Halloween

Well, it is over! A day that I always look forward to, but by the end of the day am so glad is over for another year. It seems like we are always rushing from one place to another. There are costumes to deal with and sugar highs from WAY too much candy consumption to deal with. In my opinion, Halloween is really a holiday for the kids. But, my kids had a great Halloween and so I am happy!


Easton dressed up as Anakin, (don't know the correct spelling, sorry!) from Star Wars. I tried to get him to be Darth Vader because I liked the costume better, but he insisted on being the "good guy". He really had fun.


Paisley dressed up as a cheerleader. She went to a cheer leading clinic in the spring and they were selling their old uniforms for really cheap, so it worked out to be a great costume.


Avery was Marie from the Disney Aristocats movie. I somehow didn't get any really good pictures of her with the hood on, but she is cute nonetheless.

We did a lot of trick-or-treating. We visited all of the kids' grandparents and they were so spoiled. We got tons and tons of candy, more than we will EVER eat. Avery threw up in the parking lot of the restaurant that we ate at. That was fun. At least it was in the parking lot and not in the restaurant or the car. She acted totally fine afterwards. I think it might have been from WAY to much candy consumed in one day that her body is SO not used to. She has been fine since.


She also had a few meltdowns during the day due to lack of good naps in the previous couple days.


This is grandpa, my dad, with all his grand kids.

Overall, though, it really was a fun couple days. I really enjoyed the time I spent with Dave and the kids and our other family members.

Wrestling Fever

(Easton is the one in the white t-shirt)

Easton has been in wrestling for the last couple of weeks. He has really been enjoying it. I think with his aggressive personality that wrestling is right up his alley. The only problem we've had is reminding him that wrestling is to stay at wrestling and that we don't wrestle our sisters! :)

Last night was his first wrestling meet. It was against another elementary school. Each boy on our team got to wrestle once. He was so excited for his first match. As a mother, I wasn't sure how I would feel watching him wrestle. I didn't know if I would be worried or what. But, when he got up to wrestle I was just filled with pride! It was a lot of fun for me to watch him. He really did a great job. He was very aggressive and really worked hard. He seemed to know and was trying several different moves. The match went almost 3 full rounds. Right at the end, he got pinned. He just kind of laid there, and later he said he had gotten hurt. He was pretty sad that he lost, but I was just so proud of him. I think he may have a future in his sport like most of his uncles and his grandpa before him. It was just a fun night, and I am excited for more to come!!

Scary Kids

Just a scary/cute picture of Easton and Paisley at the Fall Festival at our elementary school where they got their faces painted. (They were trying to be scary, but they are so darn cute that being scary is hard for them!) :)

Sisters!

I grew up with two younger brothers. As much as I love my brothers, I always wished for a sister and it was never to be! Luckily I have 6 really great sisters-in-law who are as good as sisters to me. But, I always hoped that Paisley would have a sister, and as luck would have it, Avery came to our family! It is fun to see what a little "mom" Paisley is to her. Avery really loves Paisley. If something is wrong with Avery and I can't comfort her at that moment, she will go to Paisley and is totally content with that. The other day I was doing a puzzle with Paisley. I was getting a bit tired of Avery being really "needy" right then. I couldn't hold her and help Paisley with the puzzle. So, I set her down and told her she will have to just sit by mama. Well, she kind of cried and went over to her next best "mama", Paisley, and climbed into her lap and Paisley just held her. It was so cute. I am so thankful that they have each other and I hope that they stay close forever!

OUCH!

Just wanted to show Avery's wound from church on Sunday. Sacrament meeting hadn't even started yet. I wasn't paying attention, but Avery was standing on the bench. She fell off and somehow rug-burned her head in the process. She either burned it on the material on the bench in front of us, or when she landed on her head on the floor. Either way, she cried very hard and I could immediately see the burn. Poor girl!



And, I had to add a picture of her cute bum in these Halloween pants!! Sooo cute!

All grown up!

This is Avery's first attempt at getting herself ready! Funny, huh? I was just impressed she got them on all by herself, even if one was on the wrong foot! :)

Our first attempt, not too shabby!

For all of the 19 months of Avery's life, she has been without a dresser. Up until now we used a storage container that had 3 drawers, and she also used a drawer in Paisley's dresser. But, it has been frustrating to have her clothes in two places and not enough room for all her stuff, too.

Dave's mom and dad were nice enough to give us a dresser that they had in their basement. It used to be Dave's sister's when she was little, and she is 8 years older than Dave. And, Dave's parents bought it used all those years ago. So, it has seen many years and many, many moves. But, as is the case with most old furniture, it was made to last. So, Dave and I decided to strip it down, replace the pulls, and paint it.

The kids helped us sand down the drawers.



