Halloween (Saturday Night)

We invited ourselves over to Jenny's house Saturday night, because she lives in the best trick or treating neighborhood in Rexburg. We brought over some Papa Murphy's pizza, pop and Twinkies/Ding Dongs to share, then let the kids all go out together to gather candy. When they returned to eat dinner, we sent them back out again to get more. Landon went with them and when they finally came back, they had a much better showing. We had a lot of fun at Jenny and Justin's house, and it was fun to reach another milestone of letting the kids go trick or treat without me. Emma was Cruella DeVille and Lauren was a big baby.

When we got back to the Meadows, I went with the girls and gathered even more candy from the neighbors. We ended up with a huge haul of candy. LOVING IT!

Halloween (Saturday)

The girls carved pumpkins Saturday morning. It was the first year they did 90% of the carving all by themselves. It was a fantastic milestone for Landon and me, and no one lost any fingers.

Brooklyn and Maddie came over and ended up staying for about 3 or 4 hours. We made Totinos pizzas for lunch. Each girl ended up eating 1 whole pizza each! They are kind of small, but still! Emma and Lauren think Totinos pizzas are the best thing ever. I have to agree. We used to get them now and then when I was growing up, so they remind me of my childhood. Good times!

Halloween (Friday)

Friday I helped at Lauren's class Halloween Party. It was so much better than I expected. The kids were really good and it was a really quiet party (my favorite kind).

I was the dirt cup helper (they each made their own, but I got to tell them how to do it).

This is one of Lauren's friends. Lauren kept saying to everyone, "isn't my mom so nice?" I think she was glad I came to help.

The kids did "add on" stories, then read them to the class.

Lauren is in a comedy theater class through the city of Rexburg. She will be performing a few skits at their performance in December. For one of the skits she plays a maid. I found a maid costume on sale 50% off at K-mart the night before Lauren's party, so she opted to wear it for the day. She wore her baby costume for trick or treating.

Friday night we went to the Kennedy (Landon's school) Carnival. The girls went around and played different games and we ate hotdogs and chili. It was our 4th year going to the carnival, so it's been a fun tradition. The school always makes a lot of money and we like to support Kennedy. Mr. Jeppeson (the principal) had bypass surgery last week so Landon and Kevin are in charge for the next 4-6 weeks (without pay, of course!). Landon came back and helped clean up the carnival until almost 11:00pm.

Birthday and a New Bed!

I forgot to mention what we did for my birthday. It was parent/teacher conference day on my actual birthday, so Landon was really tired and difficult to be around that evening. Since we didn't have school on Friday, we celebrated the day of my birth on the 22nd. We went to Idaho Falls and did some shopping, and went to Lucy's Pizzeria. I really love pizza!
We also bought a new bed on Friday! We've needed a new bed for years, but we kept putting it off. We decided to combine our birthday money and put it toward the cost of a new mattress and then make up the rest with student loan money. The last time we had a new mattress was May 1998, so I guess it was time. (That mattress had been through 9 moves, 2 babies peeing, throwing up, and nursing, lots of jumping and gymnastics moves, and 2 large adults tossing and turning night after night. It had a big ridge in the middle and the pillow top and pillow bottom were flat as a pancake.)
I had my family buy Ticket to Ride for my birthday, so we've been playing that all weekend. It's pretty fun. We'll bring it to Las Vegas at Christmas and to Vancouver next summer.

Emma made me a sweet card for my birthday, Landon gave me a People magazine and some candy bars, and Lauren made me breakfast in bed this morning because she forgot to do something for my birthday. She woke up with her alarm at 6:40 a.m. (a big sacrifice for my sleep-loving baby) and made me a toasted bagel with cream cheese, a banana, some yogurt and a glass of water. She waited downstairs until Landon told her I was awake (7:04 a.m.) and then she brought up my breakfast on a tray. She is such a good kid.

Last weekend Landon went to DI and bought me a reading lamp for next to the bed and 2 books he thought I'd like. (The Thornbirds--I've always LOVED that book, and The Lure of the Law--a book about why people are attracted to the law and becoming a lawyer. He knows that's a secret desire of mine that will probably never be realized.) It was really thoughtful and very sweet. He kept saying Happy Birthday because he wanted to build up credit with me because he knew that parent/teacher conferences were on my birthday.

Emma's New Coat

Today it's finally cold enough for the girls to wear heavy coats. Emma's been excited to wear the new coat that Grammy bought for her when school started. It's cute!
This is red ribbon week at the middle school, so today the kids are supposed to "shield themselves from drugs" by wearing sunglasses and hats, which is why Emma is wearing Landon's fishing hat.

Slap Happy

Lauren gave me permission to share this with everyone:
She has a new habit of slapping her stomach whenever she's naked. When she's getting in or out of the bath, or when she's using the bathroom, without fail, we hear slapping noises no matter where we are in the house. The other night, she was slapping herself so much that her body was actually dry by the time she started looking for a towel to dry off from her bath. Ever since she was a baby she's enjoyed making rhythmic noises by either tapping something, banging something (utensils on the table or her plate), or (evidently) slapping something. I've been telling her from the time she was 1 year old, "Lauren, stop banging!" She's got some kind of internal rhythm that she's powerless to control.

