Ward Trunk or Treat

We had our ward Trunk or treat last night and it was really fun! I decided since I didn't have a costume (I know shocker!) that I would paint a mask on my face instead. 

This is what I came up with.

 Lily decided that my hair wasn't good enough so she had me throw on a purple wig! I look terrible with purple hair! And now I know that I should never cut my hair in an A line! hahaha.

 Jacob was a skeleton. I only had about 5 minutes to paint his face. He was pretty disappointed in the outcome. :( He didn't let it get him down though.

 Tyler the Grimm reaper.

 My princess Rapunzel in her wedding dress. I asked her to pose for a picture. This was the clearest shot I got considering there was a lot of spinning around involved!

 Ready for action! It looks like Rapunzel has been taken by some scary bad guys!

FHE pumpikin carving

 We had a fun FHE on Monday. Carving pumpkins is always one of the kids favorite things to do.

Tyler's first attempt. He was pretty disappointed in it. But I think it looks pretty cool all lit up.

 Jacob's triple bat pumpkin

 

My pumpkin eating Lily's. I was going to "eat" Alyssa's, but I cut the hole too big. Lily was kind enough to forgo her princess pumpkin and share with me.

 

Tyler's second try. He did great! It isn't as easy as you might think for an eight year old to carve a pumpkin by himself.

 All of them on the steps. (There's no cheating at our house with tracing pre-made pictures!)

 

Fish Face

The kids and I are loving Alyssa while she makes a fish face and then pops it out with a sucking sound. They made sure I recorded it. Enjoy my sweet baby girl!

Getting Crafty

For our Relief Society activity this week we made luminaries. They decided not to do a super saturday this year but still wanted a craft night. it was nice because the Relief Society provided everything we needed (vinyl, paint, glue, salt, accessories, etc) except for the jars. I decided to head to the DI and I found some pretty cool jars for a small price. I ended up buying all of my jars/bottles for under 5 dollars!

I made a Halloween luminary (they even gave us the LED tea lights inside) 

I also made a "potions" set for Halloween. I liked the cool bottles I found at the DI and most were only 25 cents.

 

 I found this gigantic jar for only $1! I made it into a Christmas luminary. I think it will look cool with a light inside.

 They had this "snow effect" where you paint your jar and then spray on some spray adhesive and roll the jar around in Epsom salt. I'm not sure if I like it or not, but I made one anyway with this jar I brought. I think I will be picking up salt that falls off all the time....

 It was fun to get my craft on with my friend Brittney.
I was cranky yesterday and needed a night out away from the kids surrounded by women, crafts, and cheesecake!

Kids Halloween party!

We had a fun Kelloggs rice Krispies house party at our house today! We had the kids invite their friends. 

We played games

 we did a craft

 

We wore silly costumes (white trash baby)

 

We ate some goodies too!

 I am a little ashamed to admit that I haven't ever made rice krispies before. I know you are all thinking "how on earth can you be a mother of four children and have NEVER made them!?!" Well, I haven't until today. I made them into candy corns and they turned out adorable!

 I learned a lot though on how to make it right. I made two batches.

 color and measuring accurately make a huge difference! Hahaha

 

 The spread

basketball man (aka Tyler)  LOVED them.

Jake had his fake teeth in so he couldn't smile for the picture.

 Our fun group.

 Did I mention I LOVE Halloween?!

8 Months old

 Today my sweet Alyssa is 8 months old. I'm a little sad that she won't stop growing, but such is life. She is still the best baby ever. She loves to eat. she eats and eats and eats. She will eat pretty much anything you give her now. That includes paper and broken crayons and pieces of toys. Hopefully, I can keep her from eating non food items from now on though. She prefers to feed herself, but I still feed her baby food at each meal.
She is taking after her brother Jake. Not just in looks, but in actions as well. She can pull herself up on anything now and will even attempt at letting go and stepping towards something else. Jake walked at 8 1/2 months old and she is following pretty close to that bar he set.  She crawls really fast and can get where she needs to go. If I'm not careful she will climb half the stairs (7 or 8 steps) before I notice. The other day she climbed the whole flight of stairs (under Randy's supervision.) Sheesh!

I'm glad, unless she is tired, she will go to anyone who wants to hold her. It makes life easier for me, especially at church. She smiles and laughs at her brothers and sister all day. They love her so much and the novelty of a new sister still hasn't worn off. I'm getting to know her sweet personality a little better. I think if I paid more attention she wouldn't ever fuss. It is only when she is neglected that she cries out for my attention. I love you dear Alyssa! Happy 8 Months today!

