Halloween 2013--Boo-ya-ka-sha!!

The kids decided to be the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and April O'Neil for Halloween this year.  I made their costumes.  I bought sweatshirts from a website for pretty cheap.  I found fabric that matched their sweatshirts pretty closely.  Then I sewed on a turtle stomach on the sweatshirts.  I made shells by making a pillow and then sewing a strap or straps onto the shell that went around the sweatshirt.  They got the face masks and weapons from some Ninja Turtle toys last Christmas. 

Travis in his Rafael Ninja Turtle costume, trying it on when I was done sewing it

All of the kids at the ward Fall Festival.  I was able to purchase an actual Michelangelo sweatshirt for Jonah's costume.

About an hour before the ward party, we had a brilliant idea to have Annmarie, Margrethe, and I go as a hamburger, fries, and a Coke.  Annmarie already had the drink cup onesie.  Corey fashioned a drink lid hat for her, complete with straw, and I sewed a little hat that we glued the lid onto.  For Margrethe's costume, we took a box from the garage and Corey cut and taped it into the fry boat shape and then covered it with some white butcher paper we have, then I drew on the palm trees.  He added rope straps and I sewed big French fries out of some leftover yellow fabric I had from the Ninja Turtle costume bellies and batting from the shell pillows.  Then we made a hamburger costume out of one of Corey's big white T-shirts.  We glued fabric on to look like a hamburger, a double-double, actually, and then stuffed it with pillows after it was on me.  I'd like to say we were the hit of the party, but I'm not sure very many people even noticed our awesome last-minute digs.

Here are the kids in their Ninja Turtle poses.  Travis=Rafael, Caleb=Leonardo, Eliza=April, Westley=Donatello, and Jonah=Michelangelo

We barely do Halloween as it is, so our kids are lucky to get one pumpkin carved into a Jack-o-Lantern.  Every year, we let each of them draw the face they want and then Corey picks one element from each of the faces they'd drawn and carves it into the pumpkin.  Once again, I take terrible pictures, but this was less blurred than the other one. 

Pumpkin Patch

This year was the first time we have ever taken our kids to a pumpkin patch. Slacker parents we are, I know. They seemed to have fun and it was a gorgeous fall day. But, as you can see, I am a terrible photographer, as these were the best pictures from the bunch.

Eliza the Fashionista

Eliza is so much more fashion-conscious than I ever was as a young child.  I don't think I noticed fashion at all until I was in the fifth grade and everything else had an Esprit bag and I didn't have one.  From then on, I became a little more aware, but only somewhat.  I still sported tennis shoes with jeans and wore my backpack with both straps in high school (but only after moving to a place where it seemed that people didn't really care). 

This little girl loves to be fashionable.  She wanted skinny jeans to go with her boots.  She wanted boots!  When I was her age, I think I probably had a pair of tennis shoes and a pair of church shoes.  This is Eliza ready for school.

Partial Temple Tour of Utah

Just before the kids went off track at the end of September, Westley suggested that we do a "temple tour of Utah" while we were off track. Originally, we were going to go to all 13 open temples. Ogden is closed for remodeling the outside (and probably inside, I don't know) and Payson and Provo Center Street are being built. Unfortunately, we weren't able to make it to all the temples.  Three of them would have required overnight stays and for some reason, there just wasn't ever a good day to go to Manti.  So, hopefully, during one of our other off-track times, we will be able to make it to the other four.  We also had Margrethe come with us when she could, but we did go during the school day and she was in school while the kids were off track.

Salt Lake Temple

Logan Temple

Brigham City Temple

Bountiful Temple

Timpanogos Temple

Draper Temple

Jordan River Temple

Oquirrh Mountain Temple

Provo Temple

We have Vernal, Manti, Monticello, and St. George left to see.

Caleb is NINE!

Caleb turned nine in October. We celebrated his birthday in the usual fashion. He got to pick what he ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner. In the evening, he got his birthday cake and ice cream and his presents. This year, he chose a BOB cake. BOB is a monster on Monsters vs. Aliens, meaning "Blob Of Blue."

Homecoming

Having a teenager around is kind of fun because you get to know about the extra-curricular things like Homecoming. Margrethe was asked to Homecoming pretty quickly. She arrived in one of her classes to find a T-shirt on her desk with a note asking her to the dance. On the T-shirt were the names of all the boys in that class. The instructions were for her to wash the T-shirt and the name remaining was who had asked her. Then she had to wear the T-shirt to school signifying a yes answer. I thought it was pretty clever. She had a good time at the dance. I've been very pleased to see how easily and quickly she makes friends. She is a very easy-going fun girl and we have really enjoyed having her here this year with us.

Pinewood Derby 2013

We had our annual pinewood derby and this year, Corey had to help make TWO cars. I think we may just end up being THAT family that buys a pinewood derby pre-cut car kit because once again, ours came in dead last in every single race. Well, the race where they raced each other, Caleb's came in last. The boys acted like they didn't care, but I know they really did. Maybe by the time Jonah has his last one, we'll have figured out how to make them fast? The good news is that at least they got awards for how their cars looked!

Westley's was a Spider-man theme.

Caleb made a Shell Raiser (Ninja Turtles' vehicle) car.

Corey did the cutting and the sanding.  The boys painted them.  I put the wheels on.  I'm probably the reason they didn't go very fast.  But hey, at least they got to participate and still had fun making the cars!