FHE: Halloween Party

It is tradition in our family to have a Halloween FHE!! This year our party was lots of fun with marshmallow eating, pumpkin bowling, a short Halloween video and some apple bobbing!! It was a great night. As we had the party, I couldn't help but be excited for next year when we will have our basement and then we can have a fun haunted house to add to the fun!! Here are some pictures of our fun night!

Barth and I held the broom up as the boys tried to get the marshmallows!
Hmmm.... I don't think you are supposed to use your hands Weston!!! :)
Brian got his!!!
Aaron just reached out and grabbed his. Then he found the bag of marshmallows and had at them!!!!! I think he had about half a bag eaten before we realized it!!!!

Pumpkin Bowling

The next activity of the night was pumpkin bowling!!! The boys had fun in the afternoon coloring up some bags to act as our bowling pins. We didn't get as many games in this year as last year, but it was still a lot of fun. The only problem with this game was that Aaron just wanted to knock the "pins" over before anyone bowled!!
Weston in action!
Luckily Amber just swang during this game!!! Yeah!
Brian in action....if only Aaron would move!
Go Aaron!!!

Bobbing for apples!

The last activity of the night was bobbing for apples!!! The boys had lots of fun getting wet. Brian cheated a little by picking up the apple at the end and then sticking it in his mouth!!!
He did get all wet though!!
Go Weston!!
Drenched, but he got it!!
Aaron never did get his face in, but he was wet by the end!!! All in all, it was a very fun FHE!!!

Jack-O-Lanterns

We had a lot of fun last night carving the pumpkins. Weston did better about trying to get the guts out of the pumpkin this year, but none of the boys really wanted to do it...they were anxious for the fun part of carving the faces!!!! Above is a picture of Weston thinking about cleaning out the pumpkin.
Barth is the one that did all the dirty work of cleaning the pumpkins out!!! Thanks hon!! After he had done the dirty work, he held the baby so that I could have all the fun of helping carve. Once Amber was asleep, he helped Aaron with his pumpkin!!!!
Brian really wanted glasses on his pumpkin. I bought this neat kit thing on clearance sale at Kohls for next to nothing and it came with these pegs that you see Brian hammering in. They made for great glasses!!!!
The boys with their jack-o-lanterns!!!
And here is what they look like in the dark!!! Happy Halloween!!!!!

Book Character Day

Today was book character day at Weston's school! They will be having a parade of characters later on in the afternoon. When Weston heard that they were having this, he immediately wanted to be Jack from The Magic Tree House books. So, one yellow shirt and a pair of glasses with the glass popped out later, here he is as Jack!!!
And this is what Jack looks like on his book. I think Weston did a great job of looking like Jack!!

Getting Things Done

This afternoon I actually was able to get something done.....like laundry!!! I put Amber on the floor with 2 toys that I knew Aaron liked. As soon as he saw them there, he came over to play with them. This kept Amber entertained for quite a while. I was able to get a few loads of laundry folded that were piling up on my couch!!!!! After a while the toys were not nearly as entertaining for Aaron as hugging and kissing his little sister "Ammer" (as he says it!) Hooray for a break and a good baby moment!
Amber chillin' on the floor!
"Cheese Mommy!" said Aaron as soon as he saw the camera!!
And lastly, these are the beautiful roses that I bought myself last week. I had been having a few bad days in a row.....you know, with a fussy baby and all....so when I saw these at Sams, I decided to get them. They were the best smelling roses EVER!! All of the flowers opened up so beautifully too!! They have certainly cheered up my week!!!

Sick Babies!

The title here says it all! Aaron didn't sleep at all last night without being held. He has no fever yet, but has a runny nose. I am thinking that he might have an ear infection. I will probably take him in tomorrow just to be sure. Also, Amber is congested and is coughing. She didn't really sleep last night either and wakes up as soon as she is put down. Anyone want to come over tonight to help out?

Prepared

Yes....these are water barrels!!! I can't help it! I get so excited about food storage and preparedness stuff!! I just had to blog these cute little barrels that arrived today! We have a few other water barrels that we should be getting once we get our stuff back out of storage, but I wanted a few more. Since our ward was having an order and they were a great price, we got some more. Actually, Barth ordered them because I had just had Amber when the order was due, but he knew I wanted them!!! My philosophy.....you can never be too prepared. And when it comes to water.....who really wants to see their children go thirsty? Not me! So anyway, I am happy that I have more containers for water!!!!!! Hooray for my water barrels!!!!!!!

Costume Preview

Okay, here is a sneak peek at what my kids are going as this Halloween! At first, both Weston and Brian wanted to go as Batman, but then Weston changed his mind to a Power Ranger. The thing that I think is funny about this year's costumes is that my kids have never seen any of the shows for the people that they are dressed as!!! :) Above is Weston as a very powerful Power Ranger!!!
Here is Brian as Batman!! The boys have had lots of fun dressing up these past few days, fighting the bad guys, and saving Amber from evil!!!
Aaron is going as Peter Pan!!!
And Amber is going as Tinkerbell. She was kinda fussy for her photo shoot, so this picture with the binky is about as good as we got!
The pink shirt doesn't go with the outfit, but since it is supposed to be cold here on Halloween, she will have to have something underneath!!!

Brian's Artwork!

Brian has been busy making all sorts of Halloween artwork to decorate our apartment. I think we have something like 20 of these cute jack-o-lanterns all over the place. He has had so much fun coloring these and taping them on the walls. I tried to post a picture of this on Sunday, but it never would work, so I took this picture last night. I am going to try to get the boys to try on their costumes this afternoon and get some pictures of that!!!

