The Day Has Arrived!

Pipi with candy in her hair!

I can only imagine that my brother-in-law took the day off work. Here's a link to his yard http://insidetoddsbrain.blogspot.com/2008/10/halloween-hunting-and-stilts.html, impressive isn't even a good description, professional, and over the top creepy says it better! If you live in WV you couldn't have missed it! He constructs a grave yard fence just for today! He makes open graves and lays in them on Halloween night in an old church suit, last year my dad "helped" out by laying in another open grave, I guess I'm really jealous that I don't live close enough to scare people to death on Halloween night with my family! But since I can't do that, I'm helping with the party in Zach's 2nd grade class, I'm dressing up like the snow queen, Ry's a pirate, and Andrew a ninja. Savanah had a free dress day at school, except no Halloween costumes allowed, so Savanah did Pipi hair. I'm sure there'll be more to come later. Happy Halloween!!!

A Touch of Halloween- All Year Long!

Halloween may be a fun excuse for some of you to dress up. But we pretty much dress up, and look funny, everyday of our lives! Lucky for you, we don't take pictures of all of it, but some of it we do!

Grandpa's Birthday and Grasshoppers

We loaded up the suburban after the football games yesterday morning and drove to Palm Desert for Randall Frisch's 60th birthday party at his long time friend's beautiful home. The party started at 1pm or so, but we didn't arrive until 4pm, sorry! But they kept it going for us and after tons and tons (and tons and tons) of great food, the best company, a live singer, swimming, running all over the green and the sand trap at the golf course, playing football, and laughing, loud talking, and comparing father's and son's bellies we left at about 10:30pm. Thanks to Lillie and Ross we didn't have to drive all the way back to Phoenix, we crashed in their perfectly clean, amazingly decorated new home. What a whirl wind of a day! We got home at 1:30pm just a bit over 24 hours and just a 1/2 hour before church started. Some how we were able to get changed (and showered) and to church before the opening song...whew!!! That was fun! Lillie and Kim if you have some pictures to share with me I'd love to post them!!!

So after church, we started to make dinner (left overs from the party) and I went outside to grill some bratwurst, and while I was waiting for them to cook, I dug a little in the garden and up came some more big sweet potatoes, how fun. Zach saw me digging and came to find some more hidden treasures, he sure likes gardening! And then some things started flying around that really resembled small birds. Eli took one down, it was a huge grass hopper, and Eli decided, since we were BBQing anyway, why not skewer one on a Home Depot yard flag and throw a hopper on the barbie, so he did!!! And then...Zachary ate it! And Andrew tried it, too!!! Here's the video, as proof! :) BOYS!!! I love them. By the way, Zach won't eat...apples, bananas, white rice, mashed potatoes, capri suns drinks, chocolate...the list is infinitely long! But he likes ants and now GRASSHOPPERS! How funny to me!

Mom, are you gagging? I'm sorry! The look on Zach's face was just priceless, like he was going to puke right then, but didn't!

Football

Well, all three boys ended the official football season with a loss. Nathaniel and Zach were playing undefeated teams, Eli's team was playing a team that had never won, just like Elil's team, but allas, it wasn't meant to be! They all enjoyed their season and we'll probably see if they want to play again next year.

Sending My Love

Even with her hectic schedule my mom always remembers to send her love to us. She remembers every birthday, every holiday, every sickness and every anniversary. I feel her love through her home made cards, which have gotten really beautiful and intricate! Thanks for sending your love mom! We love you, too!

A Very Special Day for a Very Special Guy!

Happy 5th Birthday, Andrew!

Andrew chose the Indiana Jones music for you to listen to!

