Halloween Night

I was sad to miss the boys school Halloween parade but I wasn't feeling that great and thought I should save my energy for tonight to go trick-or-treating.

Thanks Amber Ashby for the pictures of the boys.

I did check the boys out of school before hand so that I could do Hunter's make up.  He was super excited that I did that.  He LOVED his make up job!

It was honestly pretty gross looking……it looked like his face was melting off!  He made a good zombie for sure!

Logan made a spooky headless horseman!

Several people I guess were making comments about who was under that costume.  They loved it!

I love Halloween night!

I love that we go trick-or-treating as a family!

There might not be that many years left where all our kids will join with us in this tradition which is okay, but I will be sad when that day comes.

We were a scary sight for sure!

We had heard that the Safford Nursing Home was having a haunted house and trick-or-treating through out their halls.  We decided to give it a try and see what it was like.

It was AWESOME!  The haunted house was great and the kids got plenty of candy.  It was good for them to see the elderly people sitting outside their rooms handing out candy.  They got so much candy we decided just to go to Sandra Smith's house (which is another tradition of ours on Halloween) and then trick-or-treat down their street.  I love walking down the streets on Halloween night and seeing other people dressed up.  I love watching my kids walk up to houses and trick-or-treat the traditional way.  I am not a big fan of trunk-or-treats……….Not sure exactly why but I'm just not.

Our little werewolf couldn't quite make the drive home!

The kids were pretty excited when they saw that Sandra had gotten them so many full size candy bars!!!  They really hit the jackpot!

I loved listening to Grant say, trick-or-treat in his little 4 year old voice!

Plenty of candy and plenty of fun for one night!

Happy Halloween!

Great Dad Award Goes To....

Who other then Justin?

Grant was having a big Halloween party at preschool and I was suppose to go help with games.  My sciatic nerve has been hurting quite a bit this pregnancy, but this day I woke up and just wanted to cry it hurt so bad.  Justin not only went for me but he dressed up with Grant as well!

Grant was so excited that his dad was taking him!!!

Justin said there were other dads there helping but that he was the only dad dressed up.  Grant's preschool teacher, Miss DeeAnn complimented Justin on what a good dad he was to dress up.  Justin was completely impressed with the Halloween party!

He said they had several games for the kids.  They had a makeshift pumpkin patch and they gave the kids a ride in a little wagon behind a three wheeled bike over to the "pumpkin patch".  There the kids got to pick a pumpkin to take home.  They also had made a cave with some type of tarps and large fans.    The class got to go in the "cave" with flashlights and listen to Halloween books read by their teacher.  Justin was really impressed with the size of the "cave."  Said the whole party was really well planned.  Grant had a great time being a werewolf and "roaring" at everyone.  Thanks to Wendy for letting us borrow this costume.  It's always nice to find a few costumes that are free!

Thanks babe for being such a great husband and father!

  Believe me Justin more then made up for the couple of hours that he took off work to take Grant to his Halloween party.  I was so grateful!  

Pretty Creative If You Ask Me......

It was Red Ribbon Week at the boys school so everyday there is a theme you can dress up as.

Today was "Community Helper Day".......so they gave the ideas of firefighters, police, doctors, nurses, etc. to dress up as.

What does my Hunter come up with......... an inmate, because they "help the community by picking up the garbage on the side of the road!"

  He is my "think outside the box" kid and I just love it!

Hunter got lucky because I had just bought some orange pants for Logan.  Of course we have many orange CKC shirts, so his orange inmate costume came together quite well!

Logan was so excited I let him wear this firefighter photo prop I have.  It is a super nice costume complete with fireman bibs and everything!  Logan said all his friends thought his costume was awesome and that he looked just like a real fireman!

Hunter was real serious as you can see.....he really got into character!

Hunter was so excited when I told him I would tattoo up his neck, with washable marker of course.

So many people commented on how funny it was of Hunter to dress up like this.  What a clever kid to even think of such a thing!  I love it when my kids get creative in their thought process.  It happens a lot with Hunter!  

Thanks for being great kids!

Pumpkin Patch Field Trip

The boys school was having their annual field trip, only this year they decided to go to a pumpkin patch in Tucson instead of Apple Annie's outside of Wilcox.  Being that I am 6 months pregnant I decided not to sign up to help drive kids this year.  Two days before the field trip I get a call from Ms. Purcell, Hunter's teacher, asking me if there was any way I could drive.

Of course I can't say no and so I ended up being a driver.  Actually Hunter's teacher rode with us as well.  It was really fun to get to know her better.  She is a really neat lady who has been through a lot.  So in the end I was grateful I could make the trip, even if it did kill my sciatic nerve to sit for that long in the car.

