I have a new friend

I have enjoyed this new friend of mine, but sometimes I can get overwhelmed. This new friend I'm referring to is this lovely cold/flu bug that has found me. Apparently I am quite popular. :} I have been lucky enough to be sick more in the past year than in most of my 10 years (11 in a few days) of marriage. I'm not sure what has changed my luck, or body make-up, but I am tired of being sick! Don't worry. This bug has not just attached itself to me. Mike has already had this. Elaina and Jake have been stuffy. That's why I have taken a new approach to saying "goodbye" to my new friend. I have been putting Saline up my nose (and every nose in the house) and I have also been making everyone gargle with salt water. I am not usually prone to such things, but I am desperate. I am sick of being sick. I'm sick of my house having sickness in it. Shocking thing is that since I have been spraying saline and gargling salt water, I have actually been feeling better. :} YEAH!

Me and my "wicked" kids

Since I have been blessed with some kind of sickness~ yet again~ The kids and I decided to play around with the Halloween fun on Picnik. I thought you all might be interested in some of the pictures.


First is Elaina. She “decorated” herself in this first shot. I helped out a bit in the second.

Emma is next. She did this one all on her own. What a proud momma I am. :}

Here is one of me. Yes. I know I'm beautiful.  HAHA

My personal favorite is this one of Jacob. We had lots of fun with this one. :}

Bet you can't wait for next year, huh?  HAHA

check out my goods

Yesterday Mike and I gathered up the vegetables from the garden. We were pleasantly surprised at how much we got. We gathered over 9 cups of green beans. I know this because we gathered them in my measuring bowl and it was completely full. Actually, it was overly full. :} We also got quite a few Clementines as well as a couple of small bell peppers. We are really excited about our haul. :} We have had to make the kids not eat all the green beans at once. If given the opportunity, they would eat them all at one sitting. :}

Happy Halloween!

Last night we went to Main Street for some trick or treating. The boys stayed home. Apparently they are too old to go do that anymore. Elaina and Emma had a good time. We did have some unfortunate run-ins. The Gecko Gecko was there (a big puppet costume) and at Sonic they had a big shake costume. Elaina didn’t react too well with the big puppets. I think Emma got a bit upset that we had to detour so far around the puppets. haha

Today in celebration of Halloween, I made some gross food for lunch.

First we had Octopus on seaweed. Josh said it looked more like squid. I really don’t know. I’m no sea creature expert. I just know it looked really gross. In case you care, it was hot dogs cut halfway down into eighths. Then boiled as normal. I didn't put "faces" on them because the kids were hovering waiting to eat. The seaweed is just ramen noodles with food coloring in the water as it boils.

We also had Mummy toes. They didn’t wrap too easily, so I only did a couple of tortillas worth. They are Little Smokies wrapped in tortilla strips.

Next we had bones with blood dip. I made up some pizza dough and shaped it into bones. Then I sprinkled them with parmesan cheese. The blood dip is just pizza sauce.

Finally we had some yummy fingers. They are just a cookie with almonds on the tips. I wasn’t too impressed with this recipe. They flattened out too much. I’ll use a different recipe if I do this again. :}

The kids enjoyed the gross food.  Maybe we will have to do it again next year.  :}

What a fast week!

This week has gone by so quickly. As is custom, we had a big storm come in Sunday night.  For some reason, Mike cannot leave without our having a big storm or something breaking on the house.   Actually, I take that back.  There have been a few times when he left and nothing major happened.  More often than not, something major happens, though.  As luck would have it, we have had tornado warnings most of last night as well as thru tonight.  Lucky us!  haha

Monday we had trunk or treat.  That was fun.

Tuesday was Emma's show choir.  They practice in Carrollton, which is about 20 mins (with no traffic).  Some other mothers wanted to carpool, so we start thursday.  YEAH!

Wednesday was Young mens. Jake didn't have anything planned and Josh was having a party.  Apparently they were having an ice cream party for everyone who has been writing in their journals.  I was so tired of driving.  I have been taking Jake to and from seminary every morning (basically twice because I have to come home and wake up kids while he is in class then go pick him up and return home again).  I've also been up to school helping out during the day almost every day.  I am fortunate to have been sleeping a litle better this time while Mike is gone.  I have been able to be in bed by 11:30 PM every night, but I am still wiped out by the evening.  :}   Anyway, I let Josh stay home Wednesday and I took a night off from driving.

Tonight is show choir again.  I am the carpool lady tonight.  The good thing is that I won't have to drive Saturday OR Tuesday.  Yeah!  Hopefully the bad weather will stay away long enough to get to and from practice safely.  :}

Tomorrow is the annual Halloween festivities downtown on Main street.  It's really neat.  All the businesses hand out candy to the kids.  The fire station and jail/police station are on Main street, so they are included in the festivities. Local churches also get into the act.  Usually they have free popcorn, cotton candy, hot dogs and drinks.  The jail is usually made into a haunted house.  The boys go in, but the girls haven't worked up the courage yet.  Maybe this year.  :}

I also found out Mike will be coming home tomorrow.  YEAH!  :}  We all look forward to having him back home.  Hopefully he will be able to stay for a while.  :}

