Candy Love

I like candy. I like holidays. I like festivities. You bet your butts I'm going to try and hit up as many trick-or-treating venues as possible every year.

This year's first event was at North Hills Shopping Center three days before Halloween. This is my first time going to this event. It was a good one. Everything was close together, the stores gave lots of goodies, and it was quick. I like efficient trick-or-treating.

Shay was there too. Look, you can see his hand and cell phone!

Play Day With the Family

Shay's work schedule changes 4 times per year, so sometimes his weekends fall on weekdays. When the kids were homeschooled we adjusted our weekends to be whenever Shay was off work. Well that doesn't work anymore.

Shay has had Sundays and Mondays off lately. I love that he gets to go to church with us, and I love getting to spend the Sabbath with my family. I do miss the play days with my family though.

The kids are on a week break from school, which meant we could party together on Monday! (If I had some forethought I would have planned a vacation. We need one! Our family is used to traveling every month or so, but now that the kids are in school we can't just pick up and go whenever we want. Next break we're out of here!)

Anyway, Monday was spent together playing and getting some work done. Shay made us a nice breakfast and then we headed into town for the day. We shopped at Toys R' Us, ate lunch at the buffet in the Atlantis Casino, went to Barns and Noble to look at books and play, then went to the movie, Inside Out.

We had some time before the movie, so of course we took selfies. The kids refused to be in any pics because they are weird!

It felt so wonderful to spend the day with my family. I miss this!

Twinning

People often remark that Cayben looks just like his dad. I'm not sure he doesn't look exactly like me!

Ranch

Who needs chicken nuggets with their ranch? Not this girl.

In other news, we had family pictures taken this evening. I'm always surprised when we get any decent family pics. I'm crossing my fingers that today's pictures will work out.

Kinder Halloween Party

Embrie and Cayben's school classes had parties this afternoon. All though I'm sure I could have gone to Cayben's party, only Embrie's class invited parents to join the party, so we went to the kindergarten party. I made treats for both parties though! (Yes, this is me trying to justify my behavior! Having two kids with concurrent activities to choose between is tough on moms.)

Solee thinks she's just another student!

Embrie is Misty from Pokemon. Her hair was done at one point today, but kindergarten is hard on the hair! Solee didn't want to dress up today.

Awards Assemblies

My kids had awards assemblies this week.

Cayben's was on Thursday. He got the A/B Honor Roll and Citizenship Award.

Embrie's assembly was today. She earned the Citizenship Award and the Attendance Award. I forgot my camera that morning, but my friend Val snapped a picture of Embrie and Sofia after the assembly and sent me the pic. Val saved the day!

School Shenanigans

Yesterday morning I was at school with Cayben to chaperon a field trip when I heard on the morning announcements some exciting news.

This week is peace week at school and kids could participate in a school-wide art contest. Each grade level would choose one winner. The prompt was: What does peace look like to you? Or something of that sort. My older two kiddos each created beautiful pictures. (They get their drawing skills from their dad.)


Well during morning announcement I heard that my wacky-haired girl won for the kindergarten level! Woohoo!

 

It was crazy hair day!

The rest of the school day was spent with my boy and my little 3-year-old tag-along at Oxbow Nature Study Area. 

The kids hiked around while learning about biotic and abiotic matter and characteristics of habitat.

I always love spending school days with my kiddos. I guess it's the homeschooler in me.

Thug Life

What have I become?

Just kidding! I'm still mostly a good person. My friend, Jessamyn, and I dressed up as bank robbers for our Running Dead 5K race.

I tried to convince my family I got a giant tattoo on my arm. They weren't buying it. I felt like a Bad-A though!

The Running Dead 5k

I have always been terrified of being chased. Even when it's by people I know. My kids running after me can be terrifying. Tag has never been a favorite game. As a kid, my siblings and I would run circles around the trampoline. All of a sudden I would feel as if I were being chased and what else was to do but lie down and die in the middle of the tramp. (Yes I'm dramatic, and apparently I would not be much of a fighter in a dire situation.)

Signing up for a 5k obstacle race that includes zombies chasing after me seemed like a totally reasonable thing to do. Right?

Well I'm not always reasonable, so I paid money to run and have zombies chase me.

Alive, well, and ready to run from zombies.

My friend Jessamyn and I ran the Running Dead 5k. After running through the initial pack of zombies I wasn't nearly as scared. They would only chase you for a second then would give up. (Maybe they need to try a more nutritional diet. I'm not sure human guts are giving them the energy they need.)

Anyway, the race was on a cold, rainy day and the course was almost entirely on muddy trails. Between running for my life through packs of zombies and trying to get through the muddy sludge, we spent a lot of time walking. (Interval training, right?)

Overall I had a good time, but I'm kind of looking forward to a regular, timed race where I just have to think about running and nothing else.

 Jessamyn and I get our Youtube fame at 1:04 and are featured again at the end!

Oh, and Jessamyn's and my kids had an amazing time with the babysitter making "elephant toothpaste" and making it rain from shaving cream clouds.

