2017- Week 44(Oct 30- Nov 5)

I had a dentist appointment on Monday- which was great to have before Halloween so I could get my teeth nice and clean and then fill them up with all the candy the next day- ha ha.

Ethan had an ortho appointment on Halloween and he is finally ready to get braces on. My kids teeth come in very very very slow and we have had to wait and wait for them. I don't think he is too happy about it. He gets them on right after Christmas. That night we had our annual neighborhood party. I made chicken noodle soup again but forgot to thaw out the noodles so I put them in frozen- that does not work and the were so chewy and gross. The next day they were fine but for the party they were bad. Halloween was so boring this year. Ethan went trick of treating with friends, Ashtyn went to a friends and I stayed home and helped Whitney with her biology homework all night. We just left a bowl of candy on the porch for people to take.

 Ethan dressed up like a "cereal" killer. He wanted to use spoons but I convinced him that you can't be a "killer" with out knives. He got way too much candy.

Here he is with his friends

Whitney had an ortho appointment too the very next day. They were suppose to tell her that her teeth were finally done and she could get her braces off. At least that is what we had hoped because they had told her she would get them off in September. Unfortunately she wasn't ready and has to have them on for two more months. She was devastated and I could see her holding back tears. I was sad too. She has had to have braces for over three years, which sucks. I decided the best remedy for a broken heart is shopping- I know that's not good parenting- but good parenting is knowing exactly what your child needs in the moment. So we went to Target and bought her a cute skirt. It did make her feel better. At least she will finally be able to be done with braces this year and start 2018 with beautiful teeth. 

I had a presidency meeting on Thursday and we spent the whole time finishing our plans for the ward Christmas party that we are in charge of. We were going to do a Buddy the Elf theme. We planned to make elf hats for each table, have big quote posters made from the movie and even have someone dress up like Buddy and come to the party. It was all great until the bishopric counselor called me on Sunday night and told me we couldn't do any of it and that the Bishop wanted it to be more Christ centered. I wasn't mad, just frustrated because I had been letting him know our plans all a long and we have been planning this since July- so to have to start over at this point when the party is a month away and think of a whole new idea was hard. Luckily I had been feeling all along that maybe we should head more that direction so as I spoke to him I had all kinds of ideas flood my mind. I have a book called I Believe in Santa that compares the symbols of Christmas to Christ so we are going to do that instead. We'll use nativities instead of elf hats and Santa is still going to come but we'll have him read us the story. All of our other ideas had centered around a sub for Santa so we can still move ahead with them. I really should not have volunteered us for this party when we have so much to do for the new year. Remind me of that next year ha ha.

Friday my sister and I went to the Pinners Conference. It was awesome this year and had so many great things. We definitely spent too much money. I got some cute leather earrings, a pocket watch for work, a big print of the Proclamation and Living Christ for my house and two $5 shirts for Ash and Whit. It was super crowded but fun.

Saturday I went to a bridal shower for my friend Gretchen's daughter Kristen. She use to babysit for us sometimes. She is a gorgeous girl and that boy is so lucky. It was also like a little ward reunion because there were a whole bunch of people there from our old ward. Her fiance is going to wear a green suit and it is amazing. I've never seen green before but I love it.

Our family has started watching Stranger Things together. It's good, but super scary for me. I love that we all like it though and it's fun to watch it together.

Sunday was family dinner. Tom asked me to give a lesson on emergency preparedness. I tried to do it in a way that wouldn't scare the kids- so I compared it to going on vacation and if you prepare and plan for vacation then you have a more enjoyable time. If we prepare for emergencies then we won't be scared and we'll know what to do if they happen. The kids had been practicing earthquake drills at school so all of them were talking my ear off telling me what to do- the lesson was pretty short because we had lost them all by that point. I am glad I got to prepare it though because it helped me to see what areas I am lacking in for our preparedness.

2017- Week 43(Oct 23- Oct 29)

I got to do handcarts this week at work which is hard and so fun. Only close to 3000 people ever made the handcart journey and I am a descendant of four of them. The kids get to pull a real life size replica of a handcart and then we talk about the journey the pioneers made. It was such amazing weather this week so it was nice. I also got to train a new girl named Sarah so it was fun to have a partner to help.

I went to lunch with my friend Aubrey. We talked about our love for Paris. She has actually been and I'm so jealous. She is starting her own interior design company so we were talking about different names she could use.

Friday was our ward Fall Festival. The young men were in charge so Jeff did a lot of the planning. He hates to dress up but I insisted that if he was in charge he had to go all out. I dressed up like a deer and he was a hunter. Whitney did my deer makeup and it looked awesome! Ashtyn also played along and dressed up like a bear. For the trunk or treat we decorated our car like a camp site and borrowed Sharon's small trees to use as the forest. We ended up winning a prize. I made chicken noodle soup and it must have been good because it was gone right away. I never even got to try it. I loved seeing all the creativity of the cute kiddies.

Saturday was our primary program practice. It went well and I had more kids come then I expected. However more than 3/4 of them had never even gone over their parts which was disappointing. It runs so much more smoothly when we don't have to help them say the part. Overall the practice went well and we were ready for Sunday. We also gave them a pizza party at the end.

Saturday night Ashtyn was invited to a murder mystery dinner with her friends. It was set in Fairy Tale Land so they all dressed up like characters from fairy tales. Ashtyn was assigned Prince Charming. She was the mayor of the town and led the discussion. I wish I would have gotten to go because it looked so so fun. Rumpelstiltskin ended up being the murderer. That part was played by Emily Song. Ashtyn designed her costume and I think she makes a pretty darling prince.

 Prince Charming and his true love Snow White

Sunday was our program and it turned out beautifully except went way longer then I planned. It was almost an hour long which I'm sure didn't make the Bishop too happy but people said it was wonderful and one of the best they had seen. We made sure each kid had an actual part, not just two words and we sang nine songs. I was so so proud of the kids. When we went to Primary afterwards I started bawling when I told the kids how much I loved them and how proud I was of them and the junior primary all started laughing and saying "Teacher is fake crying"- it was kind of funny. We watched Mr. Krugers Christmas and gave them popcorn and the teachers giant 

Kit Kats as a thank you.

Sunday night we invited Greg and Regan over for dinner. We don't see them much. Regan wasn't feeling well so just Greg came. We played 100 pin bowling after dinner and I won. I totally ruined the pork chops by leaving them in the crock pot too long and also forgot to set the timer on my bread sticks and they ended up crunchy but Greg loved it so I didn't feel too bad. Greg has his own You Tube channel now called The Greg Hughes Show- It's totally Greg and full of his colorful opinions.