halloween dinner.

Since Halloween was on a Sunday and all the festivities were all over I wanted to make a fun dinner. I got these bread bowls at Great Harvest. There is so much goodness at that place. Have you tried their pumpkin chocolate chip bread? It's to die for!
Spencer kissing his pumpkin. He set the whole table complete with Halloween napkins under each person's bowl. And while he helped me we had some great conversation. He said, "Mom when I was in heaven with Jesus I picked you because you are so pretty!" That boy has always melted my heart!
Mataya's like "Mom, leave me alone so I can eat!"
Parker pretending that it is a real pumpkin and he's digging out the insides. We never actually carved pumpkins this year....so this was as good as it got!

Here is my pumpkin flowing over with homemade Almost Famous Cheddar Broccoli Soup. And I added the bacon as my own special touch....that never hurts, right?!

trick or treat.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

It started out very rainy for trick or treating. Me, Spenc, and Parker made it for a while, but ended up getting very wet.

I cannot believe how big these girls are!

Mataya the cheerleader cheering for "Team Daddy"....and Lexi the ladybug!

I love Parker plugging his ears in this one. Mataya was not happy and she was getting loud:)

pre-halloween.

Is it me or does Halloween seem to last at least a week? Anyways, the boys talked me into going to Ihop on Friday for a scary face pancake. So I braved a restaurant with 3 kids by myself. It went pretty well:)

When we finished eating the "balloon guy" came by. Spencer requested a sword and Parker a snake. Heck, I could've made those....lol!

We went and watched Parker parade around his school dressed up in his costume. We went to Cory's office on Friday to have lunch and trick or treat at everyone's desk. I didn't get any pictures. It was a miracle that we even made it there.We did a Halloween carnival instead of a trunk or treat this year in our ward. This was the only pic I got of Parker playing pin the nose on the pumpkin.

halloween party.

I threw a Halloween party for Parker and Spencer with some friends after school last Friday. This little princess napped during the party which worked out great since Cory wasn't there. Thankfully I had a friend help manage the crowd during the party:)

The pumpkin patch.

Lining up for pin the tail on the cat. Ladies first...and goofballs last!

I loved the mask it was so funny:)

Here is the finished pumpkins. I just got the foam stickers and the kids put their names on them and decorated them with different Halloween stickers.

Then it was sugar cookie time. It was pretty entertaining watching all these kids decorate their cookies. They put so much frosting on them that is was a little gross, but they were loving it!

I think it's supposed to say "BOO".....lol!

We sugared them up and sent them home!

treehouse museum.

Spencer had a field trip with his preschool to the Treehouse Museum. Me and Mataya got to tag along. We had story time and Spencer got to have a turn with the animal puppet.

He was loving it! She was so cute feeding bottles to the baby animals.

I love her face in this one. She is so sweet.

She never got too close to the cow, she wasn't sure if it was alive:)

Driving the firetruck. She waited so patiently for her turn:)

I didn't get a whole lot of pics of Spencer because he stayed right in this spot most of the time.

Mataya explored the museum, but Spencer was pretty content playing in the dinosaur area. Here he is with his teacher talking about dinosaurs. She's a great teacher and I know Spenc loves her! They gave the kids some crackers at juice at the end. I discovered it's so much easier to manage 2 kids at a museum instead of 3!

mmm, chocolate.

We made chocolate suckers for family home evening last week. I also made chocolate dipped pretzels for my V.T. ladies. The boys loved making the suckers it was so easy and fun. I just bought a whole Halloween candy kit at JoAnn's. Needless to say we've been eating a lot of chocolate all week!

dinner conversation.

Dinner conversation really is the best especially with kids. Last night I was telling Cory that Parker didn't finish his lunch at school that day. And Parker tried to tell us he doesn't have enough time to eat all his lunch and blah, blah, blah! But he did make sure to eat his treat I sent.

Me "Parker did you like that chocolate covered pretzel I sent in your lunch?"
Parker "Oh yeah! I ate that first!"
Me "Oh really? Do we need to go over the rules of lunch and talk about what you need to eat first?"
Parker "We can talk about it, but I'm probably not going to follow it!"

Cory and I burst into laughter. At least he's honest, right? Needless to say his lunch was packed this morning without a treat!

layton marathon 2010.

I started running hard core in April and after my half-marathon in July I decided I wanted to run the first annual Layton Marathon. It started at 6 a.m. 17 miles out on Antelope Island. It was so cool to look East and see the distant city lights and see the Bountiful Temple. It took so much time and effort to get to this point that I couldn't believe that I was standing at the starting line in complete darkness with 300 other runners.

This first picture was at mile 17 just as I was leaving the island. This was the first glimpse Cory and the kids had of me that day. I honestly felt really good at this point and I was able to keep the pace I wanted.

My cute kids waiting to see Mom.

The boys came running up to me with big grins. I told them to look for me with the "Halloween arms". I bought Halloween socks and cut the toe off and wore them on my arms to keep warm and it worked great. Running along with the boys made me feel like I had already won the race and whatever happened the next 9 miles didn't matter!

Cory was so awesome because we only planned on him and the kids being at mile 17 and 22, but from about mile 18 on he stuck close by and they stopped frequently and cheered me and and that made me feel great! He said he could tell the last 5 miles seemed to be taking a toll so he wanted to keep cheering me on a little extra! What a guy:)

The picture above is a smile of relief because I only had a little over a mile to go!

Rounding the last bend. When I saw the finish line I got emotional after running for 5 hours it felt at times that I may never see the finish line...lol!

I got a cool medal at the finish line and Spencer said, "Mom, you got a medal did you win?" I said, "You bet I did!"

AWWW....the post race massage!

"I've learned that finishing a marathon isn't just an athletic achievement. It's a state of mind; a state of mind that says anything is possible"--John Hanc