Halloween 2011

 The end of October was quite crazy with a lot of stuff going on. My good friends Cami and Jann came here to Denver so we could go to the So You Think You Can Dance concert together and it was so fun. I loved having them here and the concert was awesome. (Hopefully I'll cover this better in a separate post once I get/steal some pics from Cami and Jann.) Then I hosted a book club, helped with our ward's Trunk or Treat, and then hosted a murder mystery couples party with the ladies from my former primary presidency and their husbands. It was our second murder mystery party as a group and it was hilarious! The costumes were great this year. I was a gothic novelist, Connika Gothica!, (do you think I was type-casted?) so I got to wear a red and black wig and do some Cleopatra/Siouxie and the Banshees eyes. Nice. Adrian was more sedately dressed as a lawyer. It was a fun night!

For Halloween I went to Ben's and Nina's class parties, which was a lot of fun. We had our traditional chili dinner and Ben and Nina trick or treated with Adrian, while Sophie for the first time trick or treated with friends. She is getting so old! Oh I need to talk about costumes... Adrian and I only dressed up for the Trunk or Treat and we were Arthur and the Killer Bunny from Monty Python and the Holy Grail (reusing costumes from 6 years ago). We won the "Nerdiest Costume" award. Awesome. Sophie was Katniss from The Hunger Games (a seriously easy costume and she loved it). Ben was Draco Malfoy for the 2nd year - he loves being Draco and I am all for reusing costumes! Nina was a witch and if you asked her what kind of witch she was she said she was a bad witch. Ha! While the kids trick or treated I passed out candy - one of my favorite parts of Halloween. I love seeing all the little cuties in their adorable costumes. In between answering the door I watched Twilight on TV (not exactly scary, but Halloweeny) and munched on candy. I need to learn to resist fun size candy bars. They are my weakness. The kids all came home happy and tired and we watched Scared Shrekless together while they enjoyed their candy. I love Halloween! Hope your Halloween was great!

 Yes, that is a Holy Hand Grenade around my neck. :)

Halloweenish Denver

Last weekend Adrian and I decided some season fun was in order. I am a sucker for anything Halloweenish. So we went on a haunted Denver bus tour. It was the quirkiest tour EVER. The tour was in a bus that looked like a Hill Billy shack (pitched roof and wood paneling on the sides!), which was appropriate since it was a Banjo Billy Bus Tour. Inside this refurbished school bus had couches, arm chairs, and even a saddle for people to sit on, we sat on an upholstered bench, and the roof was draped with crazy fabric and twinkle lights. Seriously awesome. The tour was all on the bus and as the tour guide drove around he told us funny Denver history tidbits as well as ghost stories. We stopped in front a quite a few different locations like the Molly Brown House, Cheesman Park (which is actually a cemetery), an old fire station, the Brown Palace, and the State Capitol Building and got to hear some fun ghost stories about each place.

It was a very tame tour - none of the stories were very scary - and so neat. I loved hearing about Denver and how wild and western it used to be. And Molly Brown was a seriously amazing woman. Of all the places Cheesman Park was definitely the creepiest. It started out as a cemetery, then they wanted to move all the bodies, but that didn't work out, so they just took all the gravestones down, re-landscaped it, called it a park, and tried to forget it was an actual cemetery. That is weird people. And creepy. My favorite part, here comes the cheese, was spending time with Adrian and feeling like we were on a real thought-out date, rather than our usual dinner and a movie. It's nice to switch things up every now and then. After the tour we had some amazingly good sandwiches. I think my French dip was better than La Madeline's. It was that good. All and all it was tons-o-spooky (and yummy with the sandwiches) fun.

The tour started in front of my favorite Denver Blue Bear (aka I See What You Mean) outside the Denver Convention Center. Isn't he cute?!

... but not snow.:) I saw this on a crafting blog and it made me happy. Bring on Halloween, pumpkin treats, and hoodie weather.

Birthdays Are Fun

Whoa, I am pasty in that picture! And poor Ben and flashes. Ah well, what can ya do?:)

If you would have asked me 10 year ago what I thought about birthdays I would have told you they are usually a bummer. Why? Well there's getting older (a given), plans have fallen through (a few times), there was a birthday forgotten by my husband (that was my 20th,we were newlyweds, he was in trouble), almost choking to death on a piece of balloon (4th and I remember it vividly), not being invited to a friend's birthday party who shared the same birthday as me and also having all those friends completely forget about my birthday (that was my sweet 16), and being dumped by a boyfriend (19th). Yeah, I've had some rough ones. So in truth I've had this humbug attitude towards my birthday since I was a teenager. It's stupid, but true. Since hitting my 30's I've had a healthy change of heart. I had the most wonderful surprise party for my 30th birthday thrown by my dear friends and my husband. It was life changing in the birthday department for me. Since then I've looked forward to my birthdays and see them as a time to spend with family and friends and hey presents aren't bad either.:) So here I am. I think birthdays are fun and my 34th birthday earlier this week was very fun!

