Halloween: Round Two- The Party

Halloween must be really fun when you get into it. People do. I love looking at their decorations and elaborate costumes. I just can't seem to muster up the energy for it. I wish I could. Then I wouldn't be in the predicament I put myself into last night.

The Haurtiz Halloween party is a tradition. We look forward to it every year and it's always fun. I know that it will take place sometime near October 31st and that costumes are required. I have been thinking, maybe stressing is a better word, about a costume for me. But I just couldn't commit to anything. So I procrastinated, which left me on a frantic costume search 10 minutes before it was time to leave. Lucky for me, Noah's 1st grade Ninja costume is really stretchy. I did have to cut off the legs though because it was riding high and that was not a comfortable feeling. On the plus side, I got to wear comfy yoga pants. Matt figured out his cub scout costume on the way home from work.
Thankfully, Leanne sent us a box of costumes so I didn't even have to think about costumes for the kids. Last week Noah went for the pirate look and then switched it up with a Slash costume. Ben is Jango Fett and Zacky found some vampire teeth which inspired his choice. (For some reason I feel like I need to clarify that.)

Here's Chad & Angie's cute costumes:
Zack told me today that we need to go online and find where Cathie gets all of her Halloween decorations. The house was completely decked out with spooky stuff everywhere.
Ken made a witches brew and we ate way, way, way too much food. Thank goodness for the stretchy pants.
What's the first thing you think about when you see this picture?
Answer: Wow, where did they get that amazing Fear Factor sign? A sign so realistic and professional must have been purchased on e-bay or something. No. One of Cathie's many talents is her ability to work with butcher paper. This impresses me. Really, really impresses me.

Even though Ken went easy on the food choices for Fear Factor (canned pumpkin, peas, sweetened condensed milk, sprouts, spam & dark chocolate) once again the kids were wimpy. Don't they realize that they are the primary entertainment at these parties? It's hilarious to watch a kid eat something they don't want to. Believe me, it's funny, until they start gagging then it gets kind of gross.
Grace gave it a valiant effort and though she couldn't complete it on time, I think she did finish her sweetened condensed milk/pea cocktail. Dipping her chocolate square into the milk was a stroke of genius.
Zack wanted to be a contender. He just couldn't swallow his chocolate or eat the Spam. He did eat the peas. When he was crying on my lap later on because he was out and he didn't want to be out, his excuse was that he was full. I highly doubt that the 5 bites of pork tenderloin he ate at dinner could have filled him up, but I was there to comfort him not to argue. He did calm down when he learned that he did better than his big brothers because neither of them even tried the food.
That's to be expected with Ben, but with $10 on the line, I would have thought Noah would have at least tried the pumpkin. No deal. We'll be implementing a Fear Factor training schedule so that we can have a better showing next year. It was way to easy for Ian to win.

Thanks to Ken and Cathie for another terrific party. I was surprised that Ken didn't dress up. I thought it was mandatory.

Halloween: Round One

Celebrating Halloween is hard work. There are pumpkins to carve, decorations to place (Zack is still unsatisfied with our level of spookiness), and costumes to wear, and wear and wear. I swear the kids have to dress up a million times before it's all said and done. But I'm the only one complaining.

Saturday morning the kids went to our ward carnival. Cookies, candy, movies..all lots of fun.

It was such a nice day outside, and since they were already in their costumes, I figured we might as well check out Boo at the Zoo. We had a two hour block between the party ending and Noah's soccer team party which I thought should have been plenty of time. I didn't anticipate spending 30 minutes trying to convince the boys to go. Ben's been looking forward to it all week, but he is no match for Noah's powers of persuasion, or should I say coercion. Eventually I won the battle (Noah is no match for me) and we went to Salt Lake.

I also didn't anticipate that 1/3 of the state of Utah would also want to trick or treat at the zoo. By the time we got to the zoo entrance we had 30 minutes. Except for some cheap candy, it was actually really fun. So much fun that Noah felt bad that he was the reason we didn't get to spend more time. Someday he will figure out that I am always right.

