Ian's 9th!

The birthday boy and his birthday boiled eggs.
With candles.

We celebrated Ian's 9th birthday last week with the typical, traditional birthday activities:  candles in the breakfast, getting picked up from school and taken out to lunch, and getting to pick the birthday dinner and dessert.  Ian's birthday was on a Tuesday, and on Tuesdays I help in Adele's kindergarten class.  Her teacher has a son (Bryce) who has the same birthday as Ian. I had forgotten this and she mentioned something about it when I was there. I then got the idea that it would be fun to invite Bryce to go out to lunch with us since it was his birthday too.   His mom said that was ok and I asked Ian if he wanted to go by himself or invite Bryce to come with us.  He thought it would be fun to have Bryce to come.  Ian wanted to go to the hospital to get lunch with Kent for his birthday lunch so we went there.  He had chicken strips and Bryce had pizza.  They felt pretty cool, being out to lunch on their birthday.  I also got a great idea from Bryce's mom when we were talking.  She said that she always gives her kids the option of having a birthday party or taking the money she would have spent on a party.  I thought this was a brilliant idea and decided to start doing that.  I offered that to Ian and he was ALL over it.  So, he decided to take the cash and skip the party.  (Good choice buddy!)

He kept doing this funny mouth thing and wanted us to get a pic of him looking like he was blowing out the candles.

Remote control 4 - wheeler.

Halloween -

So I'm pretty much a Halloween-photo slacker this year.  Elise and Kent were gone the night we carved pumpkins (daddy-daughter bowling the night before Halloween).  So they did their pumpkins after the rest of us.  Did I take pictures?  No.  Sorry guys, but I did steal a pic from Facebook of you at the bowling alley so you are represented.

And on Halloween night... Yes we did go trick or treating.  Elise and Emilia went with some friends this year (for the first time! What fun!).  We were in such a rush to get everyone ready that we completely forgot to take pictures.  Slackers.  Ian was a gangster again.  Elise was a chef (and I made her a super cute apron to wear).  Emilia was  a zombie or something.  Adele was... she was... I can hardly remember (this is why we take photos, duh.)  She changed her mind so many times, and tried on a bunch of different costumes.  I will have to get back to you on that!  (Mom of the year here.)  

Annual Fall Donut Fest

One of our favorite fall traditions is our annual donut party.  For the last 3 years including this year we have had our fall donut party with our good friends the Enas.  The donuts were super yummy as usual and it was fun to hang out with our friends!

Surprise Party!

Adele has been talking about her birthday party ever since her last birthday.  After the 4th of July she wanted a 4th of July themed birthday party with sparklers and fireworks. And a pinata.  Then, because fireworks weren't readily available after July, she decided she was going to have a bowling party at the bowling alley.  She invited pretty much everyone she knew and even people she just met.  Then she said she wanted a surprise party.  After that she wanted a witch and wizard party.  So pretty much, she was super excited to have a really awesome party, of some variety.  I planned a Halloween themed surprise party.

Casting a spell on her spider cupcake.  Or something like that.

All our cute party guests

Showing the kids all the potion ingredients

Mason just had to taste it.

The potion was so cool!

Now we can start planning next year's party.

Adele's 6th Birthday

My baby is 6.  I can't believe it has been that long. It seems like she should be 3 or 4.  Not that I want her to be.  Six is good!

 Candle in the breakfast burrito

Still wearing the leotard from dance class.  Not that dance class is required for leotard wearing.

Adele picked all of her presents this year but she still wanted them wrapped

Adele also had some money from her 2 sets of grandparents so she really scored!

Update

Yeah, it's been awhile since I did an official update.  This blog has turned into a photo album more than anything.  And that's good, since my scrapbooking these days is limited.  The blog is still a priority even though I only have about 2 readers.  The blog book I print every year is the real reason I do this.

We are busy trying to sell our house.  Painting stuff.  Cleaning stuff.  Cleaning stuff again.  And again.  The first 3 weeks we only had 3 people look at the house.  Last week we had 6.  We have really seen things pick up.  Hopefully that is a good sign and things will move along.  We have a lot that we love and want to build on but right now we are waiting for an offer on this house.   We will meet with our builder this week and talk about options and house plans.  We might put money down on the lot to hold it if we can.  The kids are getting more excited about the idea of moving to a different ward.  They like the lot and all the room to run and play.  I'm just ready to get this thing done and not have to show the house all the time. Having surprise showings and having people give us 20 minutes to get ready for a showing isn't really my idea of fun.

