Halloween 2013

Parker and Brinley got to wear their costumes to school.  They loved that!  Alissa was bummed that she didn't get to, but they don't do that at the intermediate school.  Roger didn't have to go in to work until 8:30 tonight.  That was really nice.  So, he got to stay home and relax a little longer before starting another night of work.

I didn't have to make dinner again tonight, because we went to another trunk-or-treat that provided dinner for us.  At 5:00pm, we went to the Penrose/Thatcher church for dinner and trunk-or-treating.  The Penrose trunk-or-treat was a lot better than the Bothwell trunk-or-treat.  I like it better, when we're not crowded into a small space to trick-or-treat.  They did the trunk-or-treat first, then we had soup, bread sticks, and donuts.  We went with my friend Heather.  Heather came with us last night to our trunk-or-treat and tonight we went with her to her trunk-or-treat.

After the trunk or treat, we went to our old neighborhood, to find Alissa's friend Erin and give her part of her costume back.  We found her and did a little trick-or-treating with them, until Heather called and said she was ready to meet us.  We had planned to trick-or-treat with Heather in her old neighborhood (Which happens to be the neighborhood I did my paper route in a few years ago).  When we met Heather, she told us that she wanted to drive her kids around and stop at only a few houses.  I didn't want to do that.  I'm afraid to drive the kids from house to house.  There are too many kids and I'm afraid that I will run someone over.  Plus, I love running from house to house with the kids.  That's one of the things that makes Halloween so fun.  So, even though we met Heather over there, we didn't end up walking around with her.  Heather's old neighborhood was really crowded, which was fun and annoying at the same time.  It'd fun to see a lot of people out trick-or-treating, but it's annoying when it's so crowded you have a hard time keeping an eye on your kids.  A lot of the houses in that neighborhood didn't have porch lights on, so that was a bummer, but the kids didn't mind.  After that neighborhood, we went to the Archibald Estates to trick-or-treat (that's a neighborhood not far from our old house on Tremont Street).  We like to go to that neighborhood, because it looks nice and inviting and is so well lit.  Every year, I say, "This is the neighborhood I want to live in."  I wonder if that will ever happen.  When we finished going around the neighborhood, it was getting close to 8:00pm and the kids were tired, so we headed home.  All of us were exhausted.  We were all in bed and asleep by 9:00pm.  Except for Roger, of course, because he had to go to work.  I look forward to the day when Roger can be on a normal schedule.  He's been working the graveyard shift at least 10 years now.  I don't know how he does it.

I'm sad that I didn't get any pictures of the kids when they were trick-or-treating through the neighborhoods.  It was dark and I didn't have my good camera with me.  

Crazy Hair Day and Bothwell Trunk or Treat - October 30, 2013

Wednesday - October 30th

It was crazy hair day at school.  Yesterday was crazy hair day for the other elementary schools around here.  One of our friends had posted a picture of her daughter with braids sticking straight out.  Brinley thought it looked so cool and wanted her hair done that way.  Parker's hair was too short to really do anything with it.  All of our color hair spray is lost in the storage unit, so I wasn't sure what to do.  Then I found an orange and black hair extension.  Parker thought it would be fun, so I put it in.  He ended up really not liking it.  It mad him so mad every time the hair got in his face.  When he came home, the hair extension was in his back pack.  He said that he got really mad at school and ripped out his hair extension.  He said it didn't hurt very bad and he put it in his back pack so he wouldn't lose it.

 We went to the Bothwell trunk-or-treat.  They had a free dinner for us, then a ribbon cutting ceremony for the new playground equipment at the park, then they did the trunk-or-treat.  They had us all sit in a circle and the kids walked around inside the circle.  The kids enjoyed it.  It was really cold!

Snow! - October 29, 2013

Tuesday - October 29, 2013

I am so excited to see snow!  I love snow!  I'm bummed that the kids weren't home to enjoy the snow with me. I took some pictures, because I was so excited to see the snow starting!

