Devil Leaves

Every fall when the leaves start to fall, we frequently see our kids outside running around in the blowing leaves. I decided that this year I was going to figure out how this game they call "devil leaves" works. From what I observed, they start out on guard, sometimes armed with sticks, light sabers, and swords. When the wind blows around a pile of leaves - one of two things happens:

1. The kids take their weapons and charge the devil leaves.
2. The kids run for their lives away from the devil leaves.

Such a versatile game.

Pumpkin carving

Not much to report here. We finally let our kids carve their pumpkins after days and days of waiting. A super nice couple in our ward let our kids each pick a pumpkin from their little patch. We were so grateful! Howie carved his entire pumpkin himself this year. Nina and Donovan both picked patterns from a book we have. I did Nina's and Matt did Donovan's. Cameron just wanted the "most scary face you have seen", which Matt was able to pull off. And Matt helped Rex carve out a cute little face. So Matt, stud that he is, out-carved everyone this year.

Boo Ball and Trunk or Treat

We made it to a couple of fun Halloween activities Friday night. We started with our ward's trunk-or-treat. Everyone dressed up except for me. I'm kind of a party pooper that way. Or maybe it's a vanity thing. It's just that unless I have a rockin, awesome costume that I look absolutely fabulous in, I'm not going to dress up. Sorry.

But these good looking people did dress up and had a lot of fun collecting candy from everyone in our ward.



Matt made me laugh with his french accent, Donovan donned a scary skeleton suit, Howie hid his face in a ninja mask, Nina's nautical mermaid costume was splashy, Cameron kept his cool just like Obi-wan would, and Rex ribbited all night long.



We had to leave the church a little early to get to the school for the annual Boo Ball.

Rex didn't know what to think about everything.



Howie and Cameron jumped right into the fun and games. Cam even won a big plate of cupcakes at the cake walk.



Several kids from one of the high schools set up a bunch of minute to win it games that our kids loved.



Besides all the games, a good friend of ours was the DJ for the family dance and it was a blast. Donovan took off with his friends right when we got there and we didn't see him til the end. Even though it feels crazy sometimes, I do love activities like this.

And this is a picture of Nina and her friend Bella trick-or-treating in Downtown Littleton. So cute!

Party in the classroom!

I feel like I'm finally getting adjusted to having that little 5th wheel we call Rex. I feel like I can do a few extra things like help out at school parties and clean the kids' bathroom.

In Donovan's class, they made Frankenstein hands and played other games.



Howie's class also made those popcorn hands and enjoyed some snacks and fun with friends.



Nina's class made little ghosts, ate snacks and sang Halloween songs.



I'm so glad I made an effort to get to these parties. I really loved seeing our kiddos having fun with their friends.

I did a little baking

Just a little, only about 175 cookies. Thankfully for my scale, they are all going to the kids' school for classroom parties and for a cake walk tonight. Cookies work for a cake walk right?

I saw this fun idea online and wanted to give it a try.






Now I will be doing dishes until I go crazy



hmm.........might be too late

Library Parade

Cameron goes to story time at the library every week. This week, there was a costume parade before the stories. Cameron decided to be a knight for this parade. All the kids lined up and marched around the library stopping for little treats along the way. Then they listened to stories and enjoyed cookies and juice. During the stories, Cameron kept yelling out, "Oh yeah! Check this out!" He was busy inspecting his treat bag and was most excited about the tattoo and smarties. I'm pretty sure he didn't even know the librarian was reading stories. Rex dressed up like a little frog minus the hat that he didn't want to leave on his head.



We both tried to look our best for this picture.

October Snow

7 inches of snow on October 26 - right on track for Colorado. It seems like we are always trick-or-treating in the snow and cancelling soccer games because of blizzards. Cam and I went out to shovel snow this morning and decided to play for a little bit afterwards. (ps. I hate playing in the snow. So does that give me extra awesome mom points?) We tried to make a snowman, but the snow wasn't packing that well so we made a snowboy and a snow pumpkin.

Thanks for the craft!

Dear Grandma and Grandpa Marshall,
Thank you for the Halloween craft you sent us. We had a great time coloring them and are excited to see them decorating our dining room.
Love,
Your 5 far away grand kids








ps. our parents are taking us to Target this weekend to buy something sweet with the money you sent us.

Halloween 5k

I have been pretty motivated to lose baby weight since Rex was born. Something about knowing that I'm not getting pregnant again makes me feel like working hard to shed those pounds and inches that have accumulated over the past 11 years. One of the things I'm focusing on is trying to run faster. So for the past couple of months I've been training for a 5k and I ran it over the weekend.

Matt was so supportive as I was training, and I loved how he and the kids came to cheer me on during the race.





And for my own record, the official time was 25:15.

Cameron + desitin =

a big mess