Fun fall decorating

I kind of skipped over my summer decorating. The only thing I decorate for is patriotic and I don't have much stuff anyway. I did, however, do a little front room change up, which I will post about soon. For now, I just wanted to share my Halloween decor and ideas since I've been doing that all year for holidays. Now that I've decorated I'd better get started on my kids Halloween costumes. Daniel and Landon have some crazy ideas and I don't know how I'm going to pull it off. But I will! BTW- Sorry about all the side pictures, and sorry that the quality isn't better. I think a better camera might show off how these things look in real life, because it's much better than the pictures. We do what we can, but you get the idea!

Cute little school projects the kids have done. I think they are always honored that I keep and display things like this!

This is a favorite decoration of mine. I got this at Rodworks a few years ago

These pictures didn't turn like I asked them to. I wrapped the candles with a strip of scrapbook paper and a piece of twine and I think they make a fun little difference. The little hanging pictures are just cardstock and stickers. I made those the first year we were married and just store them in a book each year. They've held up great and were cheap and easy!

Just a little close-up of one of the cards- the writing was just done with a silver metallic pen.

This picture should be by the entry way table picture, but these are some fun patterns I created and stitched.

I just thought this was a cute Halloween pillow- found it at IKEA for $2.99

This is the other side of it- so fun!

There are really cute Halloween frames to make or buy (I got this one at Kohl's) to display fun memories of past years.

My entry way table

Another fun picture- Halloween 2001. The little bird and the candelabra are from the dollar store (it's much more glittery in person) I painted the glass in the white frame with chalkboard paint. Now I can use it year round and just change the sayings!

D.I. candle stick, dollar store pumpkins and dollar store ribbon!

Sorry about all the side pics! I added this wreath to the wall and I love it there! Usually I hang it on my front door, but this is way better.

Just a simple fall garland and more pumpkins. The window pane is new to this wall, but is a great way to use an old window pane! I LOVE this!

Daniel's pumpkin for the contest at school. Isn't it cute?

I made this to put at my Mom's grave. It was fun to make- I just used black paint and free handed it. You could use stickers and mod podge...the options are endless.

Just another view of this cute pumpkin. I think it would look cute with just the letter too.

Another idea...I used glitter glue to give new life to my old decorations. Here I painted the little orange beads to "pop" a little. It actually made a big difference and looks much better.

Two years

Today marks the two year anniversary of my Mom's passing. October 7, 2009 was the most beautiful fall day I can remember. Today is cold, dark and dreary and I hate seeing the snow in the mountains already. We just skipped from summer to winter and I really need fall! One of my favorite memories of that day was after we (no children) had all arrived at the house that morning and cried and prayed together, we all went in the kitchen and sat around the table. My sister-in-laws sisters had brought Del Taco breakfast burritos, fruit and pumpkin chocolate chip cookies for breakfast. We sat around the table and talked and laughed. It was in that moment that I knew somehow we'd all be okay. Somedays it sure doesn't feel like it, but that experience is such a special memory to me. I can feel every emotion of that breakfast. I can see the way the light poured into the windows. I can feel the sting in my eyes from the tears. And through it all, ultimately it is okay. What I wouldn't give to see her again right now though! I miss her every day. I mourn the things she was supposed to still do in this life, but am grateful for the life she lived. Thank you, Jessica for this beautiful poem.

In a perfect world,

everything would always go right.

There would be no disappointment or trials,

and life would be filled with only

sweet, warm, and fuzzy feelings.

But how would we know

if things were good if we had no comparison?

Would we recognize the blessings in our lives

without having their opposites to compare them to?

Without the darkness,

would we appreciate the light?

Seems to me if we want rainbows,

we gotta have rain.

The trick is to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps

and go out and look for puddles to play in;

recognize the tempest for what it is

and train ourselves to look for the good

in every situation.

By overcoming our adversity,

we find the joy in everything.

So go on, go play in the rain!

Loading sheep

The boys willingly missed school on Friday to go load sheep. They were happy to get up at 5:00 a.m. and get nice and dirty. Here are some pictures and a few videos of their morning.

This picture reminds me of pictures I've seen of Richard when he was a boy out on the sheep ranch. I'm so glad they can go and share these experiences together.

Landon, Cole, Ky and Daniel

Ky, Cole, Landon and Daniel

They love chasing and trying to rope the sheep

Pre- buck. Watch the video below and see what I mean

Beautiful!

I love how Landon's buddy Ky just laughs at him as he gets bucked off. He was truly worried about his boy parts. That sheep had horns and he was not in a very good position!

This shows the ewes being let back out after the lambs have been loaded. I love how Richard yells at the boys at the end. For some reason it makes me laugh.

I'm so glad that my boys have a Dad that shares these times with them. He's awesome. Now if only I could get them all to do their own "sheep laundry".

Happy Birthday Emma Jae!

Today was Emma's birthday and she has been looking forward to it for so long! She has asked so many times over the last few weeks "how many more days until my birthday?" Today it was "how many minutes until my party", and then "how many seconds?" We decided to have a baking party and it ended up being a ton of work for me, but like I told Richard, it was worth every ounce of work and effort because Emma deserved every bit of it. She is such a sweet, caring, helpful girl and we love her so much. She is so great with Kate and is always a peacemaker. She is fun to be with and so smart, talented and beautiful.

