Halloween Weekend 2010

Because Halloween landed on a Sunday this year we ended up celebrating the spooky holiday for a total of 4 days.

Oct 28, 2010~
It started with Cael's school Halloween party on Thursday. I was asked to help out with the class party and was over the Halloween bingo game. Shari Cowan is the room mother and had the game all put together with candy corns for markers. The bingo cards were adorable and I thought the candy corns were a cute idea until all the kids kept putting them in their mouths and then returning them to the table for the next group to drool on! I soon started the "I'll let you eat one out of the container if you stop putting my bingo markers in your mouth!!!" It worked and there was no outbreak of influenza which I take full responsibility for. I also embarrassed Cael when I forgot to get him trick-or-treats to exchange with his class. I wasn't the only parent that didn't contribute, but it was still awkward since I was helping during the party and Cael had to yell across the room "Mom where is my treats?". In my defense -"he's my oldest child and I'm a scatter brain!!!!" sidenote: after looking at these pictures you may notice that he is struggling with looking natural in a picture.....he's a work in progress!

Friday Oct 29, 2010~
Today marked the first annual Nephi City Chamber of Commerce "Halloween Town". Nephi may just be the most festive town in the state. All the businesses on Main street decorated their store front with a monster and then invited the kids to come and actually "trick-or-treat" for candy and ticket which could be redeemed for prizes. They had a really big turn-out and a lot of business were out of candy by the time we got there, but my kids still had a blast and it was fun to actually do some traditional trick-or-treating as opposed to the lame "trunk-or-treating" which I'm very much against.

Kensie chose to be her idol....pink dress. Yes, this is what she calls sleeping beauty. I was hoping to not start the princess costume this soon. Since I'm sure this is what she will want to be until she is 12, but since we are going to Disney in a couple of week I thought it would work out great. She loved her dress and would twirl it around like she was dancing at a ball. The shoes were my personal favorite and they even light-up.....too cute!

Kensie & Halle


Saturday Oct 30, 2010
Kensie danced at the craft show to the monster mash...doesn't this look like a bunch of scary monsters? I was worried on how she would be since this was her first time dancing in front of a crowd. She insisted on holding her wand and pretty much only stared out into the crowd, but I'm not going to complain because I'm just thankful she didn't cry.

Carvin Pumpkins....

Optimus Prime...
Cael chose to be a transformer this year which was surprising since he really doesn't watch the movies, but it turned out he just wanted to be like my neighbor Cooper. He looked really cute for the first couple of minutes before ditching the mask, gun, and chest shield. At least I got a picture before he looked like he was just in his pajamas.

Great-Grandpa Jarrett

Great Grandpa & Grandma Morgan

Sunday Oct 31, 2010

My Mom & Dad hosted a Halloween party on Sunday. I was shocked when my mom said she was throwing a Halloween party....she HATES Halloween. They planned so many fun things and the kids had a blast! I think she just might have started a new tradition!

My Dad's shirt was soo funny.

I don't know if you can tell, but the Zombie was on the inside of his shirt. Creepy face in the punch...

Ghost Cupcakes..

Mine is in the middle (the cutest in my opinion!)

Scavenger Hunt...

I love this kid!!

As if the fabulous food and party wasn't enough, Grandma also got the kids Jammies for the trick-or-treat! My kids are sooo spoiled!

Until next year...Happy Halloween!!

Jarrett deer hunt Widow Party....

I'm sure my Grandma Beth was smiling up in heaven when we all gathered for the annual Deer Hunt Widow Party. This is a tradition that my Grandma started before I was born and even though she's been gone for 15 years it continues to this day. Each family takes a turn being in charge and the night includes food, food, laughter, games, crafts, and more food! This year we played Bunko and my cousin Jennie won the grand. I came away with nothing as usual. I think I just might have the worst luck at this game! Thank you White family for the fun night!

The Hostess(s) with the mostess....
Kecia, LeAnn, Karly, Bonnie, Rebekah,Conner, Jen, Jarrett, Rylee



Karen family...well a couple of them.

Machelle, Karen, Drew, and Mandi

Tah-Tah (jessica, Mom, Me, Nikki, Halle

Jennie the Winner!

pumpkin patch...

Me and Kensie tagged along for the kindergarten field trip to the pumpkin patch this year. The Phillips family put this together and did a great job. They also set up a straw maze that the kids had fun running around in. Their teacher even joined in the fun and was playing hide & seek with them. I'm so thankful that Cael is enjoying school and has such a fun class.

Savanah, Malea, Jacob, Jimmy, Wesley, and Cael

Fall Update...

Wow has life been crazy busy around here! Here's what we've been up too.

Zingo....the new family game. The Easter bunny brought Cael this game from discovery toys and he hasn't seemed too interested in playing it until now. It's alot like Bingo, but you use pictures instead of numbers which is nice because Kensie can play too. They both love it and beg to play one game every night before bed.

