"Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest." Joshua 1:9 (Halloween FHE 2010)

What a great family night we had last night. First off: my spectacular dinner table. We started the night off with the lights dimmed, scary music on the radio, drank "blood" (red kool-aid) and human meat sandwiches (bbq beef). Emma actually got TOO scared and we had to turn the lights back on. :) (Goal accomplished!) After dinner we read the above scripture and talked about fear vs. faith followed by a talk by President Hinckley on what we should believe in. (Thank you online idea website a.k.a SugarDoodle.org).We then popped the orange balloons below with the "beliefs" written on them and did the accompanying challenges. Super fun! Fun enough to use some/all of this for Emma's Halloween school party, Hailey's Halloween school party, Tyler's Halloween school party AND Sharing Time on Sunday! 5 birds with one stone. Nice...

 The "yucky" Food Guess Game: (pigs feet and chicken liver and such)...

 Finding a "be not afraid" scripture in less than one minute. Had 4 seconds to spare...

 Eating cactus meat: (Not too bad actually!)

 Nice Tyler:

 Nice Hailey:

 Nice Emma:

 Scary freaky Mason:

Believing in yourself: Push-ups for 2 minutes:

Believing in prayer: (Hailey had to follow her Dad's voice around the kitchen to a bowl of apples, followed by a bob or two.)

Mason just got to pass out the prizes. He could NOT contain his excitement! :)

What have I done?!

Winter is coming. Which means kids are indoors quite a bit. Which means we can have a little cabin fever on occasion. :) So I am always on the lookout for inside activities. I found some Crayola Window Markers and thought I'd give them a try. Even saved them for Nathan to have when I go to school Monday night. This is what I saw the next morning:

  (And this is on almost EVERY WINDOW IN THE HOUSE.)

Aye yi yi...

The artist of our family...

I finally got Hailey to try the paint-by-number kit she got for Christmas LAST YEAR. Then I didn't see her for 4 hours straight...

 I think she loves it.

                                      

(Video of Hailey acting out a role from The Princess and the Frog. Wowzers. Girl has a growl!)


Other thoughts from my brain:
       After picking up my 1,357,328th piece of trash off the floor, I realized (lightbulb turns on) "KIDS CAN PICK UP THEIR OWN MESSES!" Duh. What have I been thinking? Sometimes I think my brain came out when I delivered Tyler 11 years ago.
       So we had a family council the other night and Nathan asked the kids what we can do to fix the problem. At school they have to "pull a card" for misbehavior, so they decided they want to do that. We bought a little book that holds index cards. I wrote a variety of "punishments" on them. (Dishes, vacumn, etc.) This afternoon little Emma threw a stinking banana peel on the floor. (What the?!) I'm not going to lie. I was totally going to let her get away with it. (Again. Where's my brain?) For me she is still a little girl, but she ran over to our book and had to take out all the trash from upstairs. I told her just the kitchen one, but she did every.single.garbage.can, (there is about ten!), AND put new sacks in them. By herself. Wow.
She also had to vacumn her room a few hours later. Not as exciting the second time pulling a card.
We also voted that this punishment doesn't apply to Mason. :)   (Even when he eats cookies IN MY DANG BED. Hmmm, I need another idea for 2 year-olds...)

Brothers

So Grandpa Stucki gave us a surprise visit, and THIS is how the boys room was. (Auuugh! Thank goodness my Dad loves me for me, not for my clean kids' rooms.)

 BUT, it did kick my bum into gear. Four hours later it is sparkling clean, and these boys LOVE it.

 I asked Mason to show me his toys. He is very proud of his "corner".

 Oh. My. Heavens. Could you not just cry with tears of love? (Ok that's lame. But you get it.)

 :)

Carrots

When we have carrots to pull from the garden, than make it an "activity" for FHE and it becomes super fun!

At least for a few minutes...

 Until Scrappy finds a dead deer behind our yard (great thanks Scrappy) and everyone sprints to see the gore.

 And guess who is left. :)

 And guess who is left to wash the carrots...

(This video is when Emma thought I was taking a picture rather than a video.hee hee)

Boondogals and such...

Thank goodness for Scouts. Otherwise, how would we have learned about such cool things like Boondogals?

