Pumpkin Patch

     Kelsey's preschool went to the pumpkin patch October 23, 2012.  I went with Nathan too to help drive and make sure Mindy had another parent there to help watch the kids.  They started by going through a maze to get to a big bouncer.  There were lots of games inside the maze that they could play too.  Kelsey was just having so much fun figuring out the maze she went back in and out of few times.  Then they got into the bouncer and had tons of fun there.  They got cotton candy and popcorn and got to bring home a little pumpkin.

Kelsey's class (and Nathan)
L-R: Emily Schaeffer, Ellie Rowley, Macie Singletary, Kelsey, Nathan, and Paige Simmons

 

 

 

     Later that day, Kelsey and Nathan had a sucker. (I've been using dum dums to bribe Nathan to use the toilet.)  It was funny because Kelsey's sucker turned her tongue the same color as her shirt.

Crazy Hair Day.....Almost

     We did the craziest hair for crazy hair day this year.  And we are never this prepared for crazy hair day.  But we had a funny idea that I got from a friend on facebook to make your hair stand up higher.  You just use empty toilet paper rolls inside your ponytail.  We had also recently pulled out the Halloween bucket so the girls dug out some purple and gold hair color sprays.  It was Thursday, October 25.  Normally they don't do spirit days in the middle of the week, just on Fridays.  But since it was Red Ribbon Week (say no to drugs), they did a spirit day every day.

 

     Well, their hair turned out fabulous, but, as we started driving to school, the doubts started.  "Are you sure it's crazy hair day today?"  I didn't know, I was just trusting that they had known.  As we pulled up to the school they started looking at the other kids.  They didn't see anyone with crazy hair.  Now they were saying things like, "I'm not getting out of the car like this!"  "Call the school to find out!"  We were in the drive through drop off line and some guy walked past our car with his daughter.  He glanced in the window and Haylee immediately slumped against the seat as if that would keep him from seeing her.  I was torn between feelings of pity and amusement at the whole situation.  I think amusement won!

     I did pull out my cell phone and call the school to find out that, sure enough, crazy hair day was the next day.  That day was "denim day."  Luckily they were both wearing jeans.  They immediately pulled the ponytails out of their hair, but the sprays we had used were sticky and causing their hair to stick out to the sides funny.  Luckily for them, someone had left a brush in the car some other day.  By then I was out of the drive through line and had parked in the parking lot.  We quickly brushed out their hair.  Most of the purple spray was underneath because of the way their hair had been styled.  It was most noticeable in Haylee's blond hair.  But it was good enough to get them out of the car and barely to school in time. :)

     We did decide to do the same thing the next day for the real crazy hair day.  Kelsey even had to get in the picture since she had asked me to spray some gold sparkles in her hair (that you can't see at all in the picture).

 



Nathan LOVES Airplanes

     My dad got into flying remote control airplanes awhile ago.  For the longest time it seemed like we were the only ones who hadn't seen him fly his plane yet.  We kept missing it and then my siblings would come to visit and go watch him fly but for some reason we would be busy and unable to come.  Well, once we started going, we just couldn't stop.  Nathan was in love with the airplanes!  The park he flies at is right by the kids' elementary school.  So when he's flying, we just drop off the kids and go straight to the park.  If there's even a little bit of wind, they don't fly their planes.  So for awhile the weather didn't permit them to fly.  But almost every day, we drop off the kids and Nate asks if we can go watch the airplanes.  Or sometimes if we can go watch Grandpa.
     One day, a couple of months ago, we drove past the park after dropping the kids at school and saw my dad there with the guys.  We drove over and asked if they were still flying.  He said they had just finished but he would fly it one more time for the kids.  He sent it up and before too long, CRASH!  It hit a light pole!  I felt so bad because he would have been done if we hadn't showed up.  But he said it was a part of flying and he would repair it.  He had crashed before.  I'm not sure if it was that crash or one soon after, but my dad's plane was beyond repair and he ordered a new one.  So lately when we've been going to the park, it's to visit with my parents and let Nathan watch the other guys fly their planes.  He gets so excited that he just runs out to stand by them while they fly.  The two other guys my dad usually flies with are Ike and Keith.  They are both so nice to Nathan and seem to enjoy his company.
     I finally had my camera with me one day.  My dad still doesn't have his new plane ready to fly, but I have some pictures of Nathan enjoying the other planes.  These were taken 10-30-12.

Nate brought a couple of soccer balls to play with until they started flying.

He was excited to find a dandelion but it must not have been quite ready because he ended up pulling off all the seeds.

Nathan and Keith

Nate often points to the planes saying, "Whoa! or Cool! while he watches them."

Keith's plane

     We went to watch them fly again Nov. 1, just a few days ago.  Nathan always gets so sad when it's time to leave.  I'll say, "Time to go Nathan." And he will say, "No, I want to watch airplanes!"  Then he'll start crying when I take him to the car.  It's so sad!  I had buckled him into his carseat and my dad came over to talk for a few minutes.  I'm not sure if Keith was just flying like normal or if he was trying to send his plane close enough for Nathan to catch one more glimpse of it.  But the next thing we knew, it had face-planted onto my dad's hood right next to us.  Luckily no damage was done to the car or the plane. :)

