Pie and Potter

Neil and Isaac love to help me cook.  We were making pie to take to our pre-Thanksgiving dinner with the Albertson’s.  Pumpkin pie filling isn’t my first choice when it comes to snitching, but they didn’t seem to mind.

The BYU star show for this week was all about how the Harry Potter books related to the stars.  We took Jessie, Mark, Abbie and Spencer and Rachel meet us there.  Poor Spencer wasn’t heavy enough to keep his seat tipped back to watch the ceiling so we had to hold to down for him.   I think Jessie enjoyed it the most because she’s a Harry Potter crazy, but Mark loved how so many of the characters in the book were named after stars that are from Roman and Greek myths. Abbie’s birthday party was also one month late….and had the same outcome as Spencer’s with only one friend coming.  But the treasure hunt was still a ton of fun. For Abbie’s party we collected the stuff to make cloths pins magnets that we decorated with flowers.  We got to use the big shot to emboss the paper before we punch it and that’s everyone’s favorite toy to play with.  Since there were only two girls they both got to make 4 magnets – one of each color instead of only one.  I think they were happy about that.

And for dessert we had rainbow cup cakes.  Abbie just loves rainbows. That evening was our delicious dinner.  Addie made the turkey – she soaked it in a brine overnight and it was heavenly!  What a great evening together.

It was a chicken costume day….. A “real-life” evening at our house.

The boys and I stopped by Ken’s work for lunch with him.  Neil loves to help post photos on  Instagram.  And Neil wanted the gray filter because "gray is my favorite color!" Playing with the mango and gingerbread play dough we made. An indoor hotdog roast and dessert.  Spencer and Abbie had coupons for ice cream cones from Burger King and Neil and Isaac didn’t want to be left so they got cones too.  But who can tell me why they are in the living room and not the kitchen – not cool. Since we got the flower bed all cleaned out we added a load of compost to it and planted the bulbs for the spring.  We read online that if you dig up your tulips and replant them you’ll get more flowers because the bulbs will have room to grow.  So we did.  Most of the bulbs had a baby bulb growing on them so we got bags and bags of bulbs.  Planting them took longer than we planned – go figure :-).  But this time instead of digging a hole for each bulb we excavated an area of the flower garden about 4 inches down.  Spread out the bulbs and then covered them with dirt.  It was a bit faster and then you weren’t trying to remember where you had already planted.  We’ll see this spring how well we did…I’m so excited!  Here’s Mark helping Ken finish up the planting. While they planted the girls and I made a bike rack out of PVC pipe.  All the bikes have just been in a jumble in the garage and it was driving me crazy!!  So I found the instructions online…tweeaked them a bit for us and ta-da!  I was so happy how it turned out!!  It holds eight bikes, four on each side. And cost about 20-25 bucks! Neil and Isaac love to take baths together.  Isaac's favorite animal right now is turtles. He was so excited when Jessie brought in a turtle bath toy to play with.  Listening to him say “turtle” was so stinking cute.  He’s learning so many words. Ken took the kids to a women’s volleyball game at BYU.  Fun times. Reading with dad in between Sunday meetings. Neil loves to help plop the cookies on the sheet with the cookie scoop.  Today we tried oatmeal cookies with ginger instead of cinnamon. Neil can't stop snitching so I'm thinking we're good.  And they were good….fabulous in fact! An evening at home.

Seashells and Halloween

The little boys and I were walking around the store and Neil really wanted to buy some Pistachios, so we did.  When we got home he asked, “Mom, can I have some seashells for lunch?”  I love it!  He had a few then remembered that he got the flu last time after he had eaten some nuts and was afraid to eat anymore because he thought it was the nuts that made him sick.  I tried to reason with him, but then gave up and just enjoyed them myself.

We haven’t had a free weekend in months and this year was Abbie and Spencer’s turn to have a friends party.  So one month late Spencer had his party.  Unfortunately only one friend was able to make it, but Spencer was a great sport about it and Abbie and Jessie joined us for the party.  A standard party around here has been a treasure hunt collecting things and then making something with the stuff you’ve collected.  Everyone loves a treasure hunt.  For Spencer we collected stuff to make hippo cupcakes. One of Neil’s favorite books right now is Frog and Toad.  He’s nearly got them all memorized, but he still loves it when other people read to him and he quotes it along with them. It’s not even Halloween, but Rachel was getting excited for Christmas.  So she and Jessie made us a 60 link chain with each link having a different name of Christ on it with the scripture reference.  We never did get good at remembering to read one each night and so the last week or two before Christmas we were reading three or four a night to finish it on time.  It was a fun thing. The kids helped pick up walnuts that fell off our neighbors tree into our yard and we had them on the front porch drying for a couple of weeks.  The kids like to go out and crack the husks off the shells for fun. Rachel found a great deal on pumpkins and got some for us.  They were huge! and the perfect decoration for the porch – oh, and I failed to mention they were great seats too….at least these two thought so. This year for Halloween Jessie and Abbie decided to be lions.  I finally got Jessie’s mane sewn on the sweatshirt.  I had her and Abbie hand sew their own ears on.  But I couldn’t wait for the ears to be on and I had Jessie try it on right away. 

Ken and Scott took the girls on a daddy daughter date mini-golfing and then to Scott’s house to fix dinner together and play games.  Looks like they had a great time.  They came home laughing and laughing. 

