Happy Halloween 2012...

Wahoo Halloween!  I like Halloween.  I've dressed up like a guy for the last 2 Halloweens.  This year, I decided to be a girl.  An awesome girl from the Avengers, Black Widow.  Merril was The Hulk.  Jack was a lego figure, Juliet was a cowgirl, Maxine was Hermione from Harry Potter and Mikayla was a cheetah.  This is right before the ward Halloween party.  

The school had a Halloween parade and Julie decided to ride a pony.

Jack was fun.

Maxine looked great!

This is Halloween night, right before trick-or-treating.

Maxine's costume was the hardest, mainly because I borrowed stuff for Jack's and Juliet's costumes and Mikayla's came out of the Halloween box.  I made Maxine's robe and tie.  I thought they turned out fine.  This year, Maxine wanted to trick-or-treat the neighborhood with friends, instead of the family.  So I gave her a cell and off she went.  I was out with Jack and Juliet.  When we would bump into each other, Maxine kept going on her own way.  She turns 10 on Monday!  WOW!

Pumpkins and Pizza...

For Family Home Evening, we made pizza and carved pumpkins.  This was our jack-o-lantern pizza.  :)

While scooping the guts out of a pumpkin, Jack's I think, I found this:

One of the pumpkin seeds had sprouted and was trying to grow!  I love carving pumpkins and in all my years, I've never seen one of the seeds sprout and try to grow while it was still inside the pumpkin.  Weird.  I didn't take any pictures of the pumpkins.  Juliet and Jack carved traditional jack-o-lantern faces and Maxine created a crow and carved it out.  Happy Halloween!

Spooky Hollow...

Our little town started a corn maze this year!  So we headed over and took pictures with the headless horseman.  

The kids got a free horse ride.

Mikayla rode around with Merril and had a good time.

Juliet liked the headless horseman.  She kept calling him the headless horseguy.  We went through the corn maze and bought some hot chocolate and glow sticks.  It was a fun and easy family home evening.

Camping for Fall Break!

Juliet wanted to go camping one more time before Winter.  Fall Break seemed like the perfect time and some friends, Darryl and Shauna, were camping out at the lake so we crashed with them.  

We got there in the evening and played in the sand.

Jack wanted me to bury him, but I said no.  So he started to bury himself.

It dipped down to the mid-50s at night, which wasn't too bad.  Jack kept rolling off the air mattress and waking up.  Then he'd wake up Maxine.  I put Mikayla asleep in the Tahoe so she'd be away from the noise.  When I got her at 7:30 a.m., her little arms were so cold!  Looking back, I should have had her sleep in between Merril and me.

Juliet trying to get out of the tent.

After we woke up, we made egg, bacon and sausage mcmuffins.  Oh yummy!  We had cantaloupe too.  Mostly so we didn't die of a heart attack from the muffins.

Mikayla warmed up and was happy.

The kids got dirty and had a great time.

Mikayla had fun helping me take down the air mattresses.

Merril had some work on Friday so we packed up and headed home to veg.  Then we went back out to the lake with the boat and dinner.  It was a good time!

Mikayla is 8 months old...

Mikayla is 8 months old and last month I was able to add everything back into my diet that I've been avoiding: dairy, chocolate, and corn.  I've also been able to phase her off the Prevacid for acid reflux.  How do you think she's doing?

Yep, she's a happy kid.  She's down to 2 naps a day and sleeps from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.  She's just starting to get some anxiety when I leave the room.  She's so good and seems always content no matter what we're doing.  We won the baby lottery with her.

Merril's Mt. Whitney Hike...

Merril has wanted to climb Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the lower 48 states, for quite a while.  Months ago he reserved a permit and it was time to hike on October 3rd!  The peak of Mt. Whitney is 14,505 feet about sea level.  He was a good husband and even took some pictures of the hike!

Merril on top of Mt. Whitney.

Merril's friends, Darryl and Ryan, went with him.  Darryl is pictured below.

Merril said there were little lakes along the way.

Merril trained well for the hike and said he was hardly sore afterwards.  He did comment that his lungs hurt when we got home.  I told him he can't ever climb Everest because I can't arrange to air lift him out if things get dicey.  But Mt. Whitney is just fine by me.  :)

Living like it's 1970...

For Young Womens, we had a modesty fashion show through the generations.  Girls dressed up like pioneers, 1920s, 1950s, 70s, 80s, 90s and current.  I got the 70s.  This was my hippy look for Young Womens.

My hair sat in spongy rollers for most of the day and boy did it have some volume at the end.  I'm wishing curly hair would come back in.  My hair digs curls.