Brazil gets Jared

Jared gave his mission farewell talk last Sunday. He spoke on this talk about standing alone from Pres. Monson. He did a good job and related experiences he had "standing alone" in the locker room when he told his friends to now swear. They respected him and would try not to swear around him. My uncles Larry and Monty and their families came along with some people from the ward and some of his friends from school came.

My Mom made him a thanksgiving dinner since he is leaving Tuesday and will miss Thanksgiving.  

We watched home videos. Jared was just a baby in them. It was fun to reminisce and make fun of our clothes/hair and behavior. Good times. 

Jared and me, ahhh! I'll miss him for 2 years, but of course I wouldn't want him anywhere else except on a mission right now. He'll be an amazing missionary!

Jared with my kids. While on the trampoline, the cousins were all talking about how old they were going to be when Jared gets back. It's crazy how time flies.

Jared arrive at the Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Sao Paulo, Brazil!!! He had such a long day, almost 24 hours of travel with layovers and such. He'll be in the MTC for 7-8 weeks and then go up to his mission in Joao Pessoa, Brazil. They better take good care of my little brother! :)

Preston's Green Tractor

My Mom gave Preston this John Deere Tractor kit and it came with paint and decals. Preston was at Walmart with my Mom and he picked it out saying he wanted to paint it green. So my Mom bought it and saved it until his birthday. He loved doing this little craft project. I helped him by telling him what color to paint where. I wanted to smooth out the brush strokes so bad and I did on one side, but then stopped because I figured it's his tractor and it looks cute how he paints it. I'm glad I didn't "fix" it all. 

Kiddos and Sickos

The kids all in the pj's one morning. Too cute. 

Chicken noodle soup has been a common thing around here lately. Partly because it's amazingly yummy and easy to make AND because we had the stomach flu go through our house this week. It started with Lindsey, then Preston, then Kyle, then me and so far no one else. Kate and Chelsea were lucky ones. 

My Mom made us chicken noodle soup a couple months ago when we were at their house and we were all raving about how good it was. I make it the easy way though (6 c. water, 6 bouillon cubes, add diced onion, celery and carrots, cook til tender, then add chicken and noodles- boil noodles and chicken separately. I use the Country Pasta homemade noodles from Costco or you can use egg noodles. Then season with salt and pepper as needed.)

Baby Zane

Derek and Sara blessed Zane a couple weeks ago in Moses Lake. Derek did a great job with the baby blessing and his parent's hosted an amazing dinner afterwards at their house. There was so much food! It was fun to visit with Derek's family and hang out with my family. 

Baby Zane all looking studly in his bow tie. And of course my Mom made the outfit, tie and booties. Too cute. Zane was born October 4th at 3:58 pm and weighed 9 lbs 8 oz. He has lots of light blonde/reddish hair and he is a big boy! 

Our family that went to the blessing.

All of my siblings were there except for my brother Jeff and his wife Sadie and their two kids Reagan and Baylor. We missed them!

Oh, Chelsea

Chelsea's already 5 months old and trying all sorts of new things like...

the activity center- the older kids fight over the music buttons (annoying) and the...

johnny jumper- more like Lindsey and Preston swing her around and "help" her bounce and...

she's exploring the floor- she's rolling around, scooting and sitting up and...

this was her 2nd time trying food. It was rice cereal and carrots. I'll let the pictures tell you how it went.

Yep, we need to work on the food department. She's growing up fast and such a good baby though. She was teasing me and sleeping through the night for several nights, then started waking up once a night again. I don't want to sleep train her like I had to with Lindsey, but she has until she's 6 months and then I'll do it! I'm not really looking forward to doing that so I hope she learns on her own. :) 

Trick-or-Treat

Happy Halloween!

Where to begin?! Lots of pictures with this post. 

We carved pumpkins for FHE, had a ward Chili and Cornbread cook-off with carnival games followed with trunk-or-treating and then went trick-or-treating with friends on Halloween. I think we have plenty of candy and wore our costumes enough.

I made brain and skeleton face cupcakes for the cupcake walk. The Young Women ran that activity so I got to search pinterest for cupcake ideas. I wanted to do something that I haven't done before. The brain ones were super easy. I even googled how to make flesh colored frosting for them. Love google!

Preston was Buzz Lightyear- to infinity and beyond!!! He was this by default. I had gotten this costume on clearance a couple years ago and so I brought it out and told him he was going to be Buzz. He was fine with it and actually was really excited (even though before whenever I asked him if he wanted to be Buzz he would say no he wanted to be an elephant or Mario or Spiderman, haha). My friend had some Buzz wings that we borrowed and they completed the costume, thanks Kati! Preston would say, "check out my wings" and then spin around to show you. 

Kate was a perfect Clown. She was hilarious in her costume. Every time I looked at her I would laugh. She didn't like me laughing at her because she thought I was making fun of her so I had to convince her that I wasn't making fun of her I was laughing because she was funny. She is wearing a vintage clown costume that my Grandma Joyce made for my Uncle Tom!

Chelsea was a Chicken. She was puffy and so warm in it. Her double chin and chubby cheeks were darling in it. Kate, Lindsey and now Chelsea have all worn this costume. Chelsea was very tired at the Trunk-or-treat activity and fell asleep on Kyle. Then she was screaming in the car while Kyle was handing out candy and I was taking the younger kids around. I had the diaper bag and it had her bottle in it. oops! It was kind of stressful that night. You have the dinner (this year we all ate before and it was WAYYY better, plus the gym is so tiny and was packed), the activities and then the trunk-or-treat and all the kids want/need to do everything. It was tiring! Oh and I needed to help clean up the YW activity afterwards.

Lindsey was a Black Kitty Cat. She looked cute with her tail sticking out and her headband- except she kept taking the headband off. She is at a fun age where she wants to do everything and follow the bigger kids. She had fun this Halloween doing the trick-or-treating and all the games. 

Mummy Bowling

Candyland Cupcake Walk 

Donut Eating

We had to get a picture of these 3 boys because they were all newborns at the Ward activity 5 years ago! The Grossarth's moved back into the area after being gone for a few years so we thought it was awesome how these boys were back together again for Halloween.

This picture is from 5 years ago! L-R: Jeanne Grossarth with Jackson, Kati Owens with Dallin and me with Preston

I had to take a picture of these cute witch shoes that Linda Watson made for EVERY table at the ward activity.

  

Linda also brought all her decorations from home and made the front entrance festive. There's even more than this picture shows. She went through a lot of work! It looked great!

Getting ready to go Trick-or-treating on Halloween! We ate monster brains (spaghetti), monster guts (cottage cheese), witch nails (corn) and twisted witch fingers (twisted breadsticks) for our candlelit Halloween dinner.

We went trick-or-treating with Alyssa, Dallin and Ashlynn Owens in their new neighborhood. We had a Halloween Miracle...it didn't rain while we were trick-or-treating!!! It was raining at first so we pulled out our umbrellas, but after the 2nd house it stopped and it didn't rain again. We could see stars in the sky, it wasn't cold and no rain. It was a perfect night! This really is amazing considering it was torrential downpour raining ALL DAY LONG! The kids had fun. Preston lasted longer than 2 houses (that's how long he lasted last year), but then was asking to go home constantly after a little while. Kate could have kept going, but we stopped her so we could go home. Lindsey and Preston were scared of the boys with scary masks so we had to stay away from those groups.