~Day 304: Is it Halloween?

I hope it is Halloween. Otherwise these cute kids were dressed up for nothing. JJ  came over for some camera time before we went out. Cailee is Claudine Wolf, from monster high. Brookie is Anna from Frozen. Ashton is a ninja. And JJ is the little baby ghost. Cute little monkeys!

We met up with some friends tonight. We are at Ashton's friend's house. Ian is the spotted cow ghost and Conner is a cute little Spider-Man.  We sat and talked with Tom and Linda for awhile too. It was nice to visit for a bit. 

I made them pose again. 

We went up and down "Mormon Row" with Brookie's friend Cassidy, who is Maleficent. It was fun to see the kids together and also walk with Zina, Cassidy's mom. Zina's niece was there and her son, who is in yellow. Another one of B's friends is there too, but I don't remember her name. 

We have gone to this street every year since we moved here. It's a lot of fun. The street is blocked off on both ends and the people create a really fun atmosphere. A lot of houses are decorated. They have a DJ and a haunted house, which none of my kids will go near. There is also a train for the kids to ride. 

The girls loved the train. Ashton chose not to ride the year. Does this mean he's growing up? 

JJ was at our house today when I got home from work. He is so cute and is smiling now. It was good to see Alissa for a few minutes before she had to leave to get JJ home for dinner. 

Yeah. I dressed up. Barely. I did this last year at work, but it was good for this year since I am working somewhere else. There is a black eye. And a missing tooth. And a cut with some blood in my lip. Very creative. I know. 

The kids always give me their almond joys because they know I love them. Tonight after Ashton got in bed, he asked Nick to have me go tuck him in. When I got on there, Ashton had this almond joy ready to give me. He said, "this is to tell you thank you for taking us trick or treating tonight." Then he have me a hug.   What a thoughtful little man. Made my sore feet and tired body not matter so much. 

Love my kids. I'm glad they had a good day. 

~Day 303: Happy Late Birthday, John!

Tonight we went to Alissa and John's house for dinner. It worked out to be the day after John's 29th birthday...

Erica and Nathan were there, too. It was so nice to sit and talk about a lot of interesting subjects. It was very enjoyable. Next time we see them, they will have their sweet little addition join their family. We can't wait to hear how things go this week. 

Our kids were there for awhile as well. They got bored though. It is nice that we live so close so we can send the kids home to play a wii game they stole from uncle John. We got home and one kid was asleep, and the other two were going strong...until we made them go to bed. They crashed. Night night. 

It was also nice to see John's parents for a short while. It was a really nice evening.

 

~Day 302: Lindsey's First Selfie

Yes. She did it. And she did a good job! Lindsey qualifies as a good selfie-taker-person because her arms are long enough. Mine... Not so much, as this has been established many times before.  And I know Janece would take better selfies than me too. Everyone has longer arms than me. 

I went to dinner with these two lovely ladies tonight. It was so nice to just sit and talk and laugh and talk and laugh some more. I learned things about them that I didn't know. It was great!

And I promised I would be nice with what I posted tonight. I just like taking pictures of random water glasses that have the lemon of death in them. This lemon may or may not belong to someone who may or may not be taller than me. And this lemon may or may not have aimed for something other than the glass of water it was intended for. And the lemon seeds and juice may or may not have landed on two other people who may or may not have been sitting in the same booth. But I know nothing. I'm just a random person who is camera happy. This person can pay me blackmail money later to pay for my silence...

I really did have a good time tonight. These are two of the nicest, most genuine, and beautiful people I know. I'm privileged to know them. 

~Day 301: Reading Beauty

The last few nights Brookie has asked to read to me before she goes to bed. We are working our way through a series of Amelia Bedelia books. She likes to see what mishaps Amelia gets into. It's fun to listen to her read. 

~Day 300: Rolling Jeopardy

Ashton had to come in and answer all the mythology questions. He got them all correct, too. And of course he can't sit still. 

~Day 299: Sneaky? Nope.

