Pumpkins

Okay well I don't have any pictures for a tutorial but I can do some explaining. It's super easy.

Step One:  Take a roll of toilet paper.
Step Two:  Wrap a square of fabric around it.
Step Three:  Tuck the loose ends into the toilet paper roll center.
Step Four: Shove a stick down the center of the toilet paper roll
Step Five: Add some leaves, raffia, and whatever else you want to decorate it.

Like I said way easy, but I'll also give you some tips to go along with the basic directions.  First we stuffed a plastic bag or the wrapper the toilet paper came in down the hole along with a few rocks to make it feel solid.  We also glue gunned the fabric to the top of the toilet paper roll.  We did this in sections working our way around the pumpkin. Then we cut off the edges of the fabric so not a lot of fabric was stuffed down in the hole. And we also glue gunned the stick and other embellishments on. We used regular toilet paper for the small ones and a paper towel roll for the larger pumpkin. We also made a medium size by cutting a toilet paper roll in half and gluing it onto a regular sized toilet paper roll. Enjoy making these fun pumpkins. I love them.

Visitors!

We had the best visitors ever this last weekend. Grandma and Grandpa! We had so much fun. I don't think we stopped moving for one minute, even in our sleep. I tried to fit everything I possible could into a weekend. It was an exhausting blast!


We Hiked

We took Grandma and Grandpa on several different hikes around the area. It was great weather for us and amazing scenery.

We Ate

Oh boy did we eat! Weston checked a book of ghoulish recipes out from the library. He wanted to make everything in the book. I limited him to two. We made bones, and spider cupcakes, or in Grandma's case girly cupcakes because she refused to make spiders.

We Trick or Treated

We went trunk or treating Friday night at our ward, and then on Halloween we went to Monte's facility and trick or treated to the residents there. It was a fun experience for everyone.

We Crafted,

Mom brought this amazing pumpkin craft for us to do. I had so much fun making these. I took down my Halloween decorations Halloween night so I could hurry and put these up.


We also enjoyed a fun date night with just the adults. It was a lot of fun to get dressed up and head into town for some browsing at the mall and a nice dinner at PF Changs. I wish I had gotten a picture of us downtown, but I left the camera at home and just enjoyed the evening.
Oh and last but not least we went Shopping! Oh boy did we ever go shopping. It was so much fun and Dad was a good sport to hang in there with me and Mom.  We did let him spend an hour at the Apple store just to ease our guilt a little bit.  Thanks Mom and Dad for an amazing weekend. We love you and miss you already!

Kayaking!

So, I surprised Monte for Friday night date night with this loaded on our car:

We had talked about renting one Saturday with the kids, but I went down to the college and rented the kayak for the whole weekend, had someone help me load it and away I went.  It was the funnest date ever. It was beautiful and so peaceful. We kayaked out on the lake until the sunset. The lake was like glass and perfectly still.  I am in love with kayaking.   We had so fun out there by ourselves, but it made us even more excited to take the kids Saturday.

We spent all day Saturday with the kids and our neighbor named Heather on the lake 5 mins. from our house. Heather won a kayak in a drawing 2 weeks ago and was the one who told me all about renting kayaks from the college. It was nice to go with someone who had experience kayaking. We had a tandam kayak and Heather had a single.  We spent all day switching kayaks around and taking turns.  It was one of the greatest days ever.  Tonight our muscles are sore, but the day was a little bit of heaven. 

The day was amazing and the scenery beautiful.  I think kayaking is our new favorite family activity. Days like this make you send thank you prayers all day long to Heavenly Father.  To be able to spend the day out on the lake with my family, surrounded by Heavenly Fathers beautiful creations, makes me realize what a blessed life I enjoy.

New Pillow Cases

I know of all the things to blog about pillowcases aren't that exciting, but I'm excited about them. This summer I wanted to change my bed spread without spending a lot of money. I found this white quilt at Costco and decided to go with it. I wanted everything white so all I had to do is change my pillowcases when ever I wanted a different look.  I like to changes in my decor so this works great for me.  I picked up some fabric awhile ago and finally sat down to sew up my pillowcases. So here's how they turned out.

Not a fabulous picture but you get the idea.  The green pillowcases behind also have a matching black edge on them.  Matching, matching green, how embarrassing (can anyone name that movie?).  My bedroom has a fresh new look and I will be able to change it on a whim for not that much money. I love it.

My Favorite Children's Author

Mo Willems!

The kids and I love Mo Willems books. We have read almost all of them through our library and I love them. I want to own all of them. I get excited to read his books to my kids.

The pigeon series is hilarious. Weston and I read this book over and over. We laugh about it and quote from it frequently.

Elephant and Piggie are Weston's favorites. This series is awesome for beginner readers. These are the books that really captured Weston's interest in reading. He would be so excited to read them that he would start reading them by himself.  Even though they are to easy for him now he still loves to check them out at the library and re-read them. I always have to limit him to 2 Elephant and Piggie books and then he has to choose some harder ones. 

Knuffle Bunny series is so cool because the background pictures are real photographs of New York City. The characters are drawn into the real photographs.  The story line is great too.

So if you are wondering what to get the kiddos or yourself next time at the library I would recommend anything by Mo Willems. 

Kid Friendly FHE Treat!

This is a fun easy treat to make with the kids. Weston loves to make these. We have decided to call them pretzel kisses. I really have no idea what to call them.

First layer pretzels on a pan and put unwrapped Hershey Kisses on top of the pretzels.

Stick them in the oven on low and wait for the chocolate to melt. Just watch them because I have no idea how long it takes.

 Next squish M&M's on the top of each Hershey Kiss. You have to work kind of fast so the chocolate doesn't harden. So it's best to grab a buddy for this part!

Let them set up a bit and then enjoy!

Conference

I love General Conference. It was so great this year and Monte was with us which made it even better!  As I looked around the room at my family watching Conference I realized how amazing and unique each individual member of my family is.  Monte and Weston were drawing, Abbie was knitting, and Logan was creating some bionicle creature, I was just sitting and enjoying every minute of Conference.  We were all doing our own thing yet we were brought together by the Gospel.  That's how life constantly works for us.  We are so busy with piano, swim team, Young Women's, Scouts, and school that sometimes we don't connect much during the day.  The gospel is the thing that keeps bringing us back together.  Family prayer and scripture study at night, church on Sunday, and FHE on Monday.  How grateful I am for the gospel and the time it gives me with my family. The Gospel is what centers our family and brings us back together at the close of the day.

On a lighter note I had to share Monte and Weston's drawings:

Weston asked Monte to draw a picture of him. Monte doesn't draw stick figures he draws the real deal. Sorry it scanned in so light, but you can kind of get the idea.  Weston drew President Monson sitting down listening to the speakers.