Oh Christmas Tree

The kids were eager to put up our tree this year so Denise let them have at it. Denise doesn't love this job - the branches make her fingers feel raw so she was more then happy to let the kids do it.

Just for Aunt Ann

Fun and Games

The kids wanted to make a funny turkey to take to Grammy's house for Thanksgiving. We took paper bags and filled them with popcorn to make our faux turkey. We took it with us to Grammy's and "carved" it to reveal the surprise inside. It was a hit! We also had fun creating tasty rice crispy turkeys that Aunt Gail brought over. Everyone got their choice of candies and free reign to create their turkey however they wanted. What a fun, yummy treat!
We rounded out the evening by playing different games with Apples to Apples being the most popular.

Happy Turkey Day!

Happy Turkey Day!

We hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We enjoyed spending the day with family and friends at Grammy Baker's house. We had a yummy Thanksgiving meal that would not have been complete without Grammy's famous hot out of the oven rolls. Those of you that have tasted them before - I know your mouth is watering just looking at the picture.

Mouths were happy this day!

What a feast!

Today was Luke's kindergarten Thanksgiving feast & program. He worked hard on memorizing his lines for the play..."The people on the ship were called the pilgrims. The pilgrims wear different clothing than we do today." We think he makes an adorable pilgrim. He enjoyed the feast but he, as well as the other kids and parents, couldn't stand the heat outside. We were above 90 degrees today. Come on, this is November.

Already counting down

It's coming but not soon enough. Denise and the kids went to the movies last night (Derek was at a church meeting) One of the trailers shown was for Order of the Phoenix. When it came on the audience erupted with loud clapping and cheering. We can't wait! Wanna place any bets on where we'll be at midnight on July 13th - hey that's a Friday the 13th.

the rolls were a success

Nate's project was a success. He sold nearly every cinnamon "synonym" roll that he took to school. He was quite pleased with how his store did. He spent all his hard earned cub cash on a bag full of "treasures" - if you're a parent you know that means useless McD toys, candy, trading cards and other misc. stuff. He's thrilled with it so we are too.

The dreaded project

Nate's class is having something called economy day today. The kids have been earning "cub cash" in class this year and economy day allows them the opportunity to spend the money they have earned. Each child sets up a store and sells a product. Nate has been super excited about this project.

After going through ideas for a product to sell Nathan decided on homemade cinnamon rolls. Denise ran out and got the ingredients yesterday and even picked up individual sized containers to put the cinnamon rolls in so they would like they were being sold from a "real" store. Everything was out and ready so that as soon as Nate got home from school he could start making them.

He is quite the baker...he worked hard and did a great job on the rolls

Denise put the rolls in the oven and we were set. The buzzer went off and the rolls were set out to cool - end of story! Oh no...Denise read the wrong directions and cooked the rolls with convection oven time. Denise and Nate started frosting the rolls and they all collapsed because they were still super doughy inside. 40 Rolls down the drain, well kind of...the kids and Derek have been eating the doughy ones.

Denise had to start dinner at that point and get ready for an enrichment meeting at church. After enrichment Denise cranked out a new batch of rolls (while murmuring under her breath) and had them packaged and ready for Nate to take to school this morning.

Nate was excited for this morning. He had to make a sign for today and he was excited with the name he came up with for his rolls "synonym rolls" He is charging two dollars and throwing in a free drink with every purchase.

I'll post a few more pictures in the next post of the final outcome.

Luke's Project

Each of our kids while in kindergarten has had to disguise a turkey so the turkey won't get eaten during Thanksgiving. They also have to dictate a story to go with it. Megan disguised hers as Harry Potter. None of us, including Emily, can remember what Emily's turkey was. We couldn't remember Nate's either but he found his in a book his teacher had put together for him. He turned his turkey into a dog.

This year was Luke's turn. Here is his turkey...

He decided to disguise his turkey as a grandma. We turned in his turkey and story yesterday so I can't remember the whole story but it basically went something like this...

My turkey's name is Billy Bob Joe. Billy Bob Joe doesn't want to get eaten for Thanksgiving so he decided to dress up as a grandma. Everyone loves their grandma's and no one would eat a grandma so Billy Bob Joe will be safe this Thanksgiving.