Stripes the Parakeet

     I'm probably a little crazy, but I gave in to another pet.  I never really wanted to own a bird because they live in a cage, which means cleaning a cage.  And since our backyard rarely gets cleaned of dog poop, I didn't feel too confident that we wouldn't end up with a poopy cage in the house.  However, we did set a precedent when Natalee turned 7 and we got her a pet kitten. (Yes, the one that grew into that wonderful cat that pooped and peed all over our bed a couple of months ago.)  When Haylee turned 7, it was easy enough to bribe her not to get a cat by paying her the amount that it would cost to get a cat from the animal shelter.  Mackenzie, however, was not going to be bought off.  She insisted that she didn't want the money, she wanted a cat.
     This past Tuesday, Rosey, Natalee's cat, got a little wild bird.  She didn't kill it but it was badly injured.  The kids found it in the yard and got Daren to save it.  They put it in a bucket with some dirt and weeds and a little dish of water.  They were really hoping to nurse it back to health and keep it for a pet.  Well, by evening, it was dead.  Mackenzie was devastated and sobbing in her bedroom.  Daren had the idea that we could get her a pet bird instead of a cat.  My friend Rebecca happened to come over that evening and hear about our bird situation.  She told us that they had bought a really nice bird cage at a thrift store for $5 and were planning to just sell it for that price at a yard sale in a couple of weeks.  A couple of days later, we picked up a very nice $5 bird cage and headed to the pet store.
     There was only 1 blue parakeet and all the rest were green.  Mackenzie picked the blue one and named it "Stripes" because of the black and white striped feathers on its back.  He's a pretty friendly little bird and lets Mackenzie hold him and play with him.  She is so happy!  Mackenzie just loves to have something to take care of and she is doing a really good job taking care of Stripes.

This and That

     The primary kids in our ward went to the local nursing home October 7 (General Conference Sunday) to sing.  It was very sweet and I think the residents really love seeing small children.

     Mike and Cindy sent some belated birthday gifts for the kids.  Nathan got this adorable giraffe costume.  It's a size 2-4, and he is 2 years old and it was still a little tight for him!  I knew he was a big boy but that was just a little crazy.  But he still thought it was fun to put it on and he was being so cute in it.  I couldn't get him to smile at the camera though!

10-9-12

     The city always has a parade the weekend of the fair, so we went to go watch.  Mackenzie brought her glasses to make sure she could see everything.


10-20-12

     One of my least favorite tasks is to go through the kids' drawers and get out the clothes that don't fit, then go through the many buckets of girl clothes to find ones that do.  But with the cooling weather it became necessary to find some long pants and long sleeve shirts so out the buckets came.  With clothes all over the place, I guess Nate couldn't resist.  Of course everything was way too big for him.  But that didn't stop Nathan. :)

10-23-12

 

 

     Kelsey needed her picture taken before church today because Aunt Amy made the little hair clip she was wearing in her hair.  And it looked adorable on her.

11-4-12

A better view of the hair clip

 

Concert Choir

     Now that Natalee is in middle school, she gets to sign up for an elective.  She chose beginning choir.  She has a wonderful teacher named Mrs. Austin.  Because Natalee is doing so well in beginning choir, she was invited to sing with the concert choir for their fall performance.  A handful of other 6th graders were also asked to participate.  Because she is in a different period from them, she had to go to school early for about a week before the performance to work with the concert choir.  It was quite an honor and I think encouraged her to be even more excited about singing.
     I couldn't believe I forgot my camera!!  Thank goodness for cell phone cameras but I'm disappointed I couldn't zoom closer during the performance.

Ellen!

     I have the most fun friend in the world!  Her name is Ronelle Cannon and she has pulled me out of my introverted comfort zone to do some really fun things.  Most recently, she got tickets to the Ellen Degeneres Show and gave one to me!  She just amazes me how she is always living life to the fullest, finding fun things to do.  I never would have even thought to apply for tickets to be in the studio audience of Ellen.  But Ronelle did so I got to have the fun experience of going with her and two other fun ladies, Becky Trimble from 4th ward and Ronelle's sister-in-law, Jennifer Cannon.
     We went to see Ellen on September 24.  The taping started at 4pm so we were supposed to arrive by 2pm.  We got there at 1:30 and it was already VERY crowded!  We had guaranteed tickets so that wasn't a concern, but by the time we did get in, we didn't get the best seats.  We weren't too far from the front but we were in these side seats and the cameras didn't really point our way.  Basically it meant that we didn't get to be on TV.  We haven't had a satelite dish or cable for a few years and even before that I rarely watched TV at that time of day (right when the kids come home from school and start their homework).  So even though I think Ellen is very funny, I hadn't seen her show for years.  I had no idea how much dancing there was!!  It wasn't so bad physically even though I was about 7 months pregnant.  But the introvert in me wasn't terrible excited about dancing it up in front of tons of strangers.  But they play some fun music that helps you get past it all. :)
     Ellen was hilarious, of course.  One thing that was different for our taping was that the music guests, No Doubt, weren't able to be there that day so they had been taped the weekend before.  So our taping was much shorter.  We saw two guests.  A little girl from a show I don't watch so I don't remember who she is, and Zooey Deschanel.  I also don't watch Zooey's new show (pretty much everything on TV these days is inappropriate) but I really liked her on the movie 'Elf.'  Because our taping ended early, Ellen stayed and chatted with the studio audience for about 20-30 minutes.  She opened it up like a question/answer session.  She never disappoints with her humor but she also impressive just as a really sweet person.  There was a disabled girl in her audience and Ellen told her that she was inspired by people like her who are able to stay positive even in the midst of great trials.
     On the way home we ate dinner at Claim Jumpers, which was a first for me.  SO yummy!  We stopped at one fun store because it was right next door, but then we headed back to our families.  It's always fun to just get out with the girls for a little while, but I am always so excited to get back to my sweet husband and babies.  Thanks to my mom for helping with the kids so I could go on this fun adventure!

L-R: Ronelle, Jennifer, Me, and Becky

My number to get in.

Me in front of the set.