there's something about Halloween

Sierra almost 2 and Dani 5 years old

 That I just love.  I know it's not the most wholesome holiday but it's just a lot of fun.  When I was a kid at home I remember loving it.  When I was a teen I'd gather the troops and we'd make ghosts and bats to hang in the hall way and that was a lot of fun. I liked dressing up and the candy, of course.

When I had kids it became even more fun.  I loved dressing them up.  Every Halloween we visit a pumpkin patch.  We trick or treat and trunk or treat and we often have a party.  I used to decorate a lot more,  I still do but now it's more subtle.

Dani 2 years old

 I had an urge to look thru old Halloween photos and just really enjoyed reminiscing over the cuteness.

I really need to live nearer my grand kids so when Grace is gone I won't be an old lady wandering around a pumpkin patch by myself!

Tatum 3 years old

 Yesterday we had stake standards night.  It was really excellent.  There were a lot of speakers but none of them were super long and all of them were really good.  Paige spoke and she did an awesome job.  Next was a young man  named Jesse.  He was baptized a year ago with his mom and sister.  His dad was a newly reactivated member and was able to baptize them all.  He was funny and sincere and I enjoyed his conversion story so much.  He spoke with great gratitude about the blessings in his life since his baptism.  Two things that really touched me were that he and his dad are so close now.  Before he said his dad just went to work, came home and went to bed, and they didn't do a lot together.  Now they do church stuff and discuss the gospel and he is so grateful for that.  Another thing he said was he has goals now.  He said before he was baptized his biggest goal in life was to find his name on a coke bottle :), now he has real goals.  I loved his talk.
Kara Henderson and Dave Richardson went next (not together).  They are our stake YW/YM presidents.  They both did great.  Dave started out talking about when he was a kid and he'd go to the grocery store with his mom and he'd see the toy that came in the cereal box and he'd really want the toy so he would beg for the cereal...even though he didn't necessarily love the cereal.  Then at the exit there was a gum ball machine and he'd always always beg for the gum ball.  After he got it the gumball would taste good for a minute but then the flavor would go away, the center was hollow and his jaw could hurt because it was so hard to chew.  Even though he knew this he'd ask for it time after time.  He made the analogy that it's easy to trade what is good for something that has a temporary appeal...like the gumball or the trix submarine (that never really floated).

Penny 1 month old

 After him the Alius' spoke.  I love them both.  They are soft spoken and sweet.  Sister Alius is Ethan's seminary teacher this year and he loves her.  I am so glad.  I hope hope hope she will stay the whole year because so far she's just been subbing.

Hannah as the "we can do it" girl

Next came President Crawley and the first thing he did was call Ethan and Noah up to sit on the stand.  Then he spoke about Samuel Smith, the church's first missionary  He's a great speaker and story teller so he is always fun to listen to.  Then he invited the boys to share their experience with giving away a Book of Mormon.  Both boys did a really good job.  They were poised and articulate and spoke with great clarity about their feelings and their testimonies.  I was so proud of them!

Grace was Malificent one year

 The evening was very uplifting.  After I had a chat was P C that wasn't that fun but important.  It takes a village to raise a kid and I am always so grateful for my villagers.  We have been blessed to have great friends who have taken an interest in our kids lives and have played important roles in their growing up.  Hopefully we have, likewise, done the same for others.

Here's Ethan as an "identity thief"

 We came home and ate apple crisp and watched "Madam Secretary", so good night!

candy corn, 11 years old

Tonight we are going to the gym and then it's Disney night on dancing with the star!  Always my favorite night of the season!

pumpkin patch fun!

our little elephant!

1996 (or 97)

several years in a row I made Grace Halloween dresses.  This is one of the skirts I made her

Ghost, cat and Jasmine

Franny K Stein
a favorite children's series that year!

Jenna's first Halloween.  She was 10 month's old.

22 months

almost 4 years old

oh my how I love this little pumpkin.  Sierra was such a sweet little girl!

my little knight!

colonial girl and her friends.  5th grade

pumpkin patch 2 years old

tiger princess, Laura Ingalls and a boy in a tee shirt :)

Emma was a newsie and Jenna was elastic-girl!

