Trunk-or-Treat

This year our ward had to have their annual trunk-or-treat early because of some kind of stake training this weekend.  It didn't matter to us since all we cared about was the candy (JK)!!  The boys had fun, and Logan especially had a blast dancing (albeit all by himself) at the dance afterwards.

 Isn't he too freakin' cute?!  (He's a dalmation, not a sheep.)  All of our boys have now worn this costume.  It's been well worth the $.

 Cole was a skeleton, which he was totally stoked about (for some reason).  The costume was so tight that it was going up his little tushy.  Too cute!

Logan, and I can't belive I let him buy this, was a "Fart-o-Meter".  It even had a little funnel to hold up to your butt to measure the fart.  If you look closely you can see the meter.  Quite lovely, isn't it?!

Alain was his classic '70s prom guy, and I was Sue Sylvester from the greatest show ever "Glee".  Not very many people got who I was, but the ones who did are uber-cool in my book :)

 Alain had to put Ty down because he was getting too heavy to carry, and he popped a squat right there in the middle of the road right in front of the trick-or-treaters.  He just wanted to grub on that candy!

Since he was holding up the line Alain took him across the way to stuff his face.

Alain was quite a hit with his costume.  One of the sister missionaries was laughing so hard she had to take a picture of him.  Of course he was happy to oblige (with a great disco pose, too).

As always we had a lot of fun at our annual ward trunk-or-treat.

Grace's Pumpkin Patch

 Our ward went to a local pumpkin patch that helps raise money for a farm they have here that let's people ride their horses. (I don't know if that's exactly right, but it's something like that.)

I've seen plenty of sand pits, but never a corn pit.  If you look closely those are corn kernels.  Maybe I just need to get out more ;)

 This is a picture of Cole and his new friend Jay just before their turn to ride the horses.  Jay is very much like Cole, ie: likes Star Wars, video games, and Legos, so it has been a perfect fit.  Every morning he asks if he can play with Jay.

 This was Cole's first time on a horse, and he took to it like a natural!

 He loved it!  See, thumbs up :)

 He thought it was great that he got to pedal around in a tractor.  It took some getting used to, though.  I had to help him get unstuck at the first corner.  

The second picture is of him getting all three of his ring tosses on the pumpkin on the first try!!

 I swear to you he was at this "duck race" for at least 30 minutes if not more.

 They did a quick run through the corn maze and were very proud that they found their way out so quickly.

Cole was quite upset that I wouldn't let him buy a pumpkin.  He thought he had found the perfect pumpkin.  (We had already gotten 5 free ones so, no, I'm not a mean mommy.)

It was a lot of fun, and thank you Susan for setting this up for us :)

Fall Crafting.... Project #4

This was a super simple project I found on a blog one day.  I wish I could remember where, but I stalk look at so many that I can't recall which one had the idea.

Thank you to my mom for sending me the vinyl and the pattern for the bats.

Thank you to my awesome hubby for painstakingly cutting them out for me.

 These are in my dining room.  Super cute, huh?!

These are in my entry way.  

Loves it!!

Fall Crafting....Projects #2 and #3

Here are the second and third things I attempted to do for our fall decorations.  I still have to get some glitter spray for the feather boa wreath, but I think it looks okay as is.  I'll think on that one.  Thank you to the girls who helped with the "BOO" wreath last night.  I still think mine looks funky, but oh well.  This is more crafts I've ever done in one year, so I should be proud of myself, right?!  I still have one more fall craft that I want to do.  I just have to see if I can flirt the Home Depot guy into cutting a huge 2x4 board for me into a million pieces (not a million, just every 3-5").

 It looks better in person.

This one doesn't look better in person ;)

Now I have to start stalking looking at blogs for some Christmas decorations!

Fiesta Time!

We went to the annual ABQ Balloon Fiesta this year.  We were so happy to find out that we moved right in time to see it :)  There are so many different times you can go to see the balloons, but we didn't want to pay for every time we wanted to go.  So, after much deliberation we chose to see the special shapes and the balloon glow.  However, after the amount of people that were at the special shapes show, we decided to forgo the balloon glow because we didn't want people running over Ty in the stroller.  Next year we will definitely see the glow, though.  We've seen pictures and can't wait to see it in person.

 ***I have no clue why this post is being nasty to me.  When blogger stops being mean, I'll try to fix the pics.***

Cole's 1st Soccer Game!!!

