Happy Halloween 2010!

It really seems important to me to get Halloween finished up and out of the way before December. So I have 2 hours left to get it done.

In case I haven't mentioned, we have six kids. This means that we'd have to live on a secluded mountain peak to avoid Halloween and all the fun/terror it brings. We start talking about our costumes at the beginning of September. But I refuse to do anything about it before October actually arrives. And because I can't bring myself to buy a costume unless under emergency situations, we have a lot of scurrying around to make things right.

Luckily, most costumes survive the first few uses. For example, we had Batman for the 3rd time when Rebekah took on the character.


And it was perfect for Joseph. He really wanted to be Batman, but was only big enough for Boy Robin. That was close enough for him. We went to the school to join Rebekah in her Kindergarten parade. The Dynamic Duo must stay together!


And getting a sucker for his troubles didn't bother him at all. (He was pretty reluctant to join Rebekah at first. That "Collett Coma" keeps us in good manners in most situations, but it doesn't wear off before 10 minutes passes and it almost kept Joseph from participating!)

I was able to use old costumes for everyone, but Daniel and Nathan.

This was Nathan's costume. It is a copy of the costumes Chad and I made for ourselves in 1999 (our first Halloween).

It was plenty big on him. He could wear it again next year if he chooses to. Here is Nathan in the main parade that day. He was looking up at a ghost traveling across the hallway.


Leah was a mummy. This was Daniel's costume 4 years ago. She got to follow her teacher (a.k.a. Dorothy (Wizard of Oz)) which put a pretty big smile on her face.


The next night the school hosted a Halloween carnival (fundraiser) and we enjoyed ourselves as we played some games, won some prizes and visited with friends.

Rebekah is a dangerous bowler.


Sarah joined in the cupcake walk. She seemed so tiny next to those big high school kids. But she was not bothered by the difference. Even after Nathan was done, she remained and walked the circle, making those other kids trip over her. I should have pulled her out sooner, but it was so darn CUTE to watch!


There was a haunted house. The kids waited in line for quite a while. (It's a little tricky to get these 6 into the same shot!)

The three oldest decided that they wanted to go through on a scary run. We sent Rebekah and Joseph through a mild one.


As it turned out, Leah wasn't quite as brave as she thought. She came out a little early in tears and didn't want to talk about it. I thought it was a perfect time to whip out the camera. Mwah, hah, hah!


And there was a spaghetti dinner. Of course, we'd already done the cupcake walk and had dessert, so I had no bargaining chips left to get the kids to eat the food we paid for. Luckily, it was only $3 a plate.


And then the next night (doesn't Halloween usually last 3 days?) was the Trunk-or-Treat at the church. By this time, it was Day 24 of my no candy challenge. Ugh. That was hard.

Skeleton Nathan (A perfect costume for him...he's so skinny!)


Sarah was a stinkin' cute clown.


Here are all the kids at once. Daniel was Sherlock Holmes. That was an interesting costume to figure out. "Thanks" to my mom who gave me some helpful advice.


Trick-or-Treat!


Daniel collected candy and then put it into our bowl to pass out to trick-or-treaters. He resisted the temptations that were all around him! Amazing. We were giving out fist fulls of candy at the end and still ended up with a ton of candy (that I CAN'T eat)!

Our jack-o-lanterns were still doing pretty good a week after being carved.

I made an ice sculpture using a mold and colored water. Then I sat it on a small block of dry ice. It smoked and swirled as the trick-or-treaters came by. It got some fun comments! And then the dry ice gave the jack-o-lantern a 5 o'clock shadow. :)

And that is Halloween this year. Whew! It took me half an hour to type it all up.

December...here we come!

EGGS!

Remember those chicks that were hatching back in June? They started laying eggs about 3 weeks ago. Now we are getting about 10-12 eggs a day. At first they were very tiny and then got to be a more respectable size. Occasionally, we get a surprise.

How do you like that egg? It dwarfs the other eggs! I've been waiting to take a picture before cracking it open to see what's inside. Maybe it's a dinosaur!

And do you see that little green egg? We have some hens that lay green ones. Each day is a surprise.

Ah...simple living. ;)

And come March, we will have a few more layers. These chicks hatched just before Halloween. There are 7, but we don't know how many are roosters. These chicks came from our old chickens. We gathered some eggs from those guys and then gave them away (they were only producing 0-3 eggs a day).

Carving Pumpkins

Yes, indeed, we did carve pumpkins. We usually do it on the FHE before Halloween. This year was right on schedule.

