Back in Black: October 2010

10/31/10

Today is officially Halloween, but for us, we celebrated all things creepy last night. In the #2 spot as his favorite holiday (bested only by Christmas, and that's by a very small margin), Jared went all out in his attempts to make a spook alley for the kids in the back of the house. They helped by making their own pictures of ghosts, witched, jack-o-lanterns, and other various ghouls for the wall decor. We bought some pumpkins, but ran out of time to carve them. Koria got to dress up in her fifth costume of the week, and we all enjoyed the trunk-or-treat put on by our ward, which turned into a church foyer-or-treat as it started pouring rain just as the outside festivities were to begin. We dished out two gigantic bowls of Halloween goods, with only a few left to spare, and received the same amount back in what Koria and Kimball were given. Princess Leia and Darth Vader were the ultimate Halloween couple, although the Skunk Boy and Dragon Girl tied for first place. I got to drive in to Walmart and buy a new battery for the car (yeah!) and cold medicine (although I still can't breath), which was treat enough for me, and we all enjoyed driving to some neighbors and friends' homes for some traditional trick-or-treating adventures. One of our neighbors, the Thomsons, get really into Halloween. They have a whole array of mechanical people and horrors set up in their yard. Their latest addition this year was a moving redheaded girl that screams and moans. It was so lifelike that we thought she was real until we approached her (they happen to be redheads themselves). Ed asked if we "liked his new redhead." Awesome! One things for sure, ours DID NOT. The kids get so scared that Jared has to carry them to-and-from the door. Jared eats it all up. He's actually in awe of the Thomsons. Koria and Kimball have been telling me since last night that they are "never going to the creepy house again." We'll see next year. I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking, and include a few other pics from the night in another post.

Layne

The Loot

Leia and Vader

Luke

10/28/10

Just the Beginning ... Or The Middle

The title refers to the fact that we are now officially done with our third Halloween Party of the week, with a couple more to go. Today marked Koria and Kimball's preschool Halloween Party/Parade. Jared was kind enough to stay with Luke and Layne while I went with the older two to help them out. After a stunning parade around town, we visited some local businesses for Trick-Or-Treating, then followed that up with passing out treats to each other, a few songs and activities back at the preschool, and finished up with Koria and Kimball detailing to me the enormous bags of loot they'd scored to top it all off. Here's the three of us right before we headed over to the festivities this morning. And for those of you thinking, "How long is Kendra going to go as the seventies hippies chick, the answer can be explained by the following:

Jared returned home late last night after his latest business conference in St. George to find me in the middle of entertaining Koria and Kimball with games of "Red Witch, Green Witch," "Witchy-Witch May I?" and any other variations of a game turned-Halloweenish you can think of (I'd promised them that they could stay up and see their dad). 70 piles of Halloween treats needing to be put into bags lay atop the cupboards (I'm going to need to get used to doing double duty on snacks for the rest of my life). Koria insisted on wearing her third costume of the week (this time a witch) for the party the next morning. I'd realized the night before that Layne had an appointment with her occupational therapist an hour before the Preschool Halloween Party was to begin ... and that's when I reread the note K&K's teacher sent home from school requesting that all parents come dressed up in a costume themselves, as it would "make it funner for the kids."

"Aaaaaahhhhhhhh" ..... that's me groaning.

Well, this year, funner equals the old seventies outfit.

Sooooooo .... this morning, after getting four kids under four ready for the day, two complete with costumes and suitable hairdos, and one therapy session underway, Jared showed up to let me have the chance to go with my older set of twins while he watched the younger two. I have to say, Layne's therapists liked the outfit. They liked my New York smoker accent. They didn't seem to mind that it's a five-year repeat.

Moral of the story is, get used to the girl from the Bronx. She's gonna be around for the next several years -- at least as far as I can see.

Chillin' before the parade began

This is one of Kimball's and Koria's good friends, Cassidy. She invited them to her dance class Halloween party on Tuesday right before school. That marked Koria's second outfit in a week's time period. Kimball, thankfully, has been just great with being Darth Vader, "as long as it scares the girls and makes them scream," according to him. Did I mention that I've been jump starting the car for the last week because our battery has been having issues and it just happened to die on me at the dance studio when I went to pick them up? Yeah, Cassidy's dad helped me jump it again. The kids were only ten minutes late for school. Maybe I should have dressed up that day too, and the teacher would have been more entertained by our tardiness.

I thought this shot was great from the parade. I loved their costumes. I know the mom of these two little ones, and she's expecting again. She told me that it was only appropriate that she play the part of Rizzo. If you don't get that, just rent a copy of "Grease" for the night. You'll laugh.

And when I said loot to describe the kids' Halloween treats from the day, I really should have termed them as being "a haul," because they were. I didn't know if they would be able to even carry their treats out of the school! Things sure have changed since the time I was in preschool .... WAIT .... I never was.

I was robbed.

Oh well, I'm not in the mood for a repeat. Guess the kids will just have to share with me. To tell you the truth, I don't think they'll notice if I just slip a few myself.

Can't wait to see how much more we'll end up with by Saturday night.

10/19/10

Fog 2

Koria and Kimball headed off early this morning on their way to a fieldtrip to the dentist's office. They assured me that they would not touch anything. We'll see how much our bill is after they return. When we drove over the the preschool, we found ourselves in the middle of a thick fog, and with the early morning sun coming up, I had to run back to the house and grab the camera to capture some of it. Nature is magical.

I found some other great scenes on the way, so here's a few more from Luke, Layne, and my drive this morning.

10/18/10

Alright, here's the other blog again

For those of you who don't remember the other blog, as has been noticed per email, Facebook, this blog, I'll give it to you again. It's as follows:

http://knowhowtopicem.blogspot.com

I update that one at least a few times a week. Later yo.

10/17/10

Fall Break 2010

I'm finding it hard to keep up to both blogs these days, so as always, if you're curious at a more up-to-date look into our lives, just check out our other blog. On to other things, here's just a few pictures that I took while we were up in Sugar City for the past few days for Fall Break. All but the first picture were taken at the cabin last Thursday. Becky and the kids and I decided to head up to the cabin and the beautiful October weather that we're all enjoying.

And this first pic? Well, I'll just sum it up by saying that Luke has two great loves in his life:

One being his Aunt Becky (I'm only #1 when she's not in sight), and the other being food. He really enjoyed the whipped cream used for strawberry shortcake last Friday night.