I love Halloween!!

I grew up having block parties. Each year the neighbors and I have tried to pull one off but it never happened until this year!! Between 5 of the houses on our street there are 17 kids of all ages. Most night when the weather is cool you can find all the kids riding bikes, playing and us adults visiting. It reminds me of my street growing up. We had such a good time eating bbq, playing games and then went trick or treating!!

What a good looking group.

Even though I kept reminding Con he was just a vampire, he was convinced that he was Edward just with black hair..... not to self, black hair spray needs to be sprayed outside to avoid a black film all over the bathroom and expect to clean a ring off the tub after days of washing it out!

I enjoyed making this costume!

Of course I love making Nics costumes each year. I always get so excited to buy all the cool, shiny and silky halloween material and then I grit my teeth while sewing on it and ask myself why I buy this stuff but then when it is over I feel content and will probably buy this nightmare material again next year!

We have started a pumpkin carving tradition with us and my brothers family. We all love going to get the pumpkins, eating dinner and then we get to carving. Our kids have gotten quite good at it and really enjoy it. D gets into it just as much at the kids. The only down side is with our heat they always seem to shrivel by Halloween. Kandy told me to put vaseline on them right after we carve them and it helps so that is on our to do list for next year!

Conners dragon

Nickolas cat

Zackerys clone trooper

Dad, this one is for you.

This is my new hairdo. When I wear ponytails and pull it back everyday, I can't justify keeping is long....so I went and had it chopped and layered and thinned. I love it. This is also a tribute to my dad.

I attended 6:00am seminary growing up because that was all we had, no release time. I was usually late and sometimes drove fast. I inevitably got a speeding ticket. Instead of getting angry, my dad wrote up a contract which included me getting a "low maintenance haircut" (since I was late because I took to long doing my hair). So I had to be under contract to cut my hair. This time there was no contract!

Family movie night.

Most Fridays is family movie night at our house. I grew up with the Sunday night movie put on by Disney and my family would gather with popcorn and a treat and watch it on the "popcorn blanket". I am proud to say we have continued that in our family. We have the popcorn blanket and we turn off the lights and just watch. I just have to say it warmed my heart to watch my boys watch the new Tinkerbell movie that their sister picked out and not complain in fact it was the opposite. They laughed and really enjoyed the movie. I love the innocence of my boys and I hope I can keep some of it in them for a long time

New moon clip

I just saw the new moon clip on Mtv music festival show(Oct. 30). I am soooo excited. It is so much better looking than the first...

some more pics for your enjoyment

Looks can be deceiving




con is our speed dem0n on the quad....



Americas next top model??



I love the goatee.. What a great looking group.



Love those worms.

A fishing we will go

Con has been asking daily to go fishing so D took the kids Sat morning while we were camping and they tried to catch something but alas they caught nothing. But they had a great time. Mom stayed behind at the camp with the dog.

I love this picture... it is going up on my wall


Of course here is Nickola playing with the worms. (where else)


Our monkey kids

Look at that form and concentration

Can you say Mayberry....

Camping at last.

This year our school got a whole week off this October. The beginning was just kickback and get nothing done but at the end of it we decided to go camping. We had fun and it was not as cold at night as we had thought. Don't get me wrong, it was cold but not AS cold. We found this great spot up on the rim, with hiking trails and places to ride the quads. We are already planning a trip back and this time with more people. I dont know how many more trips Maya (the dog) can handle or else we will have to start bringing her a step stool to get in and out of the car.


D and Nic on the quad. She loves it.

Just arriving......

This is proof that we do have some kind of a fall you just have to drive to find it.

October 22, 2009

D turned the big " ". I did not get permission to post his age but I will say he is not over the hill.... yet. We were so excited to celebrate his birthday and let him know how much we love him and all he does for our family. We got him a Dodger apron and Boise State bbq cover because here in Arizona we are in the BBQ season. Just to let you all know what a wonderful guy he is I will share this with you..... I had scrapbooking the night of his birthday and he encouraged me to go and i know he meant it..plus he reminded me that he owed me since he went white water rafting on one of our anniversaries. I did not even remember that but Thanks!!! We love you!!

