Jack-O-Lantern Carving.

When Halloween creeps closer we like to give its pending arrival one final preparatory nod.  

The selection process is a delicate one and every bit a part of the tradition.

Then we gather at Uncle Sam and Aunt Lindee's house where we eat chili, mummy hotdogs, and deviled eggs. 

When the kids start getting too restless we pile into the garage where the real fun begins.

We only had one sliced finger this year (Cali, of course), because apparently it's hard to remember that knife rules still apply when you're encouraged to stab at a pumpkin with a sharp object.

For the record, this is one sliced finger more than we usually have.

Casidee was happy to sit in the background with her book and I was happy to help the kids so ours never got carved.

Tayler, the ambitious soul, picked a rather large pumpkin and by the time she had finally, finally finished cleaning the guts out, it was time to go home.

She never got around to actually carving the face into it, even after all that hard work of gutting it.

Sorry Tay.

Maybe pick a smaller one next year?

Sean's

Brynn's

Jayme's

Cali's

Jayme Has a Birthday Party. We Met Beyond 5. Christmas Eve Eve. A Catching Up Post.

On Friday (the 20th) Jayme had her birthday party.

She invited a few friends over to watch Harry Potter.  Along with her food requests (pizza, root beer, brownies, cake balls...) we threw in some jelly beans and called them Bertie Bott's every flavor beans.  The girls made up a chart with their own flavor names, which included earwax, vomit, and prune juice, among others.

Pictures to come, as soon as I can steal them off of The Man's phone.

On Saturday we got to go check out a new band called Beyond 5, which my girls instantly fell in love with.
We stopped and grabbed Panda Express via drive-thru and then hit the road for our 2 hour trip to the concert, which was up in Logan.  Yeah, you heard me, 2 hour trip, one way.

That right there makes me mother of the year.

Since they're a new band we hadn't yet heard much about them.  They've just released their first cd, and have just gotten back from touring Asia, so the girls didn't quite know what they were getting into (check out some videos on them on the post I did here).

But as soon as that first song started, my girls were smitten.  Completely, number one fans.

And that might even be an understatement.

I waited with the girls for an hour after the concert for a chance to meet the guys of Beyond 5 and get some autographs.  We bought a poster for each bedroom and while standing in line one of the crew from the band walked up and gave Tayler a cd.

We had both posters and the cd cover signed.

And the girls snuck some selfies with their favorites.

I was so impressed with these boys, watching them interact with everyone after the show.  They were polite and genuinely nice.  Their music was upbeat with a good vibe and none of their songs has anything that would make me uncomfortable having my daughters listen to it.

I'm behind this group of guys 100%.

We listened to Tayler's cd on the entire 2 hour drive home.

Obsessed.

On Monday we celebrated Christmas eve eve.

Since it wasn't our year for Christmas with The Circus and we needed to take them to their other parents the next morning.

I left work early and went home and made wassail, and put a ham, rolls, and funeral potatoes in the oven.

Papa Mike, Granny Suzann, Lindee, Sam, and Morgan came over and spent the evening with us.

Granny made fancy hot coca.  Papa gave the kids his two cents worth.

We talked and laughed, and chilled.  And opened a few presents.

We thought about joining Lindee and Sam to go see the lights at Thanksgiving Point, but we didn't make it that far.  We stopped at a gas station for slurpees or hot chocolate, and then went home to let the kids open presents.  We wanted them to have some time in the morning to fiddle with their new stuff and check it out before we had to take them to their other parents.

This year I put code names on the presents. (I wrote a guest post on that here).

Tayler had some suspicions on a couple of presents and was hoping that she was reindeer.

When we sat down to open presents I told the kids to grab one present and make sure that they each had a different name.

The kids grabbed presents they had guessed could be something that belonged to them.

Cali grabbed reindeer before Tayler could and Tayler was not a happy camper about that.

I told them to open them and then we would see if they were right.

Cali happened to grab a present that could have been for her so she guessed that she was right.  And we went around the circle, the kids saying who they thought the present they had opened was for.  It finally came to a point where we told Cali she was wrong and the reindeer present was not for her, but the candycane presents were.

Tayler, misunderstanding what was said exclaimed, "She gets to be both reindeer and candycane?"  She was completely frustrated.  But then we told Tayler that no, Cali wasn't reindeer and Tayler's Christmas became perfect as she realized she really did get to be reindeer like she'd been hoping.

This was such a fun way to do the presents, especially as they unwrapped them and tried to figure out who had whose.  I'll definitely be doing this every year.

The rest of the week has been pretty quiet for us.  The Circus doesn't come home until after the New Year and I miss them so much.

I'm not used to them being gone for so long.

We usually do pretty good in how we handle the holidays that we don't have kids for, but we haven't quite found our groove with Christmas yet.  We visited with family on Christmas Day, but we'd already opened our presents with the kids so we kicked back with all our Christmas treats and the pile of new movies that I'd given The Man and enjoyed the holiday the best we could.

Next kidless Christmas, we're taking a cruise.  I'm pretty sure I might feel better about it if I'm sitting on a warm beach somewhere.

west's family reunion

One summer evening we headed up the canyon to meet up with The Man's family for dinner.

I love living where the mountains are.
Is there a place where you can have both mountains and ocean beaches with year round warm weather?
That would be my heaven.

We were told as we pulled into the campground where one of West's cousins had a spot, that there could only be eight people per spot.

At any given time.

As family continued to roll in we ended up pitching in to pay for another spot, even though none of us were staying past dinner.

Do you ever wish you were one of those people who are always photogenic?

with cousin Morgan

The plan was to potluck with Italian food.  The idea was conceived at Jammy's funeral.  The food was varied in variety and pretty tasty.

We brought hotdogs :).

The kids appreciated that.

Tayler took her hotdog roasting and marshmallow toasting business seriously.
It's written all over her face.

Brynn found this giant moth.
It was dead, but that didn't stop everyone from being fascinated with it.

Sweet little baby Elsa.
Sweet until West stopped to smile and say "hi" to her.
She started screaming and trying to get away from him.
I guess that's another reason to not have anymore babies :).

I think we needed to buy another site... or two...
luckily I think the camp hosts got tired of harassing us about it.

I feel I'm incredibly lucky to have married into such a fun family.
The support and the love the my kids and I have felt from them as we became West's family has been overwhelming.
Better people you'll never find.