About the age of 3, our kids really HATE pumpkin guts. Here is Joseph about 3 weeks before his third birthday. Yep...right on schedule. But it makes a great picture!



Everyone got in the act, except for me...I must maintain clean hands in order to safely operate the cameras. (Perhaps there is a very big 3-year-old inside of me.) Chad is such a good Daddy. He got right in there with the rest of them.

And some of them really got into their pumpkins! The girls got the white pumpkin. (Is it still a pumpkin if it's white? Or is it a different variety of squash?) I did not expect the inside of the white one to be green.

Sarah got to play with a little pumpkin. I didn't want to clean pumpkin guts out of her hair! She wasn't content to sit there forever. But she sure looked cute while she did!

Chad always looks for a challenge. So he scooped out a little pumpkin and carved it. The bigger you are, the smaller the pumpkin, I guess.

Eww! Gross pumpkin guts! But yummy roasted pumpkin seeds are in our future. (Daniel thinks they are nasty...more for us with mature taste buds!)

Then it came time for the kids to start the carving. I was holding my breath that there would be no blood lost. I guess the lack of oxygen was worth it, because all ended well.

Here is Nathan with his. More proof that the bigger you are, the smaller the pumpkin.

Rebekah learned that it actually required a bit of muscle to cut the pumpkin flesh! Leah seems as if she's not sure Rebekah is up for the challenge. I even witnessed a time or two that Leah's tongue hung out at the same time Rebekah's did. Leah was really feeling the moment!

Daniel put some planning into his pumpkin. Then he couldn't control himself and carved the pumpkin on all side. That made the candle go out faster.

We finally got the jack-o-lanterns on the front porch. We didn't stick around for many pictures because it was COLD!

SPOOKY. Daniel's candle had already been blown out by the time I could take a picture.

One more year of Halloween down. Next up on our holiday radar...school Halloween parades and trick-or-treating!

Straw Bale Maze

We've gone to the straw bale maze three years in a row now. (All three years that they've done it.)

It's a bit of a drive to get to and it's usually cold, but it's a little warmer down in the maze and it's a once a year opportunity! If we ever end up moving out of the country, I'll be glad that we went.

The kids had fun, and took turns leading. It was a little hard for some of the kids to be followers, so I feel it was a good exercise in humility!

I like getting shots of the kids' heads in a stack. Joseph was cranky and wouldn't cooperate. Top to bottom: Daniel, Leah, Rebekah, Nathan.

Chad, as usual, carried someone on his back. If he has back problems later in life, we have 6 people we can blame it on! You can see that Joseph was still a little cranky. At least, I think that's why he's pulling on Chad.

Mazes are full of dead ends. We seem skilled at finding each and every one...at least once.

Our parting picture. The maze is haunted after dark, so you can see we got out of there just in time! I have such a great looking bunch of kids!

It was a bigger and better maze than last year. It was even a little difficult to get out of! There was a tunnel with bits of baling twine hanging down through out that was a little creepy...and fun! We were picking straw off our our fleece jackets for a long time. Until next year...

ACK!

Where has the time gone?

I have been busy with various things, including trying to clean my house.

I spent a nice morning on the floor of the kid's bathroom scrubbing toothpaste off their carpet. I realize that I have a propensity for exaggeration, but believe me when I say that you wouldn't have been able to find one foot in any direction without coming to toothpaste. Whether it dripped from their mouths or fell straight from the tube, there was toothpaste from one wall to the other, on the shower stall, on the walls, cupboard fronts, mirror and maybe even the ceiling (I did find dried toilet paper wads up there).

I have vacuumed countless cobwebs and then found more again after the vacuum was put away. We have so many spiders out here!

We can now walk through the storage room without using any contortionistic moves. That has been nice!

There used to be a 2 1/2 foot high pile of stuff on my sewing table. I can now see the cutting mat in most places. I still have two pairs of pants to sew for the girls and Christmas pj's to cut and sew.

Among cleaning and organizing, life has been chugging along its usual pace. We've had Pack Meeting, got the studded tires on the van, gone grocery shopping, done homework, had FHE, shoveled walks (and then shoveled them again), driven carpool, gone to meetings, been sick, etc.

I will post pictures and share some of the better memories as I can. After all, it's Thanksgiving tomorrow and we have a few things we need to do for that!

I hope you all are having Thanksgiving with someone you care about and that you travel safely if you travel at all. Be careful in that crazy snow we've been getting in Utah and Idaho!

Quote of the day, part one and two

I love my little Joseph. He says the funniest things.