A colorful bouquet Ken brought home for me!  (I love rubber spatulas and use them almost every time I cook anything….which means they are always dirty…not anymore!) Ken with a presenter at a conference….wow!  I think I would have been at his belt buckle! Rachel had some old buns from work and she invited us to go feed the ducks with her.  The boys were thrilled!  Jessie had job shadowed Rachel that morning at the MTC West and had a great time. My almost great snack idea until Isaac started using his fingers instead of his apple to scoop the peanut butter....can you say messy! Our last picnic of the year. Jessie taking pictures again. Rachel is a angel from heaven.  Ken ended up having to work late the week of Halloween and then had a bunch of bishopric stuff to do, so we weren’t able to get around to carving pumpkins.  I wasn’t feeling all that well the night before and Rachel saved the day and came down to help the kids carve their pumpkins.  We didn’t get them finished that night, but the kids were happy had a lot of fun.

Neil helped me make these fun candy corn luminaries out of balloons and mason jar.  The small eye ones are from a couple of years ago. Addie dropped off these amazing treats for us.  They were SO cool!

All ready to go Trick or Treating!

Ken took the kids and Jessie’s friend came along too.  Isaac picked up on the candy thing pretty quick! and was good at saying thank you.  At someone house they even got scones and honey butter.  Before Neil left I reminded him to say thank you and he says to me, “Right.  And stick out my tongue.”  “What!  We don’t stick out our tongues at people,” was my reply.  “No, when we say thank you.”  (We have been practicing the “th” sound with Neil and he’s really doing a great job, but we’ve been practicing by sticking out our tongue….so he was just reminding me that to say thank you you have to stick your tongue out to make the right sound.) hee- hee- hee.

Mark’s pumpkin is in the front by its self.  Jessie helped carve out a unicorn for him.  Jessie’s owl one is behind his.  Spencer’s Cyclops is back by the door and Abbie’s cat and Neil happy pumpkin are out in front.

That’s October for you.

Ken loves mowing.  It’s his favorite chore…I’m not kidding either.  And then on Sunday morning when he gets home from meetings his favorite thing is to go out on the deck and admire all the green. We took Rachel with us and went for a drive through the mountains to see the fall colors.  We packed a picnic lunch, but didn’t find a picnic site real easy so we just pulled into a camping place to use a table there and got in trouble from the manager….grumpy….oh well.  It was pretty chilly in the shade and we couldn’t move the table so we ate quick and returned to the van.  There were lots of people with the same idea and there were cars pulled over on the side of the road all over with people out taking pictures of the changing leaves. Afterwards the kids stayed at Rachel’s for a bit while Ken and I took Neil back to BYU for retakes of his birthday picture.  That funny boy!

After pictures Ken and Neil played “Pooh-sticks” with little twigs and leaves in the streams to see how far they would float along.  There is a little bridge at the top of the stairs when you get to the path and we waited and waited for there leaves to come out the other side….but they never did. Girls night in. Jessie and Abbie made masquerade masks together. Then they helped make dinner while wearing them. It was a royal evening! Rachel invited Jessie and Mark to a Harry Potter party.  Fun, food and games.  Here’s the chocolate frogs they got.  You can read all about it on Jessie’s blog here: http://jpsugarbaby.blogspot.com/2013/10/fall-break.html

"I'm too full to eat my dinner,” says Neil after one or two bites of his dinner.  So we packed up his dinner and took it with us to Grandma’s house. 15 minutes later at Grandma's house he served himself some cookies for "dessert." Doesn't dessert come AFTER dinner??  (and he sat and stared at his dessert collection while mom fed him his dinner, then he chowed the cookies.) Neil dressed himself up – all ready to play.

While the kids were taking turns having piano lessons with Grandma Neil and I entertained ourselves in the hallway with this huge exercise ball.  Abbie joined us and they had a blast playing together.

We finally got some button eyes so Jessie could finish her owl hat we started this summer.  (A lady in the ward came and gave Jessie and I “hat lessons.”  Mine still needs the beak and eyes sewed on.  But Jessie was excited to try it out on a baby and this doll was the only baby around. :-) Ken and Scott and Mark went to get us wood this year for the stove.  Now to find a free weekend to get it cut.

For Halloween Spencer wanted to be a dragon.  I got his tail made first.  Mark thought it made a great unicorn horn. And Jessie modeled the whole thing once I got the spikes sewn on the jacket. (You may have guessed that by this time it was really late at night and she was the only one left awake with me.) Neil and Isaac were also getting excited because the other kids had the costumes out a lot.  During the day they would cycle through most of the ones that fit.  I love this picture of Isaac with the bear head on.We celebrated Becca’s birthday at her and Rachel’s apartment. Isaac enjoyed birthday cake with Becca but made a bit of a mess on the table. So he got a napkin and wiped the crumbs off the table. He tried to get them in his hand, but most ended up on the chair. So he repeated the process with the chair... Onto the floor. Once they were there, there was nowhere lower for them to fall. But he was sure trying to clean up!  What a sweet helper!Abbie and the boys disappeared one afternoon after school.  Then she showed up and invited me outside.  They had raked up several piles of leaves on the side of the house and were jumping/burying each other in them. More bedtime stories…