Ben really wanted to high five the Chick-fil-A cow. Unfortunately, the cow was easily distracted so we had to settle for this:
This is what 1/2 hour of trick or treating at the zoo will get you:
We eventually figured out that it was worth checking out the candy before committing to a line. Butterscotch candies? Seriously, I didn't see any elderly people dressed up in costumes. They should come though because they were also giving out sparkle mints. It wasn't a total waste of time, we did get free chicken nuggets coupons from Chick-Fil-A and some businesses gave out candy you'd actually want to eat.

Daughter-in-Law

Here she is. Zack's future wife.
When pressed he wasn't revealing any names, so I don't think he has anyone in particular in mind. Right now, she's just a figment of his imagination. If you notice her shoes are diamonds and her dress is very fancy. She will have brown eyes and long flowing hair. His previous magna-doodle was of a wedding cake, which prompted me to pull out our wedding photos to show him mine. I thought I might impress him because it had purple flowers in it. It was also three separate cakes. He was disappointed. His wedding cake will be three layers stacked on top of each other. He was considering candles but decided that wouldn't be appropriate.

One other random Zack thing. His papers from preschool are coming home with his name spelled like this, which is also how I am now required to spell it.

Fall Fun

Though it's already been established that our street is better than yours, here is further proof: The 2nd Annual WWW Chili Cook Off and Pumpkin Carving Party.

Carving pumpkins is such a messy job that it is best to carve as many as possible at the same time so that you can make the biggest mess possible. Also, include paint so that it can be super duper messy.

Then (if you are one of my kids) pick a pattern that is beyond your skill level, but insist on using only that pattern, and then walk away after one cut so that Matt or I will finish for you. Good plan, now go play. We'll do all the dirty work.

The chili competition was stiff. This year there were 7 contenders. All of them delicious.

But only one can reign supreme and earn the title of, well there isn't actually a title, but there is a cool yard stake.

Matt isn't just holding the stake, he won it!! Oh and we'll be flaunting his victory for awhile. Anyone who drives down our street will know, without a doubt, who makes the best chili.

And, in what can only be described as a quest for cook off dominance, Megan, last year's chili winner, showed up with amazing corn bread and won the broom for the most wicked corn bread. Will she ever stop? Can she be stopped? Would it be rude not to invite her next year?

Maybe we ought to add a best cupcake competition.

I don't think we'll have any problem finding judges.

Living the Dream

Every year I want to take my kids through a corn maze, but then I usually cheap out ($10.50/person!). I have always wanted to go to one, and Thanksgiving Point, aka Cornbelly's, makes them like this:
So awesome huh. I was stoked, when the idea came up to go for our combined ym/yw activity. Next year we'll probably plan something else. First of all, taking 29 twelve to eighteen year olds anywhere is hard work. The fine people at Cornbelly's know that, so they give you a very serious talking to before entering the maze. It seems that they have some experience with church groups and apparently church groups are trouble. There is no running, no picking corn, no eating corn (really?!) and most importantly no throwing corn. Oh and don't cut through the maze. The guy was really serious. He didn't smile once.

There are several options for exploring David Archuleta's head and torso. Feeling confident, we went for the more difficult option number two. That was our first, of many, mistakes. In order to complete the maze the way it was intended you must find various numbered markers and correctly answer the trivia question. I figured that since half of the girls intend to marry him they would be Archuleta experts. Not so, after last night, I don't think any of our girls can legitimately consider themselves "arch angels," let alone future Mrs. Archuletas.

We found our first number fine but it was all down hill from there. We found markers just not in order. We eventually gave up the whole find the marker idea in favor of just wandering. Wandering is a good plan if you like to back track and go in circles. But isn't that the fun of a corn maze? It might have have been fun except that it was cold and there were other youth groups (not ours) running around and throwing corn. I got a cob right across the face.

