October the most glorious of months is here!

I pretty much live the rest of the 11 months of the year, looking forward to the month of October.  Below, are some picture highlights.

My spunky, white-haired, non-albino youngest child was born in October.  It was a magical time in our family when she came into lives.  Notice my "Halloween" table in the background.  I treat Halloween like most people treat Christmas when it comes to decorating.  

 Every October 1st, I pull out these Halloween classic videos and we watch them all month together as a family.  Escape to Witch Mountain still creeps me out.  

The annual painting of "the ghosts" on our Halloween window.  

Dentist Husband always puts the rest of us to shame.  

We use these plates for every meal.  Even if I get take out, I insist, we put it on these plates. 

Unrelated, just something that did happen this October, Toothsome #4 joined the "glasses buddies" in our house.  And, I just found out Toothsome #2 needs them too.  If you are counting, that makes 5/6 of us being glasses wearers.  

And, if you are looking for a good October read, Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories is a new, wonderful discovery of mine.  Highly recommend.  

Memorial Day Weekend Fun

We stayed locally here again this year.  

It rained most of the weekend (until Monday), so we spent a lot of time watching "How It's Made" on Netflex.  

And because of the rain, I started reorganizing my house.

Here is a picture of my "sunscreen" shelf.  I'm ready for summer.

On Friday, I went to Costco.   (FYI:  My kids love sushi and before any holiday weekend, I run to Costco and buy a ton of their sushi that they can eat to their heart's content all three days.  It is just another of my, "trying to create a memory moment" for my kids around holidays.)  I also got a pile of stuff for my husband's office and a bunch of "summer is coming" supplies for my house.  Part of that was a new bag of plastic cups.  Because of the rain, we broke them out and built towers with them in our basement.

 On Memorial Day, we woke up bright and early and headed up the canyon for our first (of hopefully many) canyon trips of the year.

On a side note, being from Boulder, CO, I always ran the Bolder Boulder every Memorial Day.  Every year, I say, "I'll fly home with the kids and have us all run in the Bolder Boulder."  And every year, May is a crazy month with end of the year school projects, scout stuff, dance stuff, work stuff, etc., and we never do.  This year, because once again, I was not in Boulder on Memorial Day, I spent several minutes just thinking about home.  As I always say, "I love, adore my life here in Utah but Boulder, CO (specifically Boulder) will always be home."  

Back to the canyon excursion . . . I told all of my kids they had to wear long pants.  This is what Toothsome #4 came up with. . .

 We built a fire and then spent most of the time skipping rocks on on the side of the river.  

 They all got their shoes and socks soaking wet, so we dried everything out by the fire.  

 After meeting friends at Moochies for lunch, we headed over to the Gilgal Garden.  This has been on my "to do" list for over 10 years and I was glad to finally make it there.  If you don't know exactly where to go, it is hard to find, but once there, it is worth it.  It is a little gem in downtown Salt Lake.  You can read about it's history here.

I also finished Dickens' "The Old Curiosity Shop" (a tragic, moving read) and started "The Once and Future King" by T H White  and "Barnaby Rudge" (another Dickens).  My current Dickens' favorite is Nicholas Nickleby.  

All and all a successful, Memorial weekend.  

Spring Break, Locally which actually was several weeks ago

Spring Break happened several weeks ago but today, I decided to post pictures about it.

We stayed locally this year and just did fun stuff around town.  The weather was great, so we played a lot of 2 square on our driveway.

 We went to the park and flew kites

 and slid down the grass.

 We went to Color Me Mine.

 We purchased a basketball hoop and played a lot of basketball.

 Toothsome #3 worked on his United States Quarter collection.

 We went to the new Natural History Museum.  

 We built and shot off rockets

 Toothsome #4, my little hipster.

 We got new Easter dresses.  

(I am not actually wearing mine in this picture.  I found something I wanted from Shappy Apple after Easter.) 

 And, of course, we dyed eggs.

I don't have pictures of the many times we ate out or our attempt to find the best place for hot chicken wings in Utah.  It was a great, low key Spring Break.

Merry Leap Day Everyone!

If you don't watch 30 Rock, watch the above clip and you will understand.  

My kids watched this episode with us last week and ever since then, we have been singing the Leap Day William song in our house.  In a very spur of the moment decision, I decided to create Leap Day events at our house this morning.  

A quick trip to the grocery store made it so I could have these Leap Day baskets waiting for them.  

 Balloons and streamers in Leap Day colors--blue and yellow.

 Me, wearing Leap Day colors.  On a side note, I have been wearing my hair longer and straighter than usual and have received a lot of positive feed back.  

And, for food, I purchased Lox and Bagels from Einsteins for my kids.  No true Leap Day reason, just that my kids love lox.  

And, since I was at the grocery store, I decided to make these Baskets Full of Sunshine for my visiting teachers.  I copied this from my friend Lisa.  I will drop these off tomorrow.  Gray Utah winters require fake sun, since we don't see it much here.  

Happy Leap Day everyone!

Valentine's Day at our House

 In the days leading up to Valentine's Day, Valentine's boxes were made.  Here is Toothsome #3 with his shark box.  He had help from Toothsome #2.  You pull the string and the mouth opens.  

 Toothsome #2 with her refrigerator box.  All of my kids handed out mini cans of Sprite (something started by my oldest several years ago) and she thought a refrigerator would be funny.  

Valentine's Day morning.  My kids wake up and I have cut out hearts all over our kitchen counter with a small gift from me.  This year it was Buckycubes for everyone.  

 Toothsome #4, on her own, made these for her pre-school party.  This was all her idea and I found her in the kitchen, drawing and cutting out brown paper hearts.  Again, I did NOTHING to help her with this except to have the toothbrushes, candy and Sprite's in the house.  She did the rest.  

 Every year, my parents and I mail each other heart-shaped boxes of Sees Candy.  The leftover box becomes part of my Valentine's decorations.  

Around 12:00, the doorbell rang, and a florist delivered two dozen roses from Dentist Husband.    12 lavender ones for Toothsome #4 and 12 red ones for me.  

 Toothsome #4 on the phone with Dentist Husband.  She was so thrilled!  

My flowers.

Dentist Husband had 12 pink roses sent up the school for Toothsome #2.  She was the celebrity of the school and I had a ton of moms and teachers stop me (I helped in two of my kids classrooms that day) and say what an amazing father Dentist husband is.  (FYI:  For years, I have asked Chris not to get me anything for Valentine's Day except to go out to dinner.  I have always viewed being able to be home with my kids as "gift enough."  Two years ago, he said, "I have to teach our boys how to treat their future wives, so just smile and happily accept anything I do for you on Valentine's Day.")  

That night, we had a family dinner at Five Guys Burger and Fries.  As everyone knows, nothing is more romantic to me than a good hamburger.  

It was a great day.