Cole played his first soccer game this past Saturday.  He did great!  The first time he came up to the ball he picked it up (which Alain had told him repeatedly not to do), but he realized what he did and put it right back down.  There were not enough players to rotate, so he played the entire game.  Poor thing, he was sick too!  The coach saw that he was hacking up and down the field, so she put him in the goalie position.  Guess what?!  He blocked a goal!!  Overall, it was a good game, and his team won :)

Go, Cole!  We're so proud of you :)

**I tried to upload the videos Alain took, but they weren't working.  Maybe next time you'll be able to see the little guy in action ;)

Exercise and Fun

After having moved here to ABQ we found out that a gym membership for both Alain and I, including day care for the kiddies, would be $180 A MONTH!!!!  Back home we were paying $35 for both of us and the day care.  Needless to say, we're not joining a gym anytime soon.  I've gained 10 lbs since moving here, so I decided that I needed to get some exercise (stress will do that to ya).  Anyone who knows me knows that that simple task is not an easy one for me.  With my hip needing replaced and my knee on the fritz, it's hard for me to find things to do that won't put me in massive pain all day, every day (I'm not 80, I've only turned 30 2 times; I'm just a lemon).  I decided I wanted to get a bike trailer so that I could get outside (we only have 1 car, so I'm stuck at home everyday) as well as the kids could see the sun from outside our house.  FYI:  the park is out of the question since I have a dare-devil for a 19 month old.

Needless to say, I love it and the kids love it.

 See how I can lock them in there?!

Condomints (yes, I meant to spell it that way)

We were at one of our family's favorite stores last Friday night (Costco!), and as we were waiting in the check-out line, Logan (our 10 year old) and I had a conversation that went something like this:

Logan:  Mom, did you know I have to watch something called a puberty video this year?

Me:  Yes, I did hear that.  (I heard from another mom that they teach the kids how to masturbate.  Not happy with that one.)

Logan:  Yeah, one of my friends said that they're going to hand out condomints.  What are condomints?

Me:  (OMG)  Interesting.  We'll have to talk about this later.

First of all, I don't think it's okay for the ABQ school districts to MAKE our children watch this video.  From hearsay, they do not allow the parents to opt out of their child seeing the video.  Alain and I want to be able to talk to Logan about these sorts of things, which of course we'll do before he watches the video at school.  I am very torn between my 10 year old son needing to know about masturbating and condomints (condoms for those a little bit slower).  I know he's going to find out sooner rather than later.  I guess I just want to keep him young forever.  

Does anybody out there have any advice to give me about this?  How do we have this conversation with our 10 year old?  Should we tell him EVERYTHING (even about condomints)?

Fall Crafting... Project #1

I've been feeling kind of crafty since I've got nothing to do here in ABQ, so I decided to stalk look at blogs to find some cute things to attempt to make while I'm dying of boredom.  This first project was totally easy to do!  It's made by mod podging napkins onto pumpkins that I found at a craft store.  My pumpkins are ceramic, but you could use any kind you wanted to.  I've got a number of things I'm still going to do, and hopefully I won't end up spending too much money on a million things that I don't have room to store ;) 

Cinnamon Buns

This conference weekend we were able to chillax as a family, which was SO nice.  Last week seemed never-ending with all of the things we had to do.  Only having one car puts a damper on when I can run my errands, so our weeknights and weekends are packed with doing those errands or running the kids around to the various things they have going on.  

So, sorry about the ranting there, getting back to the original point of this post ;).  This conference weekend we were stoked because we all knew that Sunday morning we would be able to partake of the most delicious breakfast:  monkey brains.  Now if you don't know what "monkey brains" are it's a type of dessert/breakfast dish made with frozen bread and lots of sugary goodness.  You bake it in the oven and partake of it with yummy cream cheese frosting.  We started this tradition because Alain's family always had cinnamon rolls on Sunday morning conference.  His mom would make homemade cinnamon rolls and everyone would veg-out watch conference.  I, however, am not a great homemaker, so I always bought Cinnabon buns.  This got too expensive, so I started making monkey brains (which taste just like a cinnamon roll, just made in a bundt pan).  Fast forward to this last weekend... and we are tight on money.  This meant I wouldn't be able to spend the $ on Rhodes Rolls (because I'm cheap trying to make more things from scratch to help with my homemaking skills).  I had the grand idea to make my own cinnamon rolls.  Wow, was it an adventure!!  My great friend Liz gave me a recipe that she said was great, so I forged ahead.  After about 6 hours, I had homemade cinnamon rolls, and they weren't that bad!  I'm feeling a lot better about my bread baking skills, so I've got a lot more recipes I'm going to try.  Hopefully they'll be even better than my now infamous Conference Cinnamon Rolls :)

Doesn't that look deeelicious?!