Eventually we figured out that the answers were printed upside down along the bottom of the page. How ingenious. But knowing the correct answers is useless if you can't find the markers and if you don't know the difference between right and left. We followed another smarter group around and finally found a bridge where we could see the way out. It only took us 1 hour and 45 minutes. Is that bad?

And so it begins....

At least they are happy about it.

The Saratoga Sting

Noah is our sports kid. He wanted to start playing soccer before he was three. Since he turned four, he has been on nine city league teams. He loves it.
It's been fun watching him improve. This spring we decided it was time to start competitive soccer. All summer he was up at 7:00 on Monday, Wednesday & Friday mornings so that he could condition with his team. He had practices on Tuesday and Thursday nights. When the season started I could really see the improvement in his ability to handle the ball and run the field.
Noah isn't super competitive. He loves to play and won't freak out if they don't win. His ability to keep a level head during a game resulted in the coach making him team captain. Besides being able to tell the other players where to go & what to do during the game he also got to do this:
The Sting finished the season with 5 wins, 4 losses and 1 tie. Noah doesn't always agree with the final score. Usually on the drive home he'll award and take away goals as he deems necessary. For being a first year team, I think they did really well. We had a couple of hard losses but also a few blow outs of our own. I think the last team we played will think twice before they make us sit facing the sun. At least they didn't have to shade their eyes to watch our team obliterate them 9-0.
This season's games have been more entertaining too. Soccer is so much better to watch when the players understand the sport. They all actually know which goal is ours, can play their position (for the most part), & they even pass the ball around. Sometimes they run a play and it works. It's been amazing. The funniest game though was when both teams and the referees were wearing yellow jerseys. That can get very confusing. There was only one thing to do and it was pretty amusing. Good thing it was still warm.
I am a miserable soccer photographer. We don't keep track of how many goals he scores, he scored plenty, but I only have video of one. A penalty kick which, even then, I barely got.


We have a little break before we start up indoor soccer this winter. It is time consuming and I am dreading the driving, but Noah loves it too much to stop.

Spooky

Ever since he came home and saw the Dobson's pumpkins Zack has been pestering me to get out our Halloween decorations. I don't have very many and I wasn't planning on buying anything new. I am just not feeling that vibe. I've been way too busy to even think about witches and ghosts. Instead I have been trying to convince him that decorations are unnecessary because our house is so messy that it is scary. He is not buying it.

A few days ago he showed me a dryer sheet and told me that it looks kind of like a spider web. Later that day I found he put it here:

I know pathetic when I see it, (and I needed to be able to throw away his spider web decoration) so the next day we headed to the store to find some decorations. Last year Smith's went all out with the automated Halloween characters. They scared Zacky to death. I had to avoid that aisle and any check stands near it. I assumed that he would love all the floral and leaf arrangements. Pretty, I guess, is not for Halloween. This year he is all about scary stuff. And he is picky about what he wants for decorations. After three stores, he didn't find any decorations that he liked enough to beg me to buy. We ended up with an official spider web, that we still need to put somewhere, some pumpkins, window clings and 25 feet of skull garland:

He thinks it looks "spooky." I am just hoping this will satisfy him. Something tells me it won't.

Happy Birthday to me... a week ago

My birthday was last week. It's really not a big deal for me. But all my boys love a good celebration. Matt stayed up late so that I would wake up to this.
I really need to let him do the birthday signs. He is much more creative. Ben loved the "bubble letters."

Noah, Ben & Zack all went out of their way to make it a good day for me. I didn't resort to "don't ruin my birthday" one time. Noah's gift to me was that his soccer team would win their game, which they did. Thanks to Lynne for baking this yummy cake and letting Zack decorate it. That was a double present.
After such a great day, I didn't think it could get any better, but a year ago I bought this on my birthday:

This year, for my birthday:

This birthday will be tough to beat... I'm thinking next year: Hawaii!?!