Gotta Love Grandpa Hatch!

With all the confusion I've caused with my "I WILL miss" posts, I'm discontinuing that title.  I'm just going to think positively about my life here and tell you about it :)  How's that?

My Dad has been more than a Grandpa to our family for the last 2 years.  We've totally mooched off of him, but he still continues to treat us like guests in his home.  He's the most generous, sacrificing, forgiving person I know.  It's nice to have him around.  I love how he is with my kids, Erika in particular lately.  Well, Noah too.  He and Noah have been TOTAL buds, they usually turn on a movie and Grandpa falls asleep while Noah pats his nose with the Ee-Oh.  This picture is of what usually happens when he takes Erika back upstairs with him in the evenings.  She falls asleep on him almost everytime!  He says it's because he's boring, but I don't know.... I think she's just trying to make me jealous!  Anyway- I can't say enough about my Dad and how grateful I am for him and his love and care.  He really has been a blessing. 

Pumpkin Carving

Tuesday was our traditional pumpkin carving FHE.  We were a little rushed since it took so long to finalize the reflections entries, but we still got it all done!  We just went to Dick's this year to pick out our pumpkins.  Nate and I were happy with how cheap it was, especially compared to last year when we went to the pumpkin patch.  But of course that has it's pros as well. 

We just did it on the kitchen floor on top of a sheet as always, but looking back at the pictures, it seems like we had more room last year, must have been where the table was or something.... oh well, it worked.

We had a lot of kids wanting to try out the knives!!!!  Gets a little hectic at times, but I like the system we have.  The kids choose what they want it to look like (this year we had some stencils that came in our carving kit), Mom cuts it open and helps clean out the guts, Dad helps with the drawing and this year, the taping of the stencil (that was the trickiest part apparently it's hard to put a flat square on a round bumping sphere, go figure) and also the poking of the dots, which I think was VERY helpful with the carving.... we will definitely be saving these tools and using them in years to come.

Grandpa came down and helped with the photos and uninterested/bored/loss of interest children :)

I liked this one of Erika and Noah better, but Kelly was inside being cold, so this picture will be useless.  Isn't it cool how you can see the snow coming down!!  I love that!

Erika's.  She didn't have a whole lot to do with the carving of her pumpkin.  She seemed to like it when we stuck it next to her in the cart (it was the most expensive since there weren't any smaller ones outside we resorted to the SUgar ones inside the store).  I decided to carve the bottom instead of the top and I think that is how I want to do it every time!!  It was SO convenient for lighting the candle and carrying it by the handle.  I made hers to look like her :)  The teeth especially :)

Noah's.  Noah did a LOT of his by himself.  He chose the lid shape and then cleaned out a lot of it before asking for help from me.  Then little Miss Kelly helped him with the carving of the face.  She was so sweet to help him and OH so talented!!  Look how well she did!  I like the little kid knives the kit came with!

Luke's.  Luke picked the Haunted House stencil, Nate traced it and I carved it.  He had very little to do with most of the cleaning and carving.  He lost interest and was up and down the stairs, checking on his pumpkin and eating the rest of Grandpa's pizza.  It was funny.  I think it turned out REALLY good though!!  (if I do say so myself)

Kelly's masterpiece!  Kelly worked SO hard!!  And she was SO creative.  She only had a little help cleaning it out, other than that she did the whole thing!!  I was so impressed with her work!  She even had a scar!!  I wish you could see it better in this picture, she did such a nice job.

Bradley's.  Brad did the carving of his lid, and then had me clean it out.  He and Nate worked on his design FOREVER!  And he actually did a lot of it himself, but I think Nate was into it as well, and had a few turns with the knife :)  It sure turned out cool!

Charity's.  Charity was the only one to do the WHOLE thing herself!  Gutted it and everything!!  This is her first year doing that!  She also picked out a stencil, it's an owl on a tree branch.  She did souch a great job!!!  It's really fun for me to keep this tradition up.  I love seeing what each kid does with it.  Even Luke with his disinterest.... it's just proof that these kids are all unique little individuals and I like that.

Nate and I didn't do pumpkins this year.  Someday we'll be able to do our own :)  It was a good time though!!  Wouldn't trade these moments for a million dollars. 

Future Memories

- For FHE on Tuesday we went to "the Bouncy Place" (Classic) and tried out the Blast Zone!  It was really fun!!!!  I'm surprised at how worn out they got and how slowly the 30 minutes went by.  It felt a lot longer!  The kids had so much fun.  Noah spent a lot of time just pushing the button on the guns.... made a cool sound.... then we showed him a few other things and he really just kept himself entertained.  Luke liked the shooting guns and the "bwack swide it was WEEEEWY fast!".  Brad spent a lot of time with the rockets.  Kelly liked the slide.... I will never forget how pumped she looked when she got to the top of the slide, but then the look of terror when she sat down and realized how high up it was.  She only sat there for a while before taking the plunge!  It is a REALLY high slide too!!  The kids looked ill when they first started down it.  Well, not Luke because he "cwozed his eyes".  Charity did EVERYTHING.  She thought the black slide was really fast too.  She was fun for the little ones to watch because she really knew what she was doing.  Erika was FASCINATED by it ALL!  She had no fear crawling over to the other side of the place from where we were and playing in the balls (even though she wasn't supposed to).  She loved watching the balls fall from the sky when the rockets were launched.  It was a really fun place!  And for 2 buck Tuesday, I think it's something we'll do again.  We headed on over to Leatherby's for a big ol' dish of ice cream (and fries of course.... tradition).  I love Family night.  FUn stuff.

