Handsome Face

He's a goofball. I think he looks like my Aunt Merri in this picture.

Fall Festivities

We went to the pumpkin patch last Saturday. And lest we deceive you, no, we are not wearing pants because it was cold. It was actually blistering hot and a few of us got sunburned. We went on hayrides around the pumpkin patch, wandered around the patch while Daddy searched for his perfect pumpkin, played on the tire swings, and climbed the hay bale mountain. Handsome Face enjoyed filling little wheelbarrows with straw and Cute Girl liked the hay maze. I liked the raspberry syrup I bought at the farm store. We got it last year and I enjoyed every precious drop.

Let them eat cake!

We had a birthday last week! It was so fun. And the chocolate-sour cream frosting was yummy.

This is really just for my husband, so that he'll forgive me when he comes home from work and nothing's been done all day.

She's saying, "I want to get dressed after breakfast."

And incidentally, no, my chairs are not usually strewn about the family room but last night we had to clean birthday cake off the floor. More on that later.

Here's my daredevil in action although the video's really dark and you may not see him. But Mom wanted more videos so here they are!

A Solo

This is for our Grandmas, per Grandma Shoaf's request (so don't say I never post videos for you!). She got a little mixed up on the verses.

My baby is growing up, which makes me sad. But he still loves to cuddle!

Pillow Fight

We took time this morning to just hang out all together. The Rocket Scientist had just come back from picking up more furniture I bought off of Craig's List and the kids were a little stir crazy. So before we started the next item on our Saturday To-Do List we played one of the kids' favorite games - pillow fight. Normally this is a Daddy-ONLY game and I try to pick up the house real quick while the kids are occupied. But today I joined in. It was lots of fun. No one likes this game more than Handsome Face.

This is how we watch Sesame Street in our house.

The other day I was trying to shoo Handsome Face out of my room so I called out, "Come on Stinky Pants!" He broke out in a wide grin and yelled "No Stinky Pants! I'm Madoc!" We've been playing this game ever since. I don't think either of us will get tired of it.

This morning I was getting him down from breakfast and he says "gibberish...superman." And I say," What? Are you Superman?" He responds with a resounding "Yes!" Now I just don't know where he's heard of Superman.

Hiking

Yesterday we went to our canyon for a neighborhood picnic. We did a little hiking as well. I learned that I should not take two small children hiking by myself. And I need a child pack. But the kids had a blast - especially with their cool backpacks.

All ready to go!

Playing in the dirt post-lunchOn our hike

The Weekend Recap

We had a really great weekend. The Rocket Scientist had his wisdom teeth out on Thursday so we weren't trying to fit in lots of to-do things or yard work. This meant we had lots of time to just be together. It was nice to have a slow-paced weekend. That doesn't happen very often around here.

The Rocket Scientist with ice tied around his head.

For General Conference we kept some old traditions and tried some new ones. For the kids we recounted the story of King Benjamin and pitched our semi-annual conference tent. We had library books, paper, stickers, and crayons nearby. Cute Girl had a paper from Primary with every apostle's picture below a tie. She was supposed to watch for them and draw the tie they were wearing. She really had a good time with this. And we discovered that red ties were very popular on Saturday. Handsome Face napped during the afternoon sessions so Cute Girl got to play her "conference game." She chooses pictures of gospel topics and listens for them during the session. Every time she hears an appropriate word she gets a candy from the bowl. Last conference we used M&Ms but I ate half the bowl so this time we switched to Skittles. At one point she was counting on one hand while shoving candy in with the other. Then she started complaining about how she couldn't chew because her mouth was too full. By midway through Sunday afternoon she told me that she thought we shouldn't have any more sugar.

New to this year was our between-sessions craft time. The kids really liked this but I think their dad had the most fun. Saturday we made trick-or-treaters out of craft foam. I had a kit from last year's clearance sales. The Rocket Scientist added parrots to their pirates and Cute Girl loved that. On Sunday we painted some Halloween decorations. We got started late and so ended up painting during the whole session. We really enjoyed that session although I probably would have learned more if I was taking notes. But seeing as Sunday afternoon is the best time for falling asleep, it's probably good that we were painting!

As for food, we had soup twice because of the whole wisdom teeth thing. I had to put my roast and mashed potatos on hold. But we did make cinnamon rolls Sunday morning and had some friends over for breakfast. Then Sunday night we had more friends over to eat more of the cinnamon rolls because I really need to get them out of my house! Plus, the kids loved playing with their friends. It was nice for them to be able to run off some of their pent up energy. And it's nice to have friends that you can call at a moment's notice.

All in all, it was a great weekend. My favorite parts were Pres Uchtdorf and Elder Ballard's talks, flying kites in the park, going to a mom's night out (for the neighborhood - not conference related), buying a new couch, and snuggling with all my kiddos.

Conference Prep

Preparations for General Conference are in full-swing in our house. I hope it is a lovely weekend. I always have such high hopes for the weekend and I always feel a bit let down at the end. The spiritual nourishment is always excellent but I feel like a fall through on my end of the deal.

So today we're trying to clean the whole house, top to bottom. For me I must have an immaculate physical environment in order to be most open to the Spirit. I don't want to be in the middle of a session thinking about the dishes in the sink.

And I've been thinking about our conference traditions and what I want to adjust. So here's my question: what does Conference weekend bring to your home? Any preparations that HAVE to be done? Special meals to share? Fun games for the kids? I'll share mine if you'll share yours!

Pause, now blog

I'm taking just a moment to breath in this crazy week of mine. We've had locked-in keys, a car that won't start, shopping trips like crazy, birthday packages that won't fit in the car, emergency truck-borrowing, kid-pawning off...
But the highlight of yesterday was sitting around with my Beehive girlies making little toys (for some children whose father has leukemia) and giggling like crazy. They're sweet girls.
And when I got home the Rocket Scientist informed me that the reason Handsome Face keeps getting up and heading for his sister's room at night is that he just wants to sleep with her. He found him there last night sucking on his blanket while his sister snoozed on.