School Parties and Parade

The kids had their Halloween parade and school parties on Friday. Landon went to the parade, and I helped with the party in Tanner's class. I did sneak down to Chloe's class and snap a few pictures there. I think the good thing about the required parent involvement at this school is that kids are used to having parents around helping and taking pictures and aren't really so embaressed by it, mostly because the other kids parents are there doing the same thing. Most of the kids know me as Tanner's Mom. I think they both had a fun day!

Tanner at the parade.....

Chloe at the parade; she refused to wear her cowboy hat.......

The principal as the mad hatter and some of the office staff as the rest of Alice and Wonderland...Chloe's Class..........Tanner's Party...........
Chloe's Pumpkin that she made during her party....

Carving Pumpkins

We carved pumpkins on Wednesday night. The kids were both so excited to finally get to carve them. They had fun digging out the seeds. Tanner pretty much carved his whole pumpking by himself this year with only a little help from Landon on a few of the spiders legs.

Chloe wanted to do Cinderella, Mom actually did most of the cutting but I did let her help in a few spots and then pull out the pieces. Landon carved the little pumpkin as well just for fun. Chloe thought he was real funny, and took this picture of him all by herself.

Red Ribbon Week

This week at school it was red ribbon week, it has been fun having both kids participate this year.

Monday-they got red bracelets to wear. They are supposed to wear them all week, and then they do drawings and if the number on their bracelet is drawn they win a prize.

Tuesday-crazy sock day
Wednesday-crazy hair day
Thursday-Wear Red Day-they could wear red uniform shirt and jean.
Friday-Halloween Activities-to follow in a later post.

Bear Badge

Last night was pack meeting. Tanner recieved his bear badge, after only two months of being in bears! He also got 1 gold arrow, 1 silver arrow, his heart of scouting award, and a few other things. He is so into scouts-He loves it. Guess Landon better get sewing all of these new things onto Tanner's scout shirt. LOL

Fall Carnival

On Saturday it was the GWA annual Fall Carnival. The kids had been looking forward to it all week. On Thursday we made a couple of cakes for them to enter in the cake walk; they also gave out prizes for each grade. Tanner's take took 2nd place, so he was awared some extra carnival tickets-he was pretty stoked about that. Great Grandma helped us make them. Tiff was also there and helped us make some yummy cookies for the bake sale.
The carnival was lots of fun. They had everything from jump houses, and petting zoos to face painting and lots of carnival games. I was in charge of the Wheel of Fortune Booth.
They also had live entertainment. Tanner's class preformed a dance from the Samoan Islands it was fun to watch. The teachers all preformed to THRILLER with the principal dressing up like MJ himself-it's kind of sad that Chloe knew who she was without me even having to say anything.
As you can see most of the picts are of Chloe, because Tanner was busy with his friends most of the time. They both had lots of fun though. Oh and least I forget we came home with a goldfish-any bets on how long he lives?

By the way my favorite part of the Carnival the Carmeled Apples my Grandma snagged at the bake sale for $1 a piece.

OUCH!

Chloe has not been having a good couple of days. Thursday night she woke up in the night throwing up and was then sick all day Friday. She had the stomach flu which has been going around down here. Then Saturday she woke up feeling better, but she laid her arm across my curling iron trying to reach something not realizing that the curling iron was on. She has a pretty bad burn on her arm. In fact one of the worst curling iron burns I have seen. I feel so bad.Poor litte thing.

In the Mail!

The kids got these in the mail on Saturday. All of their prizes for participating in the Governor's Reading Challenge-we have done this the last three years and it always seems to pay off:

Free Happy Meals @ McDonalds

Free Kids Meals to Sizzler

Free Kids Meals to Red Robin

Free Kids Meals to Chuck a Rama

Deer Hunt Update

So Landon has been hunting since last Friday, well not exactly hunting until Saturday, but gone since Friday none the less and he is still not back. On Friday him and his brothers Layne and Trevor headed up the mountain on horses. Monday they came back down and on the way Layne shot a big buck. (Shown here in the picture-I really wish it was Landon's because then maybe he would be home by now instead of still on this crazy long hunt.) Anyways this picture is all I have seen of him since last Friday morning-thanks to an email from my Father in Law.
I actually am kind of missing him and am really not liking life as a single parent harder than it seems. Hopefully he will get something in the next few days so he can get his butt home instead of dragging this out any longer.

Apples! Apples! Apples!

On Monday my mom was down in St. George for awhile and she bought one of these cool apple slicer/peeler/corer's and she came over and we used it. We did a bunch of apples enough to fill up two food dryers. The kids thought it was the coolest thing ever, and they both took turns using it. They knew how to operate it better than I did. In fact I went over to my sister Tiffanie's house today and we did more, and at one point Chloe told me mom you don't do it like that you have to push the black button back and pull it.

