The Witches

Every year in October Gardner Village decorates for Halloween with all of these awesome witches. And every year my friend, Tara, and I take the kids to check it out and take some pictures. This year was really great. It was warm, but not hot. It wasn't very crowded. We fed some ducks and fish. The kids picked out a great (cheap) treat from the candy shop. They picked out whistle pops. Remember those? Lots of fun. I got some yummy fudge and I found a great stocking stuffer for the kids. They are these really cool wooden cork guns. I also got to chat with Tara a little bit and, of course, we took pictures. Enjoy!

I LOVE this face.
This is seriously the best "smile" I got out of Davin. My boys were having an un-photogenic day.
For some reason the kids all thought these stairs leading up to nothing were great. Weston said that if they were woodpeckers then they would have been able to get through the wall even though there wasn't a door.
Kenzi took this picture of the bicycling/flying witch for me.
Davin taking advantage of his freedom from the stroller.
Weston was so excited that this witch was holding his hand. Also, Kenzi's face is classic.
The best one of the day! Even though Davin isn't looking at the camera.
Even witches need their chocolate fixes.
This witch outside the candy shop had a cat chasing a mouse under her skirt.
Finally, this was not at Gardner Village, but a little while ago I put all of Weston's dress up clothes into one bin in his room, so he has been using them more often. Such a handsome cowboy, am I right ladies???

Last Minute Upset

So you all know that I have been reading a lot lately. Here's a little cautionary tale about my latest read. . .My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult.

Once upon a time I saw a movie. The movie was based on a book. I hadn't read the book. I enjoyed the movie, even though it was sad. I decided I should read the book because most of the time the book is better than the movie. I put the book on hold and waited 2 months for it to be my turn to read it. I read. I really liked all the extra details the book gave that weren't in the movie. There was also a fun romance sub-plot in the book that I'm sure the movie just didn't have time for. Last night I finished the book. The last 40 pages contained a completely different ending than the movie portrayed. I mean, completely different! I am pretty bummed out about it.

Lesson learned: Movies BASED on books are truly just that. Based on. Not identical, not even necessarily close! Just the idea of the plot and the character names are generally the same.

I was sorely disappointed in the book, mostly because it's ending was even sadder and more frustrating than the movie! Next on my table to read was The Kite Runner, but I think I am going to opt for lighter fare (considering my somewhat fragile mental state. BTW I am feeling a little better). I finally got The Actor and The Housewife by Shannon Hale from the library today! Can't wait to escape into it. Probably will have to wait until tonight after FHE though.

Dear Abby,

A good friend of mine has recently become a real downer. She used to be fun and positive. Lately she has been snappish and sulky. Her beautiful smile is rarer these days. Her poor kids get yelled at more often, and she has really been letting herself go. She hasn't been to the gym in weeks. Her roots are grown out at least 2 inches and she desperately needs a haircut. How can I help pull her out of this slump? I'm sure a day of pampering at the beauty salon and a new outfit would help boost her confidence, but I think she really needs a more long term solution. Please help!
Sincerely,
Friend of CFM (Cranky Frumpster Mom)

***On the happier side of my life . . . here's my 3 year old goofball. Later when he was watching this video he told me he was being Po (from Kung Fu Panda) and was fighting Tai Lon (the bad guy from Kung Fu Panda).

Just Because . . .

Just because Davin gets cuter and cuter every day. He makes the cutest, funniest faces. This is mid-talking I'm sure. It's good you can see this face because the video is a little dark and you can't quite see how funny his expressions are. I love this kid and can't wait to see what kind of person he becomes.
See look! He does have words. Ok, two. I still think he's smart. Also he is playing with the little battery powered massager here.

Just because I got zucchini in my produce box I decided to make this amazing Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cake. My friend, Alison, made it for our youth fireside a couple weeks ago and it was yum. Mine turned out good too, but next time I will under-bake it just a little. If you have a garden with excess zucchini you must make this yummy dessert!
Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cake
1/2 c. butter or margarine
1/2 c. vegetable oil
1 3/4 c. white sugar
2 eggs
1 t. baking soda
1 t. baking powder
1 t. salt
1/2 t. cinnamon (i did a pinch more than that because I like it more cinnamony)
1 t. vanilla
1/2 c. sour milk (just use regular milk with a splash of vinegar)
2 1/2 c. flour
3 c. grated zucchini

Mix all the ingredients in the listed order. Pour batter into a greased 9x13 pan. Liberally sprinkle brown sugar over the top. Next sprinkle chocolate chips and nuts on top (if you want. Also, you can use whatever nuts you have. I finished off a little bag of chopped pecans I had, but Alison made it with walnuts). Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.
***I baked the full 45 minutes and it was all done, but more brown than I wanted, so maybe check it at 40 minutes and go from there.