Look closely at this picture. What do you see?

Scissors? Yup. 

Jagged cuts on the chip bag? Yup. 

Crouton bag cut open? Yup. 

Crouton lying next to the scissors?  Yup. 

At least remove the evidence. Nice try kiddos. 

~Day 298: Family fun day and night

Today my work had a Family Fun Day.  We went to the Tempe Sports Complex where the company had arranged for bounce houses, games, prizes, meals, drinks, face painting, relays... We stayed for about three hours. The kids had a good time.  Ashton and I ran the three-legged race three times.  The first time our band broke.  The second time we came in second place, and the third time we won!  (it got a little hot running in the sun, but it was fun)  Along with our medals, for first place we each received a large bag of kettle corn and the honor of running in the final race against the other winners.  We didn't do so well the last race, but we still had a lot of fun.  I love the look on Ashtons' face here.  I think he had a good time.

Selfie practice after one of the races.

The kids spent most of the time on the bounce houses.  They love these things.  I think there were five different ones set up.  They had fun in each of them, but I think this one is their favorite.

Another bounce house set up was the velcro jump.  Ashton did this one a few times and got better with each jump.  It was great to see all the kids hanging on the wall... I wonder if I can do that at home?

Brookie is the first picture.  Ashton is the second.  Cailee is the third.  Cailee didn't last long because she said the suit was hot.  I don't blame her... they smelled funny too.  So many hot bodies in these things...eww.

Big Red from the Arizona Cardinals came too.  The girls wouldn't go near him.  Ashton was kind of excited.  We were in line for pictures with Big Red when they stopped us because he needed a water break.  I don't know how these mascots do their job so well.  I would be dying of heat if I had to be in that suite.

    

There were a couple of these things where you hit very hard and try to get the thingy to hit the bell at the top.  The name escapes me right now.  But we each took a turn.  The one on the left was easy.  But the one on the right was not so easy.  I tried both and really stunk it up on the second one.  The kids each did well, though.  You just had to stay out of their way because they got a little crazy with the mallets.

After the work fun day, BrookLynn went to a friend's birthday party.  Cailee and Ashton went home with me and Nick and I made everyone lay down for a rest.  Ashton didn't sleep, but Cailee and I sure did. We each slept for nearly 3 hours.  When Brookie got home from her party, Nick had hear lay down, and she was out for about 90 minutes.  Much needed sleep for two cranky girls.  Three, if you count me.  

Our ward had our Trunk or Treat party tonight.  The kids were pretty excited to finally get to wear their costumes.  Cailee is Claudine Wolf (from Monster High).  Brookie was Anna from Frozen (complete w/ vampire teeth).  And Ashton is a ninja (He was this ninja already a previous year.  I love that he is not picky about his costumes).

Nick loves the self-portraits.  Especially when the pictures turn out so great and dark.  He and I were sitting in the back of our vehicle handing out candy together.  This is the first year we let our kids just go around to the cars alone.  It was actually a good feeling.  I won't let them go alone on Halloween Night yet, but the parking lot seemed safe enough.

 

Two similar pictures.  I actually like the one that is dark better because the girls don't look quite to zombie-like.  They were a little tired of walking around and wanted to sit and help hand out candy. Ashton was there for awhile too, but got bored.

It was a very busy, but very fun day.  The kids all had to read before bed, but after they got into bed, they were out pretty quickly.  They were very worn out.  I love that we had the day together.  Sometimes I don't think we have enough of these experiences.

~Day 297: Beans and BYU

Tonight Cailee and I spent some time together.  First we got dressed up and then went to the fancy place called IHOP.  (I was glad it wasn't her favorite place, McDonald's)

She was pretty excited to get the happy face pancake.  I think it was twice as big as her head.  She ate all the whipped cream and chocolate chips off the top.  She has started doing a 'thumbs up' or 'thumbs down' when she can't talk.  'Thumbs up' was because she liked the cream.

