Halloween Shmalloween

I have to admit that in my adult life I've been a bit of a Halloween party-pooper. I just don't really get into it as much as some people.

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I think the whole idea of trick-or-treating is a little weird. We all go out and buy candy to give away to everyone else's kids, then send our own kids out to beg for candy. Strange idea in general, right?

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I always want to make my kids some really cute costumes but usually lack the time, talent, creativity, or ambition to do so. I usually end up buying them all on Ebay.

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Last year, we didn't even carve our pumpkin, and it's looking like it's not going to happen this year either. My poor kids. If there is a Halloween Scrooge, I'm it.

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Then I see people like my friend, Stephanie, who just LOVES Halloween, and always has so much fun with it and I spend Halloween wishing I would have dressed up or planned a party or something.

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So even though I'm almost too late, I'm going to celebrate Halloween, not just my kids. Here's how:

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1) I dressed up for the first time in years. I'm wearing my cat costume all day.

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2) I invited some friends over for white chicken chili and spiced cider. I just invited them this morning, so we'll see if they can really come or not. We started this traditional pre-trick-or-treating Halloween dinner a few years ago with some friends at BYU. We all moved away, but we reminisce about it every year. We've continued to eat white chili each year, but all by ourselves. Tonight we'll make a party of it.

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3) Earlier this month, we went to the craft store and let the kids help pick out some new decorations and I got material to make Lydia's super easy fairy costume. I had a really fun time making it!

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4) I've been burning Pumpkin Spice scented candles all month. I think I'm finally over the negative association I had with this particular scent. When I was pregnant (and sick) with Garrett, I burned this and a Harvest scented candle from Yankee Candle Company. 6 years later, I can finally burn it without wanting to vomit.

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We'll still keep the trick-or-treating to a minimum, and probably still not carve our pumpkin, but at least I'm improving.

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Now, does anyone have any great last minute costume ideas for Matt?

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Happy Halloween!

And just because I can't get enough of this girl, here's one more:

pink is for girls

I'm the kind of mom that likes to put matching shirts, vests or ties on my boys for church. I'll continue to dress them alike as long as they think it's cool.

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I swear I didn't plan this one though. I got dressed a couple of hours after I dressed Lydia, so I forgot what I put on her until I realized we completely matched. I thought we looked cute enough to get Garrett to take our picture.

Oh, and yes, I cut my hair....short. I'm still getting used to it. What do you think?

Carmel

This one's for Ethan. Every Saturday he asks if we're going to go on a trip. Well yesterday we did. We drove down to Carmel. We rode our bikes along the coast, played in the sand, had dinner and came home. It's a really beautiful place to go biking and was a fun little family day trip.

all snuggled up

I love this picture of my cute boysIt rained all day today, so we built the first fire of the season in our fireplace and snuggled up for books before bed. It's starting to feel like fall!

Geography Quiz

You mean you didn't hit the books (or Google) to look up where we're going? That's okay. .

Rio de Janeiro .

And by the way, the title of the post is our journey begins. Nice that we have a built-in translator in the family. . I'm totally going to try and learn Portuguese though. So are the kids. Garrett was hoping we'd go to Venezuela where they speak Spanish since he learned a little Spanish in Preschool. He's excited to learn Portuguese now too.

nosso viagem comeca

We were already pretty sure about this, but we got our official assignment.

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spiritual feasting with a side of drama

My Conference Saturday consisted of 1 hour of General Conference followed by:

(What's General Conference? See * below)

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4 Paramedics

20 little heart monitor sticker things all over my chest

1 CT scan

6 hours in the ER

and finally, a diagnosis of "it seems you just had an unexplained fainting"

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Don't worry, though. I'm fine. Here's what happened:

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I got up during the middle of the first session of conference (which was wonderful, by the way) to get a drink of water. A few minutes after I got into the kitchen, I evidently passed out for no apparent reason. I had labored breathing and was shaking enough that Matt thought I was having a seizure and called 911. I feel fine now, but have instructions to take it easy and not drive until I see the neurologist next week. I'm sure it's just a precaution and nothing to worry about.

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Conference today was wonderful. My testimony of Jesus Christ and his restored gospel is strengthened. I feel spiritually filled and determined to be better- in so many ways. After a bit of a scary episode yesterday, I was so grateful to be at home today together with my family as we listened to the words of the prophet and apostles of God.

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*General Conference is a semi-annual meeting that the worldwide membership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints participate in and look forward to. The conference is broadcast from Salt Lake City, Utah and is available by television, radio, internet and satellite. There are two sessions on Saturday, two sessions on Sunday and separate meetings for the men and the women. At these meetings we are instructed, educated, and edified by our prophet and our apostles as well as uplifted through beautiful music.

follow up on this week's posts

Ethan loves The Mom Song. The last two days he's asked to listen to it over and over again and will sit at the computer for a solid 30 minutes watching it on repeat. At first I thought he just likes William Tell Overture. After all, he is our music guy.

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But then today on the way to pick up Garrett from school, he started singing, "Stop crying or I'll give you something real to cry about" and "you're grounded until your 36" . My favorite was when he sang the part "don't forget, I love you, (kiss)" , tilting his head to the side on the kiss part. As funny as it was to hear his rendition, it got me a little concerned that he'd sing those lines at preschool or to someone other than myself which might raise some concern about my parenting...

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Also, Garrett took the tomato eating caterpillar to school today to show his teacher. She asked if they could keep it for a science discussion. I was happy to oblige.

The Mom Song

My sister, Kerri, posted this to her blog yesterday.

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It was a hilarious way to start our day, so I thought I'd post it as well for those few of you who aren't an overlap of our readers.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxT5NwQUtVM

the culprit

We finally solved the mystery about our tomatoes. Our lone tomato plant has thrived. There's always at least 20 good green tomatoes growing on it, but for he last couple of months we haven't been able to eat any of them. By the time they ripened, they had huge bites in them.

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Then while practicing for Soccer on Saturday, Matt and the boys discovered the culprit of those bites.

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It's this guy:

It was in the middle of the cement next to the garden. We did a little research. It's a tobacco hornworm. Despite the common name, this hornworm is often found eating, you guessed it, tomato plants. It's approximately the size of my index finger, and it totally grosses me out.

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The boys (meaning Matt too) are keeping it in a jar. Garrett wants to take it to school to show his teacher. I just want to get rid of it!

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The good news is that I just picked a nice big ripe red tomato that doesn't have a single flaw in it.