered to do her cake. It was hard at the beginning as she really didn't have any ideas. By the end of our conversation she asked me to do some sort of a Fall theme. I searched on line several different places and decided that due to the lack of time I had I was going to use regular ol' frosting instead of fondant, the "in thing" and to use fake flowers.

I don't see frosted cakes a lot anymore but

I think this one looks AMAZING!
I absolutely love it and she did too.
The only part I didn't like about the whole ordeal was that I needed to be in Vegas the same night as the reception. I wanted to deliver the cake myself earlier during the day but beeing S.R 14 is closed for the next 6-12 months, I had to drop it off in Hurricane with my parents and have them deliver it for me.

After dropping the wedding cake off the kids and I headed to good ol' Las Vegas where my brother Jonathan lives. There little girl, Mya, turned one and the family was getting together to celebrate. Camille, my sister-in-law, and I have been corresponding by email. She wanted a hot pink, zebra style birthday cake.

I love it. She loved it and all the guests loved it.

I enjoyed the compliments I recieved, especailly from the kids. According to the many small cousins running around they have never had a birthday cake like this. They haven't even seen a birthday cake like this. They wish there moms could make cakes like this. The best compliment and my favorite of the night was "You are the BEST cake decorator ever!"

I love it.

For Hunter....

Hunter has been pestering me about blogging about his recent "hunt". Several weeks ago, and I mean several, like before school started our family with some friends had a cook out up at Rush. While there we brought a few toys with us. After shooting many times at a few pop cans and such Hunter asked if he could shoot at a few squirrels with his pellot gun. Being he didn't hit a single target all afternoon Kory figured he wouldn't hurt anything as long as he went far away from the group. Right???

WRONG!

Not 5 minutes later after he had left the group he came running back saying he had shot a squirrel. The adults started to snicker thinking to ourselves, "Yeah Right!" I could not believe it when he came running around the truck carrying his prize. This kid actually aimed/hit and killed a squirrel.