- Yesterday, 10-23-10, Charity, Kelly, Bradley and I stopped at the store to get a few things, on our way home from Steve's show.  Charity had her money with her, so of course she had a buy a few things (money just burns a hole in these kids' pockets!!).  In the car on the way home, Charity announced that she thought the clerk had shorted her.  She said that she had given him a $20, and only gotten $7 back when the total was only $2 something.  I sort of blew it off, told her that she probably only paid with a $10, not thinking much of it (duh).  She stopped worrying about it and I didn't think of it again until today when she was getting her tithing money out and she was accusing someone of stealing ten dollars.  Finally it occurred to me that maybe she really had been short changed.  Sure enough, when we looked at the receipt (that she so responsibly saved!), she had given the clerk $20!  And I was the bummy mom that didn't go right back, right then, and fix the problem!  I feel bad and I think tomorrow after school I will take her down to the store and see if they will return her money, but man!  Why do I not listen at the right times??  Note to me: just dig a little deeper when there is a concern, especially when the 8 year old's, hard-earned money is the item in question.  Charity worked so hard for that money!  Anyway,  just thought I'd share my stupidity with you all so that you could learn from my mistake.

- On Monday (10-25-10), we went and looked at a home for rent here in Bountiful.  The thought of renting stinks, but living in a different place, though probably not my favorite, seems better than staying in the basement for 6 more months.  I like the idea of the kids finishing out the school year here and not having to move in the middle of the year.  They're all looking forward to so many things.  I guess I'd be okay with either way, but this seems like a nice option.  The home was old, but clean, so looks promising.  We'll see I guess.

- Tuesday (10-26-10), Reflections were due.  I must say that as much as I like that there is something extra-curricular- for my kids to participate in (for free) I really think they've gone overboard with the rules and regulations for that stuff.  It's REALLLLLLLY difficult to get it all together and ready to submit.  The actual projects the girls did took a 19th of the amount of time it took me to figure all the forms nad envelopes and pictures and cds out.  It was ridiculous.  Enough of my complaining though, Charity did a sculpture/diorama of two girls planting a new flower where an old one has died.  Kelly wrote a story (maybe you saw the post) about a Lonly Unicorn whose friends help her get out of a hole.  They did great!  I think they deserve to win! 

- I finally finished collecting all of the stuff for our Halloween Costumes (10-27-10).  I can't believe we might actually pull off the Chipmunks and Chipettes for Halloween this year!  I always wanted to do some kind of group theme, but then got a little bummed that they weren't picking individual costumes (especially when I thought of all the cute things for Erika) but this will be fun!  I'm excited now that it's turning out to be pretty cute.

- 10-28-10, Noah went in the Kitchen then came out and said this to me: Duh pider came out of duh hoe and duck he tung at me!  (The spider came out of the hole and stuck his tongue at me)  Tell me that's not the most creative thing you've heard a two year old say!!!!  He comes up with this kind of stuff a lot at night.  Talking about his Monster, and things in his room being mean to him.  It's strange, something we haven't seen from a lot of kids, but I love it!!  It totally makes me laugh.

Together we can....

Here's Charity's reflections diorama entry.  She did it ALL by herself.  I didn't help her at all!!!  Even with the playdoh making.  I'm really proud of her. 

I WILL miss....

STEVE!!!!!

(these "I WILL miss" things are in no particular order by the way, I will not miss Dakota more than Steve.... just thought I should clarify that.....)

Steve is one of my good friends.  We may not hang out as much as we used to, and I'll be honest I blame that COMPLETELY on his girlfriend..... but oh well, I do love having him around.  I'm really grateful for his friendship, help, support, and humor.  He's always there to make me laugh. 

I thought I would combine this with Steve's concert that we went to the other night.  He and his band got back together for this little show, they opened for the drummer's Dad's show.  I have to say that even though it's not my favorite style of music, and the volume of it rattles the stuff in my ears, I LOVE that my little brother is so good at what he does.  He is very talented.  He was really cute to wink at Charity and Kelly and Bradley during his performance.  They all talked about it on the way home.  We all think he's pretty cool.  Hopefully Steve won't hesitate to come hang out with us no matter how far away or close we live.  It's nice that right now we're just a flight of stairs away :)

I took way more than enough pictures while we were there.... hopefully I embarrassed him at least a little.... here are a few I really liked.  We got some video too, for those of you who missed the show!

So worth it!

On Friday, we met up with Brent and Sarah for a big ol' Famiy Photo Shoot!  They needed someone to push the button on their camera so we tagged along to get some really awesome (I'm assuming) pictures of our family as well.  It was a pretty tough photo shoot.  Not a lot of smiles for some reason, but I still had a good time :)  I don't know about anyone else.  I kind of think I need to find a way to get them all ready for pictures without telling them (and stressing about it so much) that we're getting them.  They would probably do better.  Instead we all get all worked up beforehand and it's tough to come out of it and smile.  Oh well.  I'm pretty sure it's not the end of the world.  Afterward we headed on over to Wendy's (yep, should have fed the kids more before too), and ransacked the place.  Later on Brent and Sarah came over and watched How To Train Your Dragon with Nate, Erika, Noah and I.  Good times.

These are just the pictures we took with my camera (not all of them, just the ones I liked :) )  I'm sure I'll like Brent and Sarah's more, so I thought I'd post these before I see them :)  Charity took the camera a little later and got some pretty good shots as well.

This is when Charity took over.....

Brad pointing out how much taller he is than Kelly :)  she's so patient with her big, little brother.

This was really cute to me, it's Charity saying, "I have a crush on hmmhmm".  I think it's the perfect REAL smile.  Beats a "cheese" one.

And here's my pathetic attempt at a new blog header picture..... maybe I'll use this one anyway..... it's more real.