Trunk or Treat

Last night was the ward trunk or treat. I was busy all day trying to find different items for the boys’ costumes; a coconut of some sort was #1 on the list. Jacob and his friend wanted to dress up like characters from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. His Friend was the king and Jake was the guy who follows him around clapping coconut shells together to sound like a horse. In case you are interested, October is NOT the time to look for a coconut. I couldn’t find a real one in any grocery store. I checked 6 different stores for plastic one and couldn’t find one anywhere. After praying (quite hard I might add) I decided to go to Michaels and see if by some miracle they had anything I could use. I came across a clear plastic ornament and clanged it together to see if it made a good sound. It is not meant to be a coconut, but that is what happened to it. I painted some black “holes” in it, and then spray painted the insides brown. YEAH! A coconut in October. By the way, Jake and his friend won the costume contest for the “most original” costume. :}

Josh had me hunt for a mustache for him while I was looking for a coconut. He decided to be a Mexican for the occasion since she had everything, but he wanted a mustache to complete the ensemble. I came across a mustache while at Party City. Josh loved it. He kept rubbing his shrubbery all night. Ha!

Emma was supposed to be a gothic princess. She ended up looking more like a zombie. I almost picked up some non-piercing rings for her nose and ears while at Party City. When I told her, she about freaked on me. I guess that would have been a bit too much. Haha

Elaina was a princess. She didn’t get much candy which really shocked me. She was too busy in the bounce house.

I even dressed up a bit. I found some spider web eyelashes and wore them with a witch’s hat. Elaina was very jealous of my eyelashes. I happened to have some sparkly fake lashes in my stash and I put one on her. She was NOT impressed. She decided fake lashes weren’t for her. Haha

What a fun night.  We really missed Mike.  Hopefully he will be home with us soon.  :} 

Elaina's big day

Today was a big day. We had Elaina’s party. Actually, it was more like “Elaina’s full day”. Once Mother, Abbie and Austin made it here, I let them stay up for a little while because everyone was so excited to see each other. We let the girls sleep in the living room on the air mattress. They were excited to “camp out” in the living room. When I finally got everyone to sleep last night, Elaina was sure to ask that I we sing “happy birthday” and let her have a birthday like Emma. I gave her a kiss and said, “Sure, sure. Now go to sleep”. For Emma, we had the kitchen decorated and gifts out when we went and woke her singing “happy birthday.” I woke up around 7 AM because I figured out what Elaina actually meant. I had dropped the ball. Elaina wanted the big hubabalu that Emma got and I had nothing like that planned. Mother and I quickly drove to Kroger and got some flowers and donuts. When we got home Austin, Josh and Emma helped us decorate the kitchen.

Elaina actually slept late. That was a treat. She did wake up before we finished, but we just made her stay under her pillow with her eyes closed. Once everything was finished, we sang to her. She was really excited.

Then she got to open one present. She has wanted this doll ever since Emma got her doll on her birthday. It is like the American Girl dolls.  Mother found it on sale and I’ve been holding on to it for a couple of months. We let her open the one gift in the morning so she could share the rest of the day with her special friend.

Then mother and I started assembling the cake. It wasn’t too bad. Mother was a great help to me. It was nice to have two sets of hands. :} Once the icing was on, I started getting the towers together and rolling the sugar cones in sugar crystals. Mother started decorating the cake. Emma and Abbie wanted to help, and we welcomed the extra hands helping. Elaina had gotten her feelings hurt earlier (Emma wanted to read the book that came with the doll before Elaina could) and was hiding out in her closet. By the time the girls were decorating the cake, Elaina made her way in and decided to help also. I think the girls decorating the cake worked out perfectly. They really liked getting to decorate the cake. I think it helped make it even more special. ~ Sorry about the pictures.  My camera is doing some weird stuff and the pictures are not coming out as good as they used to for some reason.~

Here is what the cake turned out looking like.  I know.  I was going to make the cones look a bit better, but by the time it was done, I figured it was good enough for today.  After two straight days of baking and decorating cakes/cupcakes, I was tired of icing and cake!  Elaina was excited about it.  Actually, all the girls were excited about it.  Their excitement was all it took for me to decide it was good enough.  :}

We then got ready for the tea party. We had lots of great food.

Everyone (except Grandma, of course) had their babies sit beside them. I was the waitress. I was called 'servant' a few times, but I quickly let them know that I was their waitress, not servant. :}

They were really patient and let Mother and me clean the dishes before we had our manicures. I didn’t get any pictures because I was busy applying polish, and gems to their nails. I also had seen on a blog about how to make a flower with polish. I attempted that on the girls and Mother. They were happy. That’s all that can be said about that. :}

After the manicure, Mike and Jake returned from the Air show they attended to avoid the tea party get out of our hair. Elaina opened her gifts from everyone. She got lots of great things. She was really happy with all her gifts.

We then sang “happy birthday” and she blew out her candles on her cake. The only problem was that we were all so full from our tea party that we didn’t even want to think about eating the cake yet.

We let the cake sit for a while and the kids went off and played.

Around 5 PM it was time for Grandma to get Abbie and Austin back home. ~I know you are dying to know, and the answer is "yes".  We forced ourselves to eat some cake and ice cream before they left. Way to much is still left over, though. :} We were all sad to see them go. We are grateful they were able to come and share in the fun with us.