Other Fall Goings On

I took the kids up the road to a nature preserve to take some pictures. Cori was away and doing it by myself nearly killed me. The older three were so so good about the whole thing. Jeffers gave me about 4.5 minutes at the beginning of the shoot. He sat still, but every time I asked him to smile he gave me the kissy lips pictured above. Once we hit the five minute mark, he had had enough. We tried multiple places, poses, you name it. There was another photographer setting up for a shoot who saw me and my crew and took pity. She had a barrel full of apples and gave one to Jeffery which kept him still. She stood behind me and did the ridiculous things that all good photographers do to get kids' attention. It was with her help that I got the picture we ended up using on our Christmas card. 98% of the rest of the pictures I took that afternoon ended up like this:

and this:

and this:

Grandpa Randy extended one of his work trips and spent a few days with us. We loved having him stay with us and he is a lot of fun to explore with. We met Cori down by work one day for lunch at an Argentine restaurant (Both Cori and Randy served their missions in Argentina). Then, Randy and I took Eden and Jeffers downtown to the Discovery Green. We explored the park and played and then made a perfectly timed exit wherein we beat traffic and made it home before the school bus.

At home, the kids took advantage of every opportunity to wrestle Grandpa to the floor. We also played a lot of Left Center Right. And we went out one night for some bonafide Texas BBQ.

One blessed night, I came into the kitchen and discovered this scene of parental bliss.

Before we departed on our Thanksgiving adventures, we met some friends downtown for Zoolights. It was a drizzly night. I spent nearly two hours in traffic getting there (I am still a newbie driving downtown and went all the wrong ways) and JJ threw up his dinner before we got there. But we still had a great night with our friends and the animals.

Cori spent several weekends building some amazing horseshoe pits for the backyard. Grace was a faithful helper and spent happy hours with him in the garage.

We had just enough room for the pits on the west side of the pool. Cori was sure to install them at the official regulation length. The kids throw from the halfway mark. 

Gracie's hair above was for a crazy hair spirit day. Pictured below is the cloud of hair that resulted when we pulled all the rubber bands out. Grace was wishing we had waited to free her hair till the next day so she could 'fro it at school. I just smiled and told her to get into the shower.

Grace and I attended the world-wide women's meeting for the Church at our stake center. We got to help put together humanitarian aid kits before enjoying some dinner and sitting with friends for the broadcast. I love sharing these events with Grace. She is one of my favorite people.

Eden has developed into a regular chip off the old block. True to form, as set by her older siblings, Eden loves to spend time coloring, writing, cutting, and creating. We always have a flurry of projects in the works on her days home from preschool.

Fall Sports

Grace had the best season of volleyball yet. She participated in a volleyball camp with the program director over the summer. This was great as the leagues here have some different standards than she was used to in the Pheonix league she played in. For example, the girls her age are only allowed over-hand serves here. She really improved her serves over the course of the season (still have a lot of work to do, especially with the pressure of a game) and she is getting more confident on the court. Another thing that is different here is all the cheering that goes on during the game. And I don't mean the cheers coming from the attending fans. The girls have all kinds of cheers they do during the game. I think this was Grace's favorite part of volleyball. Her team didn't go very far in the tournament at the end of season. No matter! She was a happy camper.

Meanwhile, Grant was busy on the soccer field. Rain or shine, hot or cold, this guy is so happy if he is out playing with some ball or other. He was on a team with a bunch of boys who hadn't played before, which gave him an opportunity to be a little bit of a leader here and there. The good old Texas weather kept us guessing every practice and every game. We only cleared the field for thunder and lightning.

Halloween 2014

We left all the decorations from Grace's birthday party up all month and felt like we got to celebrate the heck out of Halloween this year. Grace and Cori got to get some extra milage out of their costumes at the daddy/daughter Halloween party for activity days. I wish I could have seen Cori bust out his Thriller moves in that get up. Grace and Grant also got to wear their costumes to their student recital at their piano teacher's house.