Anyways the apples are great and we are loving snacking on them.

Free Cheerios and Toothpaste

When I got home this afternoon I went to Albertsons to use my doublers. Guess what I got 14 boxes of toothpaste and 2 big boxes of cereal for FREE! I only paid tax. Don't think I'm completely crazy though I picked up half of the toothpaste for my mom, we both should have close to a two year supply now.

To do this use

$1/2 any crest toothpaste coupons

$1/1 cheerios coupons

+ doublers of course

I also picked up a couple other things though they weren't free. Bryers Ice Cream for $1.49; Fudge Shoppe Cookies for $1 each; Betty Crocker Cookie Mix for .80.

Our 4 Day Weekend

The kids got out of school early on Thursday for the start of their 4 day weekend. As many of you may know this corresponds with the Deer Hunt.

Landon has been getting ready for the deer hunt for weeks now, him and his brothers were all so excited to hit the trail. Here he is in this picture getting ready to head out.

I am home now and who nows when we will see him again. Last I heard him and Trevor were headed back up on the mountain to help Layne who had shot "the biggest buck he had ever seen" and had no way to get it back down the mountain by himself. We'll see if that story pans out when they actually get back home with it.

My sister Mandy and her husband Cody were gone hunting as well, so I helped my mom take care of her two kids. The kids had lots of fun playing with there cousins. Sam and Tyler were up there too Sam came down to play quite a bit, but Tyler was more into the hunting. When we had them all we had quite a housefull. Grandma built the kids a house out of cardboard and duct tape, they had a ball in it. We also set up the bounce house, so Mandy's yard was looking just a little bit like a red-neck operation. One day we went to the park. Saydee lost a tooth while we were there and we were lucky enough to find it in the rocks under the swings. On Saturday we left Tanner in charge for a few minutes and went to the Annual Crafters Bazaar. I bought a couple of cute decorations for my house.

We spent a lot of time in Flowell as well. Tanner and Grandma had a Monopoly game going I think it took them three days to wrap it up, Tanner beat Grandma and showed no mercy about it. Chloe found a dead kitten and proceeded to bring it into the house and on Sunday I took 4 kids to church by myself (my two and Mandy's two) so we could hear Grandpa and Grandma's talk in Sacrament meeting. I thought it would be a nightmare but the kids were actually very well behaved.
It was a fun weekend but I am glad to be home.

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

Early this morning while I was awake listening to Chloe cough I finished THE LOST SYMBOL by Dan Brown. It was so good, my favorite Dan Brown book ever! I won't say much about it becuase I don't want to give anything away but it is defiantely a book you will want to read it will keep you turning pages and wondering right until the end and just when you think you have it figured out there is one final twist that you didn't expect. Like all of his books it makes you want to actaully go and see some of these things yourself because he brings them to life and puts so much truth in them, maybe I need to plan a family vacation to Washington.

I have read all of his books The Da Vinci Code, Deception Point, Angels and Demons and my opinion is that this is the best so far!

Book Orders and Sick Days

Yesterday Tanner got his book order from school. He was so excited! He read every minute from the time he got home until about 5:00 when he announced he was finished. Yep read every page of both a 219 page book and a 80 page book. Why do a buy him books again? Well alot of times the library can't even keep up with what he is into reading and most of the books we buy he has the whole series of so he will usually read them over more than once, but still his reading is becoming an expensive habit.
I kept Chloe home from school today because she has a bad cough and a little bit of a fever-her response "Yeah I have been wanting to stay home sick from school-because I hate school we only get three recess's". HaHa she would say that. If you know Chloe you know she really doesn't hate school because when she comes home every day she talks non-stop about what she did, but she still has a hard time sitting still for that long.

School Pictures -Keep or Retake?

The kids school pictures came home today. I am very pleased with Tanner's. However I have to say I am a little dissapointed in Chloe's. She looks so cute in them but the look on her face is that of a scared little girl. It makes me laugh though because it is almost a duplicate of Tanner Kindergarten picture. Maybe I should keep it just to look back on as she gets older. What do you think keep or retake?

Tanner's Kindergarten Picture

Chloe's Kindergarten Picture

Picking Apples and More

Today I got the kids out of school a couple of hours early and we went on a small day trip with my Mom and Grandma. We headed on down to Enterprise. We went to pick apples a friend of my dad's had offered all the apples he wanted to him for free, so we went and took him up on that offer. The kids had so much fun, we filled box after box and could barely fit it all in my Grandma's car. Tanner I think tasted an apple off of each and every tree he was in apple heaven. (I believe next week I will be drying some apples) We also stopped at a farm stand and bought a bunch of squash and let the kids each pick out a pumpkin. Yeah for FALL!

On the way home I told my Grandma we had better not wreck or people would think that a produce truck had run off the road. HAHA We even had to ride home with all the pumpkins up front under our feet, because there was no room for them in the back.