Halloween pics!

"Prince" Puppy!

Lee the creepy farmer (Illianna wasn't amused)

Happy Halloween 2010

Seth the Mad Scientist

Adree the Lil' Devil

Drake the chinchilla

Adree and her classmates performing with the Southwest Symphony!

Happy Halloween! I hope everyone who has had the chance to already to celebrate or who is celebrating today has a great Halloween! We had the opportunity to celebrate yesterday and it was a smashing success for sure! Ha, I say yesterday although we had fun Halloween activities all this last week. The kids had a blast...Mom? Well, I'm a tad worn out of course! ;0)
On Tuesday Adree was able to go to Halloween party of a friend that lives a few houses up and had a great time! On Wednesday the kids had a Halloween Primary activity to go to as well. Drake had insisted all month that he didn't want to dress up this year, which is fine. At the last minute Drake decided to go to the Primary party and since he didn't have a costume, donned his chinchilla ears and went anyway. At the schools around here the Elementary kids can dress up in their costumes and attend the Halloween parade before school lets out and at the Intermediate level they let the kids wear their costumes all day. After the Primary party Drake asked if he could dress up and go Trick-or-Treating, I asked what  he wanted to be. "Can I be a chinchilla?", he asked. Sure. It took just a minute to think up a way to turn him into a chinchilla and get him a couple of things he needed anyway and got to work.
He needed another hoodie (his had seen better days from chronic winter wearing) and so I looked for a brown one (one of the few colors he'll wear) and a pair of brown pants, what can I say? He loves brown! I stitched a couple of  pipe cleaners to the sides of the hood and made a tail out of a pipe cleaner and some scrap brown material and stitched it to the bottom of the hoodie. Took me five minutes and I took off the pipe cleaner whiskers and tail and he has a new brown hoodie for school! I put all the costumes I made on my other blog, click here to see!
On Thursday was the school carnival and Seth went with a friend to that and I went shopping for the things Drake needed for his costume.
Friday was really fun though! Adree had the opportunity with her class to perform with the Southwest Symphony at the Cox auditorium on the Dixie State campus, it was really cool! We only received one free ticket per student and had to pony-up 30 bucks for everyone else, but it was really fun to listen to all the musicians and to see Adree perform. Totally worth it!
Yesterday, even though it was only the 30th, was our Halloween and Trick-or Treating! 'Tis what happens when you live in Utah my friend! What a great time it was though! Instead of your traditional Trunk-or-treat that many wards have, our ward has a huge block party instead! All decked out with food and music and even a haunted house, it was great! It felt just like Halloween used to be when I was growing up, yes before the world became a much scarier place. I bought about 10 lbs. of candy in anticipation of the Trick-or-Treaters and Lee gave away most of it. We stationed Lee on the front porch swing where he sat motionless and took great fun in scaring the kids by grabbing them when they reached for the candy! He must have looked pretty scary because he freaked out the kids running the haunted house and someone even asked to have their picture with the "creepy farmer guy". Haha, it was pretty funny!
Our friends Camilla and Steven and their baby came over to hang out with us and Camilla and I took the kids Trick-or-Treating around a couple of blocks. The kids had a lot of fun. This is only the second year they have gotten to go traditional Trick-or-Treating, we lived in an old person's neighborhood before and just took the kids to the Mall instead. They had a great time running ahead and going to our neighbors houses and Drake stood in the shadows and jumped out at whomever had the misfortune in answering the door. Silly boy! Our friend Annelise (Miss Rogers) stopped by for a little bit as well and she went through the haunted house with me and the kids. The haunted house might have been more scary if it hadn't of broken down while we were in the middle of it!  The room we got stuck in had a teenager in a "Scream" mask behind a curtain, he kept poking his head through the curtain saying nothing and getting right in Drake's face. Drake just looked at him and said, "What? Are you trying to scare me?", as he chased him down and stomped on his foot. Apparently, when we got going again he was ahead of us and told me later that he had slugged someone else that was trying to scare him as well...hmmm...he did run from the chainsaw guy at the end like everyone else though! ;0)
As you can read, we had a fantastic, scary fun Halloween! Happy Halloween from Among the Lambsfold...BOO! ;0)

In the spirit....