Reconnecting

The past few days I have been thinking a lot about my grandparents. I was feeling bad that I hadn't really had any communication with them lately (besides birthday cards/thank-yous). I also missed feeling close to them. We had always had a good, tight relationship. I grew up living 30 minutes from both sets of my grandparents. They lived down the street from each other in Long Beach, so when we went to see one, we often saw the other too. And we saw them often. We used to have monthly family dinners at my G&G Olson's house. We would eat and visit and celebrate the birthdays of that month. We had an annual Olson Family Beach Party complete with corn on the cob boiled in sea water in a metal trash can over a fire, treasure hunt for the kids, smores, and plenty of playing in the waves and sand.

We got together for dinners with G&G Snowball out on their beautiful back patio on Sunday afternoons. Usually with cousins. When we were little we tried on all the costume jewelery, played the musical instruments, and watched one of the hundreds of movies G&G Snowball owned. We especially loved all the Shirley Temple movies. I rented "Heidi" with Shirley Temple from the library a couple weeks ago and had major flashbacks to my grandparent's TV room.

As a kid my sisters and I had sleepovers at our grandparent's houses. We always went to both their homes on Christmas Day--G&G Olson's house for Christmas brunch and G&G Snowball's house for Christmas dinner. My grandparents babysat us when my parents went on trips. We stayed with them for weeks while my mom was on bedrest because of toxemia while pregnant with my youngest sister, Melanie.

My grandparents loved us and we loved them. They were very involved in our lives. They came to Grandparent's Day at school, attended all our piano recitals, baptisms, birthday parties, and other important occasions and performances.

When I had Weston I was sad that he would not have the same experiences with his grandparents that I had had simply because we will never live close to both sets of them at the same time.

Flash forward to this week. I was missing that feeling of closeness with my grandparents. I thought about what I could do to let them know that I am still around and thinking about them often. I decided I would write a nice, long note to Grandma Snowball (Grandpa died in February 2008). Grandma likes to write notes so I figured she would appreciate that. I figured I would try to call Grandma Olson this next week and see what she is up to.

Yesterday I mailed my note to Grandma Snowball. After lunch we all went to the park to play. It was a perfect day. The kids had fun and so did Sammie, but she didn't seem to be a huge fan of being on the leash.
On our way home from the park my phone rang. It was Grandma Olson! She and Grandpa were driving down I-15 from Logan (they had gone to Grandma's 55th high school reunion) and wanted directions to my house. I was so excited. About 20 minutes later Grandma and Grandpa pulled in. They had never seen my house before, so they got the grand tour. We had a really nice visit and watched the slideshow of all the pictures from our most recent family reunion. Weston got to experience the awesomeness of a back-scratch from Grandma. They met the puppy, who snuggled right up in Grandpa's lap where they both napped. :)
Grandma and Grandpa's visit really felt like the answer to prayer for me. It was just what I needed. I am so grateful they decided to call and stop in! I am going to try to be more proactive in keeping up my relationship with my grandparents from now on. It makes me feel so much more connected to who I am.

On a completely unrelated-to-the-rest-of-this-post note, I had to share a couple of pictures from our week. Weston has finally learned how to play with Playdough! He made a spider this week.
Also, Elmo was thinking about cameras on Sesame Street the other day, so Weston wanted me to take his picture with Sammie. She was napping at the time, but I still thought it was cute. Can you tell that she's already getting bigger? She is.
Unfortunately we all have colds this weekend. I am starting to feel better, but Ian and Davin are just starting in on it. Hopefully it will pass quickly for us. Being sick is not fun. Last night between Davin, Sammie, and Ian's sickie snoring I barely got a few hours sleep. Sigh. Someday I will get to consistently sleep though the night, but it might not be until I am an empty nester.

The Fair . . . Take 1 and Take 2

I'm so sorry I left you all hanging for days with no post about going to the Fair! Well that would be because it turned into a little bit of a saga. Monday afternoon we decided to go to the Utah State Fair with the Matagi's. We were supposed to hang out anyway that night, then we thought we could go to the Fair. Later that afternoon a massive thunderstorm blew through. It poured down rain (and even a little bit of hail!), there was thunder and lightening and high winds. Hmm not ideal weather conditions for the Fair, but when it was time to leave it looked like the storm had blown through and the sun was even shining a little bit.

By the time I had dropped off the puppy, swung by the bank, and gotten to Tara's house we only had to wait for Ian for 15 minutes. Then we hopped in our cars and headed to the Fair. As we drove up I-15 the rain started again and it was raining hard. Just as we pulled off the freeway at our exit we called the Matagi's and suggested we do something else. We ended up going to the Gateway and having dinner at the food court and then exploring the Planetarium. It was a fun night, even though we didn't make it to the Fair.

