Blessing #2

Good Friends

I have always been blessed with good friends. The past couple of days I have felt extra grateful for my friends here in Iowa, as well as my friends who live far away. It means so much to me when a friends takes the time to listen to me on the phone, extends an invitation to dinner, or gives me a hug in the hallway at church. I am also grateful for the good friends that I had growing up who kept me out of trouble. I hope that my children will be able to experience the kind of friendships that I have.

Count Your Blessings

The past couple of days I have been feeling sorry for myself, which those of you who have been reading my blog can attest to (really, what kind of negative person wants to skip November and December?) Today I decided that I need to change my perspective. I started thinking about all of the wonderful things in my life. I have been blessed with so much. I decided that I need to start focussing on the positive things in my life, and I figured that November is the perfect month to count my blessings. From now until Thanksgiving I am going to post one blessing each day, I challenge you guys to do the same.

Blessing #1

I am grateful for kids who are good sleepers. They didn't start out that way, but somehow they have morphed into little angel children who sleep all night long, almost every night. Last night I put Abbi to bed at 6:30 and the boys to bed at 7:30, they all slept until 7:30 this morning. What a blessing!

Hapy Halloween??

I love Halloween, it is one of my favorite holidays. Most years, I totally look forward to October 31st. This year, however, I was dreading it. After October 31st comes, inevitably, November.... then December... and then January. All months that I would rather just skip this year. Altough I was not looking forward to the end of October, we had a fabulous month and celebrated the holiday to it's fullest. We attended Halloween party after Halloween party, carved pumpkins, ate homemade chili and hand dipped carmeled apples and trick or treated until the boys claimed their bags were "too heavy" to carry (granted this only took about 20 minutes). Here are all the details of our festivities.

We kicked off the season with the annual Fall harvest party at the elementary school.

We were also seen partying at the YMCA's annual Halloween party.

The kids were so excited to receive Halloween packages from both of their Grandmas, filled with lots of SPOOKY things.

Of course we couldn't miss the ward Trunk or Treat.

Abbi made sure she didn't miss out on any of the fun,

after all, this was her FIRST Halloween!

Carter was thrilled to be able to wear the skeleton costume that Ammon wore last year. Isn't having a big brother great?

Ammon dressed up as a Vampire, but not just any Vampire. If you can't tell, he is the Yowie Yahoo from Scooby Doo and the Vampires. (If you don't know who this is, don't feel too bad. I had to google it).

Kind of nerdy, I know, but Abbi and I went to the Trunk or Treat as momma and baby witch.

I thought our pumpkins were super impressive this year,

it must have been our rock star pumpkin carving team.

Colby was originally opossed to wearing this Vampire cape and teeth that I bought him, but the boys were pretty excited about it so he was a good sport and wore it trick or treating. And I think he looks hot as a vampire, hubba hubba (he's right up there with Edward Cullen, don't you think?)

While the boys were doing an inventory of their candy bags, Abbi grabbed a couple of pieces. She did not want to let go of this candy! It's a good thing she has two sweet brothers who were willing to share with her. (no she didn't eat it, she just wanted to hold it.)

I feel very blessed that Colb's schedule allowed him to spend October with us and that celebrate Halloween together. We are already counting down the days to Thanksgiving!

Fall Family Fun

Saturday we were blessed with some nice Fall weather. We decided to take advantage of it and spend some family time at the Center Grove apple orchard. I know at first mention the apple orchard doesn't sound like an exciting place to spend a Saturday, but this apple orchard is fabulous- they have so much more than apples! We spent the afternoon in the corn pool, on the jumping pillow, navigating our way through the hay maze, on a hay ride and on the giant slide. The kids had a blast and I can't think of a better way to spend our last Saturday together before Colby heads to Detroit this weekend.

The whole family on the hay ride.

Ammon got some sweet air on the jumping pillow. Abbi also loved the jumping pillow, she giggled and giggled when we would bounce and didn't want to get off.

The boys buried in the corn pool. I LOVE the midwest, I mean a giant pool of corn?? Where do they come up with this?? I am totally going to miss giant pools of corn when we move next Summer.

Abbi didn't want to have anything to do with the corn, but they boys all loved it.

On top of the corn maze.

Me and the boys on the giant slide. (It was more giant than this picture would have you believe, this is only half of it.)

So many things to do? Where should we start?

We finished the afternoon by enjoying cider donuts at the country store.

The boys insisted on having their picture taken on this giant cob of corn, I love it.

What a fun, fun day!

We are so grateful that we had one more day of nice weather before the inevitably long and cold Winter comes! We are also so glad that Colby has been able to be in Des Moines this month, I am praying that November will pass as quickly as October has..

Tradition!

A couple of weeks ago, Ammon came to me and said, "Mom, when are we going to decorate haunted houses?" I hadn't really thought about decorating haunted houses this year so I replied, "I don't know buddy, we'll see." He responded, "okay mom, but we have to make haunted houses, it's a tradition." It is? A tradition? I was so excited that not only did I come up with something that my kids enjoy doing, but that they consider it a tradition. I immediately planned our traditional night of spooky food and haunted house decorating and invited our friends the Campbell's and Nance's to join us. I had planned to have the kids wear their cute Halloween garb that Grandma Frost sent, but between soccer games and changing in and out of their costumes multiple times they ended up in old, grubby clothes instead. Check out this picture and you can just imagine how cute they would have looked wearing these outfits while decorating their haunted houses.

We started the night with a spread of spooky food including jello bats and pumpkins, bone breadsticks, ghostly strawberries, foot float punch, mummy cheese dip and cheesy brocolli and potato soup.

