Halloween! And other fun stuff. :)

10/20: Lots of errands run and money spent today!
Dance/recital fees = $100
New car battery = $140
Food/household items at Costco = $185

Keeping my kids well-fed and happy and having the piece of mind that my car will now start every time (had to charge it again today and had it tested, yep, bad battery) = Priceless

I usually don't mind them but a trip to Costco sure makes me hate the 9 steps from our garage to the house! The good thing about Costco, however, is we went right at lunchtime and the girls ate so many samples they didn't want lunch afterward. 

10/20: Picked up my new progressive lenses with purple frame today. If I have to get old and wear glasses to read and look at my phone, at least I can get them in a fun (LSU) color. :D

10/22:  The girls got to play at their friend, Jason's, house next door while I went to an appt., then I stayed and hung out with Rebecca when I picked the girls up.


10/23:  I watched Jason and his little bro. while Rebecca went shopping, so the girls had fun playing with Jason again.  That night, I had Bunco and the girls came with me and got to play with lots of kids there (one of those night where all of had our kids there, except one of the girls); there were 12 kids there at one point!  That was a little bit of a trying day for me.  Avery had gone over a week without pooping, so I had given her a little extra Miralax the day before.  Well, let's just say it worked a little too well!  She pooped in her pants 4 times and peed in them once that day!  Ack!!  She also pooed in her pants a few time over the next few days but at least I'm sure she's pretty cleared out! :P

10/24: Another fun visit to Farm Country with friends. (Ashley & Rachel Hoyal):

 

 

 

 

That night, I took the girls to the Lehi City Halloween Party at the rec. center. They got to trick-or-treat, listen to a spooky story, get animal balloons (a bunny for Avery and ladybug for Makenna), get their faces painted (bunny and ladybug, ha ha), and play lots of games and we had the sloppy joes there for dinner:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 My little Elsa and Anna (from "Frozen"):

 

 10/24: Their cousin, Wyatt's, birthday party was on Sat. We went and played at the Museum of Natural Curiosity for a couple of hours, then went to Kiki's house for pizza, cupcakes, and ice cream. The girls had a blast playing with their cousins!

 

Avery was more interested in collecting leaves than watching the Curious Critters exhibit

Watching the Curious Critters exhibit

Wyatt petting the skunk at the Curious Critters exhibit, Avery sitting by him (cute cousins) :D

  

 

 10/25: WOOOOOOOOOO! It's always good to beat Ole Miss, especially when they are #3! Geaux Tigers!! My throat hurts from yelling the entire game, though!

So while I was downstairs watching the game earlier, the girls were upstairs watching a movie. Guess what was also upstairs? Their pumpkin candy buckets with all the candy from a Halloween party last night! When I went upstairs to put them to bed, I found tons of candy wrappers on the couch! I'll just take that Mother of the Year Award now, ha ha!
So now I'm here in bed with Avery at 12:20; she's been up with me for a while and hadn't gone to sleep at all before she got out of bed. She doesn't seem to be tired at all. Hoping she goes to sleep soon!

10/26: The twins' first Primary program was today and they got up and did their parts so well! They didn't do much singing, though, and Makenna spent most of the time waving and doing thumbs up at me, ha ha! It was pretty funny. I was proud that they even went up there and stayed the whole time! Makenna came close to missing her part because she had to go potty just as the program was starting. She always has such great timing with that ha ha. Our Primary is ginormous, btw!!

Jared got home really late that night (he came home early again without telling me but at least he didn't scare the crap out of me this time); he had told me he wasn't coming home until Thurs.  So he was able to stay home with them while I went to the dr. on Monday. Good thing he came home early because I started getting sick with either a sinus infection or bad head cold Mon. night!  I spent ALL DAY Tues. in bed while Jared took the girls to dance class, took care of the girls and cleaned the house a bit.  I also rested quite a bit on Wed.  I used my Neti Pot quite a bit over the past few days and I think that, along with the rest, helped me to feel better by yesterday.  So I was able to go shopping for our traditional chili and trick-or-treating with cousins Daisy and Cody tonight.

10/31: We took the girls to the Aquarium Spooktacular.  There were some special activities (trick-or-treating, scuba-diving skeletons, story-time, a witch making a brew, all of the employees dressed up, and lots of fun decorations everywhere and spooky things in the fish tanks).

Petting a tarantula!

Petting a snake!

 

Scuba diving skeleton

Story time with Anna, Kristoff, and Sven (from "Frozen")

  

My Elsa & Anna checking out the penguins

Trick or treat!

A cool scene in the starfish tank

Petting a starfish

That evening, my SIL, Laura and her family and my MIL came over and we had our traditional chili and cornbread before trick-or-treating. The twins had so much fun trick-or-treating with cousins again this year!  We had such a great night!