Us at Les Mis. Adrian's phone camera isn't the greatest in low light

Last Friday night Adrian and I went to Les Miserables and it was amazing. Powerful. I loved it. Then on Saturday night we went to the mall for me to pick out birthday presents. I have given up the expectation of Adrian getting me presents on his own, and since that time my birthdays have been so much happier! Is that awful to say? Sometimes he surprises me or I surprise (and those times are great), but there's no expectation and believe me it is great, for us, that way. Then on my actual birthday Nina and I went to Panera for lunch - yummy baked potato soup. Adrian came home early and did homework with all the kids by himself. Nice. A friend gave me balloons and candy - so sweet, thank you! Then we went to Olive Garden and I had a Coke with my dinner which always makes me happy. Oh, Coke is so good. Then we went to Barnes & Noble as a family and let everyone pick out a book, which also makes me happy. At home we had wonderful Cold Stone ice cream cake and I opened my presents (which included 2 cookbooks, an 8 qt. stockpot, Les Mis CD, and a new purse - yay!). My parents called to sing me happy birthday - they put the phone on speaker and both sing at the same time. I love that tradition Mom and Dad. After the kids went to bed Adrian and I played Zombie Flux, which just might be the awesomest game ever. I won 3 times. Adrian wants a rematch when it's not my birthday. So it was a great day! Birthdays are so very fun and I'm sad that I spent so much of my life being a dork about them.  Thanks to family and friends for making my birthday special!

Remembering 10 Years Ago

Ten years ago... How do you sum up the emotion of that day or put into words what we all felt? I guess I'll just share what my own overwhelming feeling was that day - fear. I was afraid of this new world where my country was vulnerable in a real and devastating way. I had never thought of that before. Terrorists hijacked international flights every now and then and that was horrible enough, but to hijack planes and run them into buildings? That was too much. Overwhelming.The world turned upside down.

When the first plane hit I'm pretty sure I was blow drying my hair. Sophie, 2 at the time, was still in her pajamas with her wild morning hair, curly and standing up all over her head, and she was playing in my bedroom while I finished getting ready. She loved playing in the blankets on our bed. Adrian had already gotten Sophie breakfast before he left for work, so I was leisurely getting ready while she played. It was our morning routine. As soon as I was done I got her dressed and we headed downstairs. I turned on the TV to the Today Show, which is what I still do, and I was met with the horrifying images of both the towers smoking. I then saw the repeat footage of the plane hitting the 2nd tower. It took me a while to put together what was happening along with the new words - Al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden. What was going on? As I continued watching I so sad. So shocked. So afraid of what would happen next. How would the people get out of the towers from the top floors? How many people had already died? And then the Pentagon was hit and I would say that fear took over as the most overwhelming feeling for the day. I called Adrian who was at work. He had heard about the attacks on the radio on his way to work and was crowded in the conference room with his coworkers watching the footage. He said he was coming home, his manager giving everyone the day off to be with their families. While I waited and watched I saw the towers fall. I started crying and Sophie got upset wondering what was wrong. I told her a very sad thing was happening and it was making me sad, but that everything would be okay. She was only 2 and doesn't remember anything of that day. All I remember from the rest of the day was watching TV and seeing those images over and over again and wondering just how many people were lost. How worried I was to be raising my little girl in a world where things like this could happen.

That day changed everything.We now all live with the knowledge of how far evil men will go in their hatred of our country, but that day it was new and horrifying. There were other days like the Oklahoma City bombing and Columbine that had scared me, but the scale of 9/11 was something hard to wrap my brain around. Living with the memories of 9/11 and it's aftermath is a new normal. I expect to wait in longer security lines at airports. I know that there are people out there plotting, but I'm more hopeful now than this day 10 years ago. There is so much good in the world and so many good people. If I can love and follow the Savior's example and teach my children to do the same, hopefully I can focus on that good, even as I remember this tragedy.

7th, 2nd, and K

My kids are all in school and have been for almost a month now. It's weird how early school starts around here. So of course I'm just now, a month late, getting around to blogging their first days of school. I think I may have put this off because it's taken me almost a month to deal with the fact that my baby is a kindergartner and that my oldest in is 7th grade. And would you just look at that tall 2nd grader? What in the world?! He definitely had a growth spurt in the past few months.

