October activities

If I remember not too long ago, life was a lot less busy. I got a lot more done every day. My house was cleaner. I was a lot more organized. I took my kids to do fun things. Somehow, all that's changed. Could be the three kids. Could be extra time at my calling. Could be I'm getting older. Could be I have a lot more on my plate now. But I have such a wonderful life and I want to make sure I'm journaling along the way.

Here's my three darling girls ready for church on a beautiful Sunday. I'm so lucky to be their mom.
Eden update: Her vocabulary is already exploding. She can repeat new words everyday. She loves when I sing her "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" as we walk the track at the rec center. We've worked our way up to 2 miles while Ella is at gymnastics. She is so adorable when she reads books - I can already tell she's going to be a super-expressive reader like Emily! She loves balls (again, like Emily) and points out every ball and circle in every book! She also loves to find dogs and cats and imitate their sounds. She is such a joy all the time (well, except when she's hungry or tired!) She wakes up smiling and practically skips around the house. She sure knows how to do cute. After we put Emily and Ella to bed, she loves to close their door and spend 1/2 hour of quality time with mom and dad before we put her to bed. We've learned the hard way how much she cherishes this time. Eventually she tells us, "nigh, nigh" and we know she's ready for bed. We've weaned her from the bottle at bedtime and she can now sleep through the night. (Hallelujah!) She's also learned to say sorry "Rorry" and will say it if you get hurt. She'll also come and give you a big kiss on the owie. :)
Disco queen in her FAVORITE outfit!
We have a season to pass to Trafalga, however haven't taken as much advantage of it as we should have during this beautiful fall.
Emily did lose her tooth at Trafalga, though! She was so proud!
Ella update: Ella recently started gymnastics and LOVES it! We also go to library time every Wednesday, so she's quite the busy kindergartener. She loves her teacher and prays for her and her two babies (she pregnant with twins) every night. She comes home singing the cutest songs. She can even sign the pledge of allegiance! Pretty impressive! She is really quite the artist. One day I was looking through her drawing notebook and saw the CUTEST picture of Hello Kitty. She said, "Yeah, I just copied that while I was in bed." That's raw talent! She's also trying to become very independent and is often at odds with her parents. Hopefully we'll all find some boundaries we can all live with soon.
(Eden does love most of the rides, except this one!)
Eden LOVES to play mini-golf!! She could chase that ball around all day!
During UEA, they brought in a pony ride and a petting zoo.
Emily update: Here's Emily with her gold dollar from the tooth fairy. Her other top tooth is hanging by a thread now. She has 4 teeth growing in behind other teeth as well. Don't know why they grow in so far behind the baby teeth, I'd rather they push the baby teeth out! She just started her art class. She sure likes to draw. She drew some adorable dinosaurs to hang up in the preschool the other day. She also entered a drawing in her school's Reflections Contest. She still loves playing with friends and has recently discovered she likes dogs. Phew, glad that stage is over. She's home from church sick today. We'll see how she's doing for school tomorrow.
Kim update: Here's a picture of some hair bows I've been making. I kind of got in over my head and bought a lot of supplies. Now I'm having a hard time finishing them all up! I've decided I'm great at starting crafts...it's the finishing I have a harder time with. I'm still busy with YW. I taught again today and have a long way to go to know how to teach this age group. I must have a clouded memory of my own YW days. I remember loving all the YW lessons, enjoying the weekly activities and actually attending them all. These kids seem to think everything is optional, even if someone has spent a long time preparing something for them. I also recently planned a craft for an activity for them. Turned out it was a LOT of preparation to get them ready and it took two activities and they still didn't finish. I sent them home with them today with instructions on how to finish. I've also been looking for another part-time job. I filled out a lot of online applications for local stores. I didn't get any response. This economy is tough, Steve tells me they used to take anyone with a pulse at Wal-Mart. (Which is why I actually didn't apply there!) But I did see a job ad on Craigslist (where else?) for the Sylvan Learning Center here in American Fork. I had an interview on Friday and am waiting to hear from them. I figure this is a much better fit for me with better pay and better hours. Also it's something I could potentially keep for awhile while gaining tutoring experience to use in the future. Wish me luck, I hope to hear from them tomorrow! Preschool also keeps me very busy! I have an opening in the afternoon class that I haven't been able to fill. I lost a student due to her mother's illness right after school started and it's been hard to find someone after school's already started! I also stay busy at the girl's school. I'm able to take on 4 volunteer positions, but do them all on Fridays! I get to school right at Emily's lunchtime and get to sit with her. Then I go the the kindergarten rooms and read to the students as they arrive at school before class begins. That way they are supervised and aren't outside in the cold with the big kids. Then I change the at-home reading books for the 2nd graders. Then I change the at-home reading books for the kindergarteners. I'm also Emily's room mom, so I just got to plan her Halloween party last Friday! It makes for a busy Friday, but I enjoy helping my kids and they love to see me (and Eden)!
