Halloween Party

Our friends hosted a Halloween party that was a lot of fun with lots of kids and friends and food. No pictures. It's hard to take a photo of a fireman at night because the costume reflects the flash. No costume for me either. Are we losing our Halloween mojo?

Costume Parade at School

 

We serendipitously found ourselves volunteering at Isaac's preschool on October 31st and it was FUN FUN FUN! The class paraded through the school, danced to music, and played Halloween Bingo. They let Jovie join in since she was dressed up anyway. Isaac told everyone, "My mom's a witch." Well, I was wearing a witch's hat.

http://youtu.be/ucZ9V5K9OlQ

Parent Teacher Conference

It was our first ever Parent Teacher Conference. Grandma Rainey played "build a duplex" with the kids at home (it's kind of like a fort, but with separate living areas) while TB and I met with Miss Terry. The news about Isaac is not surprising: he knows his letters, rhymes, and alliteration; he's friendly and likeable; he has good motor skills and a huge vocabulary; and he needs to work on sitting still and not banging into or wrestling other kids. At his initial evaluation (the first day he met his teacher) he scored 188 on their tests. The goal for four-year-olds for the end of the school year is to score a 172 on the same test so he's a good test taker like his mom =). He needs to behave himself around other kids so he can be a good friend like his dad =).

He LOVES reading so we do it before every naptime and bedtime. The rule is that he has to read a paragraph out of every chapter I read, and he does it. We just finished "Danny the Champion of the World" by Roald Dahl, "Little House on the Prairie" (I edited out a LOT of anti-Indian quotes from Caroline. My goodness! My mom says you don't have to edit classics, but I think I do for a four- and three-year-old.) and we're half-way through the L book in Ron Roy's A to Z Mysteries.

He loves school and he draws a picture of a delivery truck everyday and puts it in an envelope to "send" to me.

Costume Parade at Emeritus

 Jovie, Poe, Theo, Isaac

This is the second year we've gone to Emeritus with our friends Christina and Theo to visit Theo's great-Grandmother and her friends at Emeritus Senior Living. We handed out treats and went totally nuts over the cute little puppy Poe. Ikey sang "Take Me Out to the Ballgame", and I loved talking to the old folks who were gentle and kind. Did I say the kids went nuts? They did. They were adorable and sweet for about 10 minutes, then they were crazy. I'm going without kids next time I think. Happy Halloween!

Sarah Daft Home

This beautiful building was built in 1913 and it's the oldest assisted living facility in Utah. I've always wanted to check it out and since you can get away with a lot of things at Halloween,  we decided to arm ourselves with treats and invade.

 Grace the butterfly and Lucy the mermaid helped us with the treats and the cheerfulness.

We brought peanut butter fudge made with Grandma Doris's recipe and brownies and our best Halloween manners.

Ikey sang "Kookaburra" and "Haunted House" and Jovie sang "Do, Re, Mi". It was very very sweet and fun.

Superhero Halloween at Utah Symphony

Our awesome cousins, Stormy and Sierra, came with us to the Superhero Halloween show at the Utah Symphony. We were a little late to get going - not the girls' fault as they have more of Grandma Rainey's DNA so they were about 45 minutes early. My fault as usual. We passed pieces of Jack O'Lantern pizza around the car while TB drove us downtown and dropped us off at Abravanel Hall just in the nick of time to climb four flights of stairs to our treacherous seating.

Does it look like we're perched on the edge of the balcony and we could tumble off any minute? I felt like we were. We had a great view though and it kept everyone's attention.

 

Luckily, the girls held onto the babies tight enough that we didn't lose anybody. The superhero-themed music was really good and the costumed musicians and audience were great.  

The ice cream cone and the rocket say "Bravo!"

The children sing...

Jovie sings "Do, Re, Mi" which is her favorite song from her favorite movie, "The Sound of Music".
http://youtu.be/vL2tYmPboCQ

Isaac sings "Haunted House" in the style of Tobin Faucheux. http://youtu.be/cyfPxp7cSNU

Soup Day

The kids are assigned to put away their laundry after I sort it at the top of the stairs. Come over any time and you'll see a pile of laundry at the top of the stairs. Jovie told me she was done putting things away and by the way, "It is soup day in my room." I found this little scene where she had carefully arranged her clothing spilling over the edge of the drawers, as in soup boiling over. All of the items are cascading from the correct drawers, and we don't really fold things in drawers anyway, so this was pretty close to the right way to do this.

Boo at the Zoo

This is another annual Halloween tradition. Trick Or Treat at the Zoo. It's fun to see all the creative family costumes and all the cute little kids. We ate at the Beastro and had pretty good food too. We did not catch a glimpse of the Preeces because the zoo was packed like it was in San Diego.

Bison Roundup at Antelope Island

Riding a horse in the Bison Roundup at Antelope Island is on the Utah Bucket List, and I'm planning to do it next year, so I thought I'd go watch it this year to see how crazy that idea is. I told the kids that we were leaving at the crack of dawn for the adventure.

Jovie made up the following song for the occasion: What is a bison? How furry is it? Bison is pretty furry. Pretty furry doesn't mean pretty. It means furry.


It was a beautiful day with bright skies and no bugs. I think Antelope Island is so interesting and totally undeserving of its stinky/buggy reputation!