Following the Spirit, or Heather's home makeover

Randy and I have been wanting to move for a while now. We are busting out of this house and would like to live somewhere with a little more wiggle room. Anyway, so we were looking at houses and had an appointment to go look at a few of them that we liked. (Most were located in Eagle wood or Bountiful.) Anyway, as I was thinking about selling/cleaning out and taking photos of our house I got the distinct impression "Do not continue on this path you're on." It was such a sharp warning, that I couldn't ignore it even if I wanted to. Anyway, Randy and I prayed about it and have gotten the impression that we need to stay where we are for the time being. 

Needless to say, I am pretty disappointed by this turn of event.  I will follow Heavenly Father, but I'm doing so a little begrudgingly. I sort of turned into a "little princess" as Dave Ramsey says and told Randy that if I was being forced to stay here, then I wanted to make it a little more livable. 

Hence, our new home improvements/ makeovers.

This is a photo of our new Shed. oooohhh Ahhhhh! We can put our outside junk in and have a clutter free yard! This makes me SO SO SO happy!

 

Next on my list? our kitchen floor. doesn't this photo make you cringe a little? I have never liked it, but have lived with it for nearly 6 years now. I know, I know, poor me with my first world problems right?

Demolition time

 

I had to get a picture of Randy mopping our floor for the first time.

Randy hard at work installing our Allure flooring by Traffic master from good old Home Depot. I think it is pretty cool myself.

progress

It is finished! Wahoo!!!

Randy admiring his work

I know I have put up entirely too many pictures, but I'm excited so I don't really care.

 

Lily likes it

It's good enough to play/lay on

Totally worth every penny of the 350 bucks! (oh BTW, the Home Depot said they didn't do any discounts and that buying at the store through them was as cheap as it gets. BUT, I bought the floor through Ebates on their website and got 3% cash back. It isn't much, but if I can save 15-20 dollars I'll do it! Plus, I got free shipping to our house.Also, I found online discount codes to use for $5 off a purchase of $50 or more. Saving is saving right?)

I love it! So now I have the two most important things checked off on my list. If you already didn't' know, Randy is the BEST husband ever!

Now for the kitchen cupboards.....

Oh, I threw in a video of Randy actually putting a piece of the floor down, for all those interested.

Tyler vs the Bullies

  I took the three oldest to the school carnival last week while Randy stayed home with the baby. While we were at the carnival, the kids wanted to use their tickets to jump in the bouncy house. As we were in line, the lady in charge said that they were going to divide the line into 'small kids' and 'bigger kids.' I asked Tyler which group he wanted to be in and he said he wanted to be in with the bigger kids. The groups get 2 full minutes of play before the next round gets to go inside. Tyler went in with the big kids while Lily, Jake and I waited outside for their turn. But, Tyler had only been inside less than a minute when he came back out again. I asked him "Did you have fun?" and he said "Yeah,...well, no." He looked like he could cry. I asked him what happened and he proceeded to tell me that while inside, the other boys asked "What grade are you in?" and Tyler had said "3rd grade." Then, they told him "We are in 5th grade and you can't be in here with us." So Tyler left.
I felt so bad for my sweet Tyler. I told him that he was bigger than all three of those 5th graders and that he could go back in, but Ty didn't want to anymore. I told him that the kids were just bullies and he shouldn't pay them any attention.
I didn't think too much of it, until today when Tyler came home from school nearly bouncing off the walls with excitement. Then, he told me the coolest story ever:

Tyler was walking home from school when those same three bully 5th grader boys came up to him and called him "puny." Tyler said "Do you want to measure size?" (meaning let's see who is bigger.) The smallest boy came up to him and his head came to the middle of Ty's stomach. After measuring, he looked scared. The second tallest boy came up to measure and he came to Tyler's chin. He looked scared too.  Finally, the third and tallest boy walked up to Tyler and he said "I'm taller!" and then realized too late that he only came to Tyler's nose. Tyler then told me "I tried to look as confident as possible!"

Next, the tallest boy walked back and picked up a golf ball sized rock and threw it at Tyler.  (Can you believe he threw a rock at my little boy!! Tyler is two years younger than him for crying out loud!) But here is the best part; Tyler caught the rock  in the air,with one hand, before it hit him. He looked at the rock, back at the boys, and dropped the rock to the ground. Then, the tallest boy picked up another rock and held it behind him for another boy to grab. He said "Grab it!" But when he looked back, his friends were running away. He dropped the rock and ran away from Tyler with the rest of the boys. Tyler didn't think that catching the rock and that being taller than those 5th graders could be so effective.

He was so excited and I was so proud that I had to take a picture of his cute happy face. 

 Can you feel the excitement exuding from his entire body?!

I'm so glad that he "beat the bullies" so to speak. I'm also glad that he didn't throw the rock back at them or throw any punches to get the point across that he wasn't going to back down. Although, I feel he would have been justified if he had thrown the rock back at them. Hooray for my wonderful, brave, tall, non violent, 3rd grader!