The dresser has been sitting in our garage half-finished for a while now. On Saturday we decided we had to finish it while the weather was nice and we could do it outside. It was a lot of work and time consuming. But we finished it. We thought it turned out really nice.

We didn't take a before picture, I really wish we would have. But, there was flower decals on it and these old pulls.



Here is the finished dresser.



I put all of her clothes in it today. It is so nice to have finally. I feel much more organized! Thanks John and Shirley!

Homecoming parade

Dave and I took the kids to Pocatello on Saturday morning for the ISU Homecoming parade. This is our 3rd year of attending. It is pretty fun to go down on a cool fall morning and watch a parade. The kids got lots of candy and so they were very happy. Dave's sister and her little boy were there also.

After one random float, that was it. There was no one else behind them. We thought it was weird that the parade would just suddenly end like that. So we waited and waited. We waited through about 10-15 minutes of nothing, and finally decided that it must be over and packed up our stuff and left. As we were driving away, we looked back and saw that the parade was going again. We drove down a street parallel to the parade route and saw that there was a lot of parade left. Dave and I were not too disappointed, as we had already watched about an hour and 15 minutes of the parade. The kids didn't notice that the parade was still going, so they were fine with leaving. We couldn't figure out why there was such a LONG break in the middle. Dave heard later that a couple kids got hit or something during the parade and that was the reason for the delay.

Afterwards we went to Butterber's for lunch. We really like their food and usually go there when we are in Pocatello. Avery was very cranky while we were there and so it was good to get on the road back home. Fun day, though!

Recent events

A few things have happened the last few days.


Paisley lost her second tooth before church on Sunday. She showed it to me and it was very wiggly, but not enough that I could just pull it out. She worked on it for a bit, we tried again, and out it came! She was so excited! The tooth fairy visited that night and left her another whopping $2! WhooooHoooo! I am so surprised that she is losing her teeth this early, but the dentist said it is fine.



Paisley's asthma has been acting up a lot the last few weeks. I feel so bad for her when she gets this way. It usually is just a tight, constant, high pitch cough. Once she gets into a coughing "fit" it takes her a long time to quit. We usually give her a breathing treatment and that will help somewhat. The only thing that really gets rid of it is to put her on a liquid steroid for a few days. That will loosen her cough, and as soon as that happens, I know that she is on the mend. Yesterday she was getting really bad and so Avery and I took her to the asthma doctor down in Pocatello. They squeezed us in, I was very appreciative. But, squeezing us in meant that the doctor came in for a couple minutes and talked, then had to leave to attend to another patient. After a bit he came back and listened to her lungs. He gave her a breathing treatment for the wheezing, and left again. The nurse came in and took off the treatment and left. Then we waited quite a while. He came in and listened to her again, she sounded better. He wrote out the prescriptions and we were able to finally leave. But, this was 1 1/2 hours after we got there. I thought that we would be in and out. Avery was very tired and cranky by that point. Oh well. My friend, Heather, picked Easton up from school for me and watched him for a while. Then later, my other friend Valerie watched him for another hour. I was very thankful to these friends for helping me during this time. The doctor put her on another steroid and she should hopefully be getting better in the next couple days.


Easton will be starting wrestling practice tonight. He is sooo excited for that. His flag football season just ended. He also really enjoyed that. Both are aggressive sports and are right up his alley! In fact, at one of his football games, a man came up to Dave and asked if #9, Easton, was his son. He was a little worried to answer, not knowing why he was asking. :) But, he said, "You need to get that kid in wrestling! He has attitude, and that is a good thing, and is really aggressive. He would do well!" That is something we had already talked about, but that kind of decided it for us. I hope he enjoys it. He was showing me his wrestling moves last night, which weren't official moves I don't think. I just hope that he can control his excitement enough to pay attention and learn. :)

The BIG "5"!!

Paisley turned the big 5 on October 3rd! I can't believe how the time has flown since she was born!

She had a friend birthday party on Saturday. We wanted to do something different, something other than the normal "princess" theme. So, we decided to do a chocolate theme! Paisley loves chocolate, like her mother, and I thought it would be fitting. We gave out invitations that we glued onto a Hershey bar. Then I bought little aprons for all the kids and used puff paint to write each of their names on them.



I bought some sucker molds and melted different colors of chocolate and put it in squeeze bottles. The kids got to squeeze the chocolate into the molds to make two suckers each and a pretzel rod with chocolate on it, too. Then we made chocolate pizzas. They took a chocolate rice krispie treat, spread chocolate icing on, coconut as the cheese, and then got to load it up with little candies for the toppings. Those were fun, but messy. We put them in Ziploc bags to take home and they ended up looking like a big mess in a bag! Oh well. The point was to have fun, right? The suckers turned out to be a big success. They were easy for the kids, and turned out very cute!



Paisley got totally spoiled with all the presents she received! (Thanks everyone!) It was funny because all the kids started out holding the presents for her sitting on the ground watching her open them.