These guys were pretty close to the bison barns so they were going to miss out on all the roundup fun.

These little dots are bison just waiting for the cowboys to come and get 'em. There are about 750 bison on the island at the end of the season. After volunteer cowboys round them up and check them out, they set 500 of them back out on the island and sell the rest.

The first thing he wanted to do at the Garr Ranch was to "cross the log bridge". You must have good balance to do this trick!

Ikey took this tumbleweed all over the ranch. He stuck it in our tailgate so it could ride home with us.



Ikey took this photo of me doing a trick with my fingers in a little rock tunnel. Can you see them? Those are his fingers in the left side of the screen.



Those are my fingers in the shot of these cowboys hanging out by the lake. Bet you can see those!

The nicest volunteer ranger talked to us at the visitor's center. He offered to take us on a hike, but suggested that I needed to carry Jovie. I told him that she can hike anywhere, and he was worried, but she did it with no problem. He told me that he did student teaching in the Granite School District, which is where we live now, and he taught art, French and English at "the new Carbon High School" in 1960. Isn't that crazy? Mr. Powell was so nice and I told him to invite us to see his paintings in a gallery or at his house or something. I hope he calls us someday!

The kids insisted on doing this little hike twice. It was too sunny for smiles. There were seven bison lounging just off the trail. That made me think I should carry Jovie.

I think they're taking their squinting faces a little too far.

We ate a burger at the Island Bison Grill (not a Buffalo Burger: "Those are the WORST!") and the kids played in the sand for about an hour. We're coming back next year with more sand toys and we'd even consider taking a dip!

So, I think I will do the round up next year on a rented horse. Ikey said that I don't have any of the right clothes. That's the least of my worries probably.

Jovie's a triple threat

Jovie drew this modern art masterpiece on the laptop. Then she danced like an angel at dance class, and she sang the "Star-Spangled Banner" like a diva. http://youtu.be/WSpjGnfhMOM

What an artist.

Fall Day...

 Ikey brought this treasure home from school today. He says no one told him how to spell the words, and I might just believe that.

We made more chicken noodle soup for dinner because none of us got to eat it at our Peanuts Pumpkin Party. 

We rode bikes to and from school and it was CHILLY in the morning. Plus, I forgot the bike lock, so TB had to drive to school in his PJs to deliver a lock.

Raking up leaves

We have a lot of trees so we have a lot of leaves. The leaf raking activities usually include swinging. And smiling.

Soccer Season Recap

I feel like Fall Soccer was a huge success. We invited four friends to join our team and met six new friends. We (probably) won every game, although there's no official score keeper, and I didn't pay really close attention every time. The kids had a great time on the field and off. Ikey made nine goals. Jovie kicked the ball twice. TB was a cheerful and energetic coach and I had the sidelines totally organized.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjQY3ZK_pkc&feature=youtu.be

 

Ikey drew this picture of a Soccer Train on our coach's folder. Do you see the COAL car is full of soccer balls and they're also coming out of the smoke stack?

Our house is for sale...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPaHrunbxjU

http://tour.circlepix.com/tour/Nitro/loadingPage.htm?tourId=1716354

I greased up every surface with Old English so everything is nice and shiny and slick. The kids aren't allowed to get under their sheets or play with any toys. It should be a delightful few months.

Family Pumpkin Party

Our family parties keep getting derailed by illnesses. This time it was the Preeces and Ikey, who has strep throat. They told me at InstaCare that he has a textbook case of Scarletina, and I didn't know that was Scarlet Fever until I got home and looked it up. I really would have freaked out about the doc being so nonchalant about it. I spend a lot of time feeling lucky about my life (my wonderful husband, my good health, my lovable children, etc.) and today I am marveling about how we live in a world with good health care so I don't have to be afraid of Scarlet Fever. Lots of moms haven't been so lucky, and aren't so lucky.

So everybody who felt like they were immune to strep throat (Bible/Hopewells and Faucheuxes) came over and carved pumpkins and ate dinner. Sean helped Ikey with his pumpkin and Popa and Todd teamed up on Jovie's warty pumpkin. The warty variety has a really hard shell so all three of our cheap little carving sets broke and we gave up after chipping out some crookedy eyes. 

Popa's pumpkin looks a little gruesome, eh?It turned out cute with a crooked smile.

2nd Annual Great Pumpkin Party

We dressed up in our Charlie Brown costumes and made tons of chili and chicken noodle soup. We had lots of friends over (like 60 people!) and ate a lot of treats and watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown on our leafy outdoor theater. It was COLD, but our friends toughed it out.

Family Photos

Here's a little preview...

TB says, "You can't tell it's us." I say, "If you know it's us, you can tell it's us."

The kids were so good, we got them lunch at Caputos and a treat at Carlucci's. Yum!

For the rest of the photos, check out the December unveiling.

Park City Vacation

I dropped the kids off at Grandma's house, picked up TB at the airport, and we headed up to Park City for a little vacation. We had dinner at the bar at the Waldorf Astoria, then stayed in a cozy room with a fireplace and a balcony. We had a leisurely breakfast at the hotel the next morning, then rode our bikes on Armstrong/Ham/Spiro trails. It was great!