It wasn't even 9 o'clock in the morning when the boys had finished eating their waffles, and their cake and chocolate ice cream! Andrew's friends arrived right on time, at 7:30 AM. Andrew asked to have a waffle breakfast birthday party with his 2 best friends, Isaak and Wesley. They had a great time, eating waffles topped with peanut butter or syrup and chocolate pyramid birthday cake (Savanah was reminiscing last night about how I used to make great character cakes copying the super heroes on the boys underwear, you know like batman, and for Savanah I once did Magenta from Blues Clues- now a days I'm happy with a 4 layer pyramid:)), running frantically around the back yard (so fast that I couldn't get my camera to focus before they were completely out of the frame!!! Ahhh! I love digital & hate it!), shooting suction cup guns, and playing on the Wii, oh, and singing "Happy Birthday" to Andrew!

Andrew is my one child who didn't really want to come out of me. He was the one who the OB had to manually turn to be head down and then even after 15 hours of potocin and breaking the water, he still didn't want to come out. It was an excruciating natural labor, one I didn't think I could ever repeat, thankfully I never had to! But now that he is here, he is so dedicated, loving, thoughtful, intelligent, funny, fast, creative, and a great little guy to have around. He was hoping that as soon as he turned 5 he'd be headed off to school, but because of "policy" he'll be waiting until next August. I'm grateful for the next year with him, but he's a bit bummed!

7 WEIRD OR UNUSUAL THINGS ABOUT ME

http://blogginwiththeosborns.blogspot.com/2008/10/tagged.html

Ryon came through with flying colors. Although, half way through he had to make sure he wasn't getting set up...So, here' the tip (of my weirdness iceberg).

1. Over Active Tongue

I am always licking my teeth and lips, I didn't even realize it until I got braces, man I try to lick my teeth ALL the time but it's really out of the question with braces!

2. Super Hot Sleeping Body

I can't talk degrees but my body gets SO hot when I sleep, but I don't sweat.

3. I rarely sweat (even in the desert)

Ryon says I never sweat, but I know I have because I remember it feeling like spiders crawling down between...

4. I hate taking any medicine

I had my last 3 fillings in the dentists office with no pain killers, and have done natural child birth 6 times, so much better to just feel it and get it over with! All my pain has eventually gone away.

5. I never make a recipe the same way twice

I really have made a recipe the same way before, but it's really not possible to know when that is going to repeat itself:)

6. I don't like (hate) to spend time watching movies with people I love

It seems like such a waste of time!

7. I don't remember to carry my cell phone

I TAG... Lacy, Lillie, Joanna & Jen (even though you don't blog, e-mail me), Todd, Sarah Stiener, Terracita, and boy it becomes apparent how few blogger friends I have when I try to come up with 7 of them who I haven't tagged before! No hard feelings if you don't have time to answer!

BUT I look forward to hearing strange things about you too! Love, Jeanette

Tagged - THE TIP OF MY WEIRDNESS ICE BERG

7 WEIRD OR UNUSUAL THINGS ABOUT ME

Noelle, THANKS for the thyme and rosemary and the cooking ideas! They smell so fragrant. I'm thinking about making pesto, I love it! And the comments are back up and running now. I don't know why?

SO, about this tagged thing. Did you pick me because I'm your weird friend? :) My dad says, "Every one's weird but me and thee, and thou art a little odd also." And now that I think about it, am I really unusual in ANY way? I'll have to ask the hubby and get back to you on that one, I vaguely think he's telling me all the time that I'm weird. So, seven things is probably just the tip of my weirdness ice berg , I'll get back to you on that.

Learning to Fly

As the desert sun was setting Ryon joined the kids out at the trampoline before dinner. They normally ask him to jump right after our big Sunday dinner, and he has to decline so he doesn't chuck his cookies. So, to have him go out voluntarily, they were thrilled! They absolutely loved it! There's nothing like flying with the safety of your daddy by your side. Nathaniel & Zach were excited to be getting close to 10 feet in the air.
What does a 400 pound weight limit really mean anyway? And how is the smallest person supposed to get on top??

The BIGGEST Upset of the Season!

Eli's team scored! But not only that! They scored on the only team in his league that had never let another team score the whole season. They had shut out every team they ever played. And then came the Mocassins the completely defeated, only scored once team and from no where our boys made a touch down, SURPRISE!! The opposing team's coaches seemed a bit more upset than surprised, screaming and yelling, but I guess we were doing the same thing, our team may have lost the game, but our boys won.

