Halloween Front Porch!

What a difference a year makes!

October 2010

October 2011

Kids Birthday Party Gifts!

Since the kids started school & began to get invited to kid birthday parties, I've struggled to find gifts for them to take. You want something age appropriate, easy to find (a.k.a. at Target), something that the birthday kid will like, you don't want to spend a lot of money, but a gift that doesn't make you look cheap. After years of dreading the invite because of the whole gift thing, I started buying gift cards. This year I added a personalized candy bar that doubles as a card.

I match the candy bar wrapper to the party theme. This one was obviously Pirates of the Caribbean.

I always get the gift cards from Target (my favorite store), but for some reason Preston wanted me to get one from Wal-Mart (not my favorite store).

When Preston was getting ready to go to the party Parker went upstairs and made this card/gift. I thought it was cute and sweet, but Preston was really embarrassed & didn't want to give it to his friend. When we dropped Preston off, Parker went right in and put it on the gift table. I am always so impressed with Parker's spelling. He has always been able to spell without working at it, and rarely spells anything wrong. His handwriting? Not so impressive.

Hike!

The boys get out of school early on Wednesdays, and one of our favorite things to do this time of year is to go hiking after they get out. This trail is up Little Cottonwood Canyon & it is my favorite trail. It is about 5 miles each direction & 90% of it is in the shade. My kind of hike! Luckily, we came here a few weeks before the snow arrived.

Lagoon!

Our annual day at Lagoon! Each year we try to go on the first Sunday of October. I swear, it is the slowest day the park has all year. However, it is usually the stormiest day of the year as well. This is the first time we've been able to go on this day for a few years because of the weather. This year it was perfect. Partly cloudy & only about 73 degrees. There were so few people there that by 1:00 pm we had gone on every ride & joked with the kids it was time to go home.

 That is Travis & Preston in the front. Don't they look alike?

Welcome Back, Old Man Winter!

The last time it snowed was on May 18th.  Last Thursday, October 6th, it snowed and snowed and snowed. That means we went a whopping 141 days without snow. That leaves us 224 days of cold wet weather.  So basically it was winter 61.4% of the time in the past year. Ok that is way too much math. Let's just say that it's a hell of a lot of snow!

Parker's Party!

I am using the term "party" very loosely! We had cake and ice cream with my family and called it good. I felt a little guilty since Preston got such a big party. I justified it in my little head by thinking that Preston didn't get his first real party until he turned 10 so Parker has a few years.That works, right?

Parker loves the Paul Frank Monkey, a.k.a. The Target Monkey. It is next to impossible to find anything with this cute little monkey on it. I ended up copying some ideas from our Harry Potter party, changed it to a monkey & called it good. The closest cake we could find was Curious George. I wanted to get a plain cake & decorate it with a few things I made with Paul Frank pictures, but Parker didn't go for that. Oh, well.  A monkey is a monkey.

For a good nine months now Parker has wanted a Ground Force Drifter. I had wrapped his presents after he went to bed on Saturday night so they were just sitting in the living room when we got up on Sunday morning. When he saw the size of this box he came running into our room yelling "I got a Ground Force Drifter". I almost felt bad that the box was a much more affordable gift of skateboard / bike ramps. Good thing that he loved them & was not disappointed. I can guarantee that the second he sees Santa this season the first words out of his mouth will be "Ground Force Drifter".

 

Have you noticed I keep taking closeup pictures like this with a blurry background?  hee hee. I got a new lens that I love. It automatically blurs the background without having to Photoshop it up to make it this blurry.  A standard lens will blur the background, but not this much. It is not the bigger lens that I have been saving my pennies for forever, but a fun little lens to use.

A Diet of 31!

My dad has the worst eating habits of anyone I know. He has never been a healthy eater, but I didn't realize how bad it was until we stayed there last summer when we were building our house. He literally lives on potato chips dipped in large scoops of mayonnaise, candy bars, macaroni salad and various fast food places. Growing up fast food was four of the five food groups in our house. I now have a huge hatred of fast food & grease and I know it is because we had it so much growing up.  Anyway, the other day I was at my parents house after my mom had been to the grocery store. This is my dad's stash of candy bars. Guess how long they last him? ONE WEEK! I counted & there were 31 of them. UGH!