Birthday morning opening presents. I don't think she ate breakfast because she just had chocolate covered raisins. It's her birthday!

She got a new doll, chocolate raisins, a new dress, some hair accessories and some walkie talkies (that I had to communicate with her on all day....which is not easy when you are trying to put on make-up or cut up food.)

The party began with the girls decorating bakers hats that I made out of poster board and tissue paper. They all decorated them so cute!

Take a look at the aprons! Aren't they darling? I made them from bandanas I found at Hobby Lobby for .99 cents! I found the ribbon there also for 50% off. They were fun and easy to make and turned out so cute!

My sweet birthday girl

This was the only shot I got of lunch. They made fruit kabobs and ham and cheese cracker sandwiches. At least I fed them a fairly healthy lunch, because what came next was major sugar overload!

I split the girls into 2 groups and had some learning to dip cake balls into chocolate and drizzle them with white chocolate.

The other group decorated their cakes. I've been baking and freezing them all week because I only have one 6" round pan and there were 12 girls!

Some of them seriously piled their frosting like 4 inches high!

For such young girls, they actually did a really good job at making the cake balls!

And here they all are at present time. You can't tell, but they are all mixing ice bags with baggie ice cream. That was the last thing we did and they got to eat the ice cream and take home their cakes and a little box with the cake balls they had dipped.

I'm so glad I could make her day so fun for her. She was very grateful and I think my favorite moment of the day was when she told me through her walkie-talkie that I'm the best Mom in the world.

Brain power

I think as we get older our brains don't work as well as they once did. I used to be able to remember everything and now I have to make myself a master list to follow and make sure everyone gets where they need to be, among many other things. Here are a few examples:

Last Tuesday night Richard got home late after bishopric meeting and spent a few minutes channel surfing. I came in and asked what he was watching. He seemed a little perplexed and said, "well, I was trying to find Monday night football, but I guess it's not on tonight!" I told him, "that's because it's Tuesday!"

Today my cute friend brought her daughter over for lessons at 2:30 because she genuinely thought it was 4:30, which is her daughters actual lesson time. That same friend came over later to drop something off and knocked on my door moments later because she couldn't find her keys anywhere and wondered if she'd dropped them in my house. They were in her pocket.

One of my piano students came today at her assigned time (this was the first week in a new time slot) and I had no idea why she was at my house! I had double booked lessons today and messed everything up!

After my lesson left and I was trying to figure out how to work the next hour out after I had messed it up so much, I grabbed my hair and said to Kate, "I don't know what's wrong with me today....I think I lost my brain!" She said, "I'll look for your brain, Mom." She still hasn't found it, and neither have I. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Happy Birthday

My Mom would have been 56 today. I miss her sunshine in my life. I miss the happiness she brought where ever she went. I will never understand why she had to leave us. It will always be hard to see women my age out shopping with their mothers. I will always think whenever I have a question to "call Mom" and then immediately dismiss the thought in a matter of milliseconds. I will always tell my kids stories about my Mom. I will always look for her sunshine shining through in new ways. Like through Kate's personality. Kate and I went to the cemetary today and ate cake pops and sang Happy Birthday. Happy Birthday is not fun to sing through tears. I told Kate some stories about Grandma Judy and Kate said, "....and she died" after everything I said. But she also said, "Grandma can still see me though." I love how all the flowers that people brought are yellow. She truly was sunshine to all of us! Happy Birthday to the most amazing, wonderful woman I will ever know.

Let's just get caught up.

I think I don't want to blog because I am so behind and also because Richard brought home a new monitor that makes everyone look fat. It's too wide and I really can't stand it. Oh well. Here goes a major picture overload and much randomness with no theme other than to simply get caught up to the present!

The last of the Fish Lake pictures. Landon was being a real "playa" going around kissing all the girls!

Grandpa and the girls. I love how Emma is the only brunette.

The kids loved these! I love blowing up this picture to look at each kids face...they are all so funny!

My wonderful Dad who made the whole trip possible for us and who is always so loving, generous and fun. WE LOVE YOU!

Landon and Daniel's birthday is on the same day and this year we had a friend party. 16 boys! We had a bbq dinner in our backyard and did target shooting competitions and minute to win it games. We also did smores around a campfire and they all had a lot of fun! It was a lot of work but ended up being a great success!

This is the cake that Emma wanted to make for the boys. They were gone on their Grandpa date with my Dad, so we had to eat a little of the cake before they got home. I told Emma we would have to eat some so we would just take a picture.

They were happy with their presents. I'm sure glad legos never get old!

Good ole summer pack meetings. I really don't care for pack meetings. But this one was important. They both advanced to the next group and Landon earned his Arrow of Light. I could barely stand to watch the presentation from an old, creepy white guy dressed as an indian chief, but despite that, I was proud of Landon. And there were actual, real Apache indians there.....sure do love how we "honor" their culture. If you've been to one of these ceremonies you know what I'm talking about.

I had to show off my tan little baby. She loves to pose and she cracks me up. I am thoroughly enjoying my time with her while the other kids are at school. Besides the fact that she makes it nearly impossible to get anything done, I love to have her all to myself. She's my little buddy! I want to keep her at this age forever. Although I do need her to get potty trained and lose the binky. I win the bad mom award for not taking pictures of the kids on the first day of school, but they are all happy with their teachers and enjoying school!

Good 'nuf.