Halloween 2011

Typical Halloween photo from their childhood. From the left...we have Sue Heck from ABC's TV show "The Middle", Little Captain America, the Goddess Athena and I think our closest look-a-like...Cleopatra.
Our animal lover carved a turtle.

The only child who liked the picture of my throw up pumpkin.

Brody carved Captain America to match his Captain America costume.

I was in charge of carving this one with Syd. We did a soccer ball. To fix all my screw-ups, I painted it white. I am not the pumpkin carver of the family.

These are my favorite Halloween photos: (Before) He doesn't realize what his sister is doing.

(After) He realizes his sister is putting pumpkin guts on his head.

Sad Face

Every other week I make a Costco trip with my Costco companion...Brody. This time, it was a typical trip...Brody asking for toys...me saying no. "You can look at them in the cart until we check out." Brody is stuffed in the cart...see previous photo. With our cart stocked, the cashier says something like..."Just getting back from a trip?" Nope, just 4 kids. I always hand Brody the receipt because he loves it when they draw the happy face on it. I hand him the receipt. He takes it, walks over to the lady at the door, hands her the receipt and says, "Excuse me, can you draw a sad face?" "Why?" she asks. "My Mom did not buy me a toy today and that makes me sad." That was a first for the lady and now my receipt has a frown on it. He might have had a frown on his face but that definitely put a smile on my face.

Photo Shoot

We finally took some professional family photos this weekend. It has been almost 4 years since I have had photos taken of the kids...longer of the whole family. Brody has never been in a professional family photo. So sad. Better late than never. I can't wait to share the old family photo compared to the new one...

This is in 2007:
This is in 2011

Brody at one month old...

Brody at 46 months old...such a bad Mom.

http://rachellecrowderphotography.com/

Thanks to Rachelle for her patience...you are so talented.

After the shoot I remembered why I waited years in between shoots...men hate taking photos especially when the BYU game is on.

If you look closely in his eyes you see him being bugged. BYU won, so it all ended well.

Funny?

I have been putting Halloween jokes and things in my kids lunches this month. I put this photo in yesterday...they did not think it was as funny as I did.

Back to the dumb jokes...What does a witch put in her hair? Scare-spray.

They thought that was funny.

Out of Retirement

Look who is out of retirement and playing kickball again...

Just add 20 years and it is just like riding a bike. Who knew my kickball knowledge and skill would come in handy one day?

My kickball outfit. They do not play with an official kickball but a dodgeball...rookies.

Stretching is something I did not do 20 years ago...but I don't want to tear anything...like an Achilles.

Look who else is finding his love for the game.

Getting ready...

Kick...so fast the 13-year old professional photographer could not capture "the quickness".

We are serious...we even have a team banner. My nickname is "Kickball Queen" and of course Scott is "the Rookie".

Aha

Oprah has her aha moments that are deep and life altering. I am not that deep and don't have time to alter my life. I have a different kind of aha moments...I am so dumb, why did I not do this years ago moments. Here are two moments I have had this month.
#1 A plastic cereal container for trash...I don't like finding wrappers stuffed and left everywhere. I tried those cute material ones but those did not work for us.

#2 I was watching Dr Oz and he was talking about not sharing towels because of bacteria. This sparked my idea...I don't care about bacteria but I don't like finding towels left on the bathroom floor or finding my towels missing from my bathroom. So, I got each child their own color towel. They can only use their color and if it is on the floor I know exactly who gets to come get it. Brody picked green for Hulk. Now, they are so protective of their towel and totally take ownership. I was so dumb. Why did I not think of this years ago?

No More Money

Look how quickly the money tree died!!!