Weekend Update

A busy weekend for us. On Saturday morning we had gymnastics as usual - the kids always love that. Then Saturday night we had a ward party and Trunk or Treat. We had a great time! The kids dressed up as Uniqua (Haley), Tyrone (Preston), and a dragon (Brekken). They were super cute and I'll post pictures as soon as I can. They had a wonderful time going around to all the cars and trick or treating and have been working on the candy ever since (when they can convince us to let them into the treat bags, anyway). The party also included a chili cook-off... let me tell you, there are a LOT of HOT chili recipes out there in our ward!!

And speaking of the ward, we had changes at church this weekend as well. A couple of weeks ago announced a suprise meeting for the whole stake with a general authority. Turns out that it's a new church policy that they send general authorities out to meet with all the stake presidents and bishops in a mission for training purposes, then they go out and hold stake meetings with the membership on the following Sunday. We really wished they would have told us that much from the start, instead of letting the rumors of splitting the stake (ours needs it, there's 12 units and some of them are HUGE) or releasing the stake presidency run wild. So we got to the meeting more than an hour early and still only got seats in the cultural hall - and since we were there so early, the kids (ours and Michelle's) melted down pretty much as soon as the meeting started. We ended up leaving early :( But then we had a 2nd set of meetings in the afternoon and they did realign our ward boundaries for the wards in our building. We had 2 enormous wards and 2 tiny wards so they tried to balance that out. We lost only 2 families (unfortunately, one was our good friends) but gained around 20 families. So we're excited to get all these new people in the ward! Aaron is now the only member of the Young Men's presidency left in the ward, so he's hoping some of those new members get called into Young Men's very quickly!

Photo Tag

Saw this one on Melissa's blog and thought it seemed fun. To play along, go to your Photos file, open the 6th folder and then the 6th picture, post it and explain it.




My grandma and grandpa just celebrated their 60th anniversary! This is their wedding photo from back in 1938. I have it on my computer because I was cleaning it up to send the digital version to the newspaper for the 60th anniversary announcement. Congratulations to them on the huge accomplishment of 60 YEARS of marriage!

Okay, TAG... you're it! =)

Works for Me Wednesday

I found a great site that lists bunches of tips and tricks that various people have come up with for making life easier. Basically, every Wednesday you post your own tip - something that works for you to make life simpler. I thought I'd give it a shot! So here's my WFMW idea...



Every year for Halloween, I buy candy to hand out. And every year, we have leftovers from what we hand out, plus the extras from the kids' trick or treat bags (the stuff they don't eat Halloween night). It always ends up just sitting around for months until we finally throw out all the hard, stale wasted candy. So to minimize that this year, I'm not buying candy to hand out to trick or treaters!

Instead, I went online and found a good deal on lightsticks. I bought 100 lightsticks to hand out instead of candy. Every kid I've known loves to play with lightsticks, so it should go over well with trick or treaters. And if there are leftovers, my kids will love to play with them! (And unlike extra candy, I won't feel like it's bad for the kids if I hand over the leftovers ;D )

For lots of amazing tips, or to add your own, visit Works for Me Wednesday at Rocks in My Dryer!

Fall Festival

On Saturday we met up with Michelle (our sitter), her husband Joel, and their son Taylor and went to Anderson Farms for their Fall Festival. They have a huge corn maze, and some smaller hay bale mazes, a barrel train, petting zoo, food, pick your own pumpkin patch, all kinds of stuff! We were obviously not the only ones to think it was a good day to visit the farm (75 degrees and sunny, it was great!) because the place was packed! There were hundreds of cars in the parking lot and long lines for about everything the kids wanted to do. We had fun anyway =)

We loaded the boys into the double stroller - not so much because Preston couldn't walk on his own, but because we can't keep up with him if (when) he takes off running!

Haley & Preston wanted a picture with their heads and hands in the picture board, but Preston couldn't reach the head hole - so he improvised. =)

The kids desperately wanted to ride the barrel train - it was kind of like Disneyland; a long, long wait followed by a 3 minute ride. But they had fun. Aaron was a good sport and rode the train so that Preston could go - we were afraid if Preston went without Daddy he might decide to jump out halfway through the ride.


Brekken didn't get to go on the train and looked terribly bored while we waited for the others to come back.


Haley enjoyed feeding the goats.


Haley, Preston & Taylor in the pumpkin patch.


The kids all wanted their faces painted.


Aaron & I got a kick out of the signs posted around the farm - seems like an effective threat to me!

Catching up...

Well it's been about a week since I last posted, and what a week it's been! Poor Preston was sick for quite a while and had us pretty worried for a day or two. But he's bounced back now and is back to himself. Luckily Brekken was only sick for about 1 day and Haley never got sick at all!

Unfortunately, because Preston was sick we decided we couldn't make the trip to Idaho for Logan's baptism. =( We were sad to not be able to see everyone - especially since Laura had her baby on Friday morning and we were going to detour down to see her and the new baby. So meeting Coby will have to wait, but we're eagerly waiting for pictures!

For my birthday on Monday, Aaron and I were both off work, since we were supposed to have been in Idaho; it was nice to have the day off! I got to go get a massage and then Aaron and the kids and I went out for lunch. I got several books and CDs I've been wanting (and some cash, which is always fun!). Aaron also got me the DVDs of a BBC comedy series I love, so we've been watching those at night and really enjoying that. If you ever get the chance to watch "My Hero" on PBS or BBC America, it's hilarious!

Yuck!

Not a fun couple of days at our house! Preston started throwing up Friday night and the poor kid is still throwing up this morning. Brekken started throwing up on Sunday, but seems to be over it now. Knock on wood, Aaron, Haley & Tara have not come down with whatever this is.

Luckily, Preston doesn't seem to be much bothered by his illness. Most of the time he doesn't act particularly sick - he'll be running around playing, then stop to throw up, then go back to playing. I don't know where he's getting all that energy on a diet of plain toast, applesauce, boiled rice, and ginger ale (most of which comes back up anyway!).

Here's hoping he gets over this soon and no one else comes down with it - this could put a real crimp in our plans to drive to Idaho on Friday!

Brekken

Brekken started eating some solid foods this week - he doesn't really have the hang of it yet, but he's enjoying himself.

And here's a picture of Brekken in his Iowa jersey. It was originally Preston's and he thinks Brekken should give it back to him! But we were finally able to convince Preston that it didn't really fit him anymore.

Starting Out in October

Here we are in October already! Time has flown by this year. I'm sure that being out of work from January until July helped with that! It seems like just yesterday that Brekken was born, and yet here he is almost 5 months old. He's so big and starting to do things like sit up and play with toys and grow up on me already!

We're looking forward to this month in our family. We have a trip planned to Idaho for our nephew Logan's baptism, Tara's birthday, and of course - Halloween! Haley is really looking forward to Halloween this year. She already has her costume and wears it often. She also spends a lot of time looking through the Oriental Trading Company catalog planning the treats that we should buy to hand out to trick or treaters. Preston also enjoys dressing up in his costume, though he doesn't get what it's all about. Brekken will be along for the ride. I'm looking forward to the Halloween party at work where I get to bring in my cute kiddos and show them off to everyone!