Ethan's first pumpkin carving night.  He really enjoyed it!

awh!  Little bub!

cutest blue M&M!

Sierra in 5th or 6th grade :)

I think this is Jenna's freshman year of high school 

8th grade

3rd grade

ninja

little Grace

little Tatum chick and Peter Pan Sierra

killer bunny

Tatum's first Halloween

Grace's first Halloween

one year we had a huge back yard carnival!

The scariest little dinosaur!

We woke up this morning and got ready to go to the gym. Zivers gets so excited when I put on my tennis shoes that I had to take her for a little walk first. 

Then I went to the gym and Walmart. Rob went to the gym too.

Grace had a robotics competition so she was gone all day. 

I soent the rest of my day getting ready for Grace's Halloween party.   How'd that happen?

The party was fun. She had 9 girls over and they carved pumpkins and made slime. We had seasonal food, watched Hocus Pocus, and played a game.

The girls did a great job on the pumpkins!

This is the swamp juice punch we made. We also had brains (pictures above) apple slices with caramel, Halloween popcorn mix and pumpkin donuts.
Slime making. Grace is the queen.

We ended the night with a game of Quelf!! I think it was a successful party!

Grace's Hogwarts themed pumpkin.

feeling fall(ish)

carly and some leggings.  Perfect at 40 degrees....to hot at 80

So I've been waiting for it to get cool enough for Halloween leggings.  This morning it definitely was.  This afternoon not so much.  So Cal problems.

luckily it was spec ed math

I was in my favorite special ed class today.  It's been a Thursday thing lately.  The kids were excited to see me.  Tayvon said "it's Thursday and on Thursday's Mrs. Utzinger comes!"  I got lots of hugs and lots of cooperative students so that was fun.  Plus my friend Marcy is an aide in the class so we got in some visiting too.

Love bath and body works!

I am reading such a good book right now.  It's called Encore by Charity Tillemann-Dick.  I wrote about her here.  Her writing is really good and her story is inspirational.

perfect light for reading

So tonight Rob is at a high council meeting.  Grace is doing homework.  Ethan is playing a video game (soccer) and I am reading by candle light in the living room.

my new favorite flavor

a small flock

Grace has been saving her baby-sitting money and today we went to get a small flock.  I know I know.

Their names are Willow, Ocean, Dandelion and Sunshine.  I am hoping they will have a long and happy life in her room.

Whew! It came! Now I can go to Israel. Did you know that flying is super safe? It's true. 1 in 11,000,000 people die in air crashes annually. AND 75% of people who are in a crash survive!  And turbulence...annoying but never deadly. So there you go!

Had a good day. Tonight was mutual. The boys ate dinner together and watched the face to face. Grace and the beehives sewed skirts. Mia Maids did healthy dinner cooking and the laurels did budgeting. After our discussion on it we went to Walmart. They each had planned a dinner that had a protein , a vegg, and could feed four. They walked around and prices it out and the one who got the cheapest meal got to buy a treat for us to share. Paige won and. Ought oreos. Then we sat around and visited until I kicked them out:) 

Love those girls!
When all was quiet Bub took the opportunity to teach me a soccer trick so Val and I can do it together for Tanner when he comes home. 

Chasing Fall

The middle and elementary schools had a four day weekend.  It was under the guise of parent-teacher conferences. I didn't mind though.  A couple days off is awesome. Monday afternoon Val called me and said that Tanner was going to be at the temple Tuesday morning.  Super exciting.  I did some rearranging and went down to "bump into him".  Which didn't work out as nicely as I had hoped.  I had to get up super early, and for a 5:15 scheduled normal rising time you know it was super early!  Then I hit a lot of traffic and ended up getting there after the session started.  That was okay I had a plan B.  I did some other work and then waited where I knew he'd be.  I saw tons of handsome missionaries but no Tanner.  Finally I asked one of the young sister missionaries if this was their whole mission and she said no it was only half and the other half was coming tomorrow.  I was super bummed and thought maybe he got stitched to another day.  When I got out to the parking lot I called Val and told her.  We were sad. Of course I wasn't sad to spend the morning at the temple but bummed not to see him.
Eventually we learned that he was there, in the baptistery.  His car broke down on the way to the temple and he was also late.  I never thought to check there and we were both disappointed. :(

I got home at about 10:30 am and Grace and I, and Audrey and Brynn took off on a finding fall adventure.

