The Ultimate Halloween Party, complete with Hay Ride!!!!

Our friends the Dowdys live on about 14 acres (which is RARE around here). They invited us all over for a Halloween costume party. It was nice weather, we had wonderful soup, they took us on a hay ride and even showed us a "haunted house" and we were able to spot two ghosts at the house which really resembled their 2 sons Mason and Caleb :) Then we watched the movie Hocus Pocus. It was such a fun night! They even gave costume awards at the end of the night! How cute! What great friends!

Stefanie Dowdy, the hostess with the mostest :)

What a day off...Pumpkin Carving & Hewitt Trick-or-Treating!!!!

It was so nice that the kids had school off on Friday, my main goal for the day was to carve our pumpkins. I knew Matt would be excited if we did it without him :) The kids drew the face, and scraped out the inside and I did the cutting. It was such a fun afternoon. Later we got to go to Matt's work for the annual Hewitt Trick-or-Treating. This is the only time we really get to see the people Matt works with and it is fun to see how much their kids have grown up! What a wonderful Day!!! It didn't end there....Luke had baseball practice and then we had the Dowdy's party! Whew, this has been a week of non-stop partying!

Trunk-or-Treat

Tonight was the ward Trunk-or-Treat and Chili cook off .....needless to say the kids were ECSTATIC! We had a great turn out and the kids had a great time!

I LOVE this picture. It's CLASSIC. I can see them laughing their heads off at themselves in the future with Cooper loving his cupcake and Gavin acting goofy:)

The 3 Amigos Fitness

Luke had 2 friends over today after school. Ethan and Grant are quite his little buddies lately and his teacher referred to them as the 3 Amigos. They are all about the same height and the same masculine build :) So today after playing video games, running from Emma, and playing on Luke's bunk bed they ended up outside running around. It was SO hot today that I didn't think they would want to go outside. They started to play football and soon they had taken their shirts off and were feeling quite manly :) Their football playing led them to quite the workout. After Ethan went home I heard Luke and Grant go upstairs and I went up to see what they were up to. Luke's door was closed and locked and I heard them kind of grunting, I was worried they were wrestling on the bunk bed and might fall off so I unlocked the door and opened it. They were exercising! :) They were busy doing push ups, sit ups, the cutest squats I've ever seen, and running in place with knees up high in front of them. Soon they carried their vigorous exercise routine outside and they took a couple of jogs around the back yard. Then they took their aggression out on each other and they had quite the wrestling match. I was so impressed :) Of course I had to grab the camera and of course Luke will die of embarrassment if he ever reads this post. Sorry Luke, I just know you will want to see what steps you took at a young age to be the buffest kid EVER!

The observers

Here are a couple of pictures that Grant's mom has taken when they've been together....

Pumpkin Day

Today was Pumpkin Day at Luke's school and I got to go and help. They had all kinds of fun stations: the first station they got to frost and decorate cookies, and make pumpkin smoothies (vanilla ice cream, scoop of pumpkin pie filling, cinnamon, and syrup). Next they made pumpkin poems and tried to see how many words they could come up with using the letters SCARECROW. Then they make cute little scarecrows using popsicle sticks. (see picture) Then they got to plant pumpkin seeds. And last I was at the station where they got to measure, and weigh their pumpkin and then see if it would float or sink. To my surprise they all FLOATED! I mean now that I think about it it makes sense, they are pretty hollow and have a lot of air inside, but even the big 18 lb. pumpkins float! Hmmmm, I am so glad that I can go help at these elementary school parties so I can learn something :) It was a fun day and I am so glad that Luke isn't too old to come and give me a big hug when I first get there :)

Emma's Buffalo Wild Wings

Emma has started a restaurant in the play room. Here is the menu, what would you like???? :)

In case you don't read Kindergarten writing it says:

• Pickle Salad
• Waffles
• Cookies
• Chocolate
• Cream
• Some delicious stuff
• Delicious stuff
  

Bunk Bed!!!

Gavin is now a big boy and needed a big boy bed. He shares a room with Luke and their room is TINY so bunk beds were a necessity. Here they are.....the boys LOVE their new bunk!

Fall Festival 2009

Every year the kid's school puts on this big Fall Festival as the big fundraiser for the year and every year it is a blast. They have face painting, fake tattooing, bounce houses, a cake walk, balloon artists, games, food, and each class donates items to their themed class basket and then they auction the baskets off. They also have tons of other items they auction off....this year I WON SOMETHING!!!! There was a silent auction and I bid $20 on this birthday party package and I won! It is a big deal! I have always wanted Emma to have a birthday party at the gymnastics place here, but it costs $250 to have the party there! I am not going to pay that much...but I will pay $20 :) It's so funny because I was just thinking that I should start planning her party now because right after Halloween it seems that life gets crazy and then before I know it Thanksgiving is over and I'm always scrambling to plan a last minute party for Emma. NOT THIS YEAR!!!!! YEA! We also bid on another thing that I THOUGHT was tickets to the performance of Wizard of Oz that the local kids theater puts on, but as I read the certificate that I got it is $75 off tuition for Emma to be IN the performance. Ooops. I can't wait until Emma comes home from school today to see if she wants to be IN it :)

Anyway it was a very fun night. Emma won one of the cakes in the cake walk after trying for about 2 hours :) They started out with over 100 cakes and by the time she won there were only 5 cakes left and they were the gross ones that no one wanted, so she ended up with a small pecan pie that she brought home for Matt. She didn't care, she was just glad she won. Bragging rights mean more to Emma then a dumb cake :)

The school made $9,000 at the festival!

No I didn't get a nose job, I'm just a KLUTZ!!!!

I swear I do the weirdest things!!!!! The other night we got the boys a bunk bed. Matt was such a champ and had the thing almost built by the time I came home from my meeting. I tried to be helpful and decided to vacuum where the crib used to be. I was on my hands and knees using the little hose part of the vacuum to get the corners. I pulled on the cord a little bit to move it out of the way and instead pulled the vacuum down on my nose!!!!! I stopped and held it, I thought I would have a nice little bruise there. Matt asked what happened and when I looked up at him I was TOTALLY surprised when he said "Sar I think you need stitches!" WHAT!!!!???? I was simply vacuuming! So at 11:00 at night I drove myself to the after hours walk-in clinic. The doctor decided she wouldn't stitch it (thank goodness) but instead she put on steri strips that will hopefully be falling off in the next couple of days. I look like a NERD!!!!! Matt calls me Poindexter. Anyway it is quite embarrassing. Of course I had a PTA meeting, Young Womens, and a meeting with Luke's teacher the NEXT DAY! I wore sunglasses most the day. Why am I such a klutz???? I ran into one neighbor and she thought I got a nose job :)