Nicks birthday

Nic was the last birthday of our birthday marathon that we have every year. Sept 1st our girl turned 5. We can not believe it and Darin was even a little melancholy the whole week. She asked me on a daily basis for the month of August if she was 5 yet and I kept telling her no but soon. The day of her birthday I told her she was 5 now and she looked at me and said "I don't feel five" and for about a week she argued with us that she wasn't 5. What a character. She got to have her first real b-day party with her friends at chuck e cheese. They had a great time and she loved everything she got....It was a great day. She is now excited to be 5 and to be bigger, as she puts it.

birthdays

I am making it my goal to remember more birthdays. I had a great 36th this year(Aug 17th) and alot of it was because of the well wishers. My neighbor brought me homemade rolls, Kandy treated me to scrapbook night, Kim gave me a Halloween house for my "collection" (cant wait to use it), Brandi gave me decoration for my house. I just learned that even the small stuff counts and it is always good to be remembered so I am gonna try!!.
Oh I can't leave Darin out...... He bought me my the last 2 books of the series I was reading: City of Bones, City of Ashes and City of Glass. I highly recommend these!!

Luck of the Irish

even though we are not Irish. I say this because Darin has had a crazy stream of luck lately. Thurs. night he had a retirement dinner which had raffle tickets. He bought some tickets and came home with a brand new PSP with case and some games for it. Zack and Conner love to "borrow" it. They thought Dad was the coolest but on Friday he had the charity golf tournament that he plays in about once a year and came home from that with a 19 inch Hd TV now he uber cool. The boys think they get it in their room........ they were a little disappointed to learn "no way" ( I kinda have issues with TVs in the kids bedrooms, I know they are so deprived).

Can you say Vegas!!??

Good movies!!

We saw "Cloudy with a chance of meatballs" and Aliens in the Attic this weekend. I loved them the kids loved them and they are very clean!! I get so excited when something is done clean and fun and I like to show my support!!

Some other good ones we have seen this summer:

• Hannah Montana the movie, my boys even loved this and want to buy it
• Race to witch mountain (I am really liking the Rock in kids movies)
• Space chimps my kids can not stop laughing

Darin saw more grown up movies this summer than I did and he really liked Star Trek and Harry Potter and GI joe.

August 17th. Our little girl started preschool with someone other than mom!! Mesa cut the early learning program ( gotta love budget cuts in education) and since her birthday is one day passed the cut off she will not be going to kindergarten this year. I am okay with it now. I did 2 years of kindergarten with both my boys because of their late birthdays so why wouldn't I do the same for her. She loves it and others get to share in the joy that is Nickolas personality. She keeps her teachers entertained and asked them the other day "Who the other human was" not who the other teacher was but the other human. She comes up with these things alot.

Im BAAAAAACK

It's been a while I know and I have to confess that life has been a little crazy and it has taken me a month to get a routine and get use to the constant go go go that will be my life until May 2010. We did get to enjoy a nice family home evening last Monday. Only in Arizona can you cook Smores and then go swimming in September. We had our lesson and stuff while the fire was going and by the time we cooked smores we were sweating from the heat. We jumped into the pool and amazingly the water has begun to cool down so after our swim we built back up the fire and had some more Smores (say that 10 times fast). What a good night though!!

Conner is 8

Aug 16 was another birthday in our house. The week between the 2 boys birthdays is hard for Conner because he has to wait one more week for his!! He is so excited to be 8. This is a big birthday...... scouts and a baptism. He had his interview with the bishop and is excited for the big day (it will be the 2nd Sat in Sept). He also gets to go to scouts tomorrow with his good friend Riley. He has grown up so much and I know it is hard sometimes being the middle child but we couldn't have asked for a better kid. He is very helpful around the house and he loves to tinker ie: take things apart, build things, use tools, learn about everything. He has a soft heart and has been helping my friends little boy adjust to kindergarten because he still gets scared. I can always depend on him to help others. He loves to help his teachers at school and church and people just love him and we love him too. Happy birthday Bean!!!

He wants a turtle (real one) really bad but he had to settle for turtle cakes, maybe for christmas..............

Nickola is being funny again

She has just been saying some crazy things again. The other day she told me her eyes were burning and they were red from her rubbing them but she insisted they hurt BUT if she could have chips to eat that would make her eyes stop hurting! We were in Taco Bell last week and she was obsessed with this guy because he was eating the volcano taco. She kept watching him and waving and making comment about his taco. When she finished eating she wanted to go over and meet him. He was very nice about it and I had to apologize for her "awareness" of him.
Today she took off her clothes and laid around in her underwear and told me she was being the jungle boy.....you know off that movie (Mowglie off of Jungle Book). She has done this a few times before. How to teach modesty to a little girl who wants to be the jungle boy???