Me Exercising, Again?!

Pilates

pɪˈlɑ:ti:z

Noun that acts as a VERB

So, I'm back at it, exercising that is. I took about a month (or so...) off. And during my reprieve, I figured out that I was completely starving myself so I didn't have any energy at all to work out, and now with about 500-1000 extra calories a day! I feel really good. Today I took a Pilates class. It was just O.K.! I normally love Pilates, but between the overweight older "gentleman" to my right who couldn't seem to stop loudly flatulating, and the young army general behind me who was constantly shouting out "yes mamme" and other military responses, the environment was a bit less relaxed than I have experienced before. The work out was great for me, lots of stretching that I really love, and exercises that made my muscles burn without feeling like my heart was going to burst out of my chest. But best of all it's 2pm and I don't feel like dropping into a comma like nap. I think I can keep it up this time!

My Fire Walker!

It may appear harmless! But after Zach and Ry both stuck some toes in the warm ashes, Andrew was coaxed into walking barefoot across the whole fire pit, mostly by the encouragement from his brothers.
The hot coals melted some spots on the bottom of Andrew's feet. OUCH!
Look at those eyes! What a look!

He really hurts, so I tried to relieve some of his pain with an aloe, ice water bath for his tootsies.
Even with the extreme pain he tried to put on a smiling face.The accomplices felt sorry for encouraging Andrew to walk across hot coals, and apologized on their own. And hopefully they learned some good lessons, that they can use "next" time. Andrew will definitely have to learn to deflect dares coming from an older brother and a younger one, it's so tempting for him to prove himself.

I was reminded of smashing Jen's toe under a head stone in the cemetary, like 25 years ago. Hopefully, I learned some life lessons from that experience, and hopefully your toes grew back properly! Sorry Jen! I hope my boys get along as well as we do when they grow up, even with all the inflicted scrapes and bruises (and knocked out teeth and burns).

SWEET! Potatoes, Good Bye Batman

Today I had so much fun. We (Zach, Nathaniel, Andrew, and I) dug up our garden, almost the whole garden was covered by one sweet potato plant.
The short wall at the bottom of the photo is covered in sweet potatoes! It was a treasure hunt right in our little garden!
So now, we are going to be making lots of sweet potato pies and mashed sweet potatoes, and sweet potato bread, and sweet potato pancakes, and if you live close to me and you want some fresh sweet potatoes, be sure to tell me tomorrow! The kids are so cute, they said, "so we took some trash (the sweet potato mother that was looking pretty trashy with leaves growing out all over the place) and put it in the ground and now we have a whole lot of food". The kids love to see nature in action!
Mom, here's the screen I was telling you about, I sprout wheat berries on it.

I've always told the kids we would never have pets. But last year Batman and Garfield adopted us. They've been really easy to take care of for the most part. They live outside, catch a lot of their own food, bunnies, mice, birds, snakes, and other creepy things. But Batman, the black cat, died some time when we were on vacation. He's never been fond of us vacationing. Once (a while back)he was stuck in the suburban for 3 days when we rented a Cruise America RV to go to Flagstaff. If you're thinking gross, that's what I was thinking too, but he lived through it! Our suburban was worse for wear!! No one would guarantee to be able to remove that smell! Ahhh! So, our fond farewells to our first real pet. Your brother Garfield will miss you a lot! And so will Savanah. Savanah said she'll miss Batman the most because when she was feeling sad and down, she'd go outside and sit in a chair, then Batman would come to her and purr and want her pet him. So she knew he loved her and was always willing to spend time with her. She will really miss him.

Which reminds me, we miss chicken Frisch, too. Our second real pets, 10 chickens, they have all died now, too, but we do have 13 replacement chickens, thanks to our great neighbor Alejandro! Mortality is so real. Life is an amazing blessing!