Mom's Visit

We had lots of fun with my mom while she was here.  

She's a big music fan of course, so her first day here we went to the "Fall Out to Lunch Concert" downtown at the Mesa Art Center.  It was a Veteran's day concert.  Lots of marching music and free flags :)

marching

 We went on a few scenic drives.  My mom loved all the cactus here, and the mountains that surround the East Valley.  It really is so pretty here!

 Jordan stayed home with the kids one afternoon while my mom and I walked around downtown Scottsdale.  There is so much to see there, we only got through about 1/4 or less of it in a couple hours.

 We also went to an old gold mining town that's about 15 min away from our house.  It was really cute and the kids had so much fun running around.

 This horse wasn't tied up with the others and was eating from a prickly tree, and there was no wrangler around anywhere so my mom tied him back up.  He was a super sweet horse.  Calin loved him.  Capri was terrified.  She has really been loving horses lately.  But just the little ones she sees in the stores.  So she probably thought this horse was a giant, and got pretty scared.  She wouldn't let my mom hold her the rest of our time there.  Anytime I would try to pass her off, she would scream.  Haha, she thought my mom was going to take her back to the Giant Horse.

We had a wonderful time!  At the airport on her way home she moved in the full body scanner, and they had to do a full body pat down.  Then they searched her carryon bag for c4 explosives.  Turned out to be a box of homemade fudge.  HA!

Joni Valponi

I love my mom.  She is one of the funniest ladies ever.  Even her rhyming name makes you smile.  Everything she does is filled with so much passion, character, love, excitement . . . 

She's the best!

Halloween & More

Trick-or-treating this year was So. Much. Fun.  It was our first year going with out cousins around, and I was a bit sad that it was just going to be us.  But even though we missed having family with us, we still had lots of fun!  Calin's at a good age for it, and Capri had so much fun running up to each door.  She even started saying tick-or-treat in her own little way.  It was darling!  Oh, and she kept her ears on ALL night!  They would sometimes slip down onto her face, and instead of taking them off, she would push them back up and try to fix them.  She's started doing that with her headbands too :)  I sure hope it lasts!  It makes me so happy when she doesn't rip them off!!

See Calin's trick-or-treating bag?  This was my 5 min addition to his pirate costume.  I cut the pirate ghost out of a foam sheet and quickly sewed a long strip of fabric together on each side, added a foam handle and he was ready to go :)

It was so fun to trick-or-treat here with the nice weather!  Here you have to worry about being too hot in your costume.  Most people sit outside in the driveway and pass out candy.  What shocked me the most was the amount of candy everyone gave out.  They gave a handull, sometimes two, to the kids.  It was crazy!  The kids also got about 10 gift bags full of at least 10 fun-sized pieces of candy.  One girl gave Capri 2 things of candy, and her mom next to her said "Did you only give her 2? Give her some more!" LOL, I promptly told them that 2 was more than enough, thanked them, and went on our way.  The kids bags were too heavy for them to carry within 15 min. 

This is some of the candy they got that night.  Can you believe there was even more?  We had 3 BIG bowls overflowing with candy when we included the stuff from trunk-or-treat and the candy we bought for trick-or-treaters and didn't get to hand out.

Other recent happenings - 

I finally made my own laundry detergent.  I used a combo of these two recipes How Does She & One Good Thing by Jillee.  It cost just under $30, and is supposed to last a family of 4 a year.  We'll see.  So far I reallly like it, and it was super fast to make.

Calin is finally tall enough to go into Smalland at Ikea.  We went the other day, and he had so much fun.  And it was so nice to shop with one less kid to entertain :)

Capri's laugh has always been a little cackle, but after Halloween and all the witch cackles we we did for fun, she has it down pretty well. Oh, and she is starting to say more words, like "gook" for book.  She says it at the end of the video and I think it's so cute :)

Also, my mom flys into town today!!!  We're really excited to see her!!  And then next week my dad and Brenda will be here!  We are so happy so much family is coming to visit us!  We miss them all so much!