When she tried the chocolate pancake she didn't like it.  The nice waitress brought her a regular pancake with chocolate chips and she ate that one pretty good.

Our next stop was the Queen Creek Performing Arts Center.  Nick's cousin Shannon and her hubby Curtis dance on the BYU Ballroom Dance Team.  Since they were performing so close to us, we were able to get tickets to go see them.  What a great show!  I have never been to a ballroom dance performance before and I loved it!  They were fabulous!

This is Cailee with Shannon after the concert.  The lighting makes them look like racoons... They didn't look like that up close!  And Cailee said this was her favorite costume.  I liked it, too.  I remember thinking throughout the concert that "This dance is my favorite."  "No, I love this one."  "I have to tell her I like this one best."  Of course I can't remember which one I liked the most because they were all great!  

We had to get a picture with both Curtis and Shannon.  I wish the lighting was better for my little phone camera.  I'm just glad I have something to show Cailee a few years down the road to remind her where we were.  She was VERY good during the whole thing.  When the first dance began, she sat up on the edge of her seat and was enthralled with what she saw.  She was very excited with a lot of dances.  The slower ones she had a hard time with for a few minutes, but overall she was great!

After we left, she kept trying to tell me about the place where we got ice cream that one time after swimming at Queen Creek, TWO summers ago.  She eventually got out that it was Dairy Queen.  So after the show, we stopped and got her a blizzard and took one home for Nick and Ashton who were still awake.  They went out and had their own boys night while, Brookie was at a sleepover with Cassidy.

It was a very fun evening.  So glad we were able to see Shannon and Curtis!

~Day 296: Bunco. (And no, I don't cheat.... I think?)

Another great night at bunco! It's so much fun to get together with these fun girls.  I think there is some question as to whether or not I cheat.  There is a rumor that the Cardona family 'may or may not' cheat.  And I did marry into them.  So I 'may or may not' have picked up some nasty habits.  And I 'may or may not' know how to count.  Well.. that part is debatable.  I think one game I really did count someone else's dice roll as my own numbers.  We seemed to get a pretty high score that game.  But I honestly don't remember haha  If I really wanted to win that badly, I would have come home with a prize tonight.  As I'm empty-handed, my cheating didn't go very well I guess... There's always next month....

~Day 295: Literary Pumpkins

Today I went with the kids to pick out pumpkins so they could create their 'Literary Pumpkins' for school.  The school is having a contest where students decorate pumpkins based on books or a character in the book.

The kids were very excited to start creating.  And by creating, they meant painting.  I started to suggest things they could do besides paint, but they had it in their heads to paint.  So I let them paint.  I got out my paints, and they painted.  And painted.  Some got on their pumpkins.  Did I mention they painted?

While they painted, they each had their books in front of them so they could make sure things were turning out correctly.  

Here is the finished product.  They were all very proud of what they accomplished.  I think they did a good job, too.

This is BrookLynn's.  She chose to base her pumpkin on the character Judy Moody.  Her pumpkin fit the character very well because it has the stem that is kind of in the shape of Judy's hair in the front.  

The back is complete with Judy's orange-red hair and the blond and red streaks throughout.  Brookie thought of everything.

Here is Cailee's pumpkin.  Her character was Barbie.  Cailee was very thorough in choosing which colors she wanted to use.  She made sure she had a lot of blond.  And pink eye shadow.  And black for her eyelashes.  And there is light blue for the eyes.  White for behind the blue eyes.  And pink again for the lipstick.  She was proud of herself for getting the pink eye shadow on above the eyelashes.  She couldn't very well put the pink over the eyelashes.  She was very happy with her work.

Ashton chose to base his pumpkin on Minecraft.  He thought of all the little details he wanted to put on, and made sure I had all the right paint colors.  I have no idea what each symbol is.  I get the black face with the eyes.  And I think I get the square green thing.  I'm the only one in the house who doesn't play Minecraft.  Maybe it's time I started.

Now the trick is getting these to the school in one piece.  Wish them luck!