Em's Projects

Emily has been working on three science projects that were all due yesterday. She had two papers one on the comparison of three planets and the other was a paper comparing her weight and age on each planet and then telling which planet she would want to live on and why. Her third project was a solar system with a little write up on scale. Of course we had to get lots of paint and styrofoam to make the solar system just right. She had fun with this project and she did a really good job on it.

Why so many projects?

For those of you with kids in school...does it ever seem like every child's school projects are all due in the same week or day? We have just finished with the last of the elementary school projects tonight. Emily, Nate and Luke have five projects (between them) due today and tomorrow. The kids worked really hard on all of them but it seems like mom and dad end up doing a lot of last minute trips to the store for art supplies or sitting at the computer with a child to help with writing or graphics. Tonight's project was the worse but it truthfully was Denise's fault that it ended up being such a long night. More info tomorrow when we update the blog - I'm going to bed!

When life gives you lemons...

Denise and the kids made lemonade tonight - exciting, huh? Perhaps not to everyone reading this but the kids were excited. They have been waiting to pick lemons off our tree since the moment the tree was planted. Everyone took turns squeezing the lemons and we ended up with yummy lemonade. Here is the recipe for anyone interested...

1 cup water
1 cup sugar
mix together in a pot and bring to a boil allowing the sugar to dissolve completely.
add
1 cup lemon juice
4 cups cold water and stir

Moving on into November

It seems as if the holidays are quickly approaching. Derek, the girls and Nathan have all started rehearsals for our church Christmas concert - Sing Noel. They also spent this last weekend trying out for a church musical that will happen in the spring. They had to go into a private audition to sing and then do a group dance. Emily was so scared about singing - her nerves really got the best of her. After some reassuring conversations with both Mom and Dad Emily dried her tears, braved the audition and went for it. We are proud of her for working through her fears. The kids and Derek are now waiting to know what their parts are.

Denise and Luke figure that there needs to be someone in the audience for all these performances so they will be the cheering section. Besides the thought of adding weekly rehearsals to an already full schedule overwhelms Denise - she's happy to be a cheerleader again, especially with Luke to help her.

Work and church holiday parties have already started to fill our calendar for the next few months - yikes! Christmas morning will be here before we know it. Maybe we'll actually get a Christmas card out this year but we're making no promises.

Freaky Family Home Evening

Ok, the day wasn't totally void of Halloween festivities. We enjoyed a normal, quiet day today but then decided we really did need a Halloween fix so we were off to a neighborhood haunted house that Denise had seen in the paper. Derek had a work meeting so Denise gathered up the kids for family night and called a few friends to meet up at the haunted house.

The haunted house was amazing! I am sure the people that put it on spend a ton of time and money. They offer it to the community for free and have done it for 12 years. The kids decided to send a thank you note to the family with a donation to thank them for all their hard work.

Denise took a few of the kids through for the non scary version first. The family offers this option so young kids and scaredy cats can enjoy the house without having to run out crying like a baby :) It was fun to go through this way because you got to appreciate the detail work. The "monsters" would have their masks off and say things to the kids like "I like your sweatshirt" or "Nice shoes" It was pretty funny.

After that the rest of the group did the scary version. Denise laughed most of the way through it because she was with Megan and her friends and they were screaming so much she couldn't contain herself. Nate went through with some of our friends in another group because he wanted to be with the boys. He said he wasn't scared but screamed some of the time to let the monsters think they had scared him. What a nice boy - always thinking of others.

Denise loved the fact that the haunted house was not gory. They had a well thought out story line and had created a creepy, not bloody atmosphere. It was a fun activity for the whole family and we all appreciate the work that this neighborhood put forth to make it a fun evening for us and others.

Finally a day with nothing to do

We are so happy to have a day with nothing more than school, work and housecleaning - we feel like we are on vacation.

The rest of the pictures

Megan working on the creepy carnival curtains

installing the curtains in the back of the car Derek staring as Zultan

Night of the Creepy Carnival

Tonight was Trunk or Treat at church. Everyone decorates their cars and the kids run around getting way more candy then they need. We decided to go with a creepy carnival theme for our car. Derek and Denise worked on the sign.

