Oh how I love thee!

So the other week I was feeling a little blue because I had finished the last five of my mini cadburry eggs from Easter. Now you might be thinking that I have the best self control in the world to still have five of these little pieces of heaven still in the bag from Easter. That's not the case at all. Around Easter I decided that I wanted to save the last few for a really special occasion. Like if I were to get all green lights on the way home from the store(there's only one light between our house and the store), or if I ran three laps instead of only two or something of that nature. Well, I never got the light green and running three laps was hot so I didn't do that. I was never able to justify eating these wonderful rewards and I forgot they were there. Just the other week I pulled out the candy to get rid of the rest of the Easter candy before we went trick or treating. What to my surprise should appear but the mini cadburry egg bag with five eggs in the bottom! I'm not lying when I say I almost cried from the joy I felt inside. I did try to pace myself as I ate them. I tried to stretch it out over at least a full day. That didn't happen, they were gone within two or three minutes. That was a sad moment around our house. Wipe your eyes dear friends. I know that having no more mini cadburry eggs is a faith testing trial, but there is a happy ending to this story. A week after Halloween I went to Target to get next year's Halloween costumes. Target, that's another thing I totally love. Just walking in that store feels me with happiness. Anyway, we found that the costumes were 90% off. So we got the kiddos costumes for next year for two or three dollars a piece. Isn't that great news?! But that's not even the best part. The best part is that as we walked to the front of the store, the lovely Target employees were getting out the Christmas stuff. Call it a feeling, call it a prompting, call it whatever you want, but for some reason, I walked through the Christmas things. As I rounded the corner of an aisle, there on the bottom shelf was a pile of mini cadburry eggs! The Christmas ones had come! I almost ran to the Target employee and with tears running down my cheeks, kissed and hugged them! I did manage to muster up enough self control to make it all the way to the car before the bag was opened. The car ride home was a happy one that day! If I could buy cases and cases of these candies I would. I would buy a deep freeze and fill the entire freezer with them. These could be my entire food storage! (Ok, clearly I need some professional help. I'm looking into it!) 

Aren't they beautiful?!

One more thing I need to write about is Grooveshark. It's a wonderful website that lets you listen to any song in the whole wide world for free. The whole song, not just a few seconds. We here around these parts love to put in all kinds of songs and sing and dance our little hearts out. The song we listened to tonight was none other than, "I would do anything for love" by Meat Loaf. B and I sang it out at the top of our lungs as we were taken back to sixth grade. We think that's when the song came out. I just remember sitting in Sara and Coutney's underground house playing the song so loud as we sang and sang. Oh the memories! Grooveshark and mini cadburry eggs, I don't think tonight can get any better!

It's a dog!

Now, I know that there are dog lovers all over the world doing things for their dogs that I can't EVER see myself doing if it were my dog. For example, when people put clothes on their dog I just have to bite my tongue and keep walking. The other day when I was looking at pictures on a news website of Utah's snow storm, there was a picture of dogs in coats. To me it is so annoying that a dog is wearing a coat. Heavenly Father sent them to earth with coats. They get more hair in the winter months just for the purpose of staying warm. I get that people love their dogs like their children. I know that there are strong human animal bonds. It wasn't until moving here that I realized just how deep these bonds can go. They do a canned food drive here just like they do all over the country. It lasts two weeks and we feel all warm and fuzzy when we remember to send food to school with our children to help those in need. Imagine my surprise when I learned that the week following the canned food drive was in fact another canned food drive. Again?! Don't worry, it's not for humans, it's for animals in the area. Well that's a new one! To add to my surprise I learned that the animal food drive is in fact longer than the human one. There is something seriously wrong with that! When we moved here, I had heard that the old folks here LOVE their dogs. I think that is a gross understatement. Here, dogs are not required to walk, oh no! They get to ride in strollers. The first time I saw it I was running and thought I must be hot and seeing things because why would a dog be in a stroller. But no, it was real and you see more dogs in strollers than humans. Not only do they ride in the strollers, but if there is a human child walking by, the old folk will stop, bend down to the dog and in a voice like they were talking to a human rather than a dog they say,"Oh it's a baby! Isn't the baby so cute?! Yes it is!"

This is what it looks like to see a dog in a stroller. Yesterday as K and I went to get M from school, there was a couple getting a stroller out of their car. We parked by them and all I could do was shake my head as I saw them put their dog in the stroller. To add to my head shaking, the lady walked around the car and took a small child out of the car. The small child walked while the dog rode in the stroller. Then small child didn't want to walk, so mom carried small child while the dog rode in the stroller. It was all I could do not to walk over to them and say,"It''s a dog! The dog can walk. Save mom's back and put the child in the stroller!" There are some things I will never understand. Dog's in clothes, costumes, coats or stroller. Or why oh why the bad guy was re-elected. I know that has nothing to do with dogs, but if 21 states have petitioned to secede from the nation because he won, why did he win? I'm not a political person or a bumper sticker person, but if I were the latter, I would buy the bumper sticker I saw the other month that said, That Obama Biden sticker on the back of your car may as well say stupid. Amen is all I have to say to that!

Happy Halloween!

 K decided at the last minute that he wanted to be Mater instead of the police man. Here they are, all ready to go.

 As we left our house this snake was outside our door. We all thought it was quite fitting that it was at our house on Halloween.

 Before we ventured out to go trick or treating, our clubhouse did a little party for the kiddos. It was awesome! There were little mugs that the kids got to color. K liked to color for about 2 minutes. Then someone walked in dressed as Cat in the Hat and all he could do was stare at them.