Me...the Momma. Oh my has the last couple of months been busy. We have wanted to do as many fun things as we could before the weather got cold which has led to many busy weeknights and Saturdays. I also have been working more because my partner in crime (Jenna Kendall) had a sweet baby girl last month and I decided to just work more while she was gone instead of training someone else. This has reminded me why I decided to go part time. When I work more everything suffers(including this blog) and I pretty much feel like a failure all the time! We have also spent some Saturdays riding the RZR with Casey's family. It had been years since I went up the Red Cliffs to look at the fall leaves. They were so vibrant this year and for some reason I didn't feel like taking any pictures.?. We also went for a ride out to "Big Mountain" which is west of Nephi. I also have been helping in Cael's class on Thursday's for an hour. Mrs. Robison has been having me work with the kids doing their Phonics module. I had to train the first week and then she turned me loose. The first week I was on my own the kids informed me that I couldn't chew gum in class. The next week we were working with some letter tiles and Mrs. Robison wanted them to look through the basket and find the letters that spelt "LOG". The class before us had messed the baskets up and a few of the kids were struggling to find there tiles. After a few minutes of Chaos I decided to bag the tile game and have all the kids give me the baskets back. There was one little boy, Nathan Garrett, who was still trying to find "L" in his basket. I told him to never mind that we were moving on. After we had started the next assignment I noticed that Nathan had something in his eye. I said " honey, do you have something in your eye?" he said " No, I'm crying because you were mean and wouldn't let me finish!" He completely lost it so I tried to explain to him why I decided to move on. I might just be the worst parent helper ever. Let just say that when you add all the above to a church calling, Disneyland trip planning, and hair appointments you get one Manic Momma!

Casey... the Daddy- My hunk of love has been rather depressed lately, mostly because he can't go rifle deer hunting. He is forced to look away as we drive by the grocery store when all the truck, trailer, and orange are shopping. He claims next year the DWR can have all the service hours and money they want in exchange for a tag. He sure showed them! He & our bishop have recently started the Insanity 60-day total body conditioning program and I have to say that after a few week he is starting to get his 6-pack back (which I haven't seen in about 10 years). The only problem is now I feel guilty because I have no desire to do any kind of work-out, so I guess I'll just count his work-out for the both of us! ;) He is staying busy at work which we are very grateful and luckily most of the work has been in town so he can help get Cael to school.

Cael...the BIG brother He is loving school and has not fought me once to go! He has made a lot of new friends and says his best friends are Jimmy Rosenbeck, Wesley Nielsen, Jacob Eldridge and Bryer Wright (he calls him Bryer Bright). There have also been a couple of other boys in his class who have invited him over to play. One day when I was picking him up from school, I had Jacob tell me that he wanted to come play at my house. I told him that he could sometime but I would have to talk to him mom. I don't know the Eldridge's that well, but his dad is the County Attorney and I assumed they would most likely require a back ground check/ finger prints from us before a play date could be arranged (I'm kidding!). I kept putting off calling his mom because I felt like it would be better to meet her face to face rather than over the phone. Cael just kept bugging me until I finally told him that I didn't have their phone number. The next day after school Cael came running through the door with a note in his hand. It was actually line/dotted paper from his class and Jacob had wrote 62-30509 on it. Cael handed it to me and said here's Jacob's number now call his Mom. I told him I would and he said " good because he was really excited!" I also heard that Savanah Rasch told her Grandma Lisa that Cael was the cutest boy in her class. Cael won't tell me who he thinks is the cutest and just gives me an embarrassed look. It's been fun for me to watch him interact with the kids in his class. Everyday when I drop him off I remind him to be nice to everybody and listen to his teacher. Last week during class a little girl named Victoria didn't have a pencil to do her assignment. She walked over to Cael's table to borrow one but they too didn't have an extra one. Cael then stood up walked over to the other table borrowed one from them and gave it to Victoria. She looked at him and with a huge smile said "thanks Cael". I almost started crying and resisted the urge to go over and hug him. He didn't know I was watching him and I waited until we got home to tell him how proud I was of him. I know it wasn't anything real huge, but it still tickled me that he would help her when no one else would. From what I've witnessed he listens to his teacher too. There was one time in class when he wouldn't slide his chair over when Mrs. Robison asked him too. He slouched down in his chair and gave her a nasty look. I was so embarrassed and immediately grabbed his arm and told him to slide over {before flames shot out of my eyes!}. We had a good talk about it when he got home that day and he promised to not do it again. During his teacher-parent meeting I asked Mrs. Robison if he was behaving in class and she said he is a good student and that I worried too much. She said "I'm picking my battles this year and he isn't one of them". I personally don't feel like I worry too much, i just have no tolerance for him not minding in class. She also mentioned that she has to sometimes "bring him back to earth". I assumed this meant he gets distracted/day dreams, but she said overall he is doing really well. Academically he is doing fine too. Some of his initial tests were low, but they were taken the first couple weeks of school. We have been working on sounding out 3 letter words every night and I can tell he is improving. One morning we were doing his homework and he had to draw a picture of something that started with "O". I was trying to think of something he could draw when the phone rang. While I was talking on the phone I could see him drawing and then I heard him saying "owl" "owl" "owl" slowly to himself. That little stink had drew the cutest owl and wrote "OW" and was trying to figure out what it ended with by the time I hung up the phone. I was shocked especially since he had only been in school a couple of weeks and I was STILL trying to think of something that started with "O". I've come to realize that he likes to know what is going on and asks questions constantly. It's seems like he doesn't want anything to do with me until I'm talking to someone or on the phone and then he's at my hip asking "what are you talking about?". He must have overheard a conversation I was having with my mom about an old sign she was bidding for on eBay because a couple of days later I was telling Kensie to not spit and Cael asked "didn't Grandma spit for that sign?" I said no she was bidding not spitting.