Solee at the Salon

Solee got her hair cut again, and she just adores going to the salon. A girl after my own heart!

Hopeless Romantic

I love my wedding ring. I love my family ring with everyone's birthstones. The problem is it bothers me to wear them while lifting weights or doing other workouts, so I take them off a lot and forget to wear them.

Well Shay saved the day by getting me a silicone ring made for people with "active lifestyles."

Nano Nano

He stole my heart for the small price of $15! (I like gifts! I never said they had to be fancy.) I sure love my Shay!

Shopkins Party

I have to tell you, I am THE WORST! I plan nice parties for my kids, and then I always fail to take nice pictures to remember the happy day. I am definitely not a multi-tasker. I'm barely a single-tasker at times.

Sorry future Embrie! You had a wonderful 6th birthday party that was just the theme you wanted. Many people came to celebrate your special day with you. And you were just an adorable, happy 6 year old. You'll just have to take my word for it, since I forgot to photo-document most of it.

I did take some last minute, out of focus pictures with my phone of the food and decorations.

The guitar made it all the way up the stairs before kids arrived. Whoosh! That was a close call.

That X over the stair was suppose to keep kids downstairs, but to kids it just looks like an obstacle course! The basket of stuffed animals was supposed to be for a shopping basket toss game, but it never happened.

All the food was Shopkins inspired. Yes, Shopkins also makes healthy food, but I'm not typically inspired by healthy food.

I set up a Shopkins Store and the kids were able to "buy" treats with fake money they earned playing games.

We had some simple party games, a pinata, lots of sugar, and lots of chaos. I'd call it a success.

Pumpkin Patch Field Trip

I got to go to a farm and pumpkin patch with my little pumpkin on a school field trip!

First it was "The wheels on the bus go round and round..."

Then we had a fun-filled day at Andelin Farm!

Embrie is Six!

My sweet, happy, knows-what-she-wants, beautiful, blue-eyed, smart, spunky, fashion-minded, curly-haired, sand-loving, artistic, curious, friendly, perfect-for-me, little girl is six!

I love this child with every fiber of my being!

Lil' Pumpkin Baby Shower

My next door neighbor and friend, Val, is having a baby soon, so I threw her a party to celebrate. It was "Lil' Pumpkin" themed. Many friends came to celebrate and it was such a fun party.

Here are the deets, but first I have to apologize for the crappy pictures. I snapped some last minute pics with my phone after the first guest arrived. Some are blurry. And some don't fully capture the awesomeness. Typical me!

Let's start with the food. We had a chili bar, (I made a white chicken chili and another friend so generously supplied another chili.), paired with baked potatoes and all the typical fixings, i.e. butter, cheese, sour cream, green onions, jalapenos, and tomatoes. We had apples and a delicious caramel sauce. (Check out the recipe here. It was a major hit!) I made a veggie tray with ranch dip. I intended to serve the dip in a hollowed out pumpkin, but ran out of time. I made my mom's cheese ball recipe, colored it orange and shaped it into a pumpkin. An apple pie and a pumpkin pie were perfect desserts for this fall themed party. I also picked up a party mix of coated pretzels and chex mix. For drinks we had bottled cream soda, orange cream soda, and water. I made pumpkin spice cupcakes and a yellow two-tiered cake with cinnamon cream in the middle and vanilla butter cream frosting. This is the first time in my entire life that I've made delicious cakes!

I wanted to keep the games and activities simple. I know several people are not into shower games, so I wanted to have activities that guests didn't have to participate in and that they could do on their own timing. 

In place of the traditional guest book, I made a pumpkin patch scrapbook page that guests would stamp their thumb on and sign to create a pumpkin.

The description card read: Stamp your thumb to make a pumpkin. Then sign your name to show you came.

Next was a game for guests to guess the size of Val's baby bump. Guests wrote their name on a pink tape measure to indicate their guess.

Guess how many candy corns are in this bottle! I am so not good at this type of game.

I had some revolting with this next game. Each person got a pacifier necklace and were instructed to not say, "Baby." If someone catches you saying the B word, they get to claim your necklace. You've played the game before, right? And you either love it or hate it!

 

Before the party I put an "It's a Girl!" stamp on the bottom of one of the plates. The lucky guest with the stamped plate won a prize.

The final game was played while Val opened gifts. The instructions read, "Pass me two to the right for every time Val opens a gift thats contents are pink."

 

The prizes were various pumpkin scented hand soaps I picked up at Bath and Body Works.

 

Shay made this cute photo prop because who doesn't like pictures?

Look at this cool baby with his shades!

The final activity was a headband making station. I provided flowers, ribbon, and headbands and the guests let their creativity shine. Plus Val got to go home with several beautiful headbands.

Presents were set up on the ottoman and I made a "Thanks" banner to display over the gifts. 

By the time all the guests arrived this was overflowing with presents.

I also made a diaper pumpkin that doubled as a decoration and a gift.

Between the food, games, and presents, it was a fabulous party. I hope Val feels spoiled!

I think Val and I had too much sugar!