When they said the pumpkin patch was in Tucson they really meant 45 minutes past Tucson.  It took a good 3 hours to get there.  And then after such a long drive the pumpkins weren't that good and there was really nothing else to it.  No snow cones to buy, no kettle corn, no apple butter, no corn kernels to play in, nothing.  It was a real let down and for sure I will never go there again!

After seeing that there were no big pumpkins to get Hunter decided to pick the one that looked like an apple.  And if he's happy so am I!

This was my crew for the day!  Basically we drove for 6 hours total to be out of the car for about an hour and a half.  It was ridiculous!  But the kids were easy and boy was I glad I didn't bring Grant.  He wouldn't of been happy with all that driving and such little time out of the car.

It was fun to spend the day with my cute boys!

Bodie, Declan, Hunter, Madison and Logan

Hunter Got a Main Part!

Hunter was thrilled when he tried out for the school play and got the main part of the Tortoise in the play The Tortoise and the Hare.  He had to sing a solo as part of trying out.

It helps that he LOVES the music teacher, Mrs. Rubacava.

The play was the 3rd, 4th and 5th graders.

Hunter had a few speaking parts and he did a wonderful job.  He really used great voice and enthusiasm with his parts.  I was so proud of him!

He also had a duet with Madison Taylor.  They both rocked their song! 

Madison, Mrs. R and Hunter

Looks like both Madison and Hunter are pretty happy with their performance as well!

I could not have been more proud of Hunter and his performance!

He did fantastic!

Great Visit from Grandma & Grandpa B

We all were so happy that Grandma and Grandpa B made the trip down from Utah.  It will most likely be their last trip down, as these trips are getting harder and harder on Grandpa.

One thing about Grandpa B, he sure hasn't lost his humor!  

He is one funny guy!  He loves to tease and tell jokes!  My kids just ate it up!

We sure love them!

So glad we got to visit with them.

It was so cute, soon after they left Kiersten wrote down the little saying that Grandpa B was always singing to them.  She said she never wants to forget it!

"Hello, my name is Yon Yonson.

I come from Wisconsin.

I worked in the lumber yard there.

I walk down the streets and the people I meet they say, "Hey what's your name?"

My name is Yon Yonson."

It just repeats itself over and over.

What a character Grandpa B is! We love him and Grandma B to pieces.

I love seeing Grandpa B because every time I do he tells me that I get prettier and prettier each time he sees me.  Even if thats not true it's nice to hear it!

4th Annual Cluff Haunted House

I tried to talk myself out of having our haunted house this year, but couldn't do it because the kids were too excited!  They started talking about what they wanted to do in it since the end of September.  

Look at the scary haunted house creatures we had this year!

The kids love inviting a friend to come help them in the haunted house each year....

Kiersten invited Alani

Hunter invited Austen

Logan invited Ryker

Justin was a spooktacular tour guide as always.  It's interesting that even though he isn't super social he sure can play the part when we need him too.  He even seems to enjoy it!

Logan looked more like a prop then an actual person!  

He scared most everyone when he would jump up out of this chair!

This were some of our first victims, I mean guests.

Kiersten scared Shelby really good when she came out of the closet.  This was Shelby's first time at one of our haunted houses and she said it was "awesome.....way better then what she had in mind!"

Carsyn was bawling her eyes out when she came up, which the boys in the haunted house thought was great!

We had treats for all our guests to snack on while they visited and waited their turn for the scare house.

We could take about 6 people or so per group.

Kiersten had a great time making the treats this year.

She looked up cute treats on Pinterest and made most of them!  She is such a wonderful young women and daughter!  I don't know how I would get along without her!

 Justin and I had a great time with the kids decorating for the haunted house.

The kids do such a great job decorating and deciding how the haunted house tour should go.  They are getting scarier and scarier with it each year.

We found some cool spooky wall decals that really added to the haunted house feel.

It's nice to have a basement, even though this year it was a finished basement so we had to be more careful,  No throwing fake blood all over the walls and floors like last year.

With only black lights on and two fog machines it was super creepy!

Grant loved helping with the decorating of the haunted house and nothing really got to him.  Except the witch standing in the right hand corner.  He would ask me for days if I had put the witch up.  He would then tell me that she was fake but she was still scary!

This was our morgue, complete with a clap activated Joe Doe!  He raised up when Justin would clap as  people entered the room.

Of course we had a graveyard.  

It was Kiersten's idea to make these bones spell out "Help Me."

This skeleton was in the hallway between the two bedrooms.  He is motion censored....his eyes would light up and say creepy things when someone walked by.

The kids did a great job with all the spider webs.  They really looked spooky with the black lights on.

This was our bat cave.  When we finished the basement Justin put in a really awesome speaker system in each room, even the bathroom.  So he had found some really creepy music to play throughout the basement.  It totally created the perfect haunted house setting.  He found eerie bat sounds and played them from the gym, which is that first door to the right.  I have to say as you had to duck through the bat cave with those creepy bat sounds blaring it was awesome!

