Happy Halloween

Here are some pictures from our Halloween adventures this year.  This is us making sugar cookies. I had some trouble with the dough on the first go round but chilled the dough more and added a little flour and all was well.  Grant and Anna helped too but they drifted in and out.  I think Matthew loved playing with the flour more than anything.

 

Successful sugar cookies.  Hooray!  Do you have a favorite or no fail sugar cookie recipe?  I used this one and it was pretty good.  But I'm always in search of a great sugar cookie recipe.

 John eating the sugar cookies

I don't know why Matthew thought it would be a good idea to bring some of the flour over and play with it on this bench.  ???  And this is my oldest, most mature child.  He did clean it up later.

Our Halloween breakfast of ghost pancakes.  They looked a lot more like ghosts when they were still white batter.  They were yummy though.

 Dinner was simple.  Jack-o-lantern pizza from Papa Murphy's...

...and mandarin oranges

 

Then time to trick or treat!

It poured buckets today but luckily we got a little break in the rain around trick or treat time.  Anna was Sofia the First, Matthew was Iron Man, I was Mary Poppins, John was Woody and Grant was Buzz Lightyear.

 Here's John - our little Woody

 Grant as Buzz Lightyear

Out trick or treating.  The kids were excited to go see so many of their school friends in the neighborhood.  Grant ran up to each house and announced that he was Buzz Lightyear.  He also said more appropriate things like Trick or Treat, Happy Halloween and Thank You!  Always shouting of course.

All dressed up and no where to go.  Our church Halloween party this year was a "no costume" affair.  And the kids school parties were no costume and no parents with younger siblings in tow.  So I didn't really have anywhere to wear my costume this year.  But I had sort of gotten it together already (anticipating wrongly that there would be some costume parties) and I thought the kids would get a kick out of it even if I just wore it for trick or treating.  And they did.  I love Mary Poppins, and as I like to remind the kids, I played Mary Poppins in my 6th grade school play.  My claim to fame.  I think I had a better carpet bag back then.  So anyway, maybe I'll save this costume for another year when it can get more wear.  Maybe I can get a better bag before then too. 

And after trick or treating.  I know, I'm biased, but Johnny, you are adorable!  We tried to get him to say "There's a snake in my boots!" or "howdy, howdy, howdy."  But all we could get out of him was "boo" or "mama."  Maybe next year.

Our slightly wet Buzz Lightyear (it rained at the end of trick or treating).  He had a BLAST running door to door and getting candy.  He was so excited and came to tell me each time he got some new candy in his bag.  Yes, Grant.  This is that one special day when people are just giving it away!!  For FREE!!

"I am Iron Man!"  Grant was afraid of Matthew in his full costume with the mask.  It didn't help that Matthew would chase him around.  Matthew has never seen the Iron Man movies or anything, but he knows Iron Man is a superhero and that's enough apparently.  His suit had a little light up feature on front which came in handy as it got darker.  And the battery inside lasted to and through Halloween.  I count that as a small victory.

 There, that's better.  Not so scary

And Sofia the First!  Anna likes the Sofia the First show on Disney channel so she wanted to be the little princess for Halloween.  It's always fun dressing up as a princess.  Long ago (in September) I had aspirations to make a princess dress for myself so we could both be princesses.  I even bought fabric and a pattern.  Then I looked at the pattern and simultaneously realized that 1) I was overly ambitious in choosing that particular pattern and 2) I still get super intimidated by those pattern directions.  They were not designed by an engineer brain, I don't think.  So maybe someday I'll be able to take the time to learn to sew more complicated things like princess dresses.  But today is not that day.  Anyway, Anna looked cute in her store bought dress and I didn't sew myself anything to wear.  My Mary Poppins costume was mostly put together with stuff I already had.  And it was all ok.
We had a great Halloween all in all.  Scott was here to go trick or treating with us...AND we did not get poured on.  Hooray!!

Pumpkin Carving

We carved pumpkins last night.  It was so nice having Scott here to help since he's been gone the last two Halloweens.  Scott opened and gutted all the pumpkins and the two older kids used the safety carving tools to carve their own faces, with only a little help.  Scott carved one and I carved one...and Grant put stickers on his.  It was an amazingly pleasant pumpkin carving experience (thanks Scott, you make everything better).

 Scott doing all the dirty work.  Good man!

 Matthew, who doesn't really love being gooey and dirty,
getting some of the pumpkin guts out

 Grant bedazzles his pumpkin with Halloween stickers
When he found the skull and crossbones sticker he got excited and shouted "PIRATES!"

 Anna came up with her own design and carved it (mostly) on her own.  Great job Anna!

 My starry pumpkin

 Matthew with his pumpkin that he carved on his own

Anna wanted to sticker hers up a bit too!

Scott's pumpkin, Matthew's and mine

Things are crazy busy these days with Scott working long hours, kid homework and extracurricular activities.  So finding a time to carve pumpkins altogether actually took some planning.  But we made it happen...and it was fun.  Now on to Halloween!