Vegetables

Landon came home from school with this gigantic CABBAGE! One of the 4th grade teachers gave it to him because she knew we liked to make sauerkraut. He was so excited, but the look on Emma's face mirrored the look on my face. It had to weigh between 10 and 20 pounds. After I took this picture, Landon cut it up, picked snails out of the leaves, lost interest, and the following day I used all my strength to chuck it into the dumpster.
For a more positive vegetable anecdote: Last night we counted 8 different vegetables in our dinner. I made breaded and fried pork chops (not a vegetable, but noteworthy), roasted carrots, potatoes, squash and onions, salad with lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers, with a side of our homemade freezer corn. It was a vegetable extravaganza. I love that my girls think it's a special occasion when we eat lots of veggies. They LOVED everything except the onions and cucumbers (Emma did try to eat a few bites of cucumber). The family insisted I make a blog post about our yummy dinner, so here you go.

Teton Canyon

On Saturday I mentioned to Landon that I was sad that we didn't take a trip to Yellowstone or the Tetons this fall to see the leaves. Because he's the best husband ever, he planned a trip for us on Sunday afternoon to see the leaves on our side of the Tetons.

We drove to Driggs, Idaho then took a left and headed to the mountains. We passed through Alta, Wyoming and up Teton Canyon. It was beautiful! I couldn't believe we hadn't ever been there before. I'm sure it will be a place we'll return and roast hot dogs, hike or camp in the future. It was only about 60 miles each way, which isn't much farther than Island Park.

We let Lauren be the photographer on this trip. She took a lot of pictures! I also took pictures so Lauren could be in some of them.

After our hike, we had a picnic at the campground right near the trailheads. The metal boxes behind us are bear boxes. When you're camping, you put your food in the boxes so that bears can't get to them. As we've lived here and spent more and more time in bear country, I've developed a major bear phobia. I'm fine seeing them at Yellowstone when we're looking for them in the car, but I'm really scared of the idea of coming up on a bear while we're hiking or camping. I always feel better when Landon carries a gun with him while we're in bear country (which he always does).

By the way, our picnic was ham sandwiches, cucumber/carrot salad (Landon's creation), chips, candy, cookies, dried apples and gatorade/diet dr pepper/diet lime coke.

Evidently Lauren's experience at the slumber party didn't actually cure her obsession with candy. This is a private moment I caught of Lauren and a box of grape Nerds.

Late Night Party

The girls went to a late-night birthday party Friday night for Caroline, my friend Jenny's daughter. Caroline is in 5th grade, right in the middle between Emma and Lauren, so she invited them both. Landon picked Emma up at 11:00 p.m. and Lauren stayed the night. We picked Lauren up Saturday morning. She said she stayed up until around 4:30 a.m.! The girls played lots of really fun games, watched some movies and ate tons of candy and sugary food. When we picked up Lauren she was hungry, but she said, "I don't want anything sweet. I want some meat." I didn't realize it was possible for Lauren, of all people, to overdose on sugar, but it happened! We got her a fried chicken breast at Broulims and she devoured it as soon as we got home.
Both girls were really tired on Saturday, so within about 15 minutes of getting home, Lauren got in my bed and went to sleep. She slept just short of 5 hours. Emma slept on the couch for about 2 hours. They both went to bed at 8:00 p.m. with a little help from our friend, Benedryl.So thanks, Jenny, for freedom during the party Friday night and all afternoon Saturday. We canned 16 pints of tomato/green chile salsa and 6 pints of BBQ sauce!

Paradise in Rexburg

A family in our ward just opened a doughnut shop called "Paradise Donuts." (I have been a loyal customer since day 1.) The family has 7 kids and has struggled to make ends meet the last several years. This business was a big risk, but the cool thing is they have sold out everyday since they opened. There's always a line, and you have to go early to get the full selection. They only have their family working there right now, so the mom goes in at 1:00am to start making dough, and the dad shows up later to relieve her so she can go home to take care of the kids. They trade off back and forth taking care of the family and the shop.

My favorite donuts are the cake donuts. They are the best I've tasted since I worked at Wall Drug in South Dakota back in 1992! The old-fashioned donuts are my number one choice. They melt in your mouth and taste just like butter.

I bought a donut right after I mailed Landon's case study to Pocatello, because I was so relieved and happy to get that thing out of our house. I bought some after I dropped off the girls at Jenny's house for a late-night party, because I knew Landon and I had the whole evening to ourselves without the girls and we needed a treat. 2 days after my surgery I had Landon bring some home because I wasn't feeling well and wanted a treat. The Scholes family will know every time I have strong emotions because I'll be in their shop buying a donut. I'm not even embarrassed to admit that.

