A Couple of Cutie Pies

Today was pie day and by that I mean the annual baking of a million pies so we can all eat way more than we really should. In my family it is as big an event as the actual Thanksgiving dinner. It is a lot of work for the big folks, but for the kids it is just a chance to play with their cousins. It was warm enough that Malia and Kate spent a couple of hours in the sand box and on the swings. I don’t know about Kate, but that made Malia super duper happy. And then they got to make their very own tiny pies which they loved.

Malia fell asleep on the way home and was sooo tired that she didn’t wake up when we got home. I got her out of the car, carried her inside, handed her off to Kev and she snoozed through the whole thing. That is extremely unusual for her. Even when she was a baby I couldn’t get her out of the car without waking her up. She must have played really hard. :-)

Halloween: The Holiday That Keeps On Giving

I’m still finding candy wrappers in the washer when I do the laundry. And a very warm (and thankfully still wrapped) Starburst just dropped out of the dryer. At least it makes laundry day interesting.

This is Why There’s Been Much Talk In Our Community Concerning What To Do About the “Urban Deer”

The dumb thing wasn't even scared. It just stared at us and then calmly returned to eating our lawn. It was the middle of the day. And there were three of us having a staring contest with the not-so-wild-life. Sigh. At least it is fall. In the spring they nip the buds off all my tulips and it makes me crazy. At this point it just means we won't have to haul the lawn mower out again this season.

Football Flashback

As I was going through Halloween pictures yesterday, I realized that I completely forgot to tell all y'all about Matthew's latest passion. He has discovered that he loves football. We signed him up for flag football and his games were in September and early October. He was pretty small compared to the other boys on his team but that is not a big surprise. He is pretty fast but because his legs are so short he struggled to keep up. Nevertheless, he had a fabulous time and was bummed when it was over. He is already looking forward to next year.

He is definitely going to be my sports fanatic. After having two sons that just don't care about sports, it is nice for Kev to have someone that will watch football with him. Right now Matthew's favorite teams are BYU and the Seattle Seahawks.

I think a lot of this football fervor were picked up from one of his best friends and I don't mind at all. It is so nice that he finally has a friend who will come looking for him. Matthew is usually the one seeking out playmates and I worry sometimes that they play with him just because he comes to them. In my experience one sided friendships are not terribly long lasting. So I can't tell you how happy it makes me to see Boston at our front door. :-)

Eat, Drink, and Be Scary!

Earlier this month, Jacob (Nathan’s favorite cousin) invited all his similarly aged cousins to have a Halloween sleepover at his house. Nathan was super excited about it, but when I asked him if he wanted to trick or treat with Jacob or in our neighborhood, he was torn. This is his last year for trick or treating (in my family the kids only trick or treat until they turn twelve) and we have a really fun neighborhood for trick or treating. People sit on their porches or their lawns to hand out candy. There are homemade doughnuts, hot dogs, sometimes even pizza to be had. There are as many adults roaming the neighborhood as there are kids…and not in a creepy way either. It is a really family friendly location. So Nathan really wanted to be able to trick or treat around here for his last year but definitely wanted to party with his cousins as well. So we hatched a plan to have all the cousins trick or treat here and then go to Jacob’s house for the sleepover. Before long, it evolved into a Halloween themed dinner/trick or treating event.

We fed the kiddies worm sandwiches and jello brains before we hit the street. They were all so hyped up that I was surprised they managed to eat anything, but they actually did. Then it was on to the main event. Nathan and the older cousins went on their way and the littler kids stayed with the adults. It was super fun!

The over twelve crowd had their own celebration. They did baptisms for the dead and then had their own party that included dinner, games, a movie and candy, of course!

Here are my kiddos in their Halloween attire:

Daniel as Dr. Who (the 10^th doctor)

Nathan as a stick figure (during the day he had black electrical tape for the lines and he used glow sticks at night)

Matthew as a BYU football player

Malia as Rapunzel

Carving Out Memories

Due to much business travel for Kev this month, pumpkin carving happened at the last minute.

Matthew was literally up to his armpits in pumpkin guts.

Malia was super excited that she got to play with knives.

And Daniel and Nathan are definitely my children. Like me, they both stick out their tongues when they are concentrating.

We ended up with Daniel’s cool looking dragon pumpkin…

Malia’s Elsa pumpkin…

Matthew’s BYU football pumpkin…

and Nathan’s Olaf pumpkins.

I firmly believe that the carving of the pumpkins in the important part because it is fun. Having perfectly carved pumpkins in nowhere near as important as having a bunch of happy kids. Based on the happiness scale, I think this year’s pumpkin carving event was a definite success. Don’t you agree?

Where the Wild Things Are

The correct answer to that would be…preschool…on Halloween. Seriously, they were aaaaaalllllll jazzied up. Malia was totally excited that she finally got to wear her costume. (It’s been in hiding since I finished it last month. Otherwise she would have been in it every day.) The other kids were equally excited to wear their costumes. The whole thing was kind of like trying to herd a bunch a cats. Here is our attempt at getting a group photo:

See what I mean about the herding cats thing?

But they did have fun making monster stew and playing a keep the pumpkin off the ground game.

As far as Malia is concerned, her first ever school Halloween party was a great success!

The Witching Hour

Pinterest is a great place to glean fun ideas for holidays and over the last few weeks I have seen a vast assortment of things that looked entertaining. Malia’s hairdo of the day was a Halloween themed Pinterest discovery.

In spite of the fact that I would be creeped out at the thought of spiders crawling on my head (feeling pretty icked out just typing it…), Malia thought it was super cool. She was also excited because we were headed for an outing with my sister Rachael and her daughter Kate. The combo of holiday hair, a seasonal t-shirt and an impending outing meant she was pretty hyped up and it turned into this:

Very appropriate for Halloween, right?

Anyway, our outing was to see the witches at Gardner Village which is something we’ve never done before. With only the two little girls, it was a pretty low ksmey affair. We moved at a stroll rather than a stride and just kind of took our time. Once Malia figured out that we were looking for witches, she was pretty attentive to what was going on around us. And of course, a cookie at the end was great to!