Halloween Fun 2011

This year for Halloween we went trick or treating with Tommy and Sammy.  The boys went pheasant hunting in the morning.  In September Devo and Troy joined Paul's hunting club.  We've enjoyed seeing Terri and Troy a little more often.

 Jill always throws the greatest parties.  She had swamp juice, Frankenstein brains, and a scary snake calzone for the kids.  Sam was the cutest "Blue" from Rio you ever saw.  Tommy was a lego head. Jill loves making their costumes. Paul had the greatest set up for trick or treating with a lighted trailer hooked up to 4 wheeler with music and all.  Aunt Terri and Uncle Toe (The empty nesters) stayed home to hand out candy.  Sam started with them first.  Jake loved trick or treating running from house to house with his pillow case. Sometimes he hit the house twice waiting for the other kids to catch up.

 Carving pumpkins was fun.  Emily pick a complicated pattern but did actually quite well with just a little help from Dad.  Jake wanted to do it himself. After he got started I stopped worrying he would cut off his fingers.  Devo had fun doing some etchings on Jake's dinosaur after he was done.

The school has a parade every year and Aunt Terri help Emmy get ready.  She loved wearing Aunt Terri's big hoop earrings and makeup!  Always fun to have Aunt Terri around to share in the fun.

The Red Barn

We didn't miss our annual pumpkin patch trip!  Love the hay ride, picking out LARGE pumpkins, ice cream, donuts, and carmel apples.

Fall Snow

The first week of October we saw our first snow.  It snowed all morning.  Emmy wanted to go out back and build a snowman after school.  I was sure that it was too wet to stick together but a few minutes later she had rolled her first big ball of snow.  So dad went out and helped her finish.  Jake had just had his tonsils out but didn't want to be left out.  Meet "Steve" as Emily called her snow man.  So glad it didn't stay cold for long.

Tonsils

So after repeated strep throat that we just couldn't get rid of we decided to get Jake's tonsils out.  We tried to wait till the first of the year to maximize our deductible but he just couldn't wait.  So Wed., October 5th was the date. 

Mom was glad that he was in good hands with Dad and Craig there to take care of him!

It was actually his adenoids that were the big problem. Watching him come out of anesthesia was a little scary for me, normal for Devo.  Lots of crying and coughing and then Devo gave him some drugs so he slept while the rest wore off, much nicer.  Apparently most parents don't see that first part, now I know why.

We went straight to 7-11 for a Slurpee on way home.  Things went well, mornings were the toughest. Lots of otter pops so he could swallow pain meds.   By Monday I sent him to school.  I thought we were home free. Nope!  Tuesday night while Devon and Emmy were at the church he started bleeding.  I think I handled the whole thing pretty good no freaking out, on the outside anyways.  After about a half an hour we ended up in the ER.  They couldn't get the bleeding to stop so they had to take him back to the O.R. and cauterize the bleeder under the scab on the left side.  So it was like starting all over.  Poor Jake!  I think he has had enough Slurpee's, otter pops, and Popsicles to last a lifetime.  

Homeless

The other night we checked on Jake on our way to bed and this is what we found!  Sleeping in a cardboard box!  At least it's in his room and not on the street somewhere!

Jake's Humor

Grandma Skinny spent the night with us in September.  In the morning while I was getting the kids breakfast  and their lunches packed for school,  she asked if she could help me with anything.  Jake pipes in with "My mom needs help making pumpkin chocolate chip cookies?" I smiled and thought to myself, that sounds a lot like your father's sense of humor."  As you can see Grandma Skinny made him cookies before she left.  Thanks Grandma.

Day Trip

Since we never actually made it to Six Mile Pond we decided to make a day trip in August, the weekend after school started.  We just took the truck and fishing gear.  It wasn't like fishing last year.  We had to have a little more patience but we ended up catching about 8 fish.  Jake was much better about catching and releasing.  He also caught the biggest fish.  It was so big he couldn't get his hands around it and he kept dropping it.

                                              Emily caught the first fish right away!

     
  So on the way home we decided to go home a different way and end up in Ephraim.  Everyone says it is shorter with lots of signs to tell the way.  Well if it wasn't the first day of elk hunting we would have been wondering on the top of the mountain all night.  It was more like an atv trail in many spots and we did a little 4 wheeling through mud to avoid a snow blocked road.   We very seldom take the unbeaten path and I'd say we're going to stick with our well known paths from now on.  It took us two hours to get to Ephraim.  We could have been home and showered by that time.

This is every kids dream of a candy store.  The kids were in awe.  They had a hard time choosing.  Way too many choices.