They have taken over our household. The Scout store probably hates seeing my car pull up because I bring a ton of kids (most the neighborhood is doing them) and they make about $2. 25 with all our purchaces. The string is only 5 cents a strand. :)

Just a day in the life of my job as Mason's mother: trying to get him in the bath....

My question:"Where are you getting your flu shot?"
As usual, Slurpee's afterward for being brave.

Too bad I don't have a picture of last Sunday. Our family was asked to speak on The Proclamation on the Family. We TOTALLY enjoyed preparing for it. (And we learned a ton.) Hailey and Tyler spoke first, than Emma joined them and sang Families Can Be Together Forever. I spoke afterwards for a full 20 minutes (oops) which only left Nathan 12-15 minutes. He did awesome though. What a great experience. Grandma and Grandpa Eaton (and Aunt Kris) made the drive to come listen. It was a great day. :)

We sing Old McDonald every FHE. This is what it has turned in to:

P.S. Afterwards Nathan asked if I recorded him when he was singing. Of course I lied and told him no. :)

Night Talk

After we put the"babies" to sleep (yes, I still call them my babies), sometimes I stand in the hall and listen.

Girls room:

giggle
giggle
giggle

That's all I ever hear.

Boys room:

"YOU go to bed"
"No YOU go to bed"
"No YOU go to bed"
"No YOU go to bed."

Recently though we had a wonderful surprise of overhearing Tyler helping Mason say his prayers. They pray that they will have good dreams and not get sick. The other night I heard them pray for "the two children who were struck by lightening." (Story we heard on the news.) It is heartwarming and makes me smile SUPER big. I love that they talk to their Heavenly Father-without me even asking. :)

Oh yes. Tyler turned 11. :)

The best part was afterwards making a "spy obstacle course" . Rule - "Can't touch the red fire".

And playing karate.

Happy Birthday!

Out of fingers, so he used his tongue.

Playing night football afterwards with the King of Games: Dad.  As Hailey told me once,  "Mom makes things safe. Dad makes things fun." True. :)

One more. Mason has learned that he can make everyone laugh with his boogers. Gross..

Mason is a TEASE.

a

Video's take SO long to upload...

My girls

Adorable! Can you see the "Where the Wild Things are" puppets? These two get along about 95% of the time. I love it. (I told Emma to smiling and she said, "I am!" They are wearing masks.)

Went to a carnival awhile ago. (Of course) it was a farm theme. We live in the country, that's for sure!

Picking rasberries in Aunt Kris's garden...

My boys

After a football game Tyler and I spent a night at the library, Lowes, Grocery store #1 and Grocery Store #2 looking/creating the perfect science experiment. He now knows how to make a magnet out of a battery. Cool... We got a cat. To kill mice. Instead it pooped in our basement and gave Nathan ringworms. We now do not have a cat. But "Mango" was a fun toy for awhile. :)

Mason LOVES to be in charge of treats at FHE...(Notice his pink jammies. They're his favorite.)

Nathan loves to be in charge of the activity. We played with Mexican Jumping Beans...

THIS is when I caught Tyler "rock-climbing" up our house. It was a month ago and I think the rope is still there now that I think about it. eek!

I don't have a cub scout anymore...

That's right. Tyler was able to get his Webelos. (Why do my arms look so chubby? hmmm) The "actors" for his Arrow of Light. I am so bugged because Tyler could NOT find his Scout shirt on HIS MOST IMPORTANT DAY. Instead he wore his new shirt that we bought 2 sized too large. :)

He was supposed to stand in front of the Boy Scouts but he was somehow confused and wanted to face the audience, too. So he kept looking behind his back. I love awkward boy stage. hee hee

During a scout "yee haw" cheer..

We also learned self-defense from a local karate teacher. (Who so happens to be from Vegas and kept telling horror stories about Vegas. Nate elbowed me a bunch...:)

September Happenings

Every Friday is Spirit Day at Discovery Elementary. What spirit! I had a symphony concert a few weeks ago. (This picture is taken after). Nate was out of town and I felt bad having my friend watch all four kids, so GUESS who got to come sit in the audience and watch?! :) They are so supportive. :)

Nate's 34th birthday. He recieved shirts, underwear, socks and Turtle Pie. Dad's are so lucky. :)

Football football football. Thank goodness it's over. Tyler's team was second place and he was not able to get to the Superbowl this year, but REALLY loved it. He said this is the first year he understands the game. (He's #25)

After the last football game...