October in a post

The month of October was a great month! Each of our children had their mid quarter assessments and each of them are doing well and thriving in school. Always good news and especially sweet since this is the start of our first full year here.
Football season has come to a close. I so love watching my children in any of their endeavors they embark upon. I can't wait to see which sport Dash goes out for. We just went to sign him up for wrestling, which I think he would just BEAST in but for $175 most matches are on Sunday, we decided to stay with our NO SUNDAY game rule.  There were over 100 children from 5 to 14 sign up. I am sure next year, if Dash wants to wrestle we can be his advocate to join the USA and not the ASU tournaments. We could probably take a vote and see if there were other parents who were only interested in playing in Saturday matches.
Basketball sign ups have already taken place but there may be a team that will take late sign ups! Living in Missouri we have realized that many of the sport programs view Saturday more sacred than Sunday and Sundays are the preferred game days! Naive, I may be because I just look in amazement at how many people have no problems at all not worshipping or even trying to keep Sunday as a day of rest.

Beauty has had her license and has travelled and driven everywhere. She has really become quite a good driver. I can even sleep with one eye open while she drives and that says A TON!!! I'm kidding, I'm passed out and she can drive. She has driven her siblings everywhere and Starbucks and McDonald's and the Mall seem to be the only places her little car is cabaple of taking them to. It must be on auto pilot or something.

 She was just recently in a car accident. A semi truck had gone through a red light and hit her car. She had said she saw nothing but headlights coming and swerved. Thankfully, she did or she would have been hurt. Three witnesses stopped and gave their name and number to her and the officer. I'm not sure what the driver was thinking. Perhaps he saw one side had the green light and his was still red. When you see the location of where they were at it is impossible to understand what he was thinking.

I'm so grateful she is ok, grateful she had a nice police officer and grateful the truck driver wasn't a jerk and grateful for the witnessess.

We had one of the best Halloween's ever.  This is a picture of the intersection she was in. Her car had already passed through the first green light. She was on the straightway headed towards the camera, at the second green light is where the semi was stopped and he would be waiting for his light to turn green so that he could cross 4 lanes of traffic to get onto a highway, which is being blocked by the car with headlights by the first green light. Her car was hit from the side just a bit farther up. I can just gather that he thought his lane had the green light, when he was not protected by the arrow and continue to travel. His insurance is covering everything but we had a bit of a hassel because after the report and witness statements were filed, he came back and denied that he was at fault. Which once his insurance read the report and investigated the statements it was clear that he was at fault and they will be covering everything. He was a little banged up, head ache and tight neck muscles and a few spasms the next day but over all in OK condition.

Near the end of the month, we went to our Ward trunk or treat. Different, I sure do miss how we do things in the South. You never realize how efficient you are until you meet up with a change. It was still fun, though but a lot of filler candy.

Sadly, no pictures of this event and it was THE BEST WAY TO SPEND HALLOWEEN EVAH!!

We celebrated with friends and they have a great tradition in their neighborhood. All children ride on the back of a trailer pulled by a John Deere Tractor and they ring the door bell. Your bell is only rung once because the kids go in a group! There were only 20 children and the candy in their neighborhood is PRIMO and you get a TON of it!

 After each of the homes have been driven to, they then go to a Host house in the neighborhood and all of the children open their loot and the bargaining begins. One boy traded all of his candy for Reeses last year and received over 95 Reeses! The children were all so well behaved and this bargaining was done in their living room while parents brought snacks and hors douerves. There were 20 or so adults. I love their neighbors and neighborhood! I so hope we get invited to celebrate with them next year! I told Dash, to keep this on the down low cuz, we don't want to let on to others how much fun it is and the gobs amount of GOOD CANDY you get!

I made the cutest hotdog mummies, they were with the canned breadsticks and you wrap a hotdog! YUM YUM! and then I made the cutest little containers to hand out my candy with! made from toilet paper rolls!
No one trick or treated our house but probably because we are the only house on the cul-de-sac and country road! But, we were ready for them, just in case.

I had attempted a few quick halloween crafts that turned out really cute. I had to decorate on a budget. Sadly, i didn't take pictures of all of my fun decorating. But, our house was decorated so cute! I had so much fun! I even decorated the basement with a few things. Because that is where we held our games!

Mason Jars painted to look like pumpkins. The idea was found here. I placed battery lights in them. They lit the walk way.
I also painted some white and they were ghost and we hung those in trees. These mason jars looked great upside down on my dining room chandelier! It gave great ambiance with the orange glow. I got the orange paint a gallon on clearance at Walmart for $5, I have many more projects for that paint. It happens to match an accent color in my son's room and bathroom, PERFECtly!

These darlings were absolutely adorable! I got this idea from here.  I also repositioned the eyes and made the box actually look like bat and cat ears! My favorite treat boxes are the boxes I painted to look like Frankenstein! Way cute!!! Can't wait to do them again next year! Also, I am saving the tissue rolls because I figure I can make these babies into anything fitting for the holidays! They fit 3 bite size chocolate candies! Adorable!