Golden Spike Driving Tour and My New Pillow - October 28th

While the kids were at school, Roger and I went to Logan.  We went out to lunch at the Olive Garden.  We got to use the gift certificate that my dad gave me for my birthday.  The Logan Olive Garden is much nicer than the American Fork one.  So, we really enjoyed our lunch.  They had a special going on where you if you buy one of 5 meals they had listed, you got to chose another one, to take home with you when your done eating.  so, it's 2 meals for the price of one.  So, I ordered the Fettucine Alfredo (which was on the list) and I ordered a second one to take home.  It was so nice.  I didn't have to make dinner tonight because of that.  I divided my take home meal between the kids.

After we left the Olive Garden, we went to Sam's Club to get toilet paper and garbage bags.  While we were wandering through the store, daydream shopping, we found my birthday present.  Roger bought me a super nice memory foam, cooling gel pillow.  I love it!  Here is a picture of what it looks like.  I got this picture off the internet.

 I'm really excited to go to bed tonight and sleep on my new pillow.  After our shopping fun, we went to the bank and then payed our rent.  The landlord said that we should be getting new neighbors across from us this weekend.

We haven't had anybody living there for a month or two.  The people that lived there before, were a mystery to me.  So, I was glad to finally have a chance to find out who lived there.  Some one had moved in, but we never saw any moving trucks.  They were rarely home, there were always different cars coming and going, but I never saw any people.  One morning, I was headed to the truck and saw someone pounding on their door.  The man at the door asked if someone lived there and if I knew who it was.  I was of no help to him, since it was still a mystery to me.  The guy seemed pretty angry.  Anyways, when I asked about who lived there, they said it was two return missionaries that weren't very good at managing their money.  She said they didn't really have any furniture (which would explain why we didn't see them move in).  When they kicked them out, it took them only one day to pack their stuff and leave.  They pretty much left in the night.  It was crazy and fun to make up stories about the mysterious neighbors living across from us.

A storm blew in right as the kids were coming home from school.  It was fun to go out in the wind and walk home with them.  The kids came in and ate an after school snack, then we got ready and went out adventuring.  Roger took us to a trail near Golden Spike.  It wasn't as cold as we had expected it to be, so that was nice.  We had a lot of fun!

Playing at the New Bothwell Park - Oct. 27th

The grand opening of the new Playground at the Bothwell park is this week.  When we went to church today, we noticed that the playground was all finished.  In the evening, we decided to come and check it out.

Coloring and Sleeping Parker - Oct. 26th

Saturday - October 26th.  Roger had to work overtime tonight, so we just had a relaxing night at home.  Alissa and Brinley had me print some coloring pages for them and Parker spent his time playing with his skateboard and watching a show.
Parker fell asleep with his head on his skateboard a little after 8:00 pm.  It really is funny how he just falls asleep where ever he is when I let him stay up past 8:00 pm.

Trick-or-Treating Through Town - Oct. 25th

We love to go trick-or-treating!  This year is so fun, because we have so many opportunities to go trick-or-treating.  We are going to 2 trunk-or-treats, trick-or-treating through town, and then trick-or-treating through the neighborhoods on Halloween night.

Olive Fingers - October 23rd

Brinley is so cute and goofy.  She wanted to model her olive fingers for me.

My Happy Birthday!

Sunday - October 20, 2013
We spent the night at Linda's.

