Halloween!!!

First thing...

We had our spooky cakes for breakfast, and the girls enjoyed their treats.  Aunty Kathy and Uncle Chuck sent a goodie bag back with my dad to deliver to the girls.  That was just too special.  Thank you Aunt Kathy!  Our Jack-o-Lanterns spent the day outside waiting for their time on stage.

At school...

Jenna participated in her school's costume parade.  It was bitter sweet to watch.  The flood of memories came once again as I remembered our first parades with Heather's costumes and Jenna in the stroller.  They were so cute!  Well, they still are, but all grown up.  Sniff (again).  We caught Heather, Grace and Kenzie on the way out of school.  No parades for the middle schoolers, but they got to dress up.  I took the girls to Panda Express for lunch.  It is a holiday, right?  Special lunch required!

After school...

Kenzie's orthodontist rents out our local skating rink each year for his patients and their friends.  The admission and skate rental are free, and the kids get a goodie bag on the way out.  It is so generous!  We took Sarah with us this year, joined Kenzie and Madi and Kayla, and the girls had a great time.  Kenzie's mom, Jodi, and I even skated.  I think the girls were shocked, but we rocked it.  Totally.  We were singing Rock Lobster the loudest.  It's a good thing YMCA didn't get played.  The girls would have had to hide their eyes we would have been so hawt.

And in the evening...

Jenna's friends, Sarah and MacKenzie, joined us for Trick-or-Treating.  Heather's friends were all occupied, but Kenzie was so cute calling Heather her new best friend.  The girls bedecked Winston in glow bracelets so he could be seen.  We hit a lot of houses in the neighborhood, and the girls have enough candy to last them the year (and then some).

Emergency Prep and Pumpkin Carving

As hurricane Sandy ravages the east coast, it is hard not to reflect and wonder if we would be prepared to lose power for ten days and actually use our food storage.  Our 72-hour backpacks are set, we have our 50-gal water tank filled in the trailer, but I wasn't sure about our longer term food.  So, Heather and I hit Costco after school today and loaded up on water bottles and canned goods.  Getting everything put away was a challenge because of the mess of my shelves.  After two hours of sorting and clean up, we now have our food and water organized.  Yay!

After dinner, we set out to the carving.  The girls were so creative.  Thanks to their Daddy, they know how to draw a design on paper and transfer it to their pumpkins.  They get excited to look on the internet for ideas, and then they get to work.  I was so impressed with the results!

Where is my jack-o-lantern you ask?  Well, I leave the carving to the experts, and then I do my part.  Clean up is my specialty.  

Pumpkin Patch

Can I just start out by saying...wow.  "Time flies" is the understatement of the day for me today.  How did these girls get so grown up?  Wasn't it just last year that we packed up the family and headed to the farm for pumpkin patch family night?  If our favorite farm was still around, we'd probably be there, but it would be different.  My girls are young women now and they'd probably be too big to ride the ponies.  Sniff.  I find myself flooded with memories of their little bodies riding the ponies, petting the animals in the petting zoo, fingering the hay on the hay bales, watching the pig races and running through the corn maze.  What special times those were!

Anyway, it's now two days before Halloween, and we hadn't been to a pumpkin patch.  We got a tip from the Holbrook's that Bruce's Produce had a little makeshift patch with great prices.  Check out the size of the pumpkins that we got!  They don't look as big in the photos, but they were heavy.  All three were $15.  Can't beat that!   

Trunk-or-Treat

Our annual Trunk-or-Treat activity was, once again, very fun and festive, even if we were nearly melting before it started.  What is up with the weather?  Anyway, I dressed as a ghostly gal and handed out candy from our skeleton-bedecked trunk while our robber and Little Red walked around with their friends.  Kelly wore his "This invisible man costume is defective." t-shirt which always gets a few chuckles.  We saw lots of friends from church, and we had friends from school join us too.  After the event, we headed to the Holbrooks from some traditional candy trading and doughnut eating.  We scaled the party down somewhat, but the kids didn't seem to notice.  They all had a blast.

 Sarah and Jenna on the right as the police woman and robber

 The Petersons 

 Candy trading is serious business

Doughnuts on a string with no hands

Last Soccer for 2012

Saturday was Jenna's last game for the fall season.  We didn't hear anything about referee points and assume that our team didn't have the required amount for the playoffs.  Jenna isn't sad though.  She had a great season and is already looking ahead to her next team.  We're really proud of her giving her all, and it's great to see how much she loves the game.

