Will Soda dye flowers?

Madelyn had the privilege of participating in the science project this year.

She was so excited! Mom, not so much! 

Madelyn loved the idea of dying flowers with colored water.  This is probably the oldest science project around. I did it as a kid. I remember friends doing it and my younger siblings doing it. I know of parents who have children older than mine that have done it. I didn't want her to do the same old boring thing. I wanted her to vary it up a bit. After many different suggestions she chose to pick three different colors and wanted to see which dyed the flower better? Colored water vs Soda.

She filled her jars and placed the flowers during the late afternoon just before dinner. 

When she woke up the next morning, about 14 hours later, the brown water flower had started to turn colors. 

But surprisingly it wasn't brown. The top 1/2 of the flower was blue. The lower 1/2 green. 

So she rotated the flower the best she could and the same thing happened by dinner that night. Now the petals had streaks of both blue and green. Blue and green does make brown but the color brown never appeared. 

As for the rest of the colors.....it was kind of a dud! There was just barely a hint of purple deep in the heart of the flower that was sitting in the purple water. We never did see any change in the orange flower. If we were to do it again we'd go heavier on the food coloring and less water. 

A week after the project was begun this was our results. The flowers may not have turned colors like we were expecting but they were still at least alive. The flowers that had been "nourished" by soda.....well they died! The petals shriveled up and the stem became so weak that the flower bent in half. When the top of the flower was touched it was very brittle. In fact when Madelyn picked the soda flowers up they broke at their bend.  Needless to say we've have many conversation's about our health and soda and why mom very rarely buys the stuff.

Who knew???

So to answer the original question, does soda dye flowers? Nope not for us at least.

Trick or Treat

This year I had great plans. 

I had some AWESOME costume ideas that I desperately wanted to do.

In the end I got one done. One day I am not going to be in school during the holiday's. I say this every year thinking the following years holiday season I will be school free and it never seems to happen! I did earn my degree in accounting over the summer but to work for H&R Block this upcoming tax season I had to enroll in their school. So for 2 nights a week I was gone for 4 hours instead of being home in front of my sewing machine. 

On the bright side I did get Madelyn's Cruella DeVille costume complete. She loved it and all the compliments she received. Emily wanted to be a fairy. Her costume was the one I was looking forward to the most that never got done. Oh well....maybe next year. She was still happy making her own fairy from our costume box and clothes she already wore. 

Brayden, aka Bad Batman found his costume out our Halloween box and fell in love. It didn't matter that it was 3 sizes to big. We rolled the sleeves and rolled up the pant legs. It worked! 

He was happy as happy can be!

Kylie wanted to be Rainbow Dash from My Little Pony. I made her costume out of tulle. Something I haven't done in years. And now I remember why! I hate tulle. Before it's worn while it's on the hanger it looks great. The minute the child puts it on that tulle collects electricity, it won't lay down and it just becomes a mess. But she loved it and was happy. She loved it so much she slept in it more times I'd like to admit. 

We met up with some friends in a different neighborhood to do the bulk of our trick or treating. Before leaving Bah Hum Bug Hunter who all of a sudden thinks he's to old for trick or treating was kind enough to take the little two around the neighborhood for me. 

 I love how these two are so patiently waiting for someone to come to the door. 

Trick or Treat!

I had to take a picture of my favorite costume I saw that night. It's not the greatest but you can imagine. It's Cinderella in her carriage! So creative, so fun. 

Haunted Farm

A few day's before Halloween we took the family to a local Haunted Farm/Corn maze.

After we paid our admission fees we were loaded up on a hay wagon and given a ride to all the fun activities.  The first thing we saw was the Headless Horseman.

Emily couldn't figure out how that was possible.

 We were able to make our way through a corn maze.

 Hunter and Kory played a bean bag toss game.

All of the kids liked the Hay Tower. 

Once you climbed to the top you got to slide down the plastic culvert.  

There were farm animals to be seen, face paintings to be had and a fun sand box to dig in. 

Fun times.

Carving Pumpkins

Carving Pumpkins is an annual tradition that my kids LOVE!