This cute adorable wreath was absolutely free and I love it! I cut a perfect circle from a cardboard box. I just grabbed a plate to the size i wanted traced it onto a card board box and cut the circle out. I then used black duct tape to cover the box, for added support. This step is not necessary. From there I went to the trees that I had just trimmed in my yard and continued to break and cut off branches and twigs and HOT GLUED them down! I absolutely love this wreath! I got the idea from a Pottery Barn magazine and knew I could make it cheaper, and I did! Everything was free! I had the spiders from my halloween invites and I had the ribbon, and I even had the black spray paint that I painted the entire project with!

 These scary ugly guys came from the dollar store.  I didn't really like the color so I painted them black and painted back in the eyes and teeth. I also cut a hole in the top of the head to make these plastic skulls candle holders! I loved how they added to the atmosphere of the room. I am also loving skeletons, cute skeletons. These skeletons are creepy and not cute.

The skeletons below are from the dollar store and I cut a larger slit in the head of these skeletons and dropped a voltive candle also from the dollar store!

 This couple here, he is in our Bishopric. Rob and Jen DeGraw. They won best couple!
They are from Wayne's World! Absolutely LURVE it! See that sign above them! I made it at 3am. It was another piece of cardboard, I painted it and then painted the words MORMON BATES HOTEL, get it? Norman Bates?? I had crepe paper and had another decoration! I also cut bat sillouetes out from black construction paper and had them taped to the inside of our lamps. They gave a GREAT EFFECT! I did buy some decorations as well. I had cute goth skeleton posts at the front with a few lights. I had fun.

 I know you are probably thinking, who the heck is he?? Nacho Libre. Ok, I never could watch the entire movie. I still haven't seen the entire movie of Napoleon. But he one best costume. He stayed in character and he's just a mess! It was so fun, with them there! WE love them they are good friends of ours! Eric and Leslie Nelson.

We also threw a Halloween party. It was so much fun. I will do it again next year. WE had 18 couples arrive between 7pm and 730. We mingled just a bit and then we had a blessing on the refreshments and after an hour or so, we went to the basement for a few fun games I had planned. We then came back upstairs for more food and broke the karaoke out, our guest left around 11:30ish. It was a fun night!  I planned three games, it was an animal noise game. I through in 2 sets of animals. All animals that make loud noises, roosters, pigs, cows, frogs, ducks, etc. and you found your pair. I made them into groups of 4. They each had to go to 6 different areas. and I through one donkey in the mix. Everyone would then get quite and you would just have one guy braying like a donkey, looking like a donkey! It was our bishop! It was between him or Mr. Incredible and he chose it. I swear, I didn't plan it that way! Another game was in those same groups of 4, you had to blow a balloon up and then transport it from one end of the basement to the other end, without using your hands. You also had to pass the balloon to another team of 4, so they could complete the relay. Some teams were really really good! They had the team work down. My third game was I wrapped baseballs in grocery bags and used duct tape, we then put a belt through the loops and they had to try to knock over a plastic milk jug with only the ball! This was so funny. Someone had told me they saw this where you use pantyhose and have a ball hand from the panty hose and you do the same thing! Here, I thought I made the game up all on my own! I was so disappointed when I heard!

Elder Warrior is doing great on his mission! He loves it so much! He is serving in the Roseville, California Mission. He is loving his companion and tracting and on schedule with his goals and with their teaching. I'm so happy for him that he is magnifying each moment he is out there! It sure does a mama's heart well to know that their kids away from home are happy. He is just so grateful. He is so thankful and expresses it in a way that is so humble. He thanks us for how we reared him, he thanks us for letting him serve a mission, he thanks us for the sacrifice, he thanks us for his teachings and his life, and I just tell him, Son, it's all you! You have made these choices and you have chosen to serve and continue to serve well! It's worth it! I just have 3 more to go! Just prior to leaving the MTC he met up with his very first childhood friend! They were days old. When the Mr. and I lived in Utah we were dear friends with this boys parents! I love that they both remembered and were with each other. This boy actually went to a family reunion of ours in Georgia! Amazing of how small this world truly is! I am amazed also by how many people we actually know! Being members of the church does that for someone, especially if you have moved around a bit, served in many callings and are just plain old! I love it, though.

My missionary is the lighter boy, Elder Ma'ake Taufa and Elder Warrior Solomon. WE love receiving his letters and emails. WE love him! I'm so thankful for the example he is for his younger siblings. They all look up to him and he is a good brother to exemplify! His little brother Dash, has grown so much. I used to think that he would be our little terror, but that little snot is starting to prove us wrong! He has grown so much and I see signs of a fine priesthood holder. We still have some refining to do in two years, but in two years he will be ready! Dash loves Warrior so much and is so proud to say his brother is serving a mission and is so excited to receive a personal email or letter!