Monday - October 21, 2013
I had a good Birthday.  We decided to stay in Salt Lake Longer than we originally planned.  So, my Birthday was on a Monday and since we were at Linda's house still, I had to call and excuse the kids from school.  Linda and Shelley babysat the kids for us while we were gone.  Linda was super nice and took them all to McDonald's for lunch.  They love going to McDonald's and playing on the playground, so they were really excited and happy about that.  Also when we were gone, Linda made and decorated a birthday cake for me.  So, after spending a fun day with Roger, we came back to Linda's and she surprised me with a bouquet of flowers and cake and ice cream.
Before we left on our date, Linda gave us movie passes and my dad gave me a gift card for the Olive Garden.  We went to a craft store first, since I love shopping for crafts. I didn't end up getting anything, since I couldn't make up my mind about what I wanted.  We finished shopping and went to the Olive Garden for lunch.  As we went in, I was noticing how different the American Fork Olive Garden is compared to the Logan Olive Garden.  The Logan one is much nicer.  In Logan when you walk up to the door, there is almost always someone waiting to open the door for you and ask you how many in your party.  At the American Fork Olive Garden, it was crowded even though it was an off time.  It was about 1:30pm.  In Logan, the place would have been practically empty.  When we walked in, we had to wait in a line to be able to talk to anybody.  It didn't take long for us to be seated, but nobody said, "Welcome to the Olive Garden."  I know it is silly, but when your used to being treated like you are special when you go to a place, you notice the difference when you are not treated well.  Anyway... so, we got seated and our waiter came.  He was not friendly at all.  After we ordered, I asked if they do anything special for birthdays.  He looked at me and said, "No."  Then he walked away.  About 2 minutes later, a lot of the staff gathered around a table and they all sang, "Happy Birthday" to somebody.  I was really frustrated and kind of hurt.  My weekend started out really crappy because of the people I used to babysit for treated me like crap and I just couldn't handle anymore rudeness.  The waiter didn't come back to our table after that.  He sent someone else to deliver our food and he stood back a few tables watching (It was really weird).  The waiter brought me Chicken Alfredo, but I had ordered Fettucine Alfredo.  I told him that my order was wrong.  He looked over to our waiter and told him, what I had said, then our waiter glared at me, looked down at his paper, glared again and walked away.  In the meantime, the waiter who had delivered our food, apologized and went to get the correct food.  I don't usually complain at restaurants, but I was pretty fed up with people being so horrible.  Roger stopped someone and asked if they could send the manager to our table.  When she came, I told her all that had happened, then I said, "I don't normally complain about stuff like this, but I'm fussy, because it's my birthday and I don't like being treated like that."  She apologized, told us she'd get us another waiter, and said that she would pay for my dinner.  Then she said that they don't normally give free desserts for birthdays, but she was going to give me one anyway.  The rest of our time there was better.  Our new waitress was much nicer than the waiter we had.  They brought me my dessert with a candle in it and sang happy birthday to me.  So, that was nice.  It was nice to get all of that stuff for free, but I think I would have rather just been treated better from the start.  That's all.  I just wish people would be nicer.
Roger's niece, Missy called to wish me a happy birthday while we were at the Olive Garden.  she asked where we were, then asked if she could come hang out for a little while.  Of course, we said yes.  So she met us at the Olive Garden.  we had about an hour until our movie started, so we sat and visited while Roger got the car detailed.  Then we went to see a movie, 'The Saratov Approach'.  I liked the movie.  It was an interesting story.
Missy went home, and Roger and I headed back to Linda's to get the kids and go home.  when we got there, we were surprised to see that Linda had made a birthday cake for me.  She also bought me some flowers.  So, Roger lit the candles, everybody sang the Happy Birthday song, I blew out the candles, and we enjoyed cake and ice cream before heading home.  It was a good birthday.

The flowers that Linda gave me.

Brinley's Happy Birthday!

Tuesday - October 15, 2013
Brinley is 8 years old today!

 They decided to decorate the balloons.  I knew it was going to get really messy, so I only allowed them to each decorate one balloon. All of the kids had permanent marker all over their hands and the table cloth was cover with it.  But they had fun!  The other kids in these pictures are Torrence and Baileigh (the kids I babysit).

 The kids played with the balloons and all of the fun stuff before they had to go to school. After school, Brinley opened her presents.

 I think her favorite gift was her play dough ice cream maker.

 Brinley really wanted to have a pinata for her birthday.  We took it outside.  roger held it up with a hockey stick and the kids had at it.  It was good fun.

 Afterward, they took turns beating the empty pinata until it was really broken up.

Brinley wanted to decorate her own birthday cake.  She didn't have the time to get it all decorated before Roger had to leave to work.  So, we let her blow out the candles on the undecorated cake. That way, we could sing to her and do all the fun birthday traditions before Roger left.

 Here's Brinley's cake almost finished.  Brinley wanted to take a little break.  Her hand was getting tired.

 Brinley's meal of choice was Ramen noodle soup with a little velveeta cheese melted in it.

 After dinner, she finished decorating her cake.  Here is her beautifully decorated barbie cake.