 

 

We took a fun little road trip up to ID (left yesterday {Sat.} mid-morning and got home this evening) to attend a nephew's baby blessing. We got to visit some friends (the Stoebers) in Rexburg, we stayed in a hotel in Idaho Falls and took the twins swimming in the pool there, hung out in our room for a bit and had hot cocoa with my SIL (Laura), MIL, and niece and nephew who stayed in the room right next to ours, attended the baby blessing this morning, then hung out with all the family there at my other SIL's (Michelle) house after the blessing and had lunch there. The girls had so much fun doing all of it--except poor Avery had a rough night last night, crying half the night because of leg cramps (too much walking on her toes while trick-or-treating, I guess). Overall, it was a great trip, though!

The Stoebers were so nice to have us over for dinner and we had such a nice evening with them [Stoeber was one of Jared's mission companions and still one of his best friends]:

 

Hot cocoa in the hotel room after swimming and a bath:

 

Needless to say, I'm pretty exhausted from the fun, busy weekend, so I'm looking forward to some down time tomorrow. :)

A week of mostly just staying at home

10/13: Look where Jared is tonight! He didn't even know his company was taking him to the game until his meeting today in St. Louis. So happy for him, he deserves it. Go, 49ers!

 

 

 

10/14: Jared enjoying his evening in St. Louis after business meetings:

 

 

10/15: Poor Whiskers, Makenna loves him so much, ha ha! And he is such a good sport! He doesn't protest at all!

 

 

 

 

 

10/16: Makenna has been at it again with sweet little Whiskers. First, she put her on a pillow and covered her, then she put a tutu on her.

 

 

10/17: I am so sad and pissed off! If any of my neighbors saw anything or know anything about this, please let me know!

 

10/18: The girls and I had a great day/night yesterday with Kiki and her two youngest kids. The kids played outside for a while and had a tea party, after which the girls were so tired they went right down for a nap, even with their cousins still here; then, we watched "Annie", played some Wii games (mostly Just Dance), and watched "Hotel Transylvania" before putting all the kids to bed at 10:00! Carma was so cute reading books to the twins before bed. Kiki and I stayed up really late and watched a movie and chatted. The twins slept until 8:30 and were really sad to find that Kiki had left before they woke up because she hadn't brought her allergy medicine and was miserable. Avery and Makenna already want them to come back over. Also, I already had to play Just Dance with them again today. I'm so tired!

A sweet neighbor patched up the mailbox so that it will hopefully remain standing until we install a new one. He also fixed the door on it as best as could--it was really dented and messed up.

So here's how today went down: Got ready for church and got in the car at 20 til (we always go that early to make sure we get a bench).  The car wouldn't start!!  Again!  This is the 3rd time in a month that I had to hook the car up to our charger.  The other two times, we missed dance--it only happens when I have to be somewhere on time, never when I'm just going shopping or something.  The first two times, I thought it was because the girls left one of the doors open, then they left the dome light on.  This time, I saw no reason for the battery to go dead so now I'm wondering if there is actually something wrong with the battery.  Anywho, I hooked up the charger and waited 10 min., then decided we'd better just go ahead and walk to church so we wouldn't be late.  We only made it to the corner when Makenna trips and skins her knee and rips a huge whole in the pink tights she was wearing for the first time--oh, and she is bawling, of course.  I asked her if she just wanted to go home so I could patch up her knee and we would go to church late but she wanted to just go (she mainly wanted to see the horse at the entrance of our subdivision, ha ha).  We got to church right on time and even got a bench (miracle!).  Right when we sat down, Avery started crying that the back of her ankle hurt--she got a blister from walking.  I had bought what I thought were two identical pairs of pink tights but one was actually a pair of leggings (no feet), so she was wearing her dress shoes with no sock or stocking feet.  Poor thing!  When I decided to just go ahead and let her wear them, I had no idea we'd be walking that far.  Thankfully, I had a band-aid in my church bag and that got her to stop crying.  As soon as the first sacrament prayer started, Avery started whining that she had to go pee, so I had to take them both out while they were passing the bread (so embarrassing to have to walk out at that time!) and I missed taking the sacrament (kind of defeated the purpose of trying so hard to get there on time!).  I then had to take Makenna out again to go poop right before the closing hymn--plus, their teacher brought them to me while I was in nursery to take them to the bathroom.  Thankfully, someone offered to give us a ride home, so we didn't have to walk and Avery didn't make her blister worse or have to walk barefoot.  Whew!  I was so exhausted when I got home!  The saving grace of today is that the nursery kids were all pretty good today.  Tender mercies, ha ha!!