I am also in limbo about jobs.  I finally got on part-time with the dentist I have been working for for the past couple of years.  That was all going great until things didn't work out with the girl who was working opposite my schedule.  When her position opened up the dentist couldn't find someone to work part time and ended up hiring someone for full time.  Which basically cut me back to not working.  It wasn't really the outcome I had hoped for.  Now I'm looking for jobs. I finally had to update my resume after, uh, 12ish years, and I took it around to the dentists in town.  Nobody was hiring when I took the resumes around so I'm just kind of waiting for something to open up.  I did get a lead on a job with one dentist and I took my resume over there last week.  Their assistant left with no notice.  She was on full time so I don't know if they will even consider me for part time. I guess it depends on how desperate they are.  I'm waiting to see a job posted or hear from them or something.  I also put in an application for a job with the school district helping the district nurses with health and vision screenings and keeping immunization records updated. It doesn't sound nearly as interesting and fun as working in a dental office but I guess I have to just take what I can get and hope that eventually I will get the "perfect" job that I want.

Halloween Carnival

Every year our school has a Halloween Carnival run by the PTA to raise money for the school. I used to HATE the Carnival because it was inside the school and always really crowded.  Now they do it outside and it is a lot more fun!  These guys had a lot of fun today and I did too. It was wonderful to enjoy a warm fall day.

Everyone should have the chance to feel the zombie brains.

For Sale

We are crazy. At least I feel like we are crazy.  We have been talking about selling our house for several years but we never felt like we could get out of it what we needed to.  Things in the area are picking up now so we decided to list!  We have a lot in mind to build on if our house sells but we aren't really sure what the plan is. I guess the plan right now is to go with the flow.  It's exciting but I have to admit that seeing a for sale sign in my front yard is pretty weird.

Taxes

You're welcome buddy.

Fun at the cabin and Zion

My good friend Jodi's family owns a little cabin just outside Zion National Park.  Her parents were kind enough to let us go up and spend the night.  We cooked dinner in the fire, sang campfire songs and taped glow sticks to our bodies so we could be glow-stick dancers.  The kids thought that was the coolest thing ever.  It was pretty cool.

my glow stick kids

Sitting by the fire

When Kent and I took our trip to Zion this spring we went on a hike and found this little swimming hole.  We wanted to take our kids there sometime so we did it the weekend we were at the cabin.  A little tricky to get to because of all the rocks but it was awesome!

Happy Birthday Kent!

Kent FINALLY caught up with me and is 37 now.  We made delicious strawberry cream pies at his request.  Look at that happy fam!  

Happy birthday to the best hubby and dad!

This is what you get when your birthday is in the fall and your kids walk to the dollar store for gifts:  Gruesome body parts.  That's how we roll.

Kindergarten Finally Starts!

This girl was excited to start school.  The funny thing though is that when anyone would ask her if she was excited she would tell them she was nervous.   This girl is almost 6 and is so ready for school.  We are glad the time finally came.  She insisted that I let her ride the bus today.  She also insisted that I let her wear her headband that looks like a tiara.  I told her that if her teacher wants her to take it off when she gets to school she has to listen.  I didn't feel like fighting it this morning.  I am excited to hear how her day went today.

First Day of School!

I had to take the pix with my phone since I couldn't find my camera.  I wish they were better.

My 2 middle school girls!  I am so glad they can be at the same school again! It has been great for Elise.

And my favorite dude.  He's lonely at school right now because Adele doesn't start kindergarten for another week!

Stitches - Mopping is Dangerous

I got injured on Saturday. I was on my hands and knees mopping the floor under the bar.  I grabbed a stool to move it over and there was a glass of leftover breakfast smoothie on the stool.  As I pulled the stool over the glass fell over and broke and came crashing down.  A piece of glass cut my arm on the way down.  As soon as I saw the cut I knew I'd need stitches (I could see my subcutaneous fat!  Eww!)  I took myself to the Instacare and got 6 stitches.  Sorry if this grosses you out. I think it is kind of cool.  And gross.

What We Did ALL Summer

It has kind of been a different summer.  I babysat a couple of girls this summer so we tried to stay busy.  We went swimming a lot and to movies.  And the park. And ate a lot of shaved ice.  Here are some pix of some of the stuff we did this summer:

Making collages

Playing in the water with our 2 "extra" girls.  Poor Ian.  Went from 1 boy in 4 girls to 1 in 6

I did some sewing.  Made this dress for Adele.

And an apron for my sister Kathy

Emilia's best friend Tamara moved. I took them out for a fro-yo

Tamara moved back!  Her dad's new job didn't work out and after 5 weeks she came back!

It rained a LOT during July

And look at cute Ian!  He played baseball this summer

 So, yeah, that's sort of the nutshell version of what we did this summer!  Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of kids fighting or doing extra jobs because they were fighting.  We did a lot of that this summer too.