They are all enjoying school and we have gotten back into the routine that school provides - carpool, homework, after-school activities, etc. I like that. I'm big on routine. Routines make me happy. Sophie has tons of homework every day, especially Algebra homework and geography. Do you remember taking geography in 7th grade?! I do. Very clearly. It is so weird to have a child at an age that I remember so well. But Sophie has tons more homework in 7th grade than I ever had.

Ben is doing great so far in 2nd grade. He has always loved school and I'm so grateful for that. Ben has a moderate amount of homework which he does with out being asked or complaint every night and seems to love it. I know he's a bit odd that way, but not having to encourage him has been nice, because it's a totally different story with Nina.

Nina has more than once declared, "I don't do homework Mom!" Yes, my Nina is feisty. (Which may come as a shock to some who do not see her in the privacy of our home where that feistiness really comes out.) And even though she thinks she doesn't need to, she still has to do homework. She reads a take home book every night and does an activity like review sight word flash cards or writes a sentence about a picture she's drawn, etc. Normal kindergarten type stuff, but wow it has taken a lot of encouragement and patience to do homework with our youngest. One thing she does love is reading pages for pennies. I can't thank my friend Ganelle enough for this tip! Nina sits on the couch and reads books (Bob books for now - they are easy to sound out and are great for first readers) getting a penny for each page she reads. It is so fun to see her gain confidence. Just 2 months ago she was refusing to even try to sound out words (she knows all the letters and their sounds, but she just wasn't interested in reading. AT ALL.) This penny thing has changed it all around and she wants to read me books everyday. Yay!

So that's the report on the start of a new school year. I really just can't believe how grown up these kids are getting. I am thankful everyday to be their mom. It really is an amazing thing to see them grow and gain knowledge. They are real little people and someday they're going to be real big people and I'm going to miss these days of packing lunches and carpooling and homework. Oh look, now I'm getting misty. See why it's taken me a month to blog about this... sniff... :)

The Rest of July

Our end of July was crazy town! But also lots of fun! We'll start with a fun outing that I took with friends to Twilight at Red Rocks. How cool is that??! Seriously it was awesome. I'm there for any Twilight related fun and this one was SO great! Red Rocks is the neatest place and then the crowd was full of Twihards. There were cheers and cat calls every time Edward came on screen. (I'll admit I did my fair share of cheering.) I had to take a quick picture of the first view of Edward on the big Red Rocks screen.

Next in our crazy end of July was Sophie and Nina's birthday parties. Sophie turned 12 and Nina turned 5 and we did the parties back to back. Sophie's on a Friday night and Nina's the next day on Saturday afternoon. I can't believe Sophie is 12. I'm in denial. Can she really be a Young Woman now. I need to order New Era for her. It's weird. Her party was super fun and very loud. We had 12 of her friends over and they played Just Dance on the wii, had pizza and cake, and watched The Princess Bride. Well, I should say they watched some of The Princess Bride. They were all on a bit of a sugar high when the movie started so there was a lot of non-movie watching giddiness going on. I think it was good though and Sophie enjoyed it, so yay!

Nina's party was actually a bit calmer than Sophie's if you can believe it. The theme for Nina's party was "beach party" and she and 10 of her little friends played Just Dance Kids on the wii, pin the tentacle on the octopus, fish-fish-shark (which is the beach equivalent of duck-duck-goose :)), colored beach scenes, had a water balloon toss (which quickly turned into a water balloon fight) and briefly learned how to hula (the hula dancing was kind of like herding cats with all these 4 and 5 year olds :)). Oh and of course had cake and ice cream. Nina's little friend are adorable and it was really fun to have them all over.

 Then we had our family party for the girls which consisted of dinner at The Cheesecake Factory, Sophie's favorite, and the opening of presents. Sophie got an i-Pod Touch and Nina got an American Girl doll - Kanani. They were both ecstatic about their gifts. I can't believe my girls are growing so quickly. They are both beautiful, wonderful daughters and I'm so lucky to be their mom.

So that was our busy end of July. At the beginning of August all the kids started school which is a post in and of itself. It felt like our summer was one event after the other and then school started. SO busy. It has been nice to have some breathing space now that things have calmed down, but of course there's homework, soccer, ballet, piano, Young Women's activities, and everything else to keep us all busy. I wouldn't have it any other way though. It's all good.

I just realized there was a shocking lack of Ben in this post. He's cute. And I love being his mom too. So here's a picture of him.:)

Here's another cute guy I love.:)