 M loved the coloring. There were games with prizes, but she just wanted to color.

 Here are their mugs. Obviously, K didn't really color that one. M was taking so much time on hers that I had time to color one too. So I colored K's.

 Once we started getting candy, he had to stop every few feet and ask if he could have a treat. I'm mean and only let him have one. If we let him have a treat every time he asked, we would have had to roll him home. I'm so glad we had brought the stroller. There had been a cool breeze all week and so I was worried that after the sun went down it would be cold. I didn't want to carry the jackets, so we took the stroller to hold everything. Pretty soon, there were a few kids that didn't want to hold their bags any more. So they put them in the stroller too. I can't wait to get to Heaven and meet whoever invented the stroller and drown them in hugs and kisses!

Aren't they so cute?! This isn't the whole group but the bigger group picture didn't turn out that great. We love having so many kids in the ward to go with. The kids had a blast and we came home with enough candy to last until at least Easter.

Ward Trunk-or-Treat and pumpkins

 Last Friday was our ward trunk-or-treat. B was so excited to do the donut thing. He really wanted M and K to do it with him. But they absolutely refused. So, he called for backup. B fought a good fight, but in the end C won it. Or maybe it was B in black. I can't be certain. One of them used their hands at the end and was unofficially disqualified. All in all it was a good match up.

 Making a spiderweb is the one thing that M said she would do. She didn't want to play any of the games or get her face painted. The only way she would do it is if I helped her hold the bottle of glue. At least she did something and she actually talked to the girl when she was asked what color glitter she wanted on her web!

 Thankfully he said he needed me to help him too. I can only imagine where the glue would have gone if he had done it by himself. I wish he had kept his little policeman hat on. It was so cute! But he said that it was really itchy. That would have been awesome if I had thought to take pictures of them getting ready to go out to do the trunk-or-treat. But, I just thought of it. So, you'll have to use your imagination!

 We don't carve pumpkins at our house. It smells disgusting and the feeling of the guts on the inside is even more disgusting. We color them instead. No one knows what K colored. It changes every time you ask him, but he loved coloring and breaking the stem off the top of everyone's pumpkin.

 When M concentrates, she sticks her tongue out. I think it's so cute! She drew a flower and put glitter on it. Then she drew a yellow sun which to her great surprise and disappointment, didn't show up on her pumpkin. Then she wrote a love note on the top around the stem. Before we started B told M and K that they either needed to put on jammies or a shirt they didn't care about because the markers could ruin their clothes. M stood there for a minute and then she said,"I know what to wear. Mommy can I wear one of your shirt's?!"

 In my head I had a picture of a black widow that would look so awesome on a pumpkin. The problem is that very rarely do the things in my mind translate to whatever I am doing. I drew the body of the spider way too big. So when you look at my pumpkin, you can't see the legs of the spider. Instead you see a big grayish orangeish dot with a pink hour glass because there was no red. So you stand there scratching your head trying to figure out what it could be. Oh well, there's always next year.

 Then there's the artist of the family. Last year he drew a skier and an alligator. This year he drew Iron man and a boat. What do his pictures look like you ask? Iron man and a boat. Someday I hope to be able to have my pumpkin turn out like his.

All done! When we  put K's pumpkin on his lap he said,"hurry and take the picture! My pumpkin is hurting my legs!" His pumpkin is the biggest and the heaviest, so I'm glad he smiled for the picture. I hope coloring our pumpkins will be something they like to do for a long time.

Cute kids

Ya know when you feel like life is just normal and you have nothing to report? That's how our life has been lately. We do the same things every day. Daddy has school, M has school, K and I just hang out. The kiddos are excited for Halloween. Clearly, since M is wearing her witch hat while eating breakfast. Let's see, what else has been happening? They did go to the dentist the other day. Neither of them have cavities! That's good news. Truly, our lives are the same day in and day out. Not that I'm complaining, it's nice to know what's going to happen every day. We are all excited for the Holidays and the cooler weather that comes with them. The only bummer is that B has to do a 24 hour call shift on Thanksgiving. So, he'll have to stay at the hospital all day. Other than that, we're livin' the dream!

Where's K?

Last night when I went to check on the offspring before I went to bed I almost had a heart attack. When I first walked in I thought that K was under his blanket because there was a human sized bump. I went to pull the blanket back so that he could have enough air. But, to my great astonishment, he wasn't there. It was just stuffed animals. I looked up in M's bed since he loves to sleep with her. But, he wasn't there either. Before bed he had asked if he could sleep in the closet, so I checked there. But he wasn't there either. I started to think that the stuffed animals had been placed under the covers intentionally so that he could make a run for it. I stood there in the middle of their room totally baffled, until I thought to look under the bed.

                                                                      Crazy kid!

Budding athlete's

In between sessions of conference yesterday our children were going totally nuts. They needed to get out some pent-up energy. The problem is we live in a horrible, awful, hot, humid climate. So the thought of taking them outside was enough to make one start sweating. B had this great idea to play catch. But since it was way too humid outside, he said they could play catch inside. That would have been a great idea if they were using a softer ball. Nope, they were using a baseball. As the ball kept hitting things that had great potential to shatter, he decided that maybe they should suck it up and go outside. He didn't want to play on the grass because it was wet, so they played on the patio instead. They all had a great time. Both M and K loved it when B taught them how to lift up one leg when they throw the ball. I am happy to report that no toes got smashed by the ball, there was no broken glass and they got out enough energy that they sat still through the opening song and prayer of the second session!