 I on the other hand have a love/hate relationship with this tradition.

I love the creativity my kids end up showing, the being togetherness and supportiveness we see the kids offering one another. I love hearing what each has envisioned at the beginning and then seeing what their final master piece ends up as. We have fun! The hate part is the mess. We've always got to many of us working on a to small of a table/area. We're in each others way and the mess just seems to multiply all over my kitchen table and floor. It quite often gets on my kitchen cabinet doors and walls. Somehow the little ones leave me sticky hand prints through out the house despite the numerous hand washings. And then we have the clothes with the spilt "guts" my kids like to call it down the front of them. It's just a messy activity. 

This year living in Hurricane I took advantage of our warm weather. I set up a table outside and we made our memories there! What perfect Sunday afternoon activity. 

Here's our before. 

Hunter wanted to poke our new skeleton into his. 

My girls. 

The little one there in the middle is quite spoiled by her 2 big sisters. 

Can you tell?

Oh happy day's! 

All the spills and mess is outside.

Daddy helping Kylie.

This one requested a picture of her holding her pumpkin's "guts".

And then the final product!

Somehow I didn't get a picture of Madelyn's creation. I don't know how I missed hers.

They all did a superb job this year. 

Halloween Party

When we lived in Prescott Valley we hosted an annual Halloween Party, like every year. It was always so much fun to plan and host. After moving to Utah this fun tradition got paused. Our 1st year someone else in our new ward hosted a Halloween Party at their house. I didn't feel like we could host one too. The following year we were in Alton. I mentioned it to a few and really didn't get a lot of excitement about it. Not wanting to do a ton of work for no one to come I chose not to do a party. Same thing happened the following year. The next year I was talked into hosting the town's Halloween Party. That was a ton of work but the kids loved it! Last year we were once again in a new area with new friends. Kory was working 5 days a week out of town and I just couldn't do it on my own. This year, several months ago, it was determined we were going to jump back on that band wagon and host our annual Halloween Party. 

A lot has changed since my last Prescott Party. The biggest thing being I had pre-teens along with their pre-teen friends coming.  We had 8 children ages 10-13. We also had 12 adults and another 19 kids all under the age of 10. It was a fun, crazy, loud night but I'll admit it was almost too much. Hence the lack of picture taking. I had 4 different games for our pre-teens to play. They played Vampires at Dark, Bigger or Better, a night time scavenger hunt and then they actually ran out of time and we didn't get to the last one. While the bigger kids were running amok the neighborhood... The younger kids were busy bobbing for apples, bobbing for donuts, bouncy eyeball relay race, bubble gum contest and putting a paper skeleton together correctly. We went out with a bang by smashing our pinata to smotherings!   

Here's Brayden getting ready to collect his loot. 

Here are just some of our guests after the pinata.

It was a lot of work but also a lot of  fun! I didn't get a chance to sit and visit with the adults very much as I kept the younger kids occupied with the activities. I'll have to fix that part for next year. The kids had fun, I had fun. I think our comeback was a success!

Pierced Ears

My Emily recently had a birthday. She turned 9! That means she can FINALLY get her ears pierced. She was so excited! We went to Claires for this grand moment. When we got there we had one little girl ahead of us. It was her 3rd time there because she had changed her mind the first 2 times and didn't end up getting her ears pierced. This time she went ahead with the whole process. She cried quite loudly during the thing. It kind of scared Emily. Then as it was about to be our turn Aunt Hanna called and wanted to come watch. She was just getting out of school. What normally should have been a 10 min wait for her turned into a 45 minute wait. By the time our company had arrived and the store was free of customers we had been there close to 2 hours. Way to long for someone's mind to wonder and conjure up the worst. I told her we could leave and come back another time but in the end she went through with it. 

Making sure the marks were even.

After the first ear she kept asking if she could "touch" it. She kept saying, "I can't believe I have my ears pierced. I can't believe it mom. It's really there." 

Being so brave she got to pick out a sucker.

She was quite excited to pick out her very first, her very own earrings. 

Congrats, Miss Emily. Glad you "love" them.