We started out attempting caramel apples...

next time I'll use different butter!

Somebody murdered that pumpkin!

Seth was thrilled to get his hands icky, really! ;0)

Look who got to carve them all!

Adree's shot of Lee scooping out his pumpkin!

They turned out pretty spooky, mine on the left, Lee's on the right...

The kids' are cute too, Drake's on the left, Seth in the middle and Adree's fell asleep on the right!

Our house is spooky too!

I've been neglecting this blog and I apologize for that, I have a five day a week publication blog I write and with the kids being so involved and Mom as acting taxi, I run out of time frequently! I'll try to update this blog weekly at least and keep everyone abreast as to the happenings Among the Lambsfold!
One advantage to not working, is that I have plenty of time to do fun seasonal things with the family this year! Including decorating the front of the house, making goodies and we even carved 5 pumpkins this year, fun!
I wish the caramel apples had turned out better, the soy butter I used was too oily to have the caramel set up properly. It tastes just fine, it just doesn't stay on the apples. Looks like we'll be cutting them up and dipping the apples instead, eh, such is life sometimes.
Lee got a head start on the house decorating, much to my chagrin. I came home on the last week of September and had a grim reaper hanging in the entry. He didn't understand my annoyance when I complained. "I think it looks great...", was all he said until I pointed out that now I had to do the rest of the house because just one decoration is kinda lame looking. Poo. It took a couple of weeks of gathering things up and hanging them, but it definitely looks like Halloween at our house now! Scary!
I remember thinking that carving pumpkins was so much fun growing up, although I don't know why! I was elected to do all the carving at a young age and as you can see...nothing's changed! This kids had cute pumpkin designs this year though and Lee did his own gigantic pumpkin (all 29 pounds of it, thank goodness they were on sale for 25 cents a pound @ Albertson's!) and it looks great! Adree's pumpkin refused to stand up straight, so we carved it on it's side and made it look like it was sleeping, it even had a bump on the side that looked just like a nose! Drake requested hexagon eyes, an octagon nose and the scariest face possible, I obliged! He looked when I was done and said, "Hmm...that is pretty scary!" ;0) Sethee wanted square eyes, a triangle nose and a scary mouth, he's so funny! Mine was last of course and I just finished mine up while Lee took the kids outside to light theirs. My pumpkin had green "warts" all over it and a great stem, so I cut the hole in the side and put the mouth and eyes on the top and laid it on it's side to use the stem as the nose! Not too bad for just a few minutes!;0)
In the spirit for Halloween we are and I'll post all the costume pictures next week! Boo! ;0)

"Fall"ing for you

A) Cloudburst over Navajo Lake

B) Road to Navajo Lake

C) Foreground Aspens

D) Dry spell

E) Quakie grove

F) Pine boughs  and aspen

G) Leaves of change

H) Golden hue

I) Contrast

J) Autumn skies

K) At attention

L) Navajo Lake overlook

I love this time of year, don't you? The summer's heat is melted away by crisp mornings and cerulean skies, nature sheds to rest till Spring time abloom. Lee the kids and I took a little time over the weekend to go and enjoy all of this and spent the night in Sink Valley at Mom and Dad's cabin. Which they were so gracious as to abandon for us! THANK YOU!! ;0) It was a great and peaceful time and the kids loved being able to wrap up and sit on the porch and roast marshmallows over the fire and amused themselves by singing silly songs and making up stories. Lee and I were better able to enjoy the quiet the next morning by insisting everyone stay outside and the kids ran through the trees, up and down the hill playing Pokemon or what have you!
I was also able to take many pictures on Cedar Mountain, where the colors were at their peak in many places. This is why I have so many on here for you, I need your help! I have a very large and very blank wall in my Family Room and it has always been my intention to have some of my quaking aspen shots blown up and mounted for it. I have sooo many good ones, that I'm having a hard time choosing...take a minute to look them over and let me know what ones I should definitely choose! You'd be a big help!;0) Some of them are from last year, the orange/gold shots are from this year.
I sure love this time of year, don't you? ;0)