We took advantage of customer appreciation days at Snowbird. We got to ride a Tram up to the top of a mountain! We were at 11,000 feet! It's good it was a nice day, because it was chilly up there! I sure felt like a "real Utahn" walking around a ski-resort!
Emily and Ella got to be teacher's pets and attend the community helper fieldtrip.
Ok, here's my pathetic gardening skills again this year. This year I REALLY tried to have a good garden. I started the seeds early in egg cartons and purchased special soil to add to the garden. We ended up with a handful of peas, these carrots and cucumbers and TONS of pumpkin flowers. Unfortunately we only ended up with about 4 small green pumpkins.
My pathetic carrot compared to store carrots.
And I have a feeling these will all get tossed.
My pathetic pumpkins.
Some donated by my RS president, who obviously felt sorry for us! (Granted, she does live on a farm.)
Halloween 2010. We did brave the mess and carved our pumpkins!
Eden LOVED getting to draw on her pumpkin.
Ella was NOT into the pumpkin guts. Mom ended up doing most of the work.
Steve even got into it!
Ella's pumpkin.
Emily, however, LOVED every step of pumpkin carving! She drew her own design, scooped out all the guts and carved her heart away. By the time she was done there were more holes than pumpkin. But she had a BLAST. She sure is maturing. She took it to school to proudly display it.
Steve, the vampire.
Emily, the ghost. (Made by mom!)
Ella, the witch.
Eden, the monkey.
Kim, the vampiress.
We hosted our annual family Halloween party again this year. It was much less hectic as we decided to do in on Sunday this year. We had themed food: Paige made hot chocolate with marshmallow ghosts...
I made shepherd's pie with ghost mashed potatoes, Jill made witch's toes (hot dog crescents), and Lynn brought cake with Ice Scream.
We each planned a fun game and had fun with the sugar-highed kids! The men even cleaned up the kitchen! I thought it was a great time! We went trick-or-treating the night before since Halloween was on a Sunday. It's nice that it's just kind of assumed that we'll celebrate on Saturday instead of Sunday here in Utah. Unfortunately it started pouring right at 4:00 (when we were going to head out). The girls insisted, though, but after 2 houses, they changed their minds. We played games and answered the door for the very few trick-or-treaters that did come. It finally stopped raining around 7:00 so I took Emily and Ella up and down the street. We saw very few people out and about. Which is kind of sad, because I love visiting with all our neighbors as we walk along. Emily and Ella scored, though, because most people gave them the rest of their candy so they could turn off their lights and be done. Ella was a sweetheart and carried a bucket for Eden the whole way. And Eden's been very much enjoying it! Halloween was WAY too long this year. It was 4 consecutive days of dressing up for me (3 for everyone else). We actually didn't do many of our usual Halloween activities either (Cornbellies, Main Street trick-or-treating, or the Legacy Center). We still had lots to do and had lots of fun.

Steve update: Here's a blast from the past for Steve. For our anniversary (9 years), I was able to get 50 of his family slides scanned for free. (Hey, it's a talent!) He enjoyed looking at them and has since been organized and reducing the many boxes of slides he inherited. We're hoping to get them scanned as well. Speaking of our anniversary, Jill was nice enough to babysit for us. Steve really wanted a full day to just be a couple and do normal things w/o kids for the day. Life was so busy we never got our full day, but she was nice enough to do two half days! We had a romantic dinner at a fast-food restaurant (in our defense, we both thought it was a sit-down restaurant! But it was more in our budget!) and went shopping to 2 craft stores. Aren't we the perfect couple! :) Steve and I have been enjoying a show called Chuck. We've been renting the old seasons from Netflix and they are right up our alley. It's fun to find something to watch together. Steve's been sick for the last week with a bad cold, but he's toughed it out and been able to make it through work. He recently had a sleep test taken, but hasn't gotten the results yet. He's hoping to find out if he has apnea or not. And hopefully find out why he can't sleep through the night. He's back into his Mego-custom hobby although he can't find much time or money to keep up on it.