Megan and Emily took care of the carnival curtain. Emily cut all the fabric strips and Megan sewed a casing in each strip so that they could put the fabric on a tension rod. They did a really great job on the their project.

We took our popcorn cart as part of our carnival theme but we were unable to pop popcorn because everytime we plugged it in it would pull too many amps since we had lots of other stuff plugged in to our car. Oh well, it still looked good and we had popped some popcorn before we went to the activity so there was some for folks to eat.

The highlight of the night was Zoltan. We had a fortune teller in a box guy that you could set to say it's own stuff or use a mic to talk for it. Derek hid behind the curtain that the girls put together and talked with every trunk or treater that came by - it was hilarious. He would give people their fortunes and say things about their costumes, etc. We had many kids (and adults) hang out by our car to listen to what the great Zoltan had to say.

We had a very fun night together as a family but this weekend is starting to make Denise tired. Tomorrow we have Denise's family & the missionaries coming for dinner. Hopefully Sunday night, when all the shindigs are over, will bring a great nights sleep for all of us!

We are once again having some problems downloading all the photos. We'll have to tackle it tomorrow. It's 11:30pm and church starts early, especially for Derek. At least we have Daylight Saving Time.

Picture wouldn't post

I couldn't post this picture of Megan and her friends from the party in the last blog update. Something wasn't working with blogger but it seems to be fixed. Here is Megan and her party guests

Enjoying the movie

Secrets...

Party Time!

The kids social calendar was full last night...

Luke had a birthday party to go to for one of his "bestest friends" Gracie.

Emily and Nate went to a party together with all the kids from their primary classes. They wore pj's, watched a movie, jumped on a trampoline, and more. Nate must have had a long week at school because when Derek went to pick them up from the party Nathan was snoozed out.

Megan planned a last minute party so she would have something to do and invited the girls from her Young Women's class at church over to watch Monster House and have dinner. Denise and Megan went into party mode and got the backyard set up for the evening.

We borrowed our friends projector and set up the "theater" outside. Everyone agreed that it was a great set up so now we are making plans to show movies in the backyard on Friday nights next summer.


We ordered a ton of pizzas and invited the parents of Megan's friends to stay for dinner. Some of the families brought salads to share. My friend Max and her kids made adorable mummy cupcakes that they brought over to the party. We also had movie candy and a ton of popcorn from our new popcorn cart that Denise just got for entertaining. She loves it!

After dinner a few of the parents left and the rest moved into the family room, to watch a freaky Mel Gibson movie on tv - Signs, so the girls could have their party adult free. They had a blast huddled up on the sofa covered with warm blankets to watch the movie. At one point during a scary part of the movie Derek climbed out Emilys window onto the patio cover. He was right above the girls and he quietly snuck out to the edge where he threw his head down over the edge and yelled at the girls. He was right in front of the movie screen so they all saw him and they all screamed. Of course the demented parents who were watching it all from the family room window got a good laugh and so did the girls.

After the movie the girls hung out, talked and laughed. As parents we are glad that all our kids have such good friends that they can do fun wholesome things with. Last night was fun for all of them and for Derek and Denise too.

Dancing Queen

Megan got to go to her first youth dance. Every year the church Halloween dance is for 12 years old and up. She had a really great time.

She started the night by heading over to the Mac counter at Nordstrom with 3 friends so they could get their make-up done for the dance. Megan and Kenzie were scary dolls, Abbie was a fairy, and Ricey was a very cool clown. The make-up was perfect and the girls were ready to head over to the dance.

before make-up

after make-up

The dance had a pretty good crowd and Megan had a ton of fun. The boys from church were great about asking the girls to dance and so Megan got to slow dance quite a bit. Fast dances seemed to have changed since Denise and Derek used to go to dance. Boys and girls don't dance together for fast songs - big groups of kids go out on the floor and dance together. Everytime we saw Megan she seemed to be dancing up a storm - I'm sure she loved that her parents were there for part of the time.

As a side note...Megan and Kenzie won the prize for scariest costume. At least now Denise can say she is an award winning costume designer.