Halloween 2011

Yay! Pictures from my phone! Not a lot of time, so pretty much all you get are pictures...

 Here is Ethan carving one of many (many, many) of our pumpkins we carved.

 Here is Olivia getting in on a little of the carving action. She would clean about half of the pumpkin out and then decide it was too yucky and quit.

 Our front sidewalk was lined with pumpkins, most of them carved by Jake and Ethan.

 Our front yard on Halloween night. Jake and the kids are big fans of Halloween if you couldn't tell.

 My little pirate man trying to give me his most evil pirate stare.

 Olivia was exhausted just from going to the Halloween carnival and passed out in the car on the 2 minute drive home.

 My scurvy pirates! They had so much fun being pirates together!

 When we got home from our first outing of trick-or-treating it got real quiet and we couldn't find Olivia. She was sitting very quietly on the stairs sneaking little tastes of all her candy.

Our local dentist was doing a deal where for every pound of candy you brought in the day after Halloween he would give you a dollar. Ethan and Olivia took their candy in and had almost 6lbs and the dentist rounded up so they got $6! That afternoon we went over to Family Dollar and this is the stuff they got. Two hotwheels, two coloring book and crayons packs, and two discounted Halloween masks. Plus they ended up with .50 left over so we stopped at the hardware store and they each got a gumball. Way better than candy any day! 

I can't believe I haven't posted anything since September! I have no idea what happened! I think things just got busy with Jake and Ethan at school. I also got a new phone that I have taken a bunch of pictures with, but have yet to be able to get them to upload to my computer so I was waiting for those but oh well. Here are a few random pictures from Jake's phone and my real camera of things we have done the last couple of months. Warning: There are going to be a lot of pictures!

We went to our first football game of the year in our red hoodies (Go Lynx!)

 Yes, my children are wearing Halloween masks. Don't ask me why, they just love to wear masks all the time, any time of the year.

 Someone got all muddy when her daddy was supposed to be watching her...

 The kids and I had a candlelight dinner one night when our power got knocked out for over 5 hours. A high school girl had slammed her truck into one of the poles going around a corner too fast. She hit it so hard it knocked one pole over and tore up the one next to it too!

 During the high school's homecoming week the elementary school does the same dress up days as the high school. This day was mismatch day and Ethan picked out every bit of his outfit by himself making sure that not one thing would match.

 The second day was crazy hair day and although he was excited about it when we put the pony tails in, he did not like having them in by the time he was done at Kindergarten and he definitely didn't like me pulling them out.

 The third day was nerd day, and I have to say that he is by far the cutest nerd ever. One of my visiting teachers (who works at the school) said he was definitely the best nerd of the day!

To end the week they have a huge bonfire out past the city limits. Throughout the year everyone from town takes out any wood, weeds, lumber etc that they have laying around and put it in a big pile in preparation for the homecoming bonfire. They have the fire dept come out and they are actually the ones who start the fire, just to be safe. The fire in this picture is probably 20-30 feet long and 10 feet wide and that is after it had been going for about 20 minutes. We were sitting on a hill about 100 yards away and had to move because it was so hot!

 Olivia got tired of the bonfire after awhile so she and I went to sit in the car and wait for Jake and Ethan. This is her grooving out to her Backyardigans CD.

 Ethan had a blast at the bonfire because not only was there a huge fire (which come on, any kid would think was cool) but he also got to see some of his school friends and climb all over the rocky hills.

 When we were getting ready for the football game I was helping Ethan find his shoes and Olivia came out of her room like this and told me she was ready to go to the football game.

One day Olivia got mad and didn't want to take a nap but we told her she couldn't come out to the living room so she laid in the hall by her bedroom door and eventually got bored and fell asleep.

We had a couple of sick days that except for all their throwing up, I think the kids enjoyed because I let them lay around, sleep, and watch TV and movies all day.