PART ONE
Monday it started to snow. At the beginning of the storm, Joseph looked outside and said,

"It's snowing! Holy 'mokes! It's Christmas!"

PART TWO
Today Joseph was rubbing his chin on Sarah's wispy baby hair.

"Me rubbing Sarah's 'pikey hair on my chubby cheeks."

Scout Patch Boards

I've been wanting to make these for the boys for a while to display all those unique (read: large, strange and/or pointless?) patches they earn that can't be worn on their uniforms.

I got a couple of 14" cork boards from Walmart during the school supply clearance sales. I found a yard of scout fabric on eBay. I bought a spool of gros grain ribbon and got to work.

Long story, shortened, I hot glued the fabric and ribbon to the back of the boards and then cut some foam board to fit the space, used more glue and covered the back.


I found a place online (TropicoolAccents.com) that makes motorcycle patches and got the boys' names done to match the fabric. Each patch was $6 and my total with shipping was $14. I hot glued those on as well.

Here is what they look like, with two of Nathan's patches pinned on. :) I'm excited to see how they like these and what they look like on their bedroom wall.

Coughing

I am tired of all the coughing! What is going on with this cough that it can't get the job done? What is taking so long? The more I cough, the more I have to blow my nose. I'm on my second ROLL of toilet paper.

I've spent the last hour coughing. I've tried sitting up in bed, but it doesn't make much difference. I've probably started a dream 20 times now, only to be stopped by another coughing attack. (At this point, I don't even know what is a dream and what is a memory...they are all running together!)

Then my gag reflex gets stimulated and I hang out in the bathroom telling myself I do NOT have to throw up.

I'm going to finally fall asleep about 5:30 and have to get up by 7. Killer. I didn't get a nap yesterday and today isn't looking good, either.

grumble, grumble, grumble

Hard Decisions

Have you ever had to make a difficult decision? I have. Some required a lot of prayer. Others even included fasting. Some just included getting advice from friends or family and some serious contemplation.

I was watching a television show this morning that had a 25-year-old semi-celebrity on, talking about her new reality show (and marriage and motherhood). They showed a clip of her show in which she tells her husband that her agent called and told her that Playboy wants her to pose.

This young woman tells the hosts of the show that she's not completely decided if she'll do it or not, but she's leaning towards telling them 'no.' Then she says this is the hardest decision of her life. Really? She's married and has a baby, but this decision is harder?

How far do the morals of this world really have to go before they start coming back up again? And how many good people will be persecuted for making good choices before they will be given the respect and esteem that they deserve? What kind of hard decisions will our children be faced with as they struggle to obey God's commandments while living in a world ruled by degradation of standards and attacks on their precious spirits? It scares me little.

Things are only getting worse and we won't be able to keep a foot in both worlds much longer. I can hear the ticking.

Eighteen-dollar Miracle

Joseph can hear again!

While talking with a friend yesterday, I was reminded about a chiropractor I'd taken Daniel to last year mentioning how he could treat ear infections. I didn't pay too much attention to that then because I knew Daniel didn't have an ear infection.

But Joseph did. And I wasn't thrilled with the idea that the antibiotics were killing germs now but fluid would still be in his ears. I could only imagine that fluid getting infected again, requiring more antibiotics. Besides, it really bothered me that he couldn't hear very well!

I called the chiropractor's office after lunch and they gave us an appointment for the afternoon. We were there about 20 minutes. Joseph was so well-behaved, the guy couldn't stop mentioning it. He looked in his ears, mentioned they were still a little red, had Joseph open his mouth and gave each ear a few hard tugs (not at the same time). Then he had us do some sort of "laser" treatment. (That seemed a little strange to me, and I hope we didn't actually give him brain damage.) Joseph didn't cry or shy away at all. And on the way home, he could actually hear me!

Thanks for reminding me of the chiropractor, Rachel!

I just wish there was some sort of miracle healing for me. My cough is taking its toll on me. I don't sound very authoritative when I'm getting after my kids but get suddenly cut off by a coughing attack! And talking on the phone is fun.

Sarah's nose is still yucky, though it's slowing down and coming out a little thicker, so I imagine she's on the mend. Joseph noticed a gooey glob sitting in the end of her nose and said, "Sarah booger in and out." Yes it was...with every breath she took! :)

Deafness

Joseph's been on antibiotics for his double ear infection since Wednesday last week. He still isn't hearing very well.

I have been spoiled by having healthy kids (Daniel's TMJ and braces have been expensive and inconvenient, but not a serious situation) and to see one of them have a deficiency is nearly breaking my heart.