Baby Physical Therapy

I've mentioned before that John (just shy of 15 months old) has some gross motor delays and he's been evaluated and approved to receive physical therapy services.  He started his physical therapy last week and today we went in for his second visit.  Part of his therapy is walking on a little treadmill while he's in a little harness, taking part of his body weight off of him.  John doesn't walk yet, and he doesn't yet pull up all the way to standing.  He can pull up part way and he's trying, but the therapy does seem to be helping him move forward a little faster.  Here he is walking on the treadmill.  I had to take some pictures for Scott because he thought it sounded so funny.  A little baby treadmill.

 

The first week John just kind of hung there in the harness, but by the end of his first session he was starting to support his own weight and move his feet a little bit.  The second session he walked pretty well, but then he started to get angry.  Here are a few more pictures.

 Holding the bars for support

Starting to get fussy    For anyone who has ever had to do physical therapy and really didn't want to, John feels your pain.

The physical therapist helps him move his feet along and keep his feet straight and in the right position.  He was getting pretty mad, so they took him away from the treadmill, but still in the harness.

 Here he is off the treadmill but still in the harness...and still ticked off

He kept kicking the ball angrily so that ended our PT session a little early, but still I think some good progress was made and we'll be back for more next week.

Church Halloween Party

We went to our church Halloween party this weekend.  It was at a park and, lucky for us, the weather wasn't too cold.  Maybe in the low 60s, high 50s.  There were no costumes and no trunk or treat, but there were some different activities and dinner.  Here Matthew practices on the skiis.

 Grant plays one of the games.

Anna on the skiis.  We did a ski race later with four people on each set of skiis.  I was on a team with Matthew and two other kids.  We didn't do very well, but it was fun.

There was also a cake walk.  The cake walk caused some consternation.  They let each winner take a dozen cupcakes, but there were only about 12 dozen cupcakes, so some kids had a dozen and others got nothing.  One family ended up with three dozen cupcakes while others got nothing.  They could have left a dozen or two cupcakes for the non-winners to each grab one...I thought that would have been a good solution.  So our kids didn't win and were very sad that they didn't get any of the cupcakes.  

Further consternation - at one point I thought the person running the cake walk had said they were done, so I told Anna she could go get a cupcake (there were still some left at that point).  The person running the cake walk seemed really annoyed with me and I felt embarrassed when I realized they weren't really done.  But not to worry, we didn't end up with any cupcakes.

So I don't know, but I feel like I should never complain about how church activities are run after having run many pack meetings and hearing only complaints from people about how it could have been done better.  So I'll stop complaining now.

Matthew did win this dangling donut game and got another donut out of it.  So he was happy.

These were the cupcakes we made.  Some have M&Ms on top and inside and the others are plain with LOTS of sprinkles, courtesy of the kids.  Our cupcakes were the first ones to go during the infamous cake walk, so we have that at least.  And we had a few leftovers at home.  This Halloween party was much smaller in scale than our last ward...our Colorado ward was kind of huge with lots of children.  This one is smaller.   But we still had a good time.

Cooking Class

 Matthew and Anna took a Halloween cooking class at Eckert's (a local pick-your-own farm).  They learned a few different recipes and had a great time.  Here is Anna with her jack-o-lantern quesadilla.

 Here is Matthew in the class acting like a monster or something

 They made witches finger cookies

They were like shortbread cookies

 Anna's cookies

They made some kind of cream cheese spread that they put blue food coloring on for a cracker spread.  They called is monster mash.  I was a little afraid of trying the monster mash.  They also made some apple dip with cream cheese and caramel and had some delicious apple cider to go along with the treats they made.  It was fun.

While the kids cooked we walked around at Eckert's.  Here is the winter lettuce growing hydroponically.  I had to take a picture for my mom.

I perused the cookbooks while we were waiting and as soon as I put one down Grant would pick one up and peruse.  He's learning by example.

Eight Years

 Happy 8th Anniversary to Scott!

We celebrated our anniversary in low key style today.  Scott took the day off work, which felt like a wonderful vacation for me.  We went to lunch while the big kids were at school and searched for Sees chocolates at the mall (unsuccessfully, but still).  Scott made me his famous homemade cheesecake and I'm making spicy steak for dinner.  Last year Scott was deployed on our anniversary, so this year just having him home is great.

Anna got up before me this morning (at 6:30) to make a special breakfast for Scott and I for our anniversary.  She got bowls and poured us out our cereals of choice and even poured milk on it herself with only a little spill.  Great job Anna!  And such a sweet present.

 Scott working on his cheesecake work of art.  It takes a lot of work - a delicious labor of love.

Anna drew this at school for Scott and I.  She told us very seriously that we would have to share it and that it was not a card or a picture, it was a present.  I think its a great present (not picture) and an amazing likeness.

This was the inside of the present.  It was a great anniversary!

Read the recap of our first seven years of marriage HERE...and here's what's happened since:

 

Scott got home from his deployment to Afghanistan last February

In June/July we moved from high, dry and mountainous Colorado to low, humid, hot and flat Illinois.  And   we've been having a lovely time, for the most part.  Now you are all caught up again.