Its time

$25.00 gift card, woot woot!


Alright folks, its time. Time for my first ever giveaway! I just checked google analytics and while I'm not a math whiz (my husband will attest to this) something's a little off. See, here's the thing. I'm getting like a handful of comments per post (thanks to my regular commentors, you know who you are!) yet according to my tracker over at analytics, waayyyyyyyy more people are checking out my blog. I'm going to let you in on a little secret, so lean in. Did you lean in? I'm going to whisper it in your ear, ready? I love comments. Yes, this blog is my journal so I would write with or without comments. And no, I'm not an ego-maniac and think that everything I blog about is stupendously amazing. But, I am a friendly kinda gal and I like to know who's out there. I'm not going to bite and in fact, I'll even make commenting worth your while.

Rules:
1. Leave a comment. Tell me something about yourself, like you are a big fan of whipped cream or never miss an episode of Grey's Anatomy. Whatever, something personal about you that means a computer didn't generate a random comment.
2. One per person.
3. New and old commentors alike can play.
4. Contest ends Friday, November 13th at midnight.
5. I might put new posts up between now and Friday, you must comment on THIS post to be entered in the giveaway.
6. Winner will be announced on Saturday. If I can link to your blog from your comment and find a way to contact you there, great. If not, leave a way to contact you in the event you are the big winner. Good Luck!

Halloween 2009

The week of Halloween, we carved our family pumpkins (I only managed to get photos of 2) and made/frosted bat, ghost and moon shaped sugar cookies to give to friends (zero photos.) Lucky for you or else this post would be even longer, ha!!

Group shot of the class party Friday morning. Mason is front and left while Marissa (sans witch hat) is behind the purple/pink Hannah Montana.

Below, Mason marching in the school parade. A word about his costume. Normally, I'm a buy it online kinda gal. This year though, nothing stood out to me and he was very ambivalent in his costume choices. At one point, he said he wanted to be a bird. MMmmm, really?? So nothing jumping out saying Mason to me. I remembered seeing a Lego costume online years ago so I explored that option. One big box, 2 cans of "meadow green" spray paint, 4 large Solo plastic cups and voila, a costume was born! A special shout-out to my husband for taking my vision and making it a reality, he did ALL the work. Mason loved it and was the only Lego we saw this Halloween. How's that for original?
This is such a year of firsts for us. First kindergartners and consequently, first Halloween parade at school. Its very cute, all the parents are invited to come and line the parade route. Then the 5th graders start the parade, marching to the kindergarten classes, having them fall in step behind them, and then they march through the rest of the school picking up the other classes along their way. Eventually, they snake their way outside where all the parents and their cameras are waiting to snap pictures of the costumed kiddos. At our house, the parade was much anticipated and much discussed afterward. It was really fun for my kids to see their friends in older grades.

Marissa thought it was "so cool" that she and Mrs. Clayton were both witches.One of the party activities was decorating cupcakes to look like spiders. A big hit!

Marissa and Darth Vader enjoying their spidery cupcakes. I have to say, minus one wild card kid, I really like all the boys and girls in their class. They are nice, normal, friendly kids. We live in an awesome area!

Friday night our neighborhood had a block party/potluck. It was really fun to have something to look forward to on Friday night, made the holiday stretch out a little longer. Considering we would be sitting in camp chairs, playing games and generally running amok, Travis and I made an executive decision that the Lego would stay home. Lego sustained some structural damage during the school party and had to be repaired and repainted for the big event Saturday night. What could Mason wear to the party?
Buzz Lightyear to the rescue!

There was a cup-cake walk, donut-on-a-string eating contest and my personal favorite, bobbing for apples. In my mind, that is the most disgusting thing this side of licking train station bathrooms with your tongue. Anywho, they loved the cupcake walk, Buzz participated several times.

Meet our little leopard. He was such a trooper, as long as daddy was with-in eye shot he's happy as a lark. He trick-or-treated 6 houses and called it a night. We also attended another party Saturday night but the lighting was horrendous so no photos. Thanks for the invite Robyn, I love my "other" neighborhood friends, always a good time. The meatballs deserve special mention. :)

A last minute addition was the lego topper. Nice touch, dontcha think?