We also had another round of dentist appointment! I don't know what i'm doing wrong but he had to have two teeth pulled and one filling. We really do brush his teeth twice a day and floss! He is getting better at going and actually for the first time sat in the chair for his x-rays and didn't have to be held! When he had his filling done he begged to not have the gas, so Dr. Sorensen agreed if he would hold still. He jumped while he was numbing him, but after that he held really still and only cried a little. He also is the best big brother not only to Kensie, but the kids that Nikki tends. On one trip to Jumping Jacks Nikki noticed a Big-boy picking on one of the little boys that she tends. Before she could get over to him Cael was in that boys face saying "keep your eyes and mouth off of him"! Nikki said this boy towered over Cael, but he wasn't scared to stand-up to him.

Kensie.....the little princess

Where do I start??? This little one has been TROUBLE lately. She can be a menace one minute and a sweet little princess the next. I'll start with the positive. She loves to be tickled! I know for sure that my Grandma Beth tickled with her before sending her down. She loves it just like my Grandma use too. If she's sitting by ya she wants you tickling. After several months of her being scared to death of getting her hair cut we had a break through which we can thank the American Girl catalog for. If I hold her and look through the catalog then she will let Bobbi do anything to her hair. I had her stack the back and bring it down to an A-line which looks really cute on her. She has also been saying the cutest things lately. Every time she looks at me she says "i wike you mommy" and then when asked to do something "all wight" with a low tone. She also calls Cael "broo" and it melts my heart every time! I knew the day would come and it arrived just in time for out Disney trip....The Princess Obsession!! They are by far her favorite toys and she plays with them constantly. They also go everywhere with us including shopping and church. I actually think they are pretty cute myself and I had to laugh when I walked in the bath room to find them chillin in their own hot tub. Her favorite is "pink dress". She calls all the others by name including "mo white", "ae"(ariel), "cinerwelli", "juan" (mulan), and "min" (jasmin), but for some reason her favorite one she calls "pink dress". Her food of choice is "ma & chee" and she asks for it every morning for breakfast. She doesn't get it every morning only the days I don't work. Peaches have also been one of her favorites lately. I think she may grow up to be an artist or gang member. She loves to "daw" and I love it when she chooses to draw on paper. This leads to the negative things....Graffiti. I have decided this is a girl thing since Cael never laid marker to my furniture. The picture below is her recent work. Ugggh. I have also been privileged to clean up purple nail polish out of her carpet and an occasional pen off my couch and car interior. In one word she is "MESSY" and I often can't keep up with her, but I'm trying to enjoy it as much as I can stand!

To top all this mess making off she decided at the first of the summer that being potty trained just wasn't her thing and almost completely reverted back. Yes after almost being potty trained for 4 months I was forced to put her back in a diaper. I know what you're thinking " why would she put her back in a diaper?" The answer would be because I went weeks of waking up and literally changing her on the hour until she ran out of clothes. This combined with very busy schedules lead me to just give up and wait until summer wrapped up. I'm now slowly getting her back to where she was and I pray this time it will stick.

Silly Bands the new slap bracelet

Silly Bands.....who would of thought a colored elastic shaped like lightning McQueen would be so entertaining. Cael kept beggin me to take him to the "Grey Dollar Store" (general Dollar) and buy him some bracelets. I could not for the life of me figure out what he was talking about. He hates jewelry and now he is beggin for a bracelet.?. I kept putting it off, mostly because I didn't know what he was talking about. He finally convinced Grandma Linda to take him and when I picked him up after work he had a hand full of Toy Story Silly Bands. Kensie soon caught on and WW3 broke out in the Smith house, so we made a trip to the "grey dollar store" for some princess ones. Cael now has Cars, Toy Story, a few random ones from Quiznos and one from school (red ribbon week). Who thinks up this stuff???