dirty clean

michael, age 4, "mom, i want to go to dirty clean."

mom, "uh... what?"

20 minutes later...

michael, "see mom, that's where i want to go." pointing to the dairy queen sign...

gratitude

today, i'm grateful for fun

gratitude

Today i'm grateful for warm socks

costumes

whoa! halloween is quickly coming up, and i still need to get costumes finished! so, although you can find costumes for mal from descendents, you can't find them in a size that will fit elizabeth. so, we got a little creative, or, i did.

DUCT TAPE!

the beginnings of a custom costume!

pumpkin patch

i wanted to do something a little more interactive with the kids for halloween. especially now that we are not homeschooling. so, i found a local pumpkin patch.

for a small amount, we were able to get 8 large pumpkins, and about 20 mini ones.
on top of that, they had a "train" the kids could ride, and the turkey was wandering about.

 ashley thought the turkey was the coolest thing in the world! she got to pet it!

i replaced my styrofoam pumpkins with the mini ones. they had much more weight to them, and i didn't have to worry about them flying away!

circle of life

ashley, age 6, is devastated cause she found a little bird. it's now missing. the kids think the cat may have eaten it...

halloween requests

this year, i decided to be a teal pumpkin house. with shannon being super sensitive to red food dye, and a few nephews on shauns side of the family that have other problems, i wanted to show my support for a community that frequently gets overlooked at the holidays.
i got a few styrofoam pumpkins at the dollar store, and some teal spray paint. as far as what we were giving out for trick-or-treating, i got a bunch of pencils, and some little erasers, and halloween tattoos (which i almost never do), bouncy balls, and little fun things like that.

taylor, wants to be a wizard.
elizabeth wants to be mal from descendents. (?!)
shannon wants to be a witch
ashley wants to be a cat
michael wants to be spiderman

exectued

michael, age 4, while in thrift store, "mom, i can't find the toys! I think they executed it!"

health updates

taylor has complained about his knee for awhile now. then, one day he came from school in KC, and informed me that he had fallen down the stairs on the bleachers, and his knee was worse.

doctor visit number 4 since we've been back (all of 10 days).
amazingly, this kid now weighs in at 104 lbs!
as for the diagnosis, osgood schlater disease. which shaun also had as a pre/teen. sadly, there's nothing that can really be done. when the pain gets really bad, we give him meds, but we have also starting taping it (watch a video here, on how).

shannon just needed a well-check, so we got that taken care of as well.
she weighs 62 lbs, and is 52 inches tall!

i had more xrays taken, they also came back normal.

thankfully, no one else caught the strep that elizabeth had.

popcorn!

Baseboard heater turns on, it clicks as it warms up. 
michael, age 4, "wait! Mom, what's that sound?"
"The heater turning on."
"Is it cooking popcorn?"

more school

so, it took a few days to get the bus issue figured out. one school didn't have ANY bus info, and every time i called, they were busy.
taylor catches the bus at just after 8, about a block away.
elizabeth catches the bus about 8:15, 4 houses down.

today, i got all the paperwork into the local headstart for michael, only to discover that they were still missing some info, and they didn't have a harvest break, so i could have taken them in last week!

SCHOOL!!

today, i got the kids into school.

i did most of the legwork before we even came back, so it was fairly simple and painless.

the little girls took the most time. there had been a misunderstanding, and there was a bunch of additional paperwork to do. it took me about 45 minutes to get that all done, and the girls to their classes.

elizabeth and taylor were both 10 minute events. they had previously been in the district, so it was just updating info, and getting schedules printed off.

by 9:20a, it was just me and michael

wrist update

xrays and bloodwork all came back normal.
...now what?!

strep

elizabeth brought strep throat home from missouri. hoping no one else catches it!

mama has a gimpy hand

i have had issues with my left wrist for months. it aches, and sometimes burns, and frequently unusable. i finally decided i'd had enough, and went in to see the doctor.

we decided on xrays, to see if there was any indication of arthritis, or improperly healed breaks.
we also did blood work to check for any autoimmune issues.

hoping to have some answers soon. this is getting way out of hand

dental

the kids all had dental appointments on thursday.

NO CAVITIES!

travelling is for the birds

i wish i could say the trip back was as uneventful as the trip out was...

we finally got all packed up and headed out around 10a, monday morning. packing took a little bit of maneuvering, as we were coming back with almost twice what we went out with.
the entire state of kansas was one big dust storm. with wind gusts of 50+ mph.
by 5:45pm, we were into colorado.
by 8p, we were in denver.
we took the route up to laramie instead of into cheyenne. it's a pretty drive, when you have light, and it cuts about an hour or more off the trip. we got to the highway intersection, and found about 12 emergency vehicles. WHAT?! turns out there was a forest fire along the route we wanted to take. so, we had to turn around. it added another hour and a half to our already long trip.
we ran out of gas, on the off ramp, less than 200 meters from a gas station. mom and taylor walked into the nearest gas station, discovering that they were closed. they continued down to the hotel, called a tow truck, and rented a room for the night. when the tow truck showed up he was a sweetheart, and didn't make me wake up the kids and get them out.
the next morning, mom and elizabeth walked down to the gas station, and got a small gas tank and some gas. after we could get it started, mom drove it down to the gas station and filled it up.
the rest of the day was classic travelling. fighting kids, boring scenery (wyoming), and strangely enough, computer issues.
around 4pm, we made it to my grandparents in ogden. at that time, i decided to take a short break and continue on up to idaho. ...that part of the trip was very standard, and we were back by 9p.

buffalo

taylor, age 12, "i'm ready to go."
elizabeth, age 11, "i'm ready to eat a buffalo!"

conference

i love this time of year! it doesn't matter where i'm at, i love it.

being able to sit down and listen to the prophets. to hear what they have been thinking about, and worried about. (cause you know, that's why they give the talks they do. those topics have been on their minds.)

sadly, i have small children who make it difficult. 

i didn't get much out of the saturday sessions. i'm just glad that i can find them later.

the sunday sessions were fabulous!!! the sunday sessions are always fun out here. those who come to the church for the sessions, have a potluck inbetween. i took poppyseed chicken, and mom took cinnamon rolls.

i can't wait to catch-up on the ones i missed!

conference response

shannon, age 7, responding to a comment from conference, "i was born into a lovely family!"