For the candy corn witch, a jeweled candy corn. And on a side vent, what face painting kit doesn't have yellow as one of the colors? Hello, its a primary color, you can't mix other colors to make it. So the bottom third of the candy corn is technically light orange. ;)

Hold onto your hats kids! Not only was Mason's costume homemade, I made Marissa's necklace and embellished her hat. I know, I know, you're thinking that's crazy b/c I'm not crafty. But every once in a while I surprise even myself. A little rubber cement and 30 candy pumpkins later and we have a cute, girlie, not boring, hat. Thank you, thank you very much.

Dang, he's cute.

So fun to run into friends while trick-o-treating! Tyler is one of our favorite friends!


I'll get you my pretty! You and your little dog too!

An action shot. Love the glow bracelets and necklaces. They each could pick 5 pieces of loot to eat that night. Yea, I'm *that* kinda mom, the rationing out kind. Hope everyone had a great time!

ps-they are already talking about their costumes for next year. Mason wants to be a vampire.

Crazy Hair Day

Before I get to Halloween, or the Halloween parties or the field trip (wow, I'm behind!) I better post a little something about crazy hair day. The week of Halloween was also Red Ribbon Week at school. Its a "Say No to Drugs" campaign and each day was something fun/crazy that tied in with that theme. The actual title for crazy hair day was "Use your head to say no to drugs." Here's what we came up with:

Mr. M was sporting not 1 but 2 ponytails on the top of his head. He was not happy about this but after MUCH convincing that all of his friends would also be "crazy," he relented. I did not mention that a crazy hat was also an option for this day. Ponytails in his hair was much funner (for me) than his baseball hat.



Queen grumpy. Does she look happy? No. Because she likes smooth hair and this hair was definitely not smooth. Only after seeing her friend Hayden's blue hair at the playground before the bell rang, was she semi-ok about her hairdo. And true to her form, not 5 minutes after she came home was she begging for a smooth ponytail. Sigh. Where is her sense of adventure?

Their expressions kill me.

A spooky preview . . .

of Halloween 2009. Here are some pictures before Grandpa and Grandma turn into zombies waiting to see pictures. A gazillion more to follow. Hope everyone had a fun night!

Little things

When my brain feels like exploding, when the pile on the kitchen counter multiplies in the night, when I've been a slave to the washer/dryer all day, when Mason back talks all the stinkin' time, when I have to stop at DQ for Marissa to pee because she can't hold it till we get home, when I want more hours in my day . . . that is when I need to sit and take account of the little things I am grateful for, so here goes:

grateful for friends who show up at my door with cookies

grateful for a husband who takes the trash out

grateful for uninterrupted scripture reading

grateful for warm, homemade bread

grateful for Tivo

grateful for book club

grateful for a good baby-sitter

grateful for awesome Relief Society lessons

grateful my kids have loving grandparents

grateful for a blog where I can vent and feel better at the end

Go take a hike!

Last week we had our family photos taken. A real experience, to be sure. We spent our Sunday evening scouting out possible locales and found the perfect spot. It was a bit of a trek from our car to "the spot" so we told the kids we were hiking. It was so much fun and the kids, especially Marissa, was begging to go hiking again. We promised to go soon. All week long, she talked about it; told kids at school, friends who were over at our house playing, basically everyone. Friday was the big day and we went on our first official family hike.




For those in the area, you might recognize Chuckwalla trail, its right off Bluff Street. We were gone about an hour and half, perfect time considering how fast 5 year old legs move plus, it was toasty, dare I say, hot by the end. We stopped and had a snack lunch full of cheese sticks, pretzels, go-gurts and fire roasted almonds. Mason found a stick and marked X nothing short of 35 times, each time exclaiming, "This is where the treasure is hidden!" And he and Marissa also sang a few peppy renditions of "Goin' on a bear hunt."

Thanks to Stace for lending the baby backpack or we wouldn't have been on our adventure long. All in all, it was fun to explore our native turf and there were 5 red faced, water slurping, wanna-be hikers by the end. Watch out, we might be nature lovers yet!

Happy Birthday Staci!

So I totally ripped this photo from her face book profile because I thought it was hilarious. A little shout out to the birthday girl today. To the 31 year old:

You are a terrific friend. You make the yummiest food, ever. You are always up for anything and everything. Cake makes you happy. You are insanely talented. You have the most generous heart. You are fiercely loyal. You play one helluva "would you rather." Your love for all things Williams Sonoma endears you to me forever. We have great phone conversations. You're one hot mamacita. I hope your birthday turns out to be fun despite all that the universe threw your way this week. Mucho amor mi amiga, mucho amor.