The. Best. Halloween. Ever.

That's what Miles said in the car on the way home from trunk-or-treating: "Mom, this is the best halloween ever." Funny boy.

The whole family. Ben and I went as "Ghosts of Ben's football past." We were wearing his jerseys from his days off pee-wee football. I didn't realize how fat, ugly, and old I looked until I saw this picture. Too bad I didn't see this until after. Oh well!

Here are the kiddos: dragonfly, scary ghost, and witch.

Man does she look horrid! And she was - she wasn't too happy when we got her up from her nap. But she really did look adorable - when she was happy - in her cute witch costume. It was the first dress I have ever made by myself. It's only worthy of a costume, however. It was so fun getting her costume together.

Jonas looked great. Jonas likes to look a little "edgy" I think, so Ben did a great job in making him a spooky ghost.

And Miles. Our dragonfly. All his idea. I was actually really, really pleased how his costume turned out. He had a little "tail" in back, too. He made a great "bzzzz" noise to go with his costume. And he even won a prize at trunk-or-treat for Most Creative costume, or something like that. He was a very, very happy boy.

We met up with Batman and Ariel, neighborhood friends, and went to a few houses on our block. Not many people were home, though. But it was fun nonetheless.

Coming home after a full day.

The Best Day, according to Miles.

Tricked

Well not really tricked but surprised. I planned about a month ago to surprise Ben and take him to Ouray to stay for a night. My parents agreed to help out and come over to watch our kids (Ben knew my parents were coming, but not the real reason why). So on Thursday night I told Ben that I had arranged some time off of work for him on Friday. I didn't tell him what we were doing - I guess he thought we were going to go grocery shopping or something together. But when he came home early from work he saw our bags packed and me ready to go and giving instructions to my mom for our kids. So we went to Ouray, shopped around a little bit, ate out at dinner, went in the hot-tub with amazing mountain-views, played scrabble, ate breakfast at our B&B, etc. Oh it was nice. Divine.

This was our hotel/B&B. It was great. I think it was built in the 1890s. Very victorian-styled on the inside. Very beautiful.


Handsome Ben at dinner. Oh he is good-looking.


Here we are in our "sitting area" of our room. Playing scrabble. Love it.

One of the best things for me is to get up in the morning and head out running with Ben. It's so much fun. We such a bunch of deer wanting to run away from us.


Soooo cute. And the mountains are pretty nice, too.

It was a fabulous little get-away. My parents did great, too, with our kids. So it was pretty much perfect.

A Little of This and A Little of That.

A Little of Fall this past Saturday:

And a Little of Winter This Morning:

My kids LOVE to eat the snow. In fact, besides going on shovel-rides, this is all Emmy did. Funny girl.

See?

Miles wanted to help shovel. He decided to make a "parking lot" as he called it.

Too cute.

Why stand up when you can sit and eat snow?

And here goes Jonas, Jonas-style.

Love this boy!

Fun times.

Econ 101

So we started paying the boys some allowance. It has turned Miles into a maniac. Whenever we are at the store he wants to know how much this is, that is, how much does he have ("nothing, you spent it all," is the frequent reply), what can he sell to get enough money, etc., etc. ETC.!

Wow. But it's a good thing (sometimes) and he is learning about savings and tithing, I guess. Jonas just likes to play with his money and lose it, really. But Jonas does enjoy going to Target and picking out that wonderful dollar-toy.

So we had a "garage sale" a while ago and sold a train table. Miles really, really wanted to buy a swan (yes, a swan) and didn't have enough from just allowance. So we thought of something we could sell and put it out with a sign. Lo and behold while Miles was at school, a man came by and bought the train table! That just fed the frenzy.

Every day Miles is trying to figure out something he can sell - usually they are household items, never are they his toys. He even told our good friend that if she has anything she doesn't want anymore that she should just give it to him and he will sell it. And I don't think he was planning on giving her the money. :)

He sometimes draws things and wants to sell them. He did try to sell this one day:

(the top is the picture he created. the pipe cleaners were roads and he drew a front-end loader and buggy cars. a house, too, of course. the bottom sign basically says: "1 dollars. far [for] sel [sale].)"

One day I told Miles that you have to sell something that people want and at a price they will pay.

"Like what?" he asked.

"Rice Krispies [duh]" was my reply.

So every day for the past couple of weeks Miles has been begging me to help him make them and sell them. I've turned him down again and again. . . until today. We made some, dyed them orange, and had them ready for him to sell when he got home from school today.