For Grandpa!!!!!

When Amber was born, my Daddy told me, "Now my punkin has a punkin of her own!!" He always called me punkin my whole life. So, when I got this cute little sleeper for Amber when she was born, I thought of my daddy right away. If you can't tell, the sleeper says, "Mommy's little pumpkin." Although it is not a pink outfit, I still thought that she looked too cute!!! So Grandpa......here is your newest little punkin!!!
Here is a picture of the whole little sleeper. Those are some cute little green feet!!
Amber is saying, "Hi Grandpa!!! I love you!!!"

Pictures from Today

Here is miss Amber today!! What a difference a week will make! I have now been on my specialized allergy free diet for a week and Amber looks SO much better!!!! She is still a little rashy on her face and body, so I will wait a little longer before adding in foods to see what she is allergic to, but I am so glad that she looks so good now!!! my little
Here she is after church today! She slept great during my lesson today and I was glad for that.
Weston and Brian have been making great decorations for Halloween. Brian's picture will not post for some reason though. I will have to post the pictures of his pumpkins tomorrow!!
And lastly, Aaron with his cheesy smile!! Gotta love it!

Be sure to check out the post below for more house pictures that I took today!!!!

House Pictures

Here are a few more picture of the house that we took today while we were there. It was fun to go in and walk around and know that we will be moving in in just a few weeks!! This is the front of the house. You can see a little better about the garage here Amanda. The grass in the back is still okay, but the front is dead grass and weeds and will have to be reseeded this upcoming Spring!
Here is a better picture of the side-entry garage and the nice flat part of the driveway.
I love the foyer in this house. As you can see, it isn't a big vaulted entry. Instead they put a sitting room off of the master bedroom. The master bedroom is right over the formal living room and the sitting room is over the entry. There is also a little closet on either side of the door. You can see one closet in this picture.
This is the formal dining. The formal living and dining rooms are split. The formal dining room is to the right of the front door as you walk in, and the formal living being is to the left.
And this is the kitchen. We have picked out the appliances but we don't know when they will be put in.

Got a Key!

For fear of getting the whole thing jinxed, I have not posted about this yet. But today, I got a key and so I felt that it would be okay....we have a contract on a house!! The house is not quite finished, but today we got a key so that we can come and go and see how things are coming. The picture above is of the key. We got it today when we went to look at carpeting. We have a few samples that we brought home so that we could decide which we like best. After that we went to the house and met the shelving man to talk about how many shelves in what place and things like that. We were going to pick out sink fixtures today too, but ran out of time. We will finish that up early next week. We are supposed to close on the house at the end of next month.
Here is what the outside of the house looks like. I didn't get a good one today, so this is one that Momma took when she was here. She hasn't seen the inside, but has driven past it.
And here is a picture of the back yard. Those huge maple trees in the back are part of the property. It makes it nice and secluded. I will try to post some more pictures of the house later when we go back!

11 PM Adventure!!!!!

Last night I was feeding Amber and Barth was watching a football game at about 11 pm. I was planning on heading to bed after Amber was all fed, when across the TV screen there was a tornado warning flash. Tornado watches don't bother me at all since that just means that the conditions are right for a tornado, but a warning is a different matter. That means that either the clouds are circling or a tornado has been spotted!!! We knew that there was bad weather headed our way, but didn't know when it would hit. We changed the channel to the emergency channel to find out that WE were in the area that just had the tornado warning issued for. So, we got up the kids and loaded everyone into the bathroom. Brian was not happy about having been woken up from sound sleep and wanted to know why he had to sleep in the bathtub!!! Weston just kept making jokes about how he was going to turn on the water and get everyone wet. Thankfully there was no tornado!!! I was SO GLAD for that!!!! However, the warning stayed in effect for about a half hour because there was one bad cell followed by another!!! It was certainly an adventure!! On the way to school this morning Weston said that he was going to tell his class how silly we all were to be in the tub in the middle of the night!!!!!

Chicken Pox

This afternoon I sat in the cafeteria waiting to pick up Weston from school. He is almost always the last one to come out since his class is one of the farthest from the cafeteria. Anyway, as I sat waiting, the boys were climbing up and down at the tables and Amber was sitting nicely in her car seat that was locked into the stroller. A few little girls were standing close by and I noticed that they are talking about the fire safety assembly that they saw today. Then I heard one of the girls (they were in 1st grade I would say) say, "Oh! Look at that baby!! It must be a girl because it has lots of pink!" Then another girl says, "I think she has the chicken pox though or something bad!!" This was followed by a chorus of yeah's and I think so's! Poor little Amber. I know that this rash will go away, but I still feel bad for her! She is miserable!

Playing Outside

Yesterday afternoon we had some great weather and so we played outside on the driveway. The boys enjoyed jumping rope and playing with chalk. I also took some video, but it is not cooperating with me at the moment. Here is a picture of Weston jumping rope. He has become quite good at it over the last few months! The reason the rope is in front of his face is because it was taken mid-jump!
Here is Brian playing on the little hopping ball thing that we got from a garage sale a while back! Notice Aaron checking out the puddle in the background. All three boys had fun playing in the puddles from the rain that we had received the day before.
Aaron in his, "Am I cute or what?" pose!! He loved being outside.
Amber slept while her big brothers played. If I could spend every moment of every day somewhere but in my apartment then my little girl here would be a dream. She sleeps as soon as we leave the house....even if it is just to go outside. :)
Here is my pink girl sleeping in her pink stroller (think I have enough pink for my girl?) while her brothers are busy playing!!! It was an enjoyable afternoon.