Our mummy-shaped cheese log.

Megan's ghostly strawberries tasted just as good as they look.

After dinner, we put the daddies to work fashioning haunted houses out of graham crackers and hot glue. Colby kept up his naughty tradition of flipping off the camera. Don't worry, next time I am going to suspend him from school and make him read Under The Tonto Rim for six hours straight.

After the houses were built, the moms and kids went to work decorating. There was just as much sugar as you are imagining, and I think the kids ate as much candy as they put on the houses.

The finished products!

It turns out that it was a good thing they boys didn't wear their new shirts, they ended up covered in icing. Little Abbi was at the party, but she missed most of the fun. She was a cranky little baby and I put her to bed!

Me and my sweet boys. Although Colby only made it into one (questionable) picture, he actually was at this party too. We are sure enjoying having him home and so grateful he is able to share some of our Halloween traditions with us this year.

This video is not of haunted houses, or traditions, but it is pretty darn cute. Grandpa Stewart requested more footage of Abbi walking so here you have it. She is turning into a little pro, which is great until you try to take her to sacrament meeting! It's a good thing she's so cute.

Eleven Months!

It is hard to believe that our baby girl is already eleven months old!

Abbi is such a sweet little baby and we are so happy she is part of our family.

It is hard to believe that someone so small...

Can have such a BIG attitude

Can make such a BIG mess

Can have such a BIG smile

Can throw such a BIG fit

Can have such a BIG opinion

Can hold such a BIG place in our hearts

We love you Abigail!

What the ???

Friday night Colby and I were able to go out on a hot date, without the kids! It had been a while since we'd been out to dinner by ourselves and we were looking forward to a quiet evening alone. We dropped the kids off at the baby sitter's and headed to the restaurant. At the restaurant, we chose to sit in the "open seating" in the bar rather than wait for a table. Shortly after we had ordered our appetizer and drinks, two old guys came into the bar and sat down at our same table! Colby and I looked at each other like, "what the crap?" and just started laughing. It was bad enough that the waitress brought us four appetizer plates and another restaurant employee handed me one of their sodas (to pass over to him). So much for having dinner by ourselves! So, as Colb and I ate our pizza and sandwich, old dudes dined on their fish and wine. At the end of our meal I kind of felt like saying, "well, thanks guys. I guess we'll see you later..." One things for sure, we won't soon forget that date!

Here is the evidence! Colby snuck this picture on his phone, so it's not the best quality- but it's proof of the "old dudes," cardigan and all!

Holiday, Celebrate!

I love to celebrate holidays (sometimes more than once!) Minor holidays like Labor Day are no exception. This year, as labor day weekend was approaching, I was feeling bummed that I had no plans, no family nearby, and no husband around. I was able to talk my friend Lisa into going on a last minute get-away with me, and where could be better than fabulous Omaha? We got a great deal on a priceline hotel (a 2 bedroom suite for $40 a night!), loaded up the kids in her van, and headed across the border (the Iowa state border, that is).

This crazy crew was so excited for our little trip.

We took the kids to Spagetti Works in Old Town for dinner. The atmosphere was great, and the weather was perfect. The food left something to be desired.

When we got to the hotel, we were greated with warm chocolate chip cookies. (Are you kidding me? could this place get any better?) Then we took all the kiddos to the pool.

Ammon, Abbi, Carter, Ashlyn and Oakley at a park in downtown Omaha.

These picture are kind of out of order, but at Spagetti Works there was a balloon lady! She came right to our table and made the kids these fun ballon creatures.

Abbi was a little angel (well most of the time!)

Saturday, we met some more friends at the wonderful Omaha zoo. Once again, a great day. The weather was beautiful, the company was great and the kids were (mostly) well-behaved.

The boys in front of one of the waterfalls in the indoor rainforest.

My kids are super cooperative when we try to take pictures. This one, at the butterfly house, is the best one we got of all of us at the zoo.

The whole crew! (minus Lisa who was taking the picture)

Maddie, Caden, Heather, Brenna, Oakley, Logan, Austin, Megan, Ashlyn, Shauni, Carter, Abbi and Ammon.

We love Omaha!

Thanks guys for the fun trip.

(and Lisa, I am amazed that you managed to escape every one of my pictures.)

Toddling

This one's for Daddy!

After many failed attempts, I finally caught Abbi toddling on video. As you can see, she still prefers to crawl, but I think she is on her way to becoming a walker!

Go Hawkeyes!

Iowans take their football seriously. Especially Iowa/Iowa State football. This year I have noticed it even more than before. The boys both had University of Iowa/Iowa State dress day at school, both of their soccer games were cancelled Saturday because the coaches wanted to watch the big game and too many players were going to miss soccer to go to the big game and last week (the week of the game) the doughnuts at Hyvee were frosted in Iowa/Iowa State colors. But I knew it was really serious when Ammon came home from school on Friday and said, "So mom, Cyclones or Hawkeyes?" I decided it was time for us to get into the spirit of the big football rivalry. We are all now proud owners of Hawkeye apparel (football fans across the nation will begrudge the fact that I chose our team based solely on the color scheme of their merchandise). The day of the big game we all got dressed in our University of Iowa garb and headed to the farmer's market with some friends. We enjoyed chatting with fellow Hawkeye fans and the banter we received from those who were sporting their Cyclone gear, and we felt like true Iowans, enjoying a morning at the farmer's market before the big game. We didn't go to the game (we actually didn't even watch the game), but I hear that I chose wisely: University of Iowa beat Iowa State 35 to 3. Go Hawkeyes!