Our ward trunk or treat was the Wednesday night before Halloween. I did not take a single picture that entire day. I'm currently serving in our YW presidency and I work with the best group of Mia Maids. They wanted to do a spook ally for the ward activity and we spent a lot of time preparing. That day, I met up with some friends early in the afternoon at the Church parking lot - trunk or treat is hosted in the parking lot here. So we set up a series of shade tents to build our spook ally. While there, I completely drained the battery in my car playing movies for the little kids who were with us. The rest of the afternoon/evening kind of followed suit. Cori was my knight in shining armor. In the end, the spook ally was a success - the girls did a great job and had so much fun. My kids made it to the trunk or treat with their costumes on because Cori took care of all that business at home. (I have to insert here that trunk or treat was the wednesday after Super Faye Day. I still don't know how I survived to tell this tale!)

I was more prepared when Halloween rolled around. We got dressed up and headed to our friends' house for dinner and trick or treating.

Grace as Hermoine. Grant as Boba Fett- a costume he purchased on his own with his birthday funds. Jeffery as the frog prince (the darling costume my mom made Grant years ago) - I kissed him all night long. And Eden as the 'Costco Witch' for the second year in a row. The original plan was for her to be Doc McStuffins- hence the outfitting she got on her birthday. But the night of, she informed us that Doc McStuffins was not a good costume for Halloween. She wanted to be a witch. I didn't put up a fight. She ran upstairs, dug her stuff out of the dress up bin and put it all on right over her clothes.

Somewhere in the midst of that week we carved pumpkins.

We had a yummy chili dinner and then the dads took the kids out to get their candy buckets filled. Donika and I got cozy in our camp chairs on the driveway and chatted and handed out candy. It was a splendid evening.

And Halloween isn't Halloween around here unless we have a little Just Dance event. Grace spent the night with our trick or treating friends, but we hurried home and got Jeffers in bed and fired up the big screen.

Super Faye Day

There is a sweet girl named Faye in Grant's primary class who was diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia back in September. This is Faye's second battle with leukemia. She beat it when she was four and it was a dreadful surprise when just short of her 3 year anniversary of being cancer free the disease returned with a fury. Our ward family rallied immediately. There were t-shirt and bracelet sales, lemonade stands, water balloon fights at the soccer fields, and online campaigns. My friend Stephanie decided she wanted to organize "a little community yard sale" to raise some additional funds. She roped me into the effort. I was so happy to help, though I am not a fan of yard sales ( at all!). Stephanie is one of these wonderful people who can't plan small. At all. And the little community yard sale grew and grew until it could only be called Super Faye Day.

The donations came in so quickly that we had to adjust and change plans as quickly as they were made. Many generous people made it possible for us to pull off what ended up being an incredible event. Storage units were donated and we spent our weekends filling them up. We had 9 units packed by the time the sale rolled around. It was clear that no one's yard would hold all this goodness, and so we secured the church parking lot. A local moving company volunteered a moving truck and some workers to help us get everything from the storage units to the Church. We spent three days sorting and organizing, and then moved things out to the parking lot the night before. The constabulary added the Church to their rounds that night, and a team of wonderful guys from our ward took night shifts watching over everything till the sun came up.

The silent auction tent was my baby. We had over 50 donations from the community. Gift baskets galore and lots of vendor services and gift certificates. (I was also in charge of procuring the portable potty as we kept the building locked tight. Not the most exciting contribution, but necessary.)

Faye's grandma got us all aprons to wear so that people could identify sale workers quickly. So handy- I really need to get me one to use around the house!

Coach Rose's sister is in our ward, and she got this basketball donated to the auction. Any guesses who won the bid for it? That's right. Mr. Husband-of-mine is getting a display case for Christmas.

Another friend was in charge of a little kids carnival. Games, prizes, face painting and go cart rides. There was also a bake sale that was stocked by members of our stake and community.

The fire department came for a couple of hours and gave tours of their truck.

Faye's older brother set up his lemonade stand. All the lemonade was donated by Chic Fil A who also sent their cow over for pictures later in the morning. I didn't get a great picture of Mitchell, but he was wearing over-alls and Groucho glasses. So cute!

Also on the grounds for pictures were these two sisters dressed as two other famous sisters. Pretty fun.

The event raised over $15,000 for Faye's family. We couldn't believe it. Actually, we kind of could believe it. People are so very good.

the third visit

Sara and Kevin Came to town the next weekend. It was another busy weekend of sporting events, fundraiser preparations and church stuff. They took the big kids to the movies one evening. And we can always count on uncle Kevin for some board game action.

We did a little swimming. We kept to the hot tub.

We pulled the big kids out of school one day to go to the Space Center. I really love that place. Fortunately Sara and Kevin loved it too.