2011 Fall Catch Up

I can't believe how behind I've gotten! Instead of just skipping the past few months, I'm going to try and sum it up in a few posts.
We had such a wonderful time celebrating Halloween. We made foam displays to kick off the season and then started into picking out our favorite treats to make.  I tried to keep it simple and only made one special dinner and dessert each week.  We did the spider webs, coffin chili, wormy cupcakes, jack'o lantern pie, ghost stew, ghostly crispy treats, and sherbet potion smoothies.  Kylie found out that her favorite candy are Kit Kat's which she calls "kitty cats". So cute!

Kylie told her where to place what for her spooky tree

Natalie did her house mostly by herself but Dad had to step in for the construction bit.

Final product in the back and Kylie enjoying her "kitty cat"!

We were "Booed" so we made these easy treats to Boo two other people from our church.

Our Spooky Crispy Treats that we shared with Leah's family.

My brother, John, came to California for visit a short visit and we managed to squeeze in a game of Carcozonne which he immediately loved.  Karl and I sent a set to him and Paige as it's our favorite two player game. The nearby siblings were able to get together at a bowling alley to celebrate his birthday while he was here. The pictures didn't come out well but you can see what a great time everyone had.  It was Kylie's first time bowling too!

John and Karl

Leah loving seeing the kids and family bowl together.

Some of the cousins waiting their turns.

My dad who drove John out and got everyone together.

Kylie bowling for the first time.

Everyone singing Happy Birthday to John and Denise afterwards.

Celebrating Halloween was so fun.  We decorated the front of the house and put scary spiders all over the inside of the house for the girls to find. We went to the local pumpkin patch and brought Natalie's new friend from church.  It was crazy busy but we had a great time.  Natalie has been doing amazing at her new school. She making friends and getting good grades.  We are so happy we made the change.

Natalie and Corynne getting ready to go through the corn maze.

Kylie loved all the action and ran through the maze getting us lost.

Natalie at school with my mom at her first assembly.

She got Principle Honor Roll as well as her new friend, Ellie.

Kylie's new winter jacket - she was so excited!

She is a great shopper and had fun racing around while I shopped for Nat.

Kylie loves soy beans and uses chopsticks when we got out.

Her favorite thing is still going on the carousel.

I was super busy with Relay, trying to get one-on-one meetings with each of the 30 or so committee members. That meant two to three meetings a week. Karl was amazing watching the girls for me most evenings if I couldn't schedule meetings during the day. I also had to prepare for the church's Children's Program by making sure the kids knew all the songs. At the same time I had been asked to do a piano duet for church. That meant more practice and time away from the family.

Of course, then there were my classes. I quickly found out that my online classes were much harder than I anticipated. My Horticulture class was not about learning about plants but about the history of gardens around the world. The weekly tests were brutal! My Earth Science class demanded at least 10 hours of reading and studying every week. I took my first test and barely passed even though I had been studying like crazy. This class was based just on the tests so I started to worry about doing well with everything I had going on. Sadly, by the time I admitted I had too much on my plate, the drop dates had already past. So, I decided to put all my reading books away, no more play-dates for Kylie, and studying during the girls dance practices.

I can't forget to mention that we celebrated Fred, Karl's step-dad's, birthday.  It was a surprise party and they really got him good!

Waiting for the birthday boy to arrive!

Kylie LOVED seeing Stephen and really misses him.

Dan pretended to be a limo chauffeur and Fred didn't realize it was him!

I had to quickly leave for the Children's Program practice
 for our performance the next day but I had to be there to wish him Happy Birthday.

So many family members and friends were there, he was really touched.

One of Kylie's favorite people is her Uncle Dan.

Kelly, Savannah (Stephen's girl-friend), and Stephen

Our gracious hosts!

So cute!

Happy 70th Fred!

We invited one of Natalie's new friends, Ellie's, family to our ward's Truck or Treat. Natalie wanted to be a skeleton again and Kylie wanted to be a princess. Karl and I stuck with our vampire costumes but tried out using face make-up. My dad joined us on Halloween night and we went treat or treating with the girls in a nearby neighborhood with some families from church.

Getting ready - I put glitter make up all over Kylie.

She kept looking at my face, it freaked her out a bit...

You can tell I still freaked her out...

The evening of Halloween!  She was so excited for round two.

For dinner I made corn bread coffins with chili - it actually turned out great this year!

Apparently my dad hasn't dressed for Halloween in at least a decade
 so this was a big night for him and he looked great!

The neighborhood we went to went all out and we ran
into at least 10 families we knew from church

I think she had glitter in her hair for over a week!