Sunday dinner

We have a tradition in our family that on Halloween night I make a disgusting dinner...not in taste but in look. Since the Jessikca's were not with us for dinner on Halloween night we decided we would postpone our Halloween dinner until Saturday,....then there was the BYU game so we had to have wings so we decided we would just have it on Sunday. The kids love it and really look forward to what kind of creation I am going to come up with.

This is the famous foot, complete with huge toenails and blood coming out of the top of the foot where it was chopped off.  I made puke potatoes, notice the green to the right of the foot complete with chunks and all......the kids kept commenting that it should taste like mint. 

The best part of the whole meal was that we had the missionaries over for dinner....the look on their face when we put the potatoes on the table and then the meat foot was priceless...I am not sure if they will come back anytime soon....

I already have the menu for next year....brains and worms anyone want to come!!!  I can't wait!!!

Family 5k

Saturday our family participated in a 5k, yes the whole family. We all finished in less than an hour. Dad came in first, from our family in 29 minutes...sorry honey no one was there to take your picture when you came through the finish line.

Cody came in second......with mom right on his heels......

Michael was leisurely walking his last lap in.....

but not before Danielle came racing across the finish line. She ran the most out of all the kids! 

Dad felt bad for Michael so he motivated Michael to run the rest of the way in and came across the finish line with him! 

Although we didn't have a camera following the girls....this was their pace the entire way until....

We had the announcer call their names over the bull horn so then and only then did they start running.....I think they finished dead last for the entire race but I know some heavy duty bonding was going on during that hour walk! 

Mckenna participated by riding in her stroller, running, walking and then dancing around the field with dad waiting for the rest of us to finish. 

In spite of all the horror flashbacks of high school gym class and absolutely hating to participate in anything physical much less running.....I had time to reflect on what a brat I was as a PE student. We did all have a good time and will be looking for more opportunities to do this again as a family.  

Trick or treating

These are some pictures from Halloween. The kids had a 

great time. Mckenna and Dani didn't care that we weren't

out for hours, however the boys wanted to stay out all 

night. We were home by 9:30......I wonder if I freeze the candy they got 

can I save it for next year? 

Danielle was Hannah Montana..she sang to us all night! Mckenna

decided on Thursday that she wanted to be a pumpkin...and

Dani needed to be a black cat. Maybe next year. Michael had this

way scary mask with a big black curly afro. We didn't get a picture

because Mckenna was scared to death of it so he had to keep it

well hidden from us. Cody started out being a wrestler and he 

and Michael 

just ended up spray painting their hair and painting their 

faces. They were just in it for the candy!

The boys went off with some friends in our old neighborhood

while the littlest girls were with us. Mckenna loved going 

with her big sister to each of the houses. It was fun to watch them go up to each house and how slow Mckenna would walk behind Dani 

depending on how scary the houses were. At one of the houses a man 

told her how pretty she was and she said I know...at least she said 

thank you. Honestly I don't know where we got her! 

Jessika was at a football game marching and the other Jessica

was competing in her swim meet. Which by the way she made

the finals and will be swimming again next Friday! Yea Jessica!

Sorry for all the posts I feel like now I am caught up and I have 

figured out how to post videos and multiple pictures yea go me! 

Halloween Party

Mckenna had a few friends over Halloween morning for a little party. They 

had a great time decorating their pumpkins and eating mummy dogs...but the 

best fun was just hanging out together and playing. 

Country living part 2.....

As if the well incident wasn't enough for one day of what can happen when you live in the country......

Yes, a deer ran into the side of our truck.......we aren't sure if she lived or not but she wasn't into the side of the road...otherwise I guess we would have had venison for dinner!!!

Country living.....

When we moved last February to the "country", we are 30 seconds from a grocery store and restaurants, we discovered new things like a well, septic system, generator, gas stove, gas hot water heater etc. etc. When Mike came home with a generator less than 2 days after we moved in I thought why did you go and buy that? We have never had one before why would we need one now? If the power goes out because of a hurricane or whatever we will just use flashlights, we can build a fire in our backyard or light a candle. I was quickly informed by one of our friends if we lost power and wanted water we needed to have a generator....WHAT??? If you didn't know wells run off of electricity who would have known? I guess I just took for granted all the years we had city water, we pay the bill and someone else had to worry about it. I told Mike that we should probably have a someone teach us, more importantly me, since he travels all the time how to hook  up that generator in case of power outage...I still don't know how to do it. 

On Thursday night I was baking and enjoying the nice cool weather with the windows open. Cody and Mckenna were playing nicely in the family room. It was just what I had been waiting for all day! Cody decided on his own that he would go and take a shower. (Notice I said on his own and no prodding from me) About 3 minutes later he comes out and says "Mom what happens if the water just turns off?" At first I thought he was kidding until I turned on the kitchen faucet...nothing. The first thought that ran through my mind was did I pay the bill. Oh yea, I don't have a bill. Now what! Mike is out of town by the way. So I quickly called my friend and said what do I do? She's like why are you calling me? Call the county. That would be great but remember I have a well!!!!  Her husband got on the phone and walked me through what could possibly be the problem. After turning the power off, going out into the dark, chasing a lizard out of the box that I needed to be in and don't forget the ants that love to live near the well.....it still didn't work. He informed me that we probably needed a pressure pump from Home Depot that closes in 20 minutes!!!  It's 15 minutes from my house. In a panic, mostly because our teenage daughter would be home from a long day of school and band and would be wanting a shower and honestly I really didn't want to "rough it". I made it to Home Depot and back to our house in 23 minutes! I know that time really does stand still when we need it to! 

As I was pulling in our driveway our friend was pulling out. He had fixed the problem. He came back to show me what I needed to do in the event that this happens again. There's contacts that get dirty and need to be cleaned.  I did learn a couple of things that night....how to clean contacts on a well and that we need to have a couple, ok at least one pressure pump in our food storage in the event that we need to replace it in the middle of the night. 

The Evolution of Mckenna's hair

On Thursday Mckenna finally got a real haircut! After many many requests by Mike and Jessika I finally caved and got her hair cut. I am not sure why I wouldn't do it I guess it was because it was her baby hair and after 3 1/2 years I was kind of attached. Not because I did cute things to her hair all the time, in fact she usually wouldn't let me do anything with it other than wash and brush it.  Sometimes she would tolerate Jessika braiding it but that usually would come out in less than 5 minutes after her big sissy would spend almost an hour trying to get a 3 year old to sit still. 

3 months

Before going in to have her hair cut....she was a little confused as to why I took so many pictures of the back of her hair...aren't you supposed to take a picture of my face???? 

"Finally mom takes a picture of my face!!!"

I will admit that I should have done this sooner.....She loves her new hair cut and if she didn't have sassiness and attitude before she sure has it now! She shakes her head side to side and just laughs as her new shorter locks hits her face.