Going to another football game in their red hoodies

 I think Olivia did it on accident and then Ethan thought it was funny so he had to join in on the upside down sunglasses too

 Ethan gave his temple talk in sacrament meeting during the primary program and he did awesome! He got right up to the podium, spoke straight into the microphone so clearly, and he didn't even need any help from his teachers.

While we were in Ephraim for the Sanpete County Fair, we got to meet Tow Mater!

 Pioche has a Labor Day celebration every year and there are always a few little rides for the kids to go on. This year Olivia was big enough to join in on some of the fun and clearly she enjoyed the swings.

Ethan loves to ride in this little barrel train. They have had it every year since we've been going there and it's always the first thing he wants to do. Olivia on the other hand was not so sure about it but because Ethan was with her (holding her hand) she seemed to be okay with.

And those are some of the things we have been doing this fall! I told you there would be lots of pictures! I am going to try to get the pictures off my phone this week because I have pretty much all of our Halloween stuff (costumes, pumpkins, etc), and a few other fun things we did stuck on there. Hope you enjoyed the random update!

Tutu!

Late at night when I am sitting at the computer scanning files, after everyone else has gone to bed, I get a little bored. A couple months ago I happened upon a craft blog, which led me to another craft blog, and another, and another, and...well you get the idea. So I have been saving all these little things I wanted to try for when I have time to try them and I thought since I am just sitting here scanning and staring at the computer, maybe I should try some of the easier ones. So, I will probably be blogging some of the fun crafts I am trying out, even if some of them are epic failures!

I found the instructions for this super easy tutu at Treasures for Tots and decided it might be fun to try. I ordered some tulle from COD Wholesale tulle and it was super cheap (around a dollar fifty for a 6" by 25 yard roll). I already had some ribbon I could use so one night when I was working late I started making Olivia a tutu.

It was super easy, especially using the blogs quick and easy tulle cutting method! It was a little time consuming (1-2 hours-ish) tying every little piece of tulle around the ribbon, but since I was just sitting at the computer working, that was fine with me. I think next time I make one I will use elastic instead of ribbon so that she can put it on herself and I don't have to tie the ribbon for her.

I made Olivia's in red and black because those are our high school colors. I figured she can wear it to basketball games and I am also considering it for a halloween costume (pirate girl or something). I don't know, I just thought it was fun and cute. And Olivia loves it!

She likes to put it on and dance and run around the house. Trying a craft from the internet: Success!

Ethan's new glasses

My poor little man already had to get glasses and he is only in kindergarten! Obviously he is just taking after Jake because Jake told me that he got his first pair of glasses in the 1st grade. He thinks he probably needed them earlier but nobody noticed. We only found out that Ethan needed them because we took him in last November when his eyes were having some allergy problems.

This is his "why are you taking a picture of me" face...

and this is after I told him that I wanted everyone to see his cool new glasses.

He is near sighted (like Jake and I and most of our families) so he only needs them when he is trying to watch tv from a distance or trying to see what his teacher is writing on the whiteboard at school. He has actually done really well at taking care of them so far. He knows when to wear them and when not to (recess!) and he usually puts them in his case when he's not wearing the. He even made up a little rhyme to help him remember-"On your face or in your case". I am just so glad that we have an eye doctor in Caliente now so we don't have to go all the way to Cedar! Plus our eye doctor has been so good, he is great with kids, and he even went to Snow College at the same time as Jake and I. It's a small world after all, it's a small world after all.....

Kindergarten

Ethan started Kindergarten this year and I am still having a hard time believing it! We still slip up and call it preschool all the time. Of course I had to take a few pictures of his first day.

Ethan is not a morning person. At all. So even though he was excited about started Kindergarten, getting up at 6:50am is not his idea of a good time. Hence the glare I got while trying to take his picture when he was eating breakfast. 

By the time he got done eating, got dressed, and watched a little cartoon he was more than willing to cheese it for the camera

He even wanted asked me to take this picture. He laid down like that and told me to take a picture because it was a good pose.