(Weston got a balloon at Sbarro where he had dinner and would not let it go all night until it finally slipped off and sailed away as we were heading back to the car at the end of the outing)
Here's Tara showing you all the weather forecast. Rainy.
We already had our tickets for the Fair so we decided that we would just go on our own sometime during this week (since this is the last week the Fair runs). I wanted to go on Wednesday, but Ian wasn't sure he was going to be able to come home early enough for us to go. Lo and behold, he got lots done that day and came home right on time! We managed to leave the house at 6pm!

The weather was much more pleasant last night. We got parked and into the Fair and started wandering through the livestock buildings. We saw the Beef building then headed into the Sheep building. Davin loved the sheep. He touched every one he could reach. When we had almost gotten to the end of the building I spotted the Matagi's! We ended up spending the rest of the evening at the Fair together. It was so much fun.
We wandered through buildings, then went and watched the horse pulling competition. It was kind of weird, but some people were very into it. After that we headed over to the "Little Hands on the Farm" exhibit. It was so cute (and FREE!). The kids came in and got a mini bushel basket and a little apron, then they went through the grain silo and got a baggie of corn. Next they went to the dairy barn and dumped out the corn in front of the pretend cow and picked up a jug of milk (empty). Then they went through the orchard and picked an apple from the tree (all fake). Next they went to the garden and planted a seed, then harvested their vegetable on the other side. After that they drove a tricycle tractor and picked up some hay. Next up was collecting an egg from the chicken coop. Then they saw the pretend sheep and got to brush it and picked up a handful of real wool. Finally, they took their basket to the Farmer's Market and "sold" (put away) everything. On their way out of the Farmer's Market they got a pretend dollar that they then could buy something with at the General Store. They could choose a granola bar, cereal, a bag of chips, string cheese, chocolate milk, etc. Weston, of course, picked a bag of potato chips. It was a very cool little exhibit.

The kids eating their hard earned snacks after being farmers.
The moms hanging out and chatting.
Weston loves to poke his head through these things.
Davin was excited that he got a turn too.
The dads took the 3 year olds on the big yellow slide. They all loved it. Hopefully next year Weston will be big enough to go by himself. (Ian and Weston are on the left, Justin and Makenzie are on the right)
After the slide we got some Fair food and it was yummy. I got sweet potato sticks and Ian got a grilled green pepper stuffed with jalapenos and cheese. A little later we got some cinnamon roasted almonds and Weston tried Kenzi's cotton candy. Fair food success! We wandered through all the booths and went into one last building to see the sculpture of cows carved out of butter. It was cool, but Weston really just kept wanting to go back outside and see the pumpkin spider at the entrance to the building. He said that's what he wants his Halloween pumpkin to look like. I will do my best. :)
It worked out that we got to have 2 fun nights hanging out with the Matagi's and one of them managed to be the Utah State Fair. Definitely a fun Family Night and worth the wait!

***I apologize for the poor quality of the pictures. When I went to pull out the camera at the Fair the battery was dead, so these are all phone pics.

Pleasantly Surprised

We had a surprisingly pleasant weekend. Not that I was expecting it to be bad, but we were going to go out Friday night, but our babysitter fell through. I was disappointed. We ended up getting Pei Wei takeout and watching a movie together. Hooray for the at-home date!

Saturday we had no big plans, but we played in the yard while Ian puppy-proofed it, fixed a sprinkler head, etc. That afternoon we watched the BYU football game which was lots of fun since we completely dominated. Go Cougs! I got a few minutes of reading in too. I started The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. It's quite the mouthful of a title. So far I have laughed out loud at least 6 times, so yes, I am enjoying it.

The boys both wore their BYU shirts on Saturday for the game. Here's Weston, Ian, and Sammie kickin it and watching the game.
After the game on Saturday Ian took the kids to the park so I could get the house cleaned. We had a youth fireside at our house on Sunday, so I needed to get some work done. It's amazing that what normally takes me all week to get done, got all finished in the hour-ish that I was all alone.

I was a little nervous about the fireside. It hadn't really been announced very much and I was hoping that we would at least get 5 kids to show up. Sunday we announced it in YW and in YW, then I had the Bishop announce it again in Sacrament Meeting. By 7pm there were already 8 kids there! We ended up with 10 youth there, plus a few leaders. It was a little bit of a tight squeeze fitting us all into our den, but it was fine and I was so excited that so many of the kids came. My friend, Jackie, came and spoke about overcoming adversity. It was lovely. She did a great job. There were refreshments after and the whole thing was wrapped up in about an hour. I was so glad it was a success. I hope we can do another fireside soon!

I have just a few more cute pics from the last few days to share. Davin was being all hammy and posing for pictures the other day. I hardly ever get good pictures of him because he won't hold still, but I think he is finally figuring out what the camera is all about.

This last one is a funny picture of Sammie napping. She had her legs straight up in the air. Weirdo.
Tonight we are going to the Utah State Fair, so it will have it's own post soon!