But, it must have been very exciting because they all ended up huddled right around her. They could hardly move! :)



After presents we had chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing, a Hershey kiss, and chocolate sprinkles.



Dave and I tried to eat one, but threw most of it away because they were TOO chocolaty!! The kids seemed to love them, though!



Then we had about a half hour left and no plans. So, we took them downstairs to play musical chairs with the music from the music stations on the satellite and towels as chairs. It was a total throw together game, but a hit! We played three rounds and they all had a lot of fun!



I recruited my mom and my sister-in-law to help at the party because I was afraid of Dave and I being alone with lots of chocolate and 10 5-year olds! They were a ton of help! Thank you soooo much!

All in all it was a really fun day! I think the kids had fun and I know Paisley did!

(I couldn't resist adding a picture of Avery in the tutu that Paisley got for her birthday. What a cutie!!!)

Here are a couple pictures from the two family parties we had on Sunday.



All the cousins together. You can imagine the chaos while trying to get this picture!

Paisley and my brother's son, Dillon. Dillon turned 2 the day before Paisley's birthday.

Happy Birthday, Paisley!! I am so proud of the sweet little girl that you are. You are such a helper to me and make my life so fun! We love you more than you'll ever know!!

Cheerleading

My mom called last week and told me she had heard about a cheerleading clinic hosted by some high school cheerleaders. Paisley had been to one previously and LOVED it and so we signed her up for this one. She wanted to invite her friend, Madisen, to go along. They did a 4 hour clinic where they taught them cheers, jumps, and a dance. They also fed them lunch and gave them a really cute T-shirt.




Then they got to perform what they learned at the halftime show of the varsity football game that night. She loved the clinic and had a lot of fun performing. In her words it was "super, super fun!!"

What did I tell ya???

(I almost could not post this picture because it grosses me out too much! I might have to remove it!!)

A couple of posts ago I wrote about 6 quirks of mine. One of them was my very strong fear of bugs. I have discovered that one of the bugs I am most scared of is a PRAYING MANTIS!!!! YIKES!!! Well, today, my fear was brought right to the surface.

Today I was outside mowing the lawn along the back fence. All of a sudden, right in front of the lawnmower was a big, NASTY tan-colored praying mantis!! I totally screamed! I mean, loud! Oh, and I ran, too! Paisley and Avery were inside playing and Paisley quickly came running out to see what I was screaming about. (So, I know that my all my neighbors must have heard, too!) I ran to the safety of the porch and told Paisley to go get it. She got the little shovel and ran over. When she saw it the poor little girl screamed just like her mama! She said, "I can't get it!!" I told her that she was going to have to because I would not be able to go on mowing, my fear is that bad. So, being much braver than her scaredy cat mother, she started trying to get it in her shovel. She kept trying and I could tell that she was very grossed out, but finally she got it on the shovel. So, I said, "Okay, now FLING it over the fence!" So, she brings the shovel back, and flings it...right into the fence. So, again she goes through a bunch of tries to get it back on the shovel. Finally she gets it on again. This time she says, "I need a chair!!" So, she runs over to me and I send her back with a small folding chair. She stood up on it and gently brings the shovel up and drops the nasty creature over the fence. I was sooo happy! I cheered and gave her several kisses on her face. (If you don't understand my joy then you truly don't understand my fear!)

Finally I am able to get back to mowing. So, I send Paisley back inside with Avery and I head over to the lawnmower. All of a sudden, to my horror, that nasty bug is crawling back into our yard under the fence!! So, I have a repeat of the last time, I scream and run for the security of the porch. I told Paisley that it was back and she couldn't believe it. So, she goes out there and decides she is just going to kill it. (Sorry to all you praying mantis lovers out there!) The mantis is about half under the fence. So, she tries to scoop it up, and instead just starts pounding the shovel. It was so funny. I laughed the whole time. She would pound the shovel as hard as she could and yell, "I'm killin' it, mom!" Then she would look down and say, "Oh, it's still alive!" And, then the process would begin again. She was at such an awkward angle that I am not sure she could have been hitting it at all. But, she was on a mission for her mother, and she was determined! After several poundings she declared that it was dead. I wasn't as sure, because she said she couldn't see it. So, I asked her to sit on the chair there and watch for it to make sure it didn't come back. I began to mow again, but man, I had the hebee-gebees after that. When I would go past the "dreaded spot" I would practically run! We didn't see it again, thank goodness. Either Paisley killed it or it figured it had to run for it's life.

I am really not exaggerating on my fear of these things. Anyone who knows me can totally picture this happening. It is a bit embarrassing that I have to make my poor daughter, who also has some of my fear, do the dirty work. But, I just CAN'T!!

Anyway, looking back it was pretty funny. I would love to have had somebody get the whole thing on video so I could watch and laugh! :)