Hawaiian Day

Red Ribbon Week is always fun at the girls' schools.  Not pictured this week were Jenna's hat day and sunglasses day.  Heather's school had wear red day and sports jersey day.  All the days have creative titles incorporating the dress up with a say no to drugs theme.  Today was Hawaiian day for Jenna, and she surprised me by wanting to wear this wrap that my friend, Shea, brought back from Hawaii several years ago.  Jenna looked so pretty in it with her hair up and Plumeria bloom.

Twin Day, Soccer & Monster Mash

Twin Day - Jenna and her friend, Rachel, dressed in their Moldy Girl team jerseys for twin day.  They wore their darling green and black ribbon scrunchies from the team, and were able to wear nearly matching jeans and shoes.  It was so awesome that Jenna and Rachel had this experience in soccer together last year.  Jenna put the jersey on in the morning and said, "This makes me feel proud."

Soccer - Speaking of soccer, Jenna had a late afternoon game today.  By the time I got there toward the end of the first period, the other team had scored two goals!  The coach did the smartest thing at the break - she moved Jenna to forward and Megan to defense.  Jenna is the fastest girl on our team and is not afraid to take a shot.  Megan and Jenna have been our strongest defensive players.  Megan has some speed, but her gift is defense, and she has a phenomenal kick (the kind you score with from the half-way mark).  This was Jenna's first time playing forward, and when she got the opportunity to shoot, she took it.  She scored our only two goals and tied the game.    We've not been able to see her do this before because she is nearly always defending.  Kelly and I were hoarse from cheering her on. Of course I have no pictures.  The sun was right in our faces, so I didn't even try.  I took one when we got home just to mark the happy event.  She was so cute after her first goal as she said, "That felt really good."  I knew she'd score a second one.  She's had a taste, and it made her hungry.  Look out world!

Monster Mash - Tonight was our church's Youth Dance for Halloween.  Heather took her friend, Madi, and had a great time seeing all her friends from school and church.  Heather went as "Red" from "Once Upon A Time."  Red is a little more modern and sassy, so that was what Heather went for.  She rocked my boots at about 5'8" tall, and red was her color.  Gorgeous.  She was a little disappointed that none of the boys asked her to dance.  We told her that her beauty was probably very intimidating.  She was happy for the compliment, but still a bit sad.  At 13 she still has time, and those boys will be lining up at her door before we know it.  Yikes!

Emergency Preparedness

It has been a couple of years since I have updated our 72 hour kit.  I knew food was expired and clothes would no longer fit the girls (I actually had nursing undergarments for myself in there--oops!).  We've reached a season where the girls are now old enough to carry their own backpacks, and I took advantage of the nice packs at Costco when school supplies were plentiful so we could convert from our uber large duffle to single packs.  Getting the project going, however, was another story.  It took some discipline, but I finally sat down for a couple of hours on Sunday night and typed out our family emergency plan, pulled important documents to keep in one place, and prepped a shopping list.  This morning, I did the food shopping and had everything laid out for our Family Night.

We changed all the batteries in the smoke detectors and flashlights, showed the girls how to turn off the electricity and gas should they ever be home alone during a quake, showed them how to detach the window screens in their rooms if they ever need to escape during fire, and also how to crawl 18" or lower on the floor in case of fire.  We also reviewed our meeting places in the front and back yard, and talked about how things would go if a quake happened while they were at school, who would pick them up, who was on their emergency cards, etc.  Of course the discussion got to them after awhile, and we talked about why we were preparing and how it helps us live with less fear instead of more when we're prepared.  It was a very productive evening, and we finished it off with a new recipe we tried from the LDS Living FHE lessons, Mint Chocolate Cookies.  Yum!

I listened to the debates while cleaning up the clutter from our project (I'm a little done with political posturing at the moment, quite depressing).  While I was taking something to Heather's room, I found the girls both in Heather's bunk playing a DSi game together.  They are enjoying each other's company more and more, and I've noticed that after a family collaboration, it's more likely to happen.  There's a testimonial for family projects and working together.  

Misty Soccer Saturday

Our weather has finally cooled down a bit.  Yay!  While Heather was at a misty sand volleyball practice, Jenna played in the mist at soccer.  We hadn't been able to attend the soccer photo day because it fell on our Stake Conference Sunday, right during the church meetings, and the team mom didn't let us know when the make-up date was, so we will not have any official soccer photo for this fall.  I decided to take one that looked somewhat official, and we will have a copy of the team photo when it comes.  Jenna went on to do her job as defense for most of the game.  The rest of our day was spent napping and hanging out at home after our bright and early morning start.  Don't ya just love Saturdays?