I'm still alive; and blogging!

My sister mentioned to me today that it's not Halloween anymore, and I need to update my blog. She's right, I've been way to lack on it. I just can't tell you where the last three months have gone to. I love blogging, I love to capture the fleeting moments before I forget them. This is why I'm so sad that I haven't been keeping it up the last few months. My life is always busy, but the last couple of months have seriously felt like we've been in warp speed. I hope things will start to slow down now that we are into 2011. I'm really excited of this year. I've got a lot to look forward to and also dread. My Marathon is now just around the corner in May (maybe that's why I don't have anytime to blog my whole day revolves around when I can work my run in). But the bottom line is that my new goal is try to blog once a week. I feel like that is reasonable, but still frequent enough to record our family's adventures. I'll be updating soon!

Princesses, superheores and cuddley tiggers!

The cutest little tiger ever! Isn't he so adorable? Benjamin loves Halloween!

Superhero showing off his muscles! Kirk was one tough transformer!

Prettiest princess on the block! Kate was a darling Rupunzel this year!

The kids were very excited to pick out their Halloween costumes this year. Kate was once again a princess, Rapunzel to be exact. I was planning on making her a long wig out of yarn, but my visiting teaching partner was Rapunzel when she was a little kid. She still had the wig, and let me barrow it! It was absolutely darling on her. As you can see in the pictures this costume would not have been very conducsive to treat or treating. So she only wore the wig for photo's. Kirk had a hard time making up his mind, but in the end he decided on being a transformer. I found a cool costume on KSL for cheap. Finally Benjamin was tiger, that was the same costume Kirk wore a couple of years ago. It was nice to just pull it out of storage. He looked adorable in it. We celebrated it on Saturday. The kids were very excited about trick or treating, but it rained so Dan drove the kids from house to house. They did pretty well, and got a lot of candy. Benjamin has turned into a little candy monster. He knows the cabinet were I stash it, and points and grunts at it. It's pretty funny to watch him throw a candy tantrum. You have to understand that he NEVER throws temper tantrums, so that's why I think it's so funny. I told Dan that Halloween has brought out the inner monster of Benjamin. I'm not worried though. The candy will soon get eaten, and he'll hopefully turn into his normal sweet self again!

Halloween Parties

Halloween is such a fun holiday. I made it easy on myself this year, and didn't sew any of the kid's costumes.

I always take the kids out to visit my 98 year old and home bound Grandma. I like to call her the energizer bunny. She has had a couple of heart attacks, but she has just bounced back and keeps on going. She looked great yesterday. She was as sharp as ever. She's the only 98 year old I know who you can sit and talk sports. She keeps up with the Jazz, and BYU football. She can remember everything, She probably has a better memory than me. She also knows whats going on with current events, and keeps her mind very active by reading a lot. Here are some photos of her with the kids.

A good example of how responsible my oldest child is. I told Kate that she could bring her doll out to visit my grandma. As I looked back I saw this. She had seat belted her doll into the van. She is so sweet!

We also had a party last week with my parents and my brother's family. We ate sloppy Joe's, and roasted masrshmellows. My Dad told the kids a Halloween story around the fire. It was fun to get together. This is a photo of Kate and her cousin Alexandra.

Last night Dan and I attended a costume party. I love dressing up for Halloween, but usually I get so focused on the kid's costumes, that I end up just throwing something together at last minute for Dan and I. Example a few years ago Dan was a skier, and I often go as a cat. But this year I was determined to come up with a fun costume to coordinate with Dan's. We decided to go with Harry Potter since the new movie is coming out in a few weeks. We may even dress up for the movie just for fun. So here is my costume.

Going as Ginny seemed like the obvious choice because of my hair color. It was very convenient not to worry about a wig. The costume was easy to get together I already had a white shirt, gray sweater, and black skirt. I just had to make the cloak, and tie, and wand.

