Thanksgiving

I don't have any pictures of Thanksgiving. You think I would with how many pictures I end up taking of food. I guess I was too busy having fun. Which is good because all my family was together in Idaho and if I thought about it too much I would become jealous. Luckily Jim had some days off and we (the family) spent a lot of our time shopping and house fixing and watching all the movies we meant to watch but haven't. We also had some dear friends over for Thanksgiving dinner. Jim boiled our turkey in peanut oil and our friends introduced us to a new food....Frog Eyed Salad. Good times and good food!

I Could Enjoy Being a Football Mom

This is the first year Nic decided to play football. He didn't play a lot in the games, but he still LOVED being on the team. He is number 15. As I watched some of these games on the non-freezing days I found it was pretty fun. The freezing days I felt a little different. But maybe next year when I have lost those 20 extra pounds I can sip a hot cup of Milky Way Hot Chocolate while I watch.

I thought he looked pretty cool in his uniform. Look at that boy

strutting back to the locker room.

One of my favorite parts of this particular game was one of the fans

in the bleachers..... That is one cute girl!

Halloween Cuisine - My Dream Come True

Ever since Halloween was and I have liked to cook, I have wanted to create a Halloween themed meal. This year my teenagers and their friends arranged to have a few people over to trick or treat. I was so excited, I told them they could all come for dinner too. My main course consisted of Bloody Eyeballs and Worms. In the corner there you can see there were also some Bat Wings.

We also had White Maggots, Green Monster Brain Dip and Brown Swamp Dip.

There is Valerie, she was eating the Bat Wings. JUST KIDDING.

Bella the Princess stuck with the simpler looking Green Eyeballs and Orange Knobby Fingers.

There is the bowl of Dried Out Scabs we used for the dips.

Kiley and Rebekah we trying out the Yellow Witches Brew.

These were the Graveyard Cookies and Super Sweet Monster Eyeballs.

Here is everybody having dinner. They were all such GREAT kids. It made the evening so enjoyable. Everyone went trick or treating later and really brought home the loot. The younger crowd took umbrellas. The older crowd got soaking wet. But everyone had a lot of fun!

Lilly liked scattering Maggots everywhere. But what she REALLY liked was finding out about.......

LOLLIPOPS!

She learned how to dig through everyone's candy and pick out those on a stick.

Pumpkin Carving!

We meant to go to the pumpkin patch and have "The Experience." Every weekend in October, however, seemed to rain - downpour rain. And during the week our lives were full of football, volleyball, soccer, piano, violin, church activities and late night Philly's baseball. Thursday night I sent Jim on a pumpkin run to find some pumpkins. They got these at the third grocery store they went to. Nic and Kiley were excited about having white pumpkins. Bella wanted to decorate her pumpkin with freckles and took the knife and stabbed it about 50 times on the face. Arielle loved the guts. Valerie was in bed an hour before this.....she has had too much early morning seminary and late night baseball watching with her dad.

Halloween School Parade

Here is the cute Butterfly that came to watch the parade. Here is the Zombie Fairy with her living friends.

This is the wild and crazy Ninja Warrior!

And here is Anne of Green Gables in her puffed sleeves.

Halloween Cookie Making

While the kids are at school, Bella and I try to keep busy. We NEVER watch TV. We always do super constructive and inspiring activities, because, you know, I am that kind of super mom.........

If it was April, I'd be calling April fools now, but since it is Halloween, I'll just say BOO! Today, however, we did make cookies while everyone else was at school. Bella has great skills and is always wanting to bake with me. She has a super sweet tooth, making cookies feeds her addiction, we are working on control of that issue. She is pretty handy though with the rolling pin and scooping to the pan......

Lilly liked grabbing at the flour all over the cupboard. She also thinks it is so cool to be able to stand on a big girl stool. I am still nervous about that, but I love that her little head can be at our level.

Bella took this picture. Lilly thought it was funny I was cuddling up to her. She is use to seeing me on the other end of the camera.

Bella and I gave Lilly some cookie dough. I think she liked this new life experience.

Graveyard cookies....appropriate for the season......

It is clean up time, where did the help go? Bella? Lilly?

I guess I found Lilly........always love the "baby holding on to my legs in the middle of the kitchen" stage.

The Yearly Picture Taking Task

From the beginning I have told my kids I don't buy school pictures. I like to have choices in the smiles that I pay for. This means some years I line them all up and go to JCPenny and use those coupons to get cheap pictures with lots of variety. Or some years I take them outside and we do tons of snapshots until we get some we like.

This one always manages to look beautiful. This one insists on doing her own hair. We love that attitude in her. She has a natural, happy smile. You can see here energy for life. Here is the man of the clan. Isn't he a handsome guy?

This one is tall, elegant and beautiful.

This is the picture they took of me..........

So I had to self portrait.