Halloween Pictures

It's been a while . . .

Hello anyone who might occasionally still check this blog! I know it's been a while since I've posted anything. What can I say, life is hectic sometimes, and I'm haven't been carving out time to contribute to this blog. Now it's 4:00 in the morning and I can't get back to sleep. I'm thinking of starting a blog of my own, if I can get excited enough about it to post regularly and not neglect it. I like the idea of this one, Shellee, but only a few of the family are participating, and I think I want one for my friends to read just by me. I'll let you know if I decide to go for it.

So who's ready for Halloween? What are you and/or your kids dressing up as? My husband and I rarely dress up, only if invited to a costume party or something. A few years ago we were doctors in scrubs and stethoscopes (sp?), and several years before that we dressed as Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf (hope it's obvious which one of us was which!). This year I'm not planning on anything for me, but the kids are really excited. I've been putting off costume prep for weeks, since they started bugging me about it in August! But we finally got started yesterday.

Kelsey will be a cave girl and has sculpted fake bones from tin foil and masking tape, and we bought some fake fur at a decent sale price for a cute tunic and belt thing. (see familyfun.com for a picture). Emily found a large square of red fabric in my stash and came up with little red riding hood on her own. I (ingeniously without a pattern, I must say!) created from a square of fabric, a cute hood without a cut to the square (created shape by sewing on a casing and gathering with elastic). Add ties and hem the whole thing, and it's a hood. I also sewed a simple skirt (also without a pattern) and napkin for her basket of goodies out of a cute red gingham fabric. Jacob will be a fireman for under $7. I got a fireman jacket on sale from Discovery Toys for $4, and a hat and set of accessories at the dollar store for $1 each. Brooke either wants to be a kitty cat like last year, or a butterfly. Either way, I don't need to buy/make anything new!

As a side note, all that sewing yesterday reminded me how much I enjoy it! I got my new sewing maching for my birthday last April, but I haven't had time to do anything with it since a couple of how to classes in May. I love it!!! All the cute decorative stitches, a machine that hums along without suddenly loosing its tension or skipping stitches! My parents gave me my first machine for my 15th birthday, and it lasted for 18 years and served me well. But the new one works so much better and has so many great features. I just may get busy and machine quilt the quilt top I finished right before my last baby was born in 2006!

Put 'em up!

Let's see the first day of school picture!

when it rains, it pours!

I've had such a crazy week here. As compassionate service leader in our ward, I've had it pretty easy with no funeral luncheons since May 2007. Then we have three people die and a new baby born in three days. And a couple of other sweet old ladies about to pass away any day now. Funeral luncheons are quite a bit of work to organize, and hours of standing on my feet the day of. We got through one yesterday, another in the works for Saturday. This morning, everything was in control. The kids and I had dental checkups (no cavities!) and then my sis-in-law and four of her kids coming to play in the afternoon. About five minutes before they arrive, I notice a puddle of water on the floor on the other side of the wall behind our refridgerator. None of the kids admit to dumping water there. I wipe it up, then it slowly returns, oozing from under the baseboard. I pull out the fridge (not easy) to find it apparently dry back there. I clean up the disgusting dirty mess that always collects under the fridge when you don't clean it for years at a time. I wait for the dishwasher to finish it's cycle, thinking maybe the leak is coming from there--nope! It's still soaking through towels! Finally, while playing downstairs with the kids' cousins, I discover a wall with paint bubbling up full of water! Now I know it's serious, and I should have checked for this much earlier. Luckily, I reached a trusted plumbing company that was able to come out right away. It took a while and two square holes cut in our drywall to find the right location of the leak, but finally found it: a narrow hose that takes water to the icemaker and water in the door of the fridge had split within the subfloor (the ceiling of the basement). It was spurting quite a bit of water, so we are lucky I found it today and not in a few days, or after returning from our trip last month! Still, we have some warped hardwood floor, peeled off paint and drywall to patch. I completely forgot about planning the funeral luncheon, so more to do tomorrow. Hope things go smoothly for the rest of the week--I don't think I can take any more surprise repair jobs!

Welcome Trixie

This is Trixie, the newest member of our family. She's two years old, a Pomeranian/Papillon mix. She doesn't bark, is already housebroken and well trained. All she asks for is to be petted and loved. We have her on a 7-day trial (since we have young children the shelter wanted us to be sure everyone got along well before committing to adoption), but things are going well and I doubt we could possibly give her back. We feel lucky to have found such a sweetheart on our first trip to the shelter. I was reluctant to have a dog in our house, but with a dog this easy, it won't be a very hard transition.

Favorite Things Tag

This tag is courtesy of my friend Tara:

Favorite actors/actresses: John Travolta/Meryl Streep--lately I don't watch many movies.
Favorite books: anything by Shannon Hale, Jane Austin, or the Bronte sisters
Favorite clothing items: long t-shirts from Old Navy-I wear them all day and for jammies
Favorite Colors: deep reds and navy blue
Favorite foods: ben and jerry's cherry garcia, chocolate, mac and cheese, apple crisp
Favorite GA's: I love Pres. Monson's talks, also Pres. Uchtdorf and Elder Oaks
Favorite hobbies: reading, scrapbooking, sewing
Favorite hymns: O my Father, I Know that my Redeemer Lives
Favorite movies: West Side Story, Singin in the Rain, Harry Potter series, Finding Nemo
Favorite musicians/groups/songs: George Winston, Harry Connick Jr., that song "Unwritten" by ? I'm drawing a blank since it's late and I'm tired.
Favorite restaurants-Chalo's in Globe, Tony Roma's, Olive Garden, IHOP
Favorite vacation spots-Hawaii, Niagara Falls, Disneyland, Sand Dune Arch

My quirks

Okay Shellee, I saw your quirks on your blog and you "tagged" me, not sure what that means, but I'll just post some of mine here. Maybe I can come up with six.

1. I also get irritated with people who use the English language ignorantly. My biggest pet peeves are "Nucular"--President Bush still hasn't figured out the proper way to pronounce "nuclear" as in nuclear war; and "I could care less" about something. The phrase should be "I couldn't care less" implying that I have reached the limit of how little I could possible care about it. "Irregardless" is another one.

2. When I find a book I enjoy, I like to read as many books by the same author as I can get my hands on. That's why I've read 30-something Anita Stansfield books even though some of her quirks are getting really irritating to me.

3. I love hot bubble baths, even when it's hot in the summer.

4. Lately, I love Webkinz--thanks to my kids. I think they are so cute, and the games online are really fun. Whenever I find a really good sale price on them, I stock up (hey, if I can get one for $8-$10 rather than $15, how could I pass that up?!!) I then let the kids buy them back from me (at the sale price, of course) as they earn and save up their allowance. I even have an account I share with Brooke, since she's too young to play with her pets on the computer.

5. I love organization, but I'm really bad at staying organized day to day. Junk piles appear and multiply like magic at my house. I really feel like I'd be happier in an orderly house where I could find everything when I want to. I guess the chaos has something to do with the five other people I share my space with, but I can't put all the blame on them.

6. I have to sleep with my bedspread "right side up", meaning, the stripes running the length of the bed, not across, and the right edge up by my face rather than the curved decorative edges that go at the foot of the bed. Jon "couldn't care less" which way it goes, so I often have to fix the covers before going to sleep.

So there you have it. I probably have some more, but that's all I can think of right now. Kezhia, would you care to share your quirks?