Arizona heat

Dar was just making the comment that it has only been 105 degrees that last few days and how it is weird that we can really feel the difference from the 112 degrees it usually is. Friday night we had the scouts over to swim and it was a nice night and Sat the pool water was actually chilly and we keep saying what nice days these have been. I bet you never thought you would say it is a nice day when it is 105 degrees?

Bakugan anyone?

A couple Sats ago the boys and I went to a bakugan training "class" at the mall. For those of you not familiar with this it consist of round balls with magnets that pop open when they come in contact with metal, gate cards, ability cards and good math skills. On this day they were teaching kids the right way to play the game. I now know how to play so my kids can't cheat with each other any more!! If you need to know the rules ask us because we were trained by Bakugan master Ray (ranked number 7 in the world, #1 is the inventor of the game, go figure) The boys loved it and even though they still like to argue the rules I can now intervene.

zack is 10

Our little man is now 10!! He has been so excited about his birthday. We as parents were not. It is hard to see your kids getting bigger and realizing how fast it is happening. I find myself wondering if I have taught him all he needs to know to tackle this new age and all that comes with it...like more independence! He told me the other day that he was scared to tell me something and that something was that he likes a girl. I am glad he did tell me but where did the time go!!
He is becoming our little man instead our our little boy and it is scary sometimes to think what is ahead.
He has a lot of his dad in him, he is very artistic, very smart, very loving and is concerned for other people. He is a good friend and a great son. We love you Bug!!

This is the bakugan cake that we invented. I love making their cakes each year.

That is so inappropriate

Sometimes when we are trying to teach our kids we never know if we are getting through or not. And sometimes my kids are just set on doing the wrong things or not showing their "good side" and choosing the "dark side" (that is the star wars analogy going on in our house). Well the other day the kids and dad where watching a movie meant for kids and there was one part that did not need to be there and Zack told me this after: I told you this was not an appropriate movie, why do they always have to put that "one" part in movies? Maybe things are sinking in!?

Anniversary part 2

On our actual anniversary, we took the kids out to dinner with us to Chilis. Conner was alittle upset because he doesn't like chilis and he thought they only served chili. They won him over with the food and chips and salsa, which is Z new favorite food. Then came Dars favorite dessert: the molten lava cake. We all five dug in and it was good!! We came home and the Skabs volunteered one of their kids to babysit (thanks Kyle) and we went to see "The Proposal," Good movie just could of cleaned up the one part, isn't that how it is with all the movies lately.

Nicks room...check!

After 2 years (when we first started Nics room) I finally go around to painting the fish in her under the sea room. She was so excited and I just have some ribbon and tulle to hang and then it is done. (just in time for anther theme haha)


The hangers from the fan is how Nic decorates her room. It is what she refers to as "her party"

Young at heart!

R big win as we were waiting in line to trade in our tickets. He just had to have one last try to win big and it paid off.


K big win!!

What great looking people huh.

Show me the tickets babe


Way to go honey

For our first anniversary date, we went out with the Skabs. We had a great and long night. It was the longest we have ever been out w/o our kids (thanks to those who took our kids!) We went and ate at Toby Keith's and we were serenaded and enjoyed some great food. We next headed to the musical "Wicked." I love musicals and plays. My mom and grandma use to take me and my sister to the local high school and town plays when I was younger and I loved them. I tried to listen to the music before we went but I never got around to it (it makes the experience more enjoyable) but it was still fun and relaxing. Note: Bathrooms get a line very quickly so don't drink water or make like a crazy person and quickly hurry as soon at intermission starts. We wanted to see if we could recreate our younger kid free life and stay out late so we went to Dave and Buster after (like a grown up chuck e cheese) and played till 1:00am Woohoo! I won in the horse race but Darin won most of our tickets!! He has always been good at stuff. What a fun night and we are itching to do it again!

Death is not an issue

(Be prepared for a bunch of post in a row and sorry for the blurry pictures. My camera has a lot of functions and I have not taken the time to learn them and lately I have been having issues with pictures so until I take time to learn the functions I have to make do with some bad pic.)









Zackery decided to make a bed out of the pool vac box and he did take it with him and slept in it at Uncle J house. It looks a lot like a coffin don't ya think. Well that's what my kids were discussing later and here is a paraphrase of me and Nics conversation later that day:
Nic: Mom look at me I'm dead you need to put me in the ground
Mom: You want me to bury you
Nic: Yeah in the dirt with Jesus
Mom: You think Jesus is in the dirt
Nic: When your dead and you go to Jesus in the dirt.
She was a little surprised and disappointed to learn that Jesus doesn't live in the dirt.