The pool table covered with bloody sheets and these crazy manikin heads would creep most anyone out.  

The pool table was surrounded by black sheets and Ryker in his mummy costume was hiding under the table.  When Justin would have the people come look at the heads Ryker would grab their legs!

Yikes! Talk about scary huh?

Did I mention that this year Uncle Chris came and help be in the haunted house as well.  So he scared the people as they entered the basement and as they were leaving.  People didn't expect there to be another adult down there, just Justin.  Plus the fact that Uncle Chris is like 6'5'' really startled them!

I think Uncle Chris and Justin had a little too much fun scaring people this year.

Debbie Luna crawled up the stairs to get out because she got so scared.  She was crying by the time she got to the top of the stairs.  The kids thought that was the best thing ever.  Not sure if she'll come back next year or not?

You want to know one of the BEST things I like about the haunted house?  It's once it is over and all our friends have left.  My kids and their friends spend an hour or two telling all about who they scared and what happened in the haunted house.  Kiersten said her friend Alani thanked her many many times for letting he come be apart of the haunted house.  

This year our haunted house ran for 2 1/2 hours straight.  We had around 60 plus people over for it.  It is a lot of work but so worth the memories!

The next morning I was dreading taking it all down.  I actually stayed in bed til 9:30.  When I did get up I could hear kids down in the basement so I went down to see what they were doing.  I was AMAZED......I go down to find Kiersten and Hunter.  They already had about 75% of the haunted house taken down, organized and put in the appropriate totes.  I could not believe my eyes!!!!

I figured Justin must of told them to go start cleaning it up.  But I find out Justin has been asleep on the couch all morning and he has no idea what the kids are doing.

What OUTSTANDING KIDS WE HAVE!!!!!

I could not have been prouder of them!

They are already talking about ideas for next years haunted house!

County Fair Time

It's that time of year again......County Fair Time!

The kids sure look forward to going to the fair.  They love seeing if they've won a ribbon on art work from school.  They love entering the talent show.  They enjoy the scary carnival rides and of course the fattening fair food!

Logan could not wait to dance at the fair talent show again this year.

I had to remind him that this year he isn't in the youngest kids group so the competition would be harder.  He said he didn't care he just wanted to dance.  He is such an easy going kid!

Doesn't he look like a total stud!!

We finally got around to picking out music for Logan to dance to the night before.  We decide on "Moves Like Jagger"......Logan was so excited!

He choreographed his dance all by himself and maybe practiced 30 minutes.

Man did he ROCK out there!  

I was so impressed with what he put together in such a small amount of time.  Everyone there couldn't believe it either!  I told them dancing is just want he does.  He can free style dance to any song on a moments notice.  

Great job Taylor on 3rd place.

Logan was thrilled beyond words to win 1st Place again this year!  He was excited to win $30!

I put the video of him dancing on FaceBook and we had about 50 people comment on how entertaining and talented Logan is!

Kiersten played her violin for the instrument part of the talent show.  She was going up against some really good kids, most of which were playing the piano.  It's much easier to play the piano good then the violin good.  Kiersten knows because she plays both.

This is her friend Alani photo bombing the picture...........love that girl!

Kiersten was ecstatic when she won 2nd place!!!!!  Getting $20 wasn't bad either!

I was so proud of her! She played Fisher's Hornpipe and was accompanied by Mr.  DeRusha.

Grammy Boswell and Aunt Ann came to listen to her play!

Kiersten also danced with Company at the fair and did amazing.  I had two people I didn't even know, come up and ask me if I was her mom.  They both went on to tell me what a beautiful dancer she is!  Makes getting her to and from all those practices more then worth it.

A lot of the performance stuff at the fair is in the early afternoon so Justin isn't able to get away from the office.  I called him Friday late afternoon and asked him if he wouldn't be able to get off early to come help take the kids on a few rides.  He willingly agreed and boy was I glad!

The kids were so happy that their dad came and took them on rides.

The next night after we'd been at the fair ,when Justin was putting Grant to bed  Grant thanked Justin for taking him on the rides at the fair.  Grant told his daddy how much fun it was to go on the rides.  I even went on the little pirate ship ride with Grant.

The kids had fun playing a few games as well.

Kiersten went on a couple of rides with her friends, but couldn't hang out with them that much because of her violin and dance performances.

Hunter decided this year he didn't want to compete in either the instrumental talent show or dance talent show.  Which was totally fine with me.

He did watch both Kiersten and Logan when they performed.

Hunter was excited when his dad said he could do the bull riding at the fair.  He was quite the cowboy!

Logan enjoyed a little bull riding himself!

Of course what would the county fair be without a little cotton candy to complete the evening!

It was fun to walk around the fair with Justin and the kids, even if the crazy, dirty carnies give me the creeps and I feel like I should bath my kids in Clorox once we get home.  Guess that's all part of the fun!