We found an old graduation gown for Dan's cloak. We already had the white shirt, and pants, and we borrowed some glasses from his parents. They were extremely cheap costumes. I bought the ties at DI for $2.00. I had some gold spray paint and I spray painted the stripes onto the ties. I made the wands out of paper and hot glue, and paint. They were so much fun to make. You roll up the paper from corner to corner, and tape it. Then fill in the hollow ends with hot glue. Then add detail to handle and tip with more hot glue. Then paint. I used black, white, and gold paint because that's what I had on hand, but I've seen some really cool brown ones online. No one could believe that I just made them out of paper.

Here is a ultra up close one I took by holding the camera in front of both of us. Dan had already taken off his tie and glasses, but you can see his lip gloss scar on his forehead! I'll get a picture of him in his full costume tonight. He's going to be taking the kids trick or treating, and I think he'll dress up again. This theme was so much fun to do, that I'm tempted to do a Hermione and harry costume for Kate and Kirk next year. I think they would look so adorable in little ties, and cloaks. Plus I think they would be all about the wands.

Christmas Stockings

It started snowing this week, the mountains are covered with white,and it's getting me excited for Christmas! Yes, I'm one of those crazy people who start listening to Christmas music the day after Halloween. Don't get me wrong I HATE winter. I don't like driving in the snow at all, if it's storming outside, I prefer not to go out. But one good thing about the snow is that it gets me into the Christmas spirit. So last night I thought it would be fitting to start on my kid's Christmas stocking's renovation. For a long time now I've been keeping my eye's out for some really cute homemade looking stockings I could individualize for each of the kids. I just haven't found any that I liked, and would be in my price range (a $40.00 stocking x 3 ouch)! But this past summer Down East home was having a tent sale and I came across these adorable pottery barn stockings for three dollars each, seriously you can't get any cheaper than that!.

Initially I thought I'd just unpick the embroidery but that would have taken for ever, so last night I embroidered the each of the kid's names on their stocking onto some ribbon and they turned out like this.........

I actually think that they turned out cuter than the originals. I love this thick ribbon, and the look of the homemade stitching. I'm still trying to decide how to attach the ribbon. All you crafty readers do you think I should stitch the ribbon on by hand, or use a zig zag stitch on my machine?

My sister also picked up a few stocking's for her own kiddo's, hopefully this will give you some ideas for your own.

Benjamin's latest word "candy"

Fittingly this time of year I always buy Halloween candy. Somehow it always ends up getting eaten before Halloween! I recently ripped into a bag of mini recesses cups (my favorite!) and Benjamin all of a sudden learned quite quickly a new word "candy". It sounds so cute coming from him. He is such a little doll. He is just like his mother and already has a taste for peanut butter and chocolate together. Looks like he's going to be enjoying this holiday.

Tonight at dinner as usual Kirk started telling jokes. This one strikes me as really cute. "Knock, Knock"
"Who's there?"
"Darth Maul"
"Darth Maul who?"
"Darth Maul wearing a diaper on his head"!

Mountain walks, and Zhu Zhu pets

Kate and Kirk both went for a walk in the mountains on Sunday. I love fall, it's by far my very favorite time of year. Kate collected some flowers on her walk, and Kirk added to is rock collection which he keeps on top of his dresser (I'm wondering if he'll notice if a few of them disappear, their beginning to take over the dresser space). Here are a couple of pictures. Benjamin just discovered Kate's Zhu, Zhu pet this morning. He played with at all morning long. I wish I could have filmed his reaction when it started crawling on the wood floors. Once he discovered how to make it go he'd yell, yaaaaah, as it was crawling along. I think I have a Christmas present idea for him. You have to admit they are cute little toys. And since Dan and I have agreed that we aren't pet people, this is the next best thing!

I un-posted the previous post. I thought it was a little bit to much complaining to stay up. Everything with our rentals is actually going to work out just fine. I think I just needed a forum to vent too. I think Dan really appreciates my blogging, because after I had written about my frustrations I was a much happier Mom, and Wife.