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.

John's First Haircut

We gave John his very first haircut this weekend.  Grant needed a haircut badly and we thought we would go ahead and cut John's hair too while we were at it. I would have let John's hair go a little longer, but Scott thought it was time.  Here is John before his haircut.  Look at that cute hair!  It looks like a light brown with a tiny bit of red.

 Here's a picture of the back of the hair before.  Sorry, it's blurry.

We were both surprised how relaxed John was about the whole haircut.  We buzzed his entire head and he just let us do it.  It reminded me of his first bath in which he cried for a minute or so and then just endured it.  His personality, I guess.  He looks almost dazed here.

 What is happening to my head?

 We took off a lot of hair.

John did get a bit fussy at the end when we buzzed the little hairs by his neck.
At the end we all thought he looked a lot more like Grant.

His hair looked a lot more blond under there.

 And he looked a little more grown up

When John saw himself in the mirror after his haircut he smiled, pointed and jabbered at himself.  I think he liked his new cut.

Looking good, John!

The Pumpkin Patch

This weekend we went to the pumpkin patch.  It's the same company (Eckert's) we went to for picking peaches and apples, but a different farm, farther west, almost to the big river (Mississippi).  In fact, you can see the arch from there.  They had a bunch of fun kid things to do there, along with the pumpkin patch and we spent the afternoon there having fun.  Here are some of our adventures. 

You can see pictures of the kids riding on some of the rides.  Right in the center is the pumpkin cannon (I think it was called the Jack-o-lobber).  It was air powered and it really threw those pumpkins far.  They said half a mile, which doesn't sound that impressive, but it was.  You can also see Matthew jumping on the "jumping pillow" which was lots of fun.

On the top right is Anna leading me through the corn maze.  There are so many corn fields around here turning one into a corn maze seemed like a no-brainer.  The kids liked looking at the corn up close after seeing so much of it from farther away.  Top center is Grant riding on the John Deere express (the term "express" is used loosely here).  And you can see Anna jumping on the jumping pillow while Grant slides down it.  They finally let me go hold Grant's hands while he jumped and then he had a lot more fun.  On the bottom right are Grant, Anna, Matthew and I about to go on the Spinning Apple ride (think Disneyland Teacups).  I don't like those kind of rides, but the kids needed an accompanying adult.  Luckily the ride was not too long.  Any longer and we might have had a problem.  And the middle right is us watching some pig races.  That was a first for me.  We got to practice saying "Sooo Weeeeee" to help those piggies along.

And at the actual pumpkin patch.   This was a real, legitimate pumpkin patch.  Often the pumpkin patches we go to are just pumpkins places in a field.  But this one was real.  Matthew found out real pumpkins are muddy and their stems are poky.  He had trouble deciding on the perfect pumpkin.  We also wanted him to stay with one he could carry.  He finally found a suitable one.  Grant loved running through the pumpkin patch but had trouble finding just the right pumpkin.  There were plenty of nice looking pumpkins out there.  We ended up with five good ones which we could barely carry.  In the end we found a wagon we could use to carry them to the car.  We also learned on this trip that Illinois grows more pumpkins than any other state in the US.  So good for you, Illinois.

And here we are posing by the big pumpkins before we leave.  Also you can see Matthew helping Dad take our pumpkins to the car.  And me doing an impression of John being uncomfortable in the hay.  Didn't realize Scott took a picture of that.  ;) We had a full fun day at the pumpkin patch and it was the first real day in a while that I was able to go out and about without being completely worn out at the end of it.  So hooray for that and hooray for fall!

Home Depot Workshop

I've been wanting to take the kids to the free kids workshops at Lowe's or Home Depot but just haven't gotten around to it.  Maybe we've always had too much going on Saturday mornings.  We don't have as much now, so I finally signed up for one.  The kids really enjoyed it.  Here's Johnny pointing.  He's only recently learned to point.

 The project this week was making a wooden fire plane.

The kids liked hammering in the nails.  Here's Anna painting her plane.

 The kids got aprons.  Grant and John didn't always want to wear their aprons.

 Matthew got to meet Homer the Home Depot guy.  I didn't even know there was a Home Depot guy.

 And to go along with the fire plane the kids got to see a real fire truck that came to the parking lot.

We had a lot of fun.

Activities

Matthew and Anna have been doing a few activities at the YMCA.  Anna is trying out gymnastics and Matthew is doing Karate.  They are also both taking swimming lessons.  They are very enthusiastic about their activities.  Here is Anna practicing some somersaults.

 And in her new leotard

 Getting ready to start her class

 Walking on the balance beam

On the bars.  Anna has been nervous about going all the way around on the bar.  She finally did it but then told me she doesn't want to do gymnastics anymore because she is nervous about the bar.  I told her it was ok to be nervous but that she could stop doing gymnastics if she wanted.  So I don't know if she'll continue after this round of classes is done.  She has told me she might like to try Karate instead.  We'll see.

 Anna and Matthew are both wild about their goggles for swimming

They like the ones that cover your nose too

 And here is Matthew at Karate

They do a lot of running to start out

 When someone acts out in class they all have to do push ups

Even with all the push ups, Matthew stayed focused and earned his very first stripe in Karate this past week.