We drove up to Tehachapi to go apple picking & to have lunch.

cute store with a clever name.  Audrey bought a pie for her family.

Our first stop was a cute German bakery where we enjoyed a yummy lunch and delicious pastries!

apple bags

Then we went to find an orchard.  Weirdly many of the orchards had no crop this year.  I don't know why...and neither do they but we saw many signs that said no crop and several of the websites we had checked before we headed up also said they didn't have one.  Something happened at the blossom stage.  A couple did so that's where we went.

Brynn and Grace

me and Audrey

It turned out that it wasn't a "you pick" farm.  But a "you pack" your own bag out of the boxes that we pick.  They did have sampling and so we tried some different varieties and packed our bags with our favorites.

pumpkin time

Next it was off to the pumpkin patch.  It was a funny little place with fields of pumpkins, fun flowers and a sign that said take knife and go out to the patch and cut your own pumpkin. Come back and weigh it and then leave the right amount of money in the "honesty box".  So we did.

Grace packing the bag

Our pumpkin weighed 15 lbs.

which ended up being $13.

some pretty flowers

We had a fun afternoon and got back around 3:30. Then it was off to choir for Grace and then soccer for Ethan.

This was the last game of the season and the boys did great.  They won 7-0 and Ethan scored a goal.

in action

look at that sunset! beautiful!

soon after this it got dark...and cold

Ethan is glad the season is over.  He didn't love his coaches and while soccer at it's worst is still fun it was less fun than normal.  High school try-outs start at the beginning of November and I have my fingers crossed that he'll make the team.  If he does I will break out my parka for future soccer viewing!

And just for fun: bitmoji's. I love them and have been snapping with my girl but Dani combined ours and made some cute adventures.  So fun!

Dani made us bitmoji partner pictures!

Thoughts on a Monday

First off love these little ones. Sierra and Dani get to see each other a lot. I know they love it. Sierra loves Dani's babies and is such a fun aunt.

Look how gorgeous those colors are! I loved fall in MD. Everywhere we went it was always so pretty. It made a simple neighborhood walk or drive to the drug store a treat.  Here we don't get the change of color but it's super fun to see the girls pictures!

I went to the gym this morning. By myself. I know. It's been much more fun than I expected. Even though it's only been a few times I actually can tell a difference in how I feel. Maybe I'll become a gym person.

After the gym I went to TJ Maxx where I found more awesomeness than I needed to! I got this scary dinosaur costume for Moe! Can't wait to see it on him!

Grace didn't have school today but she went to robotics so I picked her up at noon. 

We did some cleaning. Specifically she had to clean the bathrooms. It took many times of me checking before she passed it off. Eventually she accused me of having "black light" vision that can see dirt that's not visable to the naked eye. 

Tonight is Ethan's last soccer practice of the season. 

And how fun is this! Kenz posted this picture of their FHE group at the pumpkin patch. These girls are Hannah's roommates. So Hannah is in the back. Then the tall girl with the hat is Afton, the girl in the red sweater is Katelyn.  The front row of girls is Madi, Kenz and Sierra. I don't know any of the boys names except Brennen in the red sweat shirt.

Grace and I like to lay on my bed and watch TV together.

Sunday

I taught today in young women. The lesson was on gratitude and it was super fun to prepare and teach.

When we got home we had a quiet afternoon. For dinner we had Hawaiian Haystacks. Ethan's request.

After dinner we played phase 10. Dad won:)

We are almost done with the Book of Mormon (again). Tonight we gathered around the table and read the rest of Ether, super sad chapters. This week we will read Moroni and then done! It's been a wonderful year reading purposely together.

After cleaning the kitchen we needed a sweet treat so snickerdoodles was in the menu.

In other news a few weeks ago Sawyer broke up with Hannah. She was sad but quickly realized it was for the best. Now he can focus on this mission. She had been having a lot of fun at school, loves her classes and roomies and has met lots of fun young men. This one is a little special. They've gone on several dates and she thinks he's pretty great. His name is Brennen and he's from WY, served a mission in the Philippines, and they are having fun!  So fun times are being had!