Halloween 2013

 Ok, a confession to start off the post with.  I am not a good halloween mom.  I don't really like much at all about the whole day, but I try and make it fun for my children.  I guess I do like carving pumpkins.  We had a good time carving the pumpkins we grew in our garden. We didn't get as many as last year, but there was one for each child plus some extras. I finally tried using a template and I thought they turned out really good.  We'll have to remember that for next year.  We carved them on Monday evening for our Family Home Evening activity.  The children picked out the template they wanted earlier in the day and we put the outline on the pumpkins so when carving time came it would be fast and easy.  It always seems like carving pumpkins runs later than I plan, so I was really glad we did the prep work early.  They turned out great!!!   It was a cold and windy night when we finished so I didn't get any good pictures of the pumpkins lit, but they looked spectacular.   Emma, MaryAnne and Dallin love dressing up with their best friends our next door neighbors, Emma, Linda and Adam Andreasen.  This year Emma and Emma were darling M&M's (I thought their costumes turned out very cute) Linda and MaryAnne were PeterPan and Tinkerbell, Adam and Dallin were a dragon and a knight.  Julia wore her cloak and carried her dagger. I told her she was a hobbit.  She ended up staying home and not going with us because she was babysitting Junior.  Matthew thought he was too old to dress up.   Bethany didn't go with us, but she went as a Renaissance maiden to the Young Single Adult ward dance the week before.  Joshua was a dragon and Lydia was Cinderella. Lydia didn't feel very well that night and she was sad that she didn't get to eat any of her candy.  David couldn't decide what to be until the morning of Halloween.  He finally decided to be a s'more. It turned out really easy and cute.  The children and I did downtown trick or treating and then the church trunk or treat.  They came home and did the annual candy trade with each other. It is a tradition they love.  The day turned out busy, and I didn't win any mother of the year points when I didn't let them go into the church and do the carnival. It was more than I wanted to do with hungry, tired kids.  We came home and had dinner instead.  

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State Cross Country Meet

Matthew went with the Cross Country team to Sheridan yesterday to run in the final meet of the season.  He was excited to make the varsity team as a freshman and get to run at State.  He told me he didn't want to be last. He took 67th out of over 100 runners.  He ran the course in 19:59 so he took about two minutes off his time on the same course at the beginning of the year.  Great job, Matthew!!  I love to watch you run!!!  Here are a few pictures from the Conference meet in Cody the week before. We didn't go to Sheridan and watch, but we were thinking of you and cheering you on from home.

Waiting for the race to start

And their off

Great job, Matthew!!

All I want for Christmas

Friday evening as I was making pizza for dinner (By hand, because my mixer died earlier in the week) Dallin came over and told me his teeth felt funny.  He hasn't lost any teeth yet, even though he will be seven in about two weeks.  I looked in his mouth and saw a permanent tooth coming in behind his baby teeth.  We went and showed Neil and discovered the two baby teeth were loose and ready to come out. He was brave and let Neil pull both teeth right then.  Now Dallin can really sing All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth.  I'm sure he wants more than that, but he was really excited to be the first child to lose two teeth instead of just one at a time.  He was a little sad because he dropped one of his teeth and we haven't been able to find it again, but  the tooth fairy still came. He was excited to find his money under his pillow from the tooth fairy.  Now he has a really cute little toothless grin.

Smashing pumpkins

We grew pumpkins in our garden this summer. The children enjoyed picking out their pumpkin and bringing them in the house until time to carve them.  They've been in the house for awhile now.  They are sitting on our stairs down into the family room. They make pretty fall decorations and a great climbing challenge for Joshua and Lydia.  They can tell you exactly which pumpkin belongs to each child.  Sunday evening as we were eating ice cream together I noticed Joshua standing at the top of the stairs, somehow he had moved on of the bigger pumpkins (Julia's) across the dining room and to the stairs all by himself. I still don't know how he managed to move it without anyone noticing.  He was poised to give it a shove down the stairs when I noticed what he was doing. Unfortunately, I noticed a half a second to late to stop him.  The next thing we heard was a thump, thump, and then a smash as the pumpkin went down the stairs and smashed at the bottom.  At least he picked Julia's so no one was too upset about their pumpkin being smashed, and at least it wasn't the neighbor's pumpkins.  It was kind of funny. Leave it to Joshua to smash the pumpkins.

Emma Lee Waite

Emma was our surprise early baby. She came two weeks early and I was in denial of being in labor because I had never had a baby early. Neil and I took the children to the Powell football game that night. We went home at half time and put the children to bed. Neil thought we should go to the hospital but I didn't want to get sent home. I figured by our 5th baby I should know if I was in labor. We finally decided to go to the hospital, but it was the one year anniversary of the Billings Temple. The temple was open for 24 hours straight and our ward had the middle of the night sessions. Everyone we had planned on watching the children were in Billings attending the temple. We finally got a teenage girl from our ward to come over. We got to the hospital about 11:10 and Emma was born at 11:58. We weren't sure if her birthday would be October 20 or 21. Neil liked the 20th because 10/20/2000 is a pretty cool birthday. She sure was a pretty baby. I was glad to have her here safe and healthy.
 Our sweet little Emma Lee turned thirteen yesterday. She is a sweet girl and works hard to make sure everyone is happy. She is a good sport about sharing her king sized bed with a little one or two at bedtime. Joshua and Lydia love to have turns sleeping with Emma. Emma is playing in the band for the first time this year. She started a year late, but she is doing a great job of catching up. I will try and upload a video of her concert from last week. They did a great job playing. Emma had a busy week last week with a band concert on Thursday evening, a birthday/volleyball party on Saturday, and her birthday on Sunday. She helped clean up the downstairs on Friday evening instead of watching a movie with the other kids so it could be ready for her party. We enjoyed getting to know some of her friends she has met at school this year. The girls seemed to have a good time together playing games, eating pizza and watching a movie. There were 16 girls at our house for the party. Emma wanted cupcakes with volleyballs on them for the party. I think they turned out pretty good. Emma was happy with them, and that's what really matters.

