October Trees

All through the month of October, the kids spend most of their time in our neighbor's yard. They have a nice tree in the front with plenty of leaves to play in.

Amy has 2 girls around the same age as my kids. Amy and I actually went to high school together one year!

Her oldest daughter, Ashlynn is in Chase's class at school this year, and Addison is about a year and a half younger than Tyler.

They aren't home half the time my boys go over there with their rakes, but they don't mind.

Camrey never wants to miss out on the fun either! She wants to be where the boys are!

And on this day, The little girl across the street came to play too. Her name is Kayla (she has a pink shirt and is holding a rake with her back turned). Her 20 yr old brother started his own lawn care business and mows our lawn for us some times!

Tyler and the bus.

As I have mentioned before, my little preschooler Tyler rides the bus to school 4 days a week. This has been a great blessing for me. One less trip to the school a day, and it allows Camrey go down for a nap just before Tyler catches the bus. I put her down and 30 min. later walk him to the end of the road!
Now that it is cold outside we sit in the car and wait, but these pictures were taken a month or so ago when it was still warm. He rides his bike to the corner, then he likes to climb in the tree is someones yard (hope they don't mind), and we pretend to play hide and seek.

Our new game is naming the colors and types of cars that drive by while we wait for the bus.

Tyler doesn't like loud noises so he plugs his ears when the bus pull up.

He seems so little on that big bus! Only preschoolers have to be buckled in on a bus!

Halloween (October 31)

What do you do on a snow day when school's are closed... Catch up on blogging while the kids play in the morning!

Camrey's hair was just long enough to pull back into a Tinker Bell pony-tail! I found this costume at Other Mother's for $7!! and the shoes for about $3, (Kmart had them for $10).

I also found a yellow "Belle" dress for $6 and couldn't pass it up! They had Snow White, Cinderella, but I exercised restraint and only bought the two, (she can be Belle next year!) Camrey loves to dress up especially in Belle's dress! She's such a girl.

Tyler, of course, was so excited to see a Mario costume! He wore it every day for about a week after we got it. I finally had to hide it until Halloween, he was starting to wear it out!

Chase wants to be a fireman when he grows up! The first costume we got was a plastic coat with an ax from Walmart, which ripped within a few days. So I returned it and got this one from Kmart. No ax, but it lasted longer.

Chase begged me to carve a pumpkin, so one morning right before we had to leave for school I hollowed one out for him. I had been promising him for days, and there hasn't been any time in the evenings, so I did it before school.

We carved out the face when he got home later that day!

We did a Trunk-or-Treat on Saturday the 30th, and a short Trick or Treat on Sunday to the people on our street and some "home teaching" families. The kids had fun and got plenty of candy!

My Weekend...

Friday; I had to make 24 cupcakes for the school "Monster Mash" Family dance. Tory got off work a little early and got packed up for the scout camp out he was leaving for at 5:00. He watched the kids after school because I volunteered to help decorate the gym for the party. Then when I got home he left. That evening at 6:30 we were all dressed in our costumes: Me- Jessie from Toy Story, Camrey- Tinker Bell, Chase - a fire man, Tyler- Mario. We went to the school and had lots of fun. When I got home at 8:15 I realized we lost a tinker bell slipper, so I got p.j's on the kids and went back to he school... lucky me we found it! So Camrey got to bed at 9:00 instead of the usual 7:30, and the boys in bed at 9:45 instead of 7:45! Camrey woke up at 4:30 starving because she didn't eat her dinner and the boys were up "dark and early" at 6:45! (You put them to bed 2 hours later and they still wake up before the crack of dawn!)

Tyler got the flu bug around 2:00 Saturday just about a half hour before Tory got home. He was throwing up about ever 15 min. I didn't even have time to eat a bowl of cereal before I was running to catch the next wave. So Sat night I slept on our old queen mattress (p.s.... if I haven't mentioned it, we finally got a new mattress for our bed a week ago!) in the living room with Tyler. Lucky for me he was done throwing up by 8:00, Not so lucky... at 4:00 a.m. I started throwing up, then an hour later so did Chase!

So for the next 2 hours I took care of Chase while I my self continued to be sick. Finally at 7:00 I was out of energy and Tory had to take over!

I am so grateful for my husband!!! He totally stepped up and took care of everything. I was in bed literally all day Sunday. Thank goodness today I feel well enough to take care of my kids, (not entirely better, but good enough) and Tory is back to work. He got a flu shot this year, so hopefully he will be spared. And little Camrey had a short flu bug last Wed. or Thurs. so hopefully she won't get it again!

PS. Mc Donald's is by far the most painful thing I have ever thrown up!
With Tyler being sick I didn't get a chance to grocery shop and we were
out of food, and I was starving. So I asked Tory to run to Mc D's and
get me a burger... Had I known what was to come I never would have asked!

Felling Lonely...

I guess I could try journaling for once. I don't usually blog without pictures, but I just finished reading my sister's blog and she always amazes me in the fact she always has something to write about. And another thing... she is really great with words!

So I just got my kids in bed and I recorded the season Premiere of Smallville on my ancient VCR... (yes, you read that correctly) so I could have something to do tonight.

I miss my husband!! He has been working really long hours the last 2 weeks and I feel like we never see him! I know I'm not the only one in the world who has a husband who seems gone all the time, but I'm really missing him right now. He had to leave today at 4:00 for a young men camp out for church! He'll be back tomorrow about 1 hour before I have to leave for the evening!

I feel like I'm being so ungrateful in my sour attitude... At least he has a good job, and can support us and take care of us, and I don't have to work. Him being gone a lot is a small sacrifice to pay when you look at the bigger picture, but that doesn't mean I don't miss him and wish he was here now!

So I guess I better go watch my bad recording of Smallville before I let myself wallow in any more self pity!

The Dinosaur Museum (Sept 4)

Over Labor Day weekend we decided to take a trip to Utah and visit Tory's family. They live in Logan, and his cousin from Virginia, was also getting married that weekend in Southern Salt Lake.

We decided to make a little vacation and take the kids to the Dinosaur Museum in Salt Lake. If you've never been there before it was really awesome!

I didn't have high expectations (looking at big dinosaur Fossils...), But is was so impressed how hands on, and kid friendly it was! Not just a place to "look" but fun things to explore!

The first a favorite was the "Star Room" I didn't mean to cut off Tory's head but it was so dark in there I just had to point and shoot. It was a circular room with fiber optic lights. So walking across the bridge you felt like your were walking into outer space!

There was a little area where the kids can go through this little cave.

So much to see! They had full size T-Rex and Full size Brachiosaurus which took 3 pictures to get the full length shot... it didn't put them on this post though.

Stegosaurus...

This is the foot of the Brachiosaurus.

In this little area there were plastic toy dinosaurs. And wooden cut outs that your are supposed to match with the correct hole with the name of the dinosaur... basically a big puzzle.

In this area you get to learn first hand how "Erosion" really works!


A huge sand and water table where you can build up walls of sand and watch how the constant slow flow of water can change everything.

Chase had fun with it, but Tyler was not interested. Any thing involving water and sand is usually avoided!

The Sharks were thought to be this big in the prehistoric times, but the only thing they have to judge their size off of is teeth because, of course, Sharks don't have any bones to leave behind.

And the last exploration area was digging your own Dinosaur fossils. A large area where kids can brush away the sand to discover the dinosaurs hiding beneath! Again... Chases thing, not Tyler's!

Camrey wanted to dig too but we had a reception to go to and I didn't want her any dirtier that she already was! Next time, we'll bring a change of cloths for the kids!