Of course Olivia had to get in on the picture taking too.

And this is how Olivia helped me work while Ethan was at school. She sat on my file box so I couldn't get anything out so that I had to play with her. Oh well, it's hard to resist that face!

A little time in SLC

   After the reunion we headed up to SLC to spend a little time with Jake's family. We went to a demolition derby that turned out to be the lamest derby ever. We were there for over 2 hours and they had 3 heats, and all 3 heats were with the same 6 or so cars. Super dumb. Luckily the rest of the weekend was much better.
   Jake's dad is part owner of this little cabin up in Cottonwood Canyon. It is a tiny little thing that I believe Jake's grandpa helped build. They talk about it all the time but I had never been up there so we decided to take a little drive up there on Sunday afternoon. It is really old and small but super cute and the kids loved it.

I told Jake that if we lived closer, I would love to go up there on weekends in the summer. The only problem is that it doesn't have a bathroom inside. You have to walk out behind the cabin to a little outhouse. Ethan had to go the bathroom but really didn't want to use the outhouse because honestly, it was a little creepy. It's tiny, it's just a drop hole, and it was quite dirty with cobwebs and stuff on it. But when you gotta go, you gotta go! I finally convinced him that he would be super brave if used it so he did.

So of course we had to take a victory picture of Ethan with the outhouse, since he had conquered the fear of the outhouse!

Olivia was having the time of her life. There is nothing this girl likes more than to play in the mud/dirt and get as messy as possible. Unfortunately for me, I had put her in white shorts that morning not knowing that we would be ending up in the mountains that afternoon! Oh well, nothing a little bleach couldn't fix!

There was also a fun wooden bench swing that the kids had a great time taking turns swinging on, and pushing each other on.

Ethan has asked me a couple times since then when we are going to go back up to that cool little cabin!

A Pirate says.. ARRRR

I'm trying to get caught up and post a bunch of the stuff we did over the summer. It seems like we were gone as much as we were home this summer! Anyway...

In July we went to the Lester extended family reunion. Every year it trades off who is in charge and this year it was Jake's parents so they did it in Delta. They had done a different reunion a couple years ago with a pirate theme so they decided since they already had all the stuff they would use it for this one too. There were quite a few people there, the majority of whom I didn't know (and I don't think Jake did either). The kids had a blast doing a fishing pond, a pinata, and digging for buried treasure.
~Picture Time~

Jake's parents had a little pirate costume (I have no idea why) and Ethan decided he should wear it.

He was Grandpa's first mate for the day and actually ended up wearing parts of the costume for most of the day. The mustache didn't stay on long and the eye patch bugged him, then of course the pants got too hot, but he loved the jacket and the hat!

Olivia digging for the buried treasure. Notice she has a pirate tattoo on her shoulder. She loved showing that tattoo off to everyone and when I finally scrubbed it off her a week later she was so sad. She kept walking around the house, pulling up her sleeve to look at her shoulder and saying,"Tattoo gone? Oh, tattoo gone."

She ended up finding over $8 in the dirt pile, with a little help from her daddy of course.

They had a pirate pinata and let everyone take a few swings at it starting with the youngest. Ethan was 4th in line I think, and he knocked the head clean off. Luckily the candy was all in the body so the rest of the kids still got a chance to hit it, although it did make hanging the pinata a little more difficult. 

 Around 1:30 I could tell that Olivia was getting tired so I took her over to the car to get a big blanket out. She saw her Zoobie first and hurried and grabbed it so I told her to go lay on the grass while I got a blanket out. Obviously she was tired, because she didn't even make it to the grass. I can't imagine the parking lot was all that comfortable so it's probably a good thing she didn't fall asleep.

I took this picture the day after we got home. Ethan was out playing in the pool and was so excited to show off his tattoo because it was on his chest like a "real" pirate.