If I have my back turned to Joseph and speak normally, he can't hear me. I have to raise my voice and often get his attention first to make myself understood.

I checked with the doctor's office this morning and they said that it's normal for ears to have fluid behind them for several weeks...even on antibiotics. I'm considering checking with a chiropractor to have his ears "tugged" on and getting that fluid to drain.

My biggest hope is that this is all temporary. I'd rather have my kids as whole as I can get them. We have enough hearing problems around here without having a REAL hearing disability!

Daniel's candy challenge

The challenge to not eat candy for an entire year is starting to get a little difficult for Daniel. He nearly broke down yesterday; he got as far as getting the candy bar out of the wrapper.

Daniel is looking for a way out of his commitment without being the one to make the decision. It took a bit of encouragement yesterday to keep him on track. Eventually, he gave the candy to Leah.

Interestingly, Leah was encouraging him, too (before she knew she would gain a candy bar). I thought it was so sweet that she wanted him to succeed. And then it came out that she really wanted new sinks in the bathroom, too.

Personally, I am torn. I would LOVE to bite into some of that sugary confection that screams at me from the HUGE container in the kitchen. But it would be awesome to beat the temptation and actually see some positive results! And I want to see Daniel succeed; it would be so good for him.

So if you see Daniel, please encourage him. He has had a LOT of temptations and has made me very proud as he has resisted each time. He only has 10 months and 3 days to go!

Senseless

I've lost my sense of smell with this cold.

How bad is the chicks' box stinking? How nasty do the used dishcloths in the kitchen seem? Does Sarah need a diaper change? Did I work up an unpleasant odor while cleaning up this morning? Does the garbage need to be taken out?

All these questions have the same answer: I don't know!

If you stop by sometime within the next 3 or 4 days (how long is this darn cold really going to last?), please don't judge. I wouldn't mind a polite "heads up" though.

Better yet, a miracle cure would be appreciated.

Blog ReDo

I finally got rid of that awful yellow blog background. I apologize for that...I was not willing to sit through the process again, but I have also been looking forward to November just to get rid of it!

I hope this one is more pleasant to look at. I struggled with the text color and font. I hope it's readable. I increased the font size for you, in hopes that the white on orange will be easier to read.

I have been suffering through the germs my littlest ones shared with me. I finally got some Sudafed today and have been blowing my nose less, but walking around in a drug-induced buzz.

The weather has been beautiful lately. It makes me wonder what Mother Nature has up her sleeves for winter. She's probably lulling us into a sense of comfort before she buries us in a blizzard of snow and sleet!

I have been trying to find my sewing table yesterday and today. I finished up the matching pj's I made for the girls (Christmas presents) and cut out & sewed a dress for Rebekah from some corduroy I picked up almost a year ago. I bought some fabric at the store this morning to make some festive placemats (reversible for Nov and Dec). I have 5 yards of denim to use to make the girls some school pants and 10? yards of Christmas fabric that I bought after the new year, last year, to make this year's Christmas pj's for the kids.

Joseph is doing better, but I'm not completely sure he can hear me 100%. If he doesn't respond better after the antibiotics are done, I'll take him back to have his ears checked. Can you have permanent hearing loss from an ear infection?

Chad has been working on the house, under and in, trying to get things in good condition. He discovered a long-term leak at the water spigot that has blacked the wood in the crawl space and soaked the insulation along the walls. Plus, our bathroom has seen little improvement in the past weeks and the project need a jump start. Not to mention a little funding.

The general condition of the housekeeping has suffered since I've been sick. My sinuses are so affected, that it gives me a tooth ache to lean down and pick something up! That's crazy, but true. Who knew I was so fragile?

Our stake has declared this week temple week and we are supposed to do something temple related each day. I haven't been very good at even remembering to keep up. But last night we had FHE on the temple. It was Nathan's turn to do the lesson, so he pulled out a few pictures of temples/tabernacles to quiz us on. Is there anyone in the church that doesn't recognize the Salt Lake Temple? Nathan apparently thought that one was going to stump us. Our treat was a pan of brownies. We kept it in the oven twice as long as intended because Chad turned the oven off near the beginning of the bake. We like to do things the hard way around here.

Today was Election Day. Did you remember to vote? I was voter #33 this morning. I now look forward to seeing all those campaign signs taken down. Isn't there a way to make those things a little prettier? Maybe more informative in the very least?

Now that I've rambled on and on...I have to go take care of some R.S. stuff. I've put it off long enough. I wonder if I can find a channel that isn't covering the election while I work?