Dehydration

Heidi C. let me borrow her dehydrator to make sun-dried tomatoes, bananas, apples and pears. I had never made the tomatoes before, but they turned out so yummy! I can't wait to use them in a recipe, but they also taste really good just by themselves.
Here are my tomatoes before and after:Here are the rest: (I was too lazy to take the skin off the apples and pears, but they taste just fine with them on.)

Fun Activity Days

I'm Emma's Activity Days leader (since August) and we had a really fun activity this past week. We took the girls to Evans Hairstyling School for hairstyles and painted fingernails. We had quite a bit of budget money that hadn't been used yet, so we blew about $80 for 11 girls to have some beauty treatment. Lauren's in the younger girls' group, but got to participate since Landon had scouts at the same time and I didn't have anywhere for her to go. She was happy to come along!

This is the group "before."They had fun things painted on their fingernails, like polka dots, spiderwebs and stripes. A lot of the girls chose Halloween colors and designs.

Here are my girls getting their hair done. Some students were quicker than others. We arrived at 4:00 p.m., and most girls were done by 5:00, but there were 2 who weren't done until 5:40. I was annoyed to realize that many kids aren't taught how to behave in public places and I had to get after girls for chasing each other, doing the "worm" in the lobby (on the floor like a break-dancer), and other really rude things. I think we all know that my daughters were sitting politely in chairs looking appropriately horrified at the naughty girls. (Can you see Emma doing the worm--or anything like unto it--in a public place? Try to forget that she can't do a somersault, that's beside the point.)

Here are my little princesses all beautified. Lauren LOVED her little braids and wishes I could do that. They both loved their Halloween nails with spiderwebs. It was a fun day.

The Funniest Blog Ever

Hey everyone, I just added a button for a really funny blog. It's called "Seriously So Blessed" and it makes fun of Mormon women's blogs. It makes me laugh out loud! I recommend going straight to the sidebar of the blog and reading the description of her family, then go to the "favorites" link on her blog to get a taste for her blog posts. I think whoever really writes this blog is brilliant! She nails Mormon culture, right down to the misspellings and mispronunciations.
Enjoy!!

Zhu Zhu Pets

Yesterday I took Emma with me to clean house in Ashton, and Landon took Lauren with him to work in his classroom. We agreed to pay them if they worked hard with good attitudes. They both did a fantastic job and we were happy to give them some cash. Of course, they immediately requested a trip to Walmart, but I worked hard yesterday too, so I was too tired to teach them the virtues of saving their money.

They each bought a Zhu Zhu pet. Lauren bought Sweetie, a "Zhu Zhu Wild Bunch" rabbit.

Emma bought Patches, a hamster, plus a little pink bag/blanket to go with it. They spent the evening creating little houses for their pets with shoe boxes, paper, and fabric. They said over and over how happy they are for spending their money on their little pets. They're LOVING them right now. The Christmas lists they've been working on will need to be edited to include some Zhu Zhu stuff.

I'm really happy to see them behaving like little girls still! I love that they still like to play.

Harvest Break Vacation

Landon finished the rough draft of his case study! He wrote 71 pages, I edited them first, then we handed it over to a friend, also named Erin, who we call the "editor in chief." Her husband is an English professor at BYU-Idaho and Erin excels at editing. Landon taught their daughter last year and has their son this year in his class. She's my friend Jenny's good friend and I met her through book group. Landon feels really lucky to have them reading his paper. Landon worked endless hours on that paper and will put it in the mail on Tuesday after we make the changes Erin suggests. The next step will be waiting to hear if he passes this step of the process. We'll let you know what we find out!
To celebrate turning the paper over to Erin, we spent Tuesday night at the Springhill Suites Marriott here in town. We didn't go anywhere for the break, so we thought it would be fun to explore the newest hotel in Rexburg. It's considered 2 1/2 stars, while the other hotels in town are only 2 stars, so we felt pretty fancy.

The room design is unique. It has a separate toilet/sink room, plus a bathroom with a regular sink and a stand up shower. The doors to the bathrooms have an opaque panel so you can see shadows through the panels when the inside light is on, so don't share the room with anyone unless you're comfortable seeing shadows of them using the bathroom.

The toilet/sink room has this cute little sink in it. We called it the "Barbie Sink," which is what we used to call a similar sink in one of Kristen's past apartments.We had the pool to ourselves for 99% of the time we were there. The girls had so much fun swimming and playing together. Landon swam with them for a couple hours, but this is where I hung out:Landon went out and bought some pizza and snacks for after the swimming, then we stayed up watching TLC, which is a channel we don't have at home. We saw several episodes of 19 Kids and Counting, and Say Yes To The Dress. The next morning we gave Dad the remote and watched Dog The Bounty Hunter.
This was our view, looking east toward the temple and water tower (overlooking a freshly harvested potato field!).

After we checked out, we headed to Idaho Falls for shopping at Sam's Club, new shoes from Payless, and lunch at Red Robin.

This video may or may not work. It's Lauren doing a trick in the pool...3 somersaults in a row. (Impossible to do even 1 on land, by the way.)