Halloween in 2008

Halloween is fun. Lots of excitment always in the air. We hadn't carved pumpkins until Halloween night and decided to do it in the driveway as we prepared for neighbor kids to start coming. The kids liked that. Jacob had no interest whatsoever in trick or treating so he stayed home with me and passed out candy... oh well. I was Alphaba from Wicked and the kids thought that was great! Ty was a guy with anything he could find in the Halloween box on (rainbow colored glasses, a wig, sometimes a mask, a necklace, etc.) He really likes Halloween! We always have a crazy night on Halloween...

Trunk or Treat!

Tonight our ward had our trunk or treat. Thankfully we went very simply this year with no dinner or anything -- just trick or treating and a trunk decorating contest!

The night was beautifully warm and all the kids had a ball. I was glad not to have spent my day setting up. And in the end everyone had a good time.

Here are some pictures of the kids: Minnie Mouse, Superman and "The HUMAN TORCH from Fantastic Four" (amazing) and the two winning trunks! Pretty good!

MOVING

We put our house on the market last week, hoping to sell it by this summer so that we could move closer to family. Ty put it on the MLS Thursday and it sold yesterday! Pretty surprising, to say the least.

The contract puts us on the streets in 30 days (the Sat. after Thanksgiving)... and we are not yet ready to leave the state (don't want to go until late Spring), so we have to find something to rent for the interum... until March or so.

If you know of a place, or have a place nearby let me know. It'll need to be a month to month agreement ... but we won't be picky.

So that's the big news from here for the month. I remember at Christmas when our family made 2008 predictions, I stated that I just wanted our year to be status-quo/no big changes. But by February Tyler had changed jobs, and by December we'll be in a new house! At least our number of children has remained the same... :)

Great story

If you are hungry for a good laugh, see the new joke blog my sisters set up for my mom. There is a PRICELESS and FUNNY story waiting there for all to read!

it's: http://www.kendallmugleston.blogspot.com

Jake's Room

I finally did something with Jake's room. Wallpaper! If it wasn't so out, I would probably wallpaper every room in my house. It is so easy and fun!

I used the remaining paint from the kids bathroom to paint the little-boy finger-print-covered bottom half of his room, and then I was going to put up chair-rail but I got impatient.

He loves Jungle Animals and I thought this would be cute for a while, so I went with it. And now the room is done -- $14 and 2 hours later. That is my style.

I also took off his crib skirt and put these big bins under his bed so that I can have him clean his own room in a jiffy. 'Books', 'toys' and 'toys' they are labelled. Easy enough.

I am officially tired of house projects now and need to remember what my friends' phone numbers are (sorry guys). Next week I am checking back in to life!

My Fourth Child

Here she is! And she's prettier in person. I have slaved over this piece of furniture painstakingly... tediously... methodically ... almost slave-labor-in-a-sweat-shop like, and she is finished! At last!

As I mentioned before, I've envisioned a piece just like this for years. She lights up at night and looks so pretty in my kitchen. I pulled all my dishes out today and organized them in her. I am just so happy!

Last night in bed, Tyler expressed some concern about the amount of time that this little endeavour was demanding of me, and I stopped him in his tracks - "No. Stop. This is like our fourth child, honey! You can only win by saying good things about her."

He must have gotten the message because he came home tonight, kissed me and looked quickly to her, "Oh, wow! That looks so good! It is way better than I imagined!" After I excitedly showed him how nicely everything fits into it, he commented that, had he known how much I wanted one of these, he would have bought me one years ago.

Oh well. She's a special piece of art, this hutch of mine. She and I have a life long bond.




P.S. In case you're wondering what all I had to do to her, here are my steps: I got her, took all the hardware off, glass panes out, doors off. Lugged her piece by piece inside, primed her white, primed her red, lugged her back out to the garage, spray painted her red, sanded her, put the hardware back on and her back together, lugged her back inside, stained her sanded spots and loaded her up. Don't worry, I'll never do anything like this again.

Fall at the Farm

We went to Schnepf Farms this weekend. LOVING the fall weather! I think it was a high of 78 that day, amazing. Lots of fun miniature golfing, picking out and painting our pumpkins (we like little), riding rides, eating hot dogs and kettle corn, and enjoying the feeling of FALL! Yay!

My Eyes have Beheld It!

...I've officially been to New York City!

The whole time I was there I couldn't believe that I was actually seeing/hearing/smelling/tasting and feeling everything in the Big Apple! When I've seen something so many times on TV, it is crazy fun to behold it in real life. I imagine this is how it will be someday when I finally meet Oprah, whom I already consider a friend. Still can't wrap my mind around the fact that she doesn't know who I am.

Anyway, here are bunch of pictures. I haven't learned how to collage my pictures or even put them into a slide show format. Sorry. Most of our time in the city was spent at night because Tyler was working during the day, and I was sleeping (it was amazing to sleep in with the three hour time change. The first morning I got up and saw that my watch said it was 9:30 but quickly learned that it was actually 12:30and the day was half over!). The day time was beautifully refreshing coming from here. It was just wonderful being there.

Enjoy.

These are from the first night spent at Times Square. It felt a lot like Las Vegas to me, but less sleazy. We drove our rental car in for the first and only time, saw The New York Times building, Rockefeller Center (the famous ice-skating rink which wasn't filled), the place that Good Morning America airs from each morning, and Broadway among other things. We bought our Wicked CD (in anticipation of the show), went out for Sushi, saw the many knock-off purse and Rolex salesmen, the hundreds of Taxis (there are actually 13,000 in NYC!) and smelled the gross mid-night air filled with the daily dose of garbage lining the streets (the do garbage pick-up nightly for an obvious reason). Oh, and we saw SPIDERMAN. Cool shot for Luke.

These pictures are of Grand Central Station. It also reminded me of Las Vegas, the Venetian or something. Just incredible how large and complex and populated everything is!

On day two we decided to try the train system. This was really, really cool. To be on the trains coming in from Newark, to Penn Station. It was crazy. We found lots of kind, helpful people and managed to make it into the city in one piece. Late, but in one piece.

The last night we took the train in again, and saw the show "Wicked". It exceeded expecations, even after all the great things that people had told us about it! Super show. I wish we could take our kids sometime. Following that, we hailed a taxi (We got a thrill yelling "Taxi!"! and having one pull over! The drivers are super nice, too.) and went to see Ground Zero and Wall Street.

Definitely a sober thing being at the site of the World Trade Centers. We were there late, at like 10pm and there were few people down around that area, but the construction work was going. A nice man walking by stopped to talk with us about that day, where he was, and what's been done since. It was so sad! They say they are five years behind schedule and way over budget. The plan is to rebuild the two buildings a few stories higher than the last ones... so much work with all the intricate details of the subway running underneath that they are restoring and all.

Also, the fire station that was right there on the opposite corner is special. Obviously they lost many firefighters that day and whole place is a working memorial. There is no museum or anything up and running yet for us to visit but you could feel the Spirit there. It was so sad.

We topped the trip off with a quick peek at Wall Street, a slice of pizza from 'Little Italy', and a couple souvenirs. And as quickly as we'd come, we were gone. Great trip. So much fun.