Three Blind (By Blind I Mean Dead) Mice **Warning: May Gross Out Viewers**

**If any of you are wondering why I'm posting this ridiculously disgusting entry, it's because my gross husband made me!!!

When we moved into the house we're renting (which was vacant for a while and right next to a gigantic field) Alain and I heard some scratching outside our bedroom wall. We thought nothing of it because it sounded like the birds that scratched outside our bedroom in LV. One day Alain went outside to see if there was any bird poop so that he could start killing (I don't mean this literally) the little flappers with his lovely dart gun he bought specifically for this purpose. Guess what he found? NOTHING. OMG!!! That meant, as so he told me, that we had mice. (See me almost fainting, here.) I told him we had to call the rental agency (thankfully remembering that we wouldn't have to fork out a bunch of our $$$ for this) right away and get somebody out here ASAP. So, like most husbands do, he didn't. It wasn't until our son found a huge hole in one of his fruit snack wrappers as he was packing his lunch that Alain got some fire lit under his butt. I won't forget to mention the hundreds of little mouse poop I found littering our garage after Logan told me this!! Whatever it takes, right? The very nice "Mouse Guy" as we so affectionately call him came within a few days and said he didn't find anything to suggest we had mice. I told him we could hear them scurrying and chewing on stuff in our attic (see me dry heaving, here). To make a long story semi-short, he has come back 3 times and finally this last time caught 3 mice. We haven't heard them since, so hopefully we're rodent free now. If not, I might literally SCREAM (and not the nice kind of screaming, unless as by nice you mean a bunch of 4-letter words).

Here are the culprits:

Tierra Antigua Fall Festival

**This is going to be picture overload, but I don't care ;)**

Last Friday Logan's school had a Fall Festival to raise moneys for their school. We went as a family and had a lot of fun. There were these little things you sat on and used your arms to steer and make go. Cole did it, and I'm so bummed I didn't get a picture because it was hilarious! He was supposed to be weaving in and out of his cones, but he had gone all the way to the other side of the black top. The teacher in charge of this activity did not think it was as hilarious as I did. I was sending her evil-eye messages and telling her, telepathically of course, to lighten up. Overall it was a fun night for the kids, and that's all that matters. But no more paying out the wazoo for these school activities. Oh wait, I have a jog-a-thon to pay for next week!!

Abby and Cole
(one of my best friend's girls)

Daryn and Logan
(again, one of my best friend's girls)

Classic fishing game.

He loved this one. I think he played it like 3 times.

Isn't Cole's face hilarious?! I often wonder what in the world he's thinking....

This game was REALLY hard! You had to lift up a rubber ducky to see if there was a dot on the bottom of it. Good thing Cole's super smart!!

Cammi and Logan
(the last of my best friend's girls)

I Want to be a Missionary Now

When I take a shower Cole and Ty always play in our closet, preferably in the dirty clothes pile. Gross, I know. It doesn't matter how many times I tell them that it's gross, or to put them back, they still end up burying themselves in the clothes. The other day Cole walked out with Alain's shirt on. I thought it was adorable and it reminded me of the church picture in our building of the little boy in a way-too-big suit with a missionary tag on. So I asked Cole if he wanted to be a missionary, and his reply was, "Yeah, then I can wear one of those jackets all the time." I thought it was funny, and also very poignant because Cole has noticed that the elders wear their suits. Anyway, it was quite a hilarious day for us.

Do you like the church shoes, too? He kept tripping every two steps!

Of course Ty had to get in on the action. The crusty, dirty, shirt he picked was not "missionary attire" though.

When Alain came home and saw the shirt where Ty shed it, he asked if that wasn't a dirty shirt. I said it was and he was disgusted with me. You moms know that playing with dirty laundry is a battle not worth fighting, right?!

**Please ignore all the crap strewn about the house in the background of the pics. I hadn't gone through WWIII yet that day to get all the toys picked up.**