Joshua's film debut

When we went to Doctor Wiggins in August they approached us about featuring Joshua for a fundraiser for St. Vincent's Healthcare. I agreed because Dr. Wiggins and his staff are very important to me. I remember before we brought Joshua home the first time wondering what we would do about his checkups. I thought we might have to make trips back to Salt Lake on a monthly basis at the beginning. I was really worried about that for a couple of reasons. 1)I would have to do it by myself during the school year (Neil gets lots of time off, but you don't get to choose when you get it off.) 2)I wanted to know that we were close enough to see a doctor if Joshua had a need that a pediatrician couldn't handle. When Dr. Burch at Primary Children's told me that they were arranging a followup visit with the pediatric cardiologist in Billings I was amazed and so grateful that we could see a doctor in Billings. I have complete confidence in Dr. Wiggins. He is amazing!!! He reminds me of President Eyring in looks and in his calm, peaceful manner. He really does do all he can to help these special heart kiddos. I also love his nurse, Melissa. She is so good with the kids. I think she could be a child photographer if she ever wanted a different job. She is so good and patient with the kids and amazing at getting them to smile. Dr. Wiggins and his office have become important parts of our life. This didn't start out to be a post about pediatric cardiology, but I just wanted to let you know the reasons that we consented to doing this video. Actually, when Dr. Wiggins asked me about featuring Joshua I thought it would be a billboard in Billings and would just involved pictures so I agreed. When I found out they were coming to our house to film our family and do interviews I seriously considered backing out. The children hope that someday I will learn to say no to newspaper interviews, and fundraising videos. I think I should take their advice and say no in the future. Anyway, I don't really like my part on the video, but I do feel grateful to share Josua's story. Emma played in her conference tournament on Saturday in Cowley, Neil went to watch her play. Her team took 2nd and she was happy about it. The girls really have gotten a lot better throughout the season. They had a great time and learned a lot. Emma made some good friends and had great coaches. It is fun to watch her play. Matthew ran here in Powell on Thursday. Neil teaches on Thursday evening so he didn't get to watch much of the race. Matthew didn't feel very good. I love to watch him run, maybe it is that I am glad I'm not the one out there running. One of the dads cheered his son on by hollering "Hurt Good." I think that is a good definition of running. We also had our practice for the Primary Sacrament Meeting program on Saturday. We had a good turn out and I feel good about how it will go on the October 20th. We practiced earlier than normal because the 19th is Super Saturday. I will be glad when we have the opportunity to share out thoughts and songs on the 20th. (It is also Emma's 13th birthday) Thirteen years ago when I planned the program to be finished before she arrived in November she came earlier than I thought and I had a week old baby to take to the program and we also blessed her that day.

The Dynamic Duo or Masters of Disaster...it all depends on your viewpoint

I feel like I have spent the last few days just trying to keep up with the Dynamic Duo at our house. Joshua and Lydia are constantly finding new ways to keep me busy.  They sure can get into mischief together, but they sure are cute!!

 Joshua and Lydia have been into so much mischief this week.  Monday we took everyone over to watch Matthew's cross country race in Lovell.  Matthew took over a minute off his time and did marvelous!!  We had to go and get Joshua off the course a time or two. He thought he was running the race along with the team I guess. Lydia was more than happy to follow right along behind Joshua.  Tuesday I began to wonder if I can really keep my children home for school and keep an eye on Joshua and Lydia. It seemed like I was putting out one fire after another all day long.  First, they locked themselves in the car and chewed almost all the gum I keep out there to keep my awake when I have to drive. "Chewed it and swallowed it" according to Joshua.  Not ten minutes after I got them out of the car, they were playing downstairs and Joshua shut Lydia in the storage closet in the playroom.  It wouldn't have been too big of deal except that closet door has a lock on it (don't ask why..there isn't a need for it).  Joshua locked Lydia in and I have misplaced the key.  Neil was coming home for lunch, but I couldn't wait. Matthew and Dallin helped me take the door off to rescue dear sweet Lydia.

The adventures of the day weren't quite over yet.  When Neil left to back to school Joshua and Lydia went out and didn't want to come back in. I went in the house to get my shoes and only got distracted for one minute, but by the time I got back outside I couldn't see them anywhere. I looked all around our yard and house. I decided they might have gone next door to the Andreasen's house. I knocked on their door, but they hadn't seen them.  By now I was starting to really worry. I got Matthew and MaryAnne to help me look and a couple of Andreasen children came out to help.  Matthew rode his bike around the Jason/Henry loop looking for them. Matthew finally found them over on Jason Road playing in someone's backyard. They said they went to see the dogs.  They made really good time for being barefoot and wearing princess shoes.  I bet they were missing for at least 20 minutes and I was really, really worried!!!  So glad they were found safe and sound to have more adventures together.  I left them home with Julia in the evening while I went to watch Emma's volleyball match. I was a little worried that they might be a handful, but they behaved very well and Emma did great playing.

Today they have only locked themselves in the car and finished off the gum they didn't get to yesterday.  It sure can be a challenge to keep up with these two. I am trying to figure out a good way to keep them in the house. Dead bolts maybe?  It is fun to have children who like to play together and keep each other entertained.  I hope they will grow up to be the best of friends.  It is good to have them to keep me hopping.  I love all my children so much!!!  I am so grateful to be a mom and to be blessed with this opportunity to love them.