I had some errands I had to do, but Ben was out there with him while he sold his Rice Krispies.

And you know what?

He (and Jonas - a little bit) made about $4.50 total.

Not bad when you had 12 rice krispies to sell and were only selling them for $0.25. . .

Primary Program

Well I think many primary kids were participating in their Primary Programs yesterday. We sure were. As one member of my ward said, "This is The. Best. Sunday. Ever." :) It was delightful. I got to sit up among the primary cuties and it was relatively stress-free for me. Ben got to sit down on the pew with just Emmy. I think he had a good time, too.

I loved looking at my kids up on the stand, and Emmy with her Daddy. It was delightful. But I had to stop looking at Jonas after a while because every time I did look at him he would loudly whisper to me, "When do we get our chewy-treats?!" (Our kids get chewy-treats once a week - after the sacrament. Since we were sitting on the stands, he wasn't sure when this much-anticipated event would occur.)

I was a tad bit nervous for Miles and didn't want him saying "byebye" at the end of his part. He didn't. He did great. I was more than a tad bit nervous for Jonas. He sometimes talks quite inaudible and incomprehensible with a microphone. But he actually did great and said his line perfectly:

"I can prepare now by following the prophet."

Some of the other adorable sunbeams said, "I can repair now. . ." Loved it.

All in all it was a very sweet and precious sacrament meeting.

Quote of the Week

Jonas: "Mom, I saw a crap airplane!"

Me: "What Jonas?!"

Jonas: "I saw a crap airplane."

Me: "What Jonas?!"

Jonas: "I. SAW. A. CRAP. AIRPLANE."

Me: "Umm, what is a crap airplane?"

Jonas: "It was yellow and it sprays out stuff."

Me: "Oh, a CROP airplane."

Jonas: "Yeah!"

Oh crap, I better be better with my language in front of the children . . .

Where the Wild Things Truly Are

Miles has been out of school since Wednesday this week - due to parent-teacher conferences. As a result of having a teacher that teaches at 2 different schools, and an afternoon kindergarten class, Miles had Wednesday and Thursday and Friday off. So I had thought about doing a fun "field trip" for the kids. I had planned to go to the Dinosaur Museum, then unplanned it. But came Thursday morning I decided to go. It's about 75 miles away, so it's a decent trek there. But my boys (especially Miles) are really into dinosaurs at the moment and so I thought it would be a neat trip. I sort of thought wrong. My boys (again, Miles especially) were beyond scared at the real-looking dinosaurs - especially the meat-eating T-rex that was actually depicted eating meat. The nerve. The boys were pretty much ballistic. Miles kept saying, "I just like looking at the dinosaur bones," as opposed to real-life ones. They even started us out at the museum watching a video, but we had to leave as Miles started freaking out.

We had moments we could enjoy, as long as we weren't too close to the scary-looking dinosaurs or the dinosaurs that moved or even the [funny] dinosaur that squirted water from its mouth. If we had to go past said dinosaurs, the boys would madly dash at lightning speeds. It was insane. They were insane. Literally, I had never seen Miles run so fast as when we were ready to leave and had to go past the T-rex (one of Miles' favorite dinosaurs, ironically enough). Wow, that boy could have a career in track. So it turned out to be a long day for me. But at least it was a change of pace. So it was good. We did have moments of enjoyment and pleasure:

Indeed, the highlight of the trip was the store. Yep, the store. Miles was so excited to find this book - a book he has at his school library. He loved it. The store was neat and very, very un-scary.

See all the books? So cool.

This is what Miles likes - more anatomical views. Emmy didn't really care, nor was scared. A few times, after she saw the boys freaking out and thought she should freak out, she asked me to hold her. That was all. No wild dashes. No screams of terror. If only her brothers could have been "big" like her. :)

This was another highlight: the serene dinosaur "dig." We had fun and spent lots of time in here.

Emmy just goes with the flow - sometimes. :)

Miles was really into this as well. He does want to become a paleontologist. Which will probably be okay since he doesn't think bones are scary.

A non-threatening stegosaurus.

An earthquake simulator. The "floor" shook. It was pretty cool and, again, we spent a lot of time on this.

LOVE THIS!

Miles wants to go back so he can buy some stuff in the store. But I told him at least a dozen times that I am not going back any time too soon. . . not until he's at least 12. . .

Making the Grade

I had my first parent-teacher conference yesterday and it was pretty fun. I thought I would report his teachers' comments:

Mr. Hilton, Miles' PE teacher:

"Needs work on listening and not interrupting."

Mr. James, Miles' teacher:

"Miles is a thrilling personality to have in the classroom - he has much energy and enthusiasm, which make it difficult sometimes to curb said energy into productivity. His outgoing traits enable him to make friends easily and can distract him from learning and following directions. Miles is also very intelligent and, as a proactive measure to keep him from boredom, some whole-group activities are differentiated to allow him sharing and/or helping opportunities that other students rarely, if ever, receive at this point in the school year. His fine motor skills are strong and he often is meticulous about completing seatwork activities."

Wow, those teachers hit it on the nail! He got numbers for the rest of his "report card." I won't go through them all, but he did receive "4's" (exceeds standards) on "critical thinking skills," "number sense," and "drawing." He got "2's" (progressing toward standard) only on behavior issues: "respects self and others," "follow directions," "uses time wisely," and "complete classroom work on time." The last one is because sometimes he is too meticulous and spends forever. Everything else were "3's" (meets standards). So we've got a lot to still work on, but it's fun!

Good job, Miles.

Let the Wild Rumpus Start

I went and took the boys to Where the Wild Things Are on Saturday. I was a little afraid that my children would be A LOT afraid. They don't watch many movies and so are very sensitive to movies. But, turns out, they did okay. I had Jonas sit on my lap the whole time and Miles chomped away at the popcorn the entire time. It worked out well. Miles had a thousand questions during the movie; I think it's sweet. I think the scariest part for them was the preview for Scrooge, a new movie coming out this holiday season. They are funny. But all in all, I think the movie was way beyond them. The were entertained for sure, but didn't get the deeper meaning of the film. So it was a good movie, but not one for little kids - not because it's too scary, just because it's more "mature" so to say.

Then I got called off of work on Sunday. It was very welcomed. I have worked the past 5 weeks (Sunday nites only, mind you) and it was oh-so-nice to have a Sunday evening and a normal Monday with everyone home (and awake). I loved it.

I've also gotten a bad case of super-paranoia. If there is some medication to help, please let me know! Aiyiyi. These dang kids. I love them so much that literally it hurts, or at least makes me want to bawl and puke. Seriously. I'm not one to freak out usually, so I don't know why this season I am. But I am. So lame and annoying. I was quite convinced that not only would my kids get the H1N1 flu, but that they would surely die from it. I'm pretty much over that one, now. But Miles threw me for a loop last nite. They had been in bed for a little while and Ben and I were getting ourselves ready for bed and so went in to the kiddo's rooms to check on them, cover them up, straighten them out, and kiss them. Well while we were in there we noticed Miles doing some severe twitching - I'm freaking out that he's having a seizure. We had a somewhat difficult time getting him to awake properly and when we took him to the bathroom for him to go, he just didn't get it and walked back to his bed and went to sleep. Oh because I love him so I get scared so. We watched him for a while, saw a few more twitches, then called it okay. We even set our alarm for 2 hours later to check on him - which Ben did (Ben's great, by the way). Miles has a cold, which has seemed very minor but might be tiring him nonetheless, and was up a little later than usual last nite and so hopefully it was just all due to exhaustion. I will be checking up on him and his sleep in an hour or so. I'm sure all will be well.

Why oh why do mothers get these irrational fears for our children? (Well, hopefully irrational - see, there I go.) It's crazy and literally sickening. And I've really never been like this. But, up until 5 1/2 years ago, I'd never had children. That I adore. That I live for. Really. Oh gag, I gotta stop or I am going to start crying. Again. (And, no, I am not pregnant.)

For other news, we had our first fire at our house. A fire in the fireplace, that is. It hasn't been super cold here the past few weeks, but we thought it would be fun. It was. The kids even had to eat breakfast right by it:

See.

Here they all are doing their part to keep the fire alive.

And I love this picture because 1. Jonas took it, and 2. It shows off my lovely PJs - they are not shorts, they just have 2 large knee-holes. Ha. I love them.

Well, sorry, I didn't mean for this to be such a long and random post. But it is.

Quote of the Week

"Thank you Baby."

"Byebye Baby."

"Hi Baby."

Emmy calls her brothers "Baby." When we ask